OOP: Royal Albert Hall interview...

[Scott]

I've just finished watching JKR's interview with Stephen Fry and her 
reading at the Royal Albert Hall. Mostly it was the same sort of 
stuff and not all that interesting.There was one point when kids 
from around the world gave a montage-like summary of "the story so 
far"-- ick! it was overly sappy, though I will concede kind of cute.

Anyways we did find out a few things and she gave some tantalizing 
hints. Oh and I went to my mailbox just in time to discover my 
British Edition of the book had arrived so that I could follow along 
with Jo. :-)

One thing that I think I just didn't catch, but I'm sure one of you 
Brits can expound, is that she said she went to school at the Forest 
of Dean and that that is where Hagrid is from as well? Uh...where's 
the Forest of Dean? (Is it the name of a place?)

There were two questions about Snape both of which I thought were 
noteworthy. One being that Fry mentioned Snape's ambiguity for good 
and evil and Jo hastened to add that (paraphrased) "I don't want 
people to like Severus too much...[because of things that happen 
later on]" Hmmm. Later a boy asked her why DD didn't just give Snape 
the DADA job to begin with if he really wanted it, and she said DD 
thought it would "bring out the worst", which has certainly been 
theorized before, so DD said something to the effect of-- why don't 
we just try you out at potions. If Snape didn't *want* to teach 
potions, or as this suggests, hadn't even considered it, then why 
does he seem so protective of the subject now? Obviously something 
has convinced him of its (potions) worthiness.

She also made the comment that she thought Lupin was the best 
teacher (better than McGonagall) but that his failing is "that he 
does like to be liked." I'm assuming here that she means his 
yearning for friends allowed him to disregard his better judgement 
and let them do stupid things (like becoming Animagi) on his behalf. 

As for the death, after Stephen Fry made a big to do about not 
revealing he calmly mentioned Sirius's name, JKR did say that she 
wrote it in such a way that it felt "Arbitary and Sudden", "almost 
accidentally", and she said something about "no death bed scene for 
this person..." but I'd have to watch it again to quote directly. 
This is pretty much what I'd said before. I really think that Jo 
felt NOT making a big deal out of it would make it more powerful. 
This reminded me of another of my favorite authors E.M. Forster who 
always wrote with a sense of gesture and styling-- long flowing 
sentences and sweeping narrative descriptions--but reverted to 
simpler constructions and vocabulary for things of momentous 
importance which, I think, is sometimes more powerful. That is what 
JKR appears to have intended with Sirius's death...

Someone did ask her about the Thestrals...why harry couldn't have 
ALWAYS seen them because of his parents or why at least he couldn't 
at the end of GoF. She said (as as someone suggested) that the death 
had to sink in, and I got the impression that has it did the 
Thestrals *slowly* appear. It appears to have been for the simple 
reason that the narrative works much better if they appear at the 
beginning of OOP than at the end of GoF with just a passing mention.
She still didn't deal with the fact that Harry saw his parents die, 
but I guess he didn't let that sink in because it couldn't at the 
time...not for a child of one.

But at least she was on her toes, and I understand why she held out 
on the Thestrals even if it doesn't exactly work.

All in all the show is worth watching if for no other reason that 
hearing JKR do Umbridge's vile voice in the reading! Besides the 
links remain up until July 3rd so you've got time!

http://www.msn.co.uk/liveevents/harrypotter/event/


Cheers,
Scott