Chapter 5 / Evanesco / House System

[Catlady (Rita Prince]

No: HPFGUIDX 187914

Sherriola discussed PS/SS Chapter 5 in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/187867>

To which, Casey Ferris replied in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/187878>:

<< The thing that I really couldn't imagine was how the brick wall becomes an arch (where are the rectangular bricks go?). Judging by how they did it in the movie, I'm not the only one who can't really picture that. >>

In this Y!Group's Photos section, there is a folder (named "Harry Potter & Me") of screenshots from the "Harry Potter & Me" TV documentary including Rowling's own drawing of the bricks becoming an archway. The folder is <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/photos/album/498473407/pic/list> and the title of this photo is "diagonalley". My recollection is that Herself said that she wasn't able to find the drawing in time to give it to Chris Columbus, which is why he had to make up his own way for the bricks to move.

Carol wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/187894>:

<< On occasion, [Rowling]'s completely illogical (how, for example, can Bill in OoP use his wand to cast Evanesco when both arms are overflowing with scrolls of parchment?) >>

Worse, Evanesco is not the right spell. Things which are Vanished go into nothing, "which to say, into everything", as McGonagall answered the Ravenclaw Door. If Bill meant to Vanish the scrolls (because they were temporary documents needed only for the meeting), he could have Vanished them without rolling them up and gathering them in his arms. That indicates that he had further use for those documents (perhaps sneaking them back into the file from which they had been 'borrowed'), in which case he would have Banished them rather than Vanished them. Does anyone know what is the incantation of the Banishing spell? Exeunt? Vale?

Rick Kennerly wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/187906>:

<< I've always read a minor theme in the books, particularly the end of DH, of the house system being somewhat detrimental (big snip) Now that I'm rereading OOP, Chapter 11, The Sorting Hat's New Song, it makes this point explicitly. So much for my reading something into the subtext, I guess. >>

But when Rowling was asked whether the Sorting Hat was right in that song, she replied that the Sorting Hat was 'certainly sincere'. Since the series ended without anything about House amity (much less House unity), it seems to me that she didn't agree with the Hat's opinion.