Teachers WAS:Re: SPOILERS: School Books

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 184253

Pippin wrote:

> She  said she doesn't  like re-reading her books once they are
published because of the temptation to re-edit them. 

Carol responds:
That might be a temptation worth yielding to. Some inconsistencies,
though not all, could be caught and corrected that way. Too bad it
wasn't done the first time. (Personally, I'd love to see a revised and
*annotated* edition of all the books, with the revisions done by JKR
based on inconsistencies pointed out to her by other people, and the
annotations done, with her approval, by a knowledgeable editor other
than JKR.)

Pippin wrote:
However...
> 
> http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/fansite_view.cfm?id=14
> 
> [The Lexicon] is such a great site that I have been known to sneak
into an internet café while out writing and check a fact rather than 
go into a bookshop and buy a copy of Harry Potter (which is embarrassing).

Carol responds:
Embarrassing or not, she should have consulted her own books to
confirm her fictional facts. IMO, she should have reread them, or at
least the relevant chapters, in preparation for each new book, with
Post-It notes marking key passages that she might need to refer to.
(Then again, if her manuscripts had been composed in Word rather than
written by hand, she could have had the information she needed with
her at all times, assuming that she owns a laptop, accessible with a
few clicks of a mouse. And, if you knew me, you'd realize how very odd
it is for me to say that--I'm not fond of Word, especially the later
versions [the last good one was Word 2000], and I prefer my own
desktop computer to any laptop, But if she can't bring herself to
compose on the computer, she ought at least to be familiar with her
own books and know where to look for the information, using Post-It
Notes to mark information in the draft manuscripts that needs to be
verified later. I won't even talk about her reliance on the Lexicon,
which, of course, is even more OT than the rest of this paragraph.

> Potioncat asked:
> Pippin, or anyone else, are there other zingers, nods or winks in
FBAWTFT or QTTA? I've seen copies, but don't own either.
> 
Pippin responded:
> The entry on the hippogriff states "It can be tamed, though this
should be attempted only by experts." The sentence is underlined and
Harry's comment in the margin reads, "has Hagrid read this book?"
> 
> Also, on page xix "The 1965 Ban on Experimental Breeding has made
the creation of new species illegal." To which Harry adds, "but no
one's told Hagrid"

Carol adds:
Some of the graffiti is in Ron's handwriting and some in Harry's
(distinguishable by comparing Harry's signature on the front cover and
remarks that are clearly identified as being by one or the other with
the unidentified comments). I imagine that composing those comments,
which reveal Ron's and Harry's views of those other characters, was
the most enjoyable part of the books. Of course, pinning her own
blunder about kappas (if it was a blunder--I've read the entire thread
and acknowledge the possibility that Snape knows more about kappas
than Newt Scamander, just as he knows other ways of dealing with
Dementors than Patronuses and better ways of making a Potion than
Arsenius Jigger) would also amuse her--as well as getting herself off
the hook for not remembering that Kappas are "more commonly found" in
Japan. Harry's comment about Snape does fit his view of Snape while he
was still at Hogwarts, not knowing that Snape was protecting him and
working against LV, and anything he could say to ridicule Snape would
have been in character, however little it advanced the plot. I still
don't like it, but I can see why she did it (and why some readers
would find it amusing or harmless). I personally think it's
irresponsible of an author not to take responsibility for her own
errors; it's rather like Harry choosing to blame Snape for Sirius
Black's death, only, of course, on an entirely different level of
moral seriousness (if that makes sense).

The rest of the graffiti is similar--the kids injecting their own
opinions in relation to their own experiences in Books 1 through 4 (in
a description of the selkies [Merpeople] of Scotland as "less
beautiful [than the mermaids of Muggle legend], "less beautiful" is
altered to "ugly," reflecting Harry's encounter with them in the
Second Task or GoF (why "selkies" is lowercased and "Merrows" is
capitalized, I can't guess). The kids' commentary, like real graffiti
by students, is mostly unpunctuated (except for correctly used
apostrophes and an occasional question mark) but correctly spelled.
Some of it is unrelated to the subject matter (comments on Quidditch,
an explanation of what happened to Ron's copy of the book, and a
reprimand regarding dungbombs in Hermione's writing). Quidditch
through the Ages, which is supposed to be a library book, has no such
graffiti. It does, however, have a list of the students who checked it
out, along with due dates, beginning with "Wood" and ending with "H.
Potter," which is interesting in itself. The person who checked it out
before Harry is Hermione(!), and the names include known Quidditch
players like C. Diggory, K. Bell, and C. Warrington, but also some
surprises, such as E. Macmillan, M. Bulstrode, and T. Nott. I take it
that the book was checked out in Harry's fourth year, when Oliver Wood
and Cedric Diggory were still at the school. The question is whether
he ever returned it! There's also a note from Madam Pince, probably
magically stamped into all the library books: "If you rip, tear,
shred, bend fold, deface, disfigure, smudge, throw, drop, or in any
other manner damage, mistreat, or show lack of respect towards this
book, the consequences will be as awful as it is in my power to make
them." She forgot "Despoiled! Desecrated! Befouled!" (HBP Am. ed.
308), but I supposed that "deface" and "disfigure" would cover the
shared tendency of HRH and Severus Snape to write in textbooks. 

