[HPforGrownups] Re: The Malfoys WAS: Wizarding kids and their parents

[k12listmomma]

No: HPFGUIDX 183991

>> Carol responds:
>
>
>> So, IMO, it's not the poster Montavilla was responding to (Magpie?)
>> who was confusing shrunken teeth with braces. It was JKR confusing the
>> effects of those two procedures.
>
> Magpie:
> Heh. It wasn't me she was responding to, but I almost added this very
> same tangent: why would braces or headgear shrink your teeth? The most
> I could figure was that maybe the real trouble was that they were
> protruding and just looked large so shrinking them created the illusion
> the problem was fixed, or that perhaps they were overly large and that
> caused Hermione's teeth to be badly aligned and that's what her parents
> were trying to fix with orthodontics. (Your teeth don't always have to
> look crooked to need braces, after all--iirc, mine were a lot about
> aligning the jaw.)
>
> Fun fact: I was watching a behind the scenes of the movie Tootsie once
> and Dustin Hoffman was talking about some of the stuff they had to do
> to make him a woman that was surprising. He wears fake teeth in the
> movie and I'd thought maybe it was to make his teeth look smaller, but
> it turns out women tend to have longer teeth.

Shelley:
Ah, the effects of braces versus a shrinking spell. I admit that when I 
first read the book with the part where Madame Pomfrey shrinks Hermione's 
teeth, I thought to myself that wouldn't fix the reason that Hermione needed 
braces. If they were pointing outward (usually the problem called "buck 
teeth", then shrinking those front two wouldn't change the outward angle. 
And, it wouldn't move the other crooked teeth into place, but would only 
speed up the process by allowing more room for the teeth to move under 
pressure (of the braces and wires). Only her front two teeth were hit 
anyway. FWIW, the dentist did "shrink" my teeth afterward- after all my 
braces were done- by using a drill to grind off the top edges so they formed 
a nice, even edge when I smiled. In reality, he didn't shrink them, but 
shortened them and make the edges nicer (rounded instead of jagged).