What's in the Box?

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 177101

Carol earlier:
> 
> > Then again, JKR tells us that in SS/PS that three students are
left to be Sorted, and those "three" students turn out to be Dean
Thomas, Lisa Turpin, Ron Weasley, and Blaise Zabini (122), so we're
presented quite early on with evidence that JKR can't count the
fingers on one hand.
> 
zanooda repsponded: 
> You know, Carol, this one maybe is not JKR's fault :-). I have both
 american and british editions of SS/PS, and Dean Thomas is only 
mentioned in the american edition, not in the british one. So 
originally there were really three kids left. I think that maybe 
american editors added Dean, but forgot to change the number from
three to four :-).
> 
>  
> > Carol, noting that she also can't remember whether the sorting
Stool has three legs or four
> 
znanooda: 
> It has four legs in PS, but three legs in PoA and GoF :-).

>
Carol responds:
Somewhere, I read that the British editors eliminated the reference to
Dean as being black because they didn't think it was important, but I
didn't know they eliminated Dean himself. If they did edit him out,
maybe they were trying to get the number down to three to match the
text, not realizing that Dean would be a semi-important minor
character, but that seems unlikely since he appears in the book. (It
would have made more sense to eliminate Lisa Turpin, wouldn't it?)

Also, if the American editors had added Dean because he's mentioned
mentioned several times in the book and belongs in the scene, you'd
think they would have changed "three" to "four"--and how would they
know that Dean is black, a detail not mentioned elsewhere in the first
book, IIRC?

Carol, who meant that *JKR* can't remember how many legs the Sorting
Stool has (and the continuity editors didn't catch the discrepancy)