CHAPTER DISCUSSION PS/SS 10, THE HALLOWEEN LONG

[rtbthw_mom]

No: HPFGUIDX 188451



--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Bart Lidofsky <bart at ...> wrote:
>
> POWERBABE7 at ... wrote:
> > This might be off topic but if Ravenclaw is a house of intellectuals 
> > then I wonder why Hermione was not placed in Ravenclaw. I have always 
> > wondered about that.
> >   
> 
> Bart:
>     JKR has strongly implied that the student's desire is a major 
> consideration in the choice of the Sorting Hat. Also, we don't know how 
> much the headmaster has to do with the choices; it is still my 
> contention that the fact that Harry becoming friends with exactly the 
> people he needed to get to the Stone was either such an unbelievable 
> coincidence as to be considered incredibly bad writing, or Dumbledore 
> manipulated events to ensure that the three would become friends. I'd 
> like to think that JKR is, or was, not THAT bad a writer.
> 
>     Bart
>


Pat:

I always understood that the friendship was supposed to be chance - it was chance that Ron and Harry met on the train, and chance that the whole troll incident led to them saving Hermione and the trio becoming The Trio.   DD was certainly manipulative, in many things, but to think that he had THIS much control is making him to be, literally, God.  I think that at least this much of the story is meant to be coincidence, not the result of manipulation.  Otherwise, I agree, the story becomes unpalatable.

Pat