Interestingly (to me), the forthcoming edition of "the Tales of Beedle
the Bard" will have Dumbledore's annotations (marginalia as well as
footnotes, I hope!), which should make it more interesting than the
stories themselves. Let's hope for some illuminating remarks about
wands (and the Peverell brothers) in "The Tale of the Two Brothers,"
at least.

Pippin: 
> The introduction (written by Dumbledore) states that wizards seeking
to make donations to Comic Relief should do so "through Gringotts
Wizarding Bank (ask for Griphook.)" which shows that Dumbledore
trusted him, IMO, though Carol will probably argue that this is JKR
being inconsistent again.

Carol:
It would hardly be the first time that she was inconsistent. If
Dumbledore trusted Griphook personally, his trust was misplaced.
However, I suspect that the reference related more to Griphook's
position at Gringotts (which evidently involved some sort of Muggle
relations, at a guess through some sort of Squib go-between) rather
than distinguishing Griphook personally as worthy of trust. (He
certainly wasn't a confidant of DD's!) Moreover, Griphook, as a
Gringotts Goblin would have considered it his duty to safeguard the
treasure in his care, which would include any Muggle money converted
to galleons (or vice versa) intended to go into a particular bank
account. Also, of course, Griphook was the Goblin most familiar to
JKR's readers, who would remember him from SS/PS. Dumbledore would
have no reason to suspect him of future treachery to Harry or even of
a future connection with him unrelated to Harry's bank vault. Possibly
JKR herself hadn't even thought out Griphook's role (or she was taking
the opportunity to throw out his name to a small segment of her
readers again before having him expose HRH to what he must have
expected to be certain death for the sake of a sword that he had no
valid claim to. (My opinion, of course, already supported elsewhere in
this forum.)

Pippin: 
> Creatures making an appearance in FB prior to their appearance in
the books include the thestral, "black, possessed of the power of
invisibility, and considered unlucky by many wizards" and the moke. FB
explains that moke skin bags have the ability to shrink at the
approach of a stranger, and therefore moke skin moneybags are very
difficult for thieves to locate. 

Carol responds:
I defer to zanooda for inconsistencies related to mokes and mokeskin!

Pippin: 
> FB  allows one to identify the creatures that Harry sees in the
magical creatures shop in PoA. The "gigantic tortoise with a
jewel-encrusted shell" is a Fire Crab, the poisonous orange snails are
Streelers and the "funny custard-colored furballs" are Puffskeins.

Carol:
And the (long-dead) creature with five legs that Harry spots in the
RoR when he's trying to hide "his" Potions book is a Qyintaped. 
> 
> Pippin
> who thinks future generations of wizarding children will write "has
Harry read this book?" beside the thestral entry

Carol:
In Harry's defense, "Thestral" doesn't have its own entry. It's under
"Winged Horse" near the end of the book, in the same entry as the
Abraxan horses owned by Madame Maxime. You'd think there'd be at least
a cross reference. Still, though, if he'd read the book carefully
rather than casually, for entertainment, with references to the
creatures he'd actually encountered by fourth year, he'd have known
what Thestrals were. It's a safe bet that Hagrid, whose project for
the fourth-years was Blast-Ended Skrewts, hadn't assigned it for
homework then. He probably didn't assign the (not very detailed)
paragraph on Winged Horses, either, since he wanted the Thestrals to
be a surprise, and he told the students more about them than the book did.

Carol, who thinks that the inconsistency involving Thestrals relates
more to his inability to see them at the end of GoF than to his not
having read (or, more likely, remembered) the inconspicuous Winged
Horses entry