hot and dry weather & The Ministry Battle: Anti-Ship

[pennylin]

Hi --

Catlady asked:

<<<<<What was the weather of the sumner of 1996 in Surrey, England? A 
couple of people on Main List have presented quotes about the summer 
of 1995 being a heat wave and drought season with a hosepipe ban in 
RL UK, leaving me to ask whether the summer of OoP was hot and 
droughty because of the nigredo stage that John Granger mentioned, 
or because it was commenting on RL summer of 1995.>>>>>>>>>>>>

Well, I think we've proven time and again that JKR is not consulting the calendar or an almanac or any other source of RL information when she throws in dates/days, etc.  Bonfire day doesn't occur on a Tuesday in RL 1981, etc.  I'm sure Lexicon Steve could pipe up with all these discrepancies, but I think it's fairly clear that Rowling isn't writing to a specific real-life timeline (or if she is, she needs to have her editors do more thorough proofing!).  OTOH, I think it is certainly possible that she is writing in the alchemical literary tradition and therefore used the hot, dry weather to further those objectives.  

Barb wrote, with regard to whether the Ministry Battle scenes might have any shipping relevance:

<<<<I do think JKR made a conscious decision here, however, to yank our 
chains some more concerning who was going to die.  I didn't have the 
impression that there was shippy stuff going on in the sequence 
depicting the fight at the Ministry.  The important aspects seemed 
to be a) equating Neville with Harry (pushing home the idea that 
they're doppelgangers and that Neville, just as easily as Harry, 
could have been marked by Voldemort); and b) making us think just 
about ANYONE could be the one to buy the farm.>>>>>>>>>>

*nods*  I agree that my impression when reading OoP for the first time was, as you say, that Rowling was trying to equate Neville more distinctly with Harry, and to make us think that any one of the newly-expanded Trio could be the infamous death.  Despite all the indicators toward Sirius being the one throughout the book (and no, I didn't buy that it was Arthur or even McGonagall) --------> I still held onto the idea that Sirius would be spared in a red-herring twist and that it would in fact be one of the kids.  I really thought probably Neville or Ginny strongly at different points (though I was momentarily alarmed about Hermione, I didn't really take this one too seriously since, after all, Harry still needs Hermione quite alot to survive the next 1.5 books!).  

I do think, however, that pairing Hermione up with Harry/Neville when the 6-some is separated is significant, even if not specifically from a shipping standpoint.  I do think that we're seeing Hermione and/or Harry and Hermione as a partner spotlighted yet again, as Hermione could easily have been paired with Ron and Luna and Ginny could have been the one to nearly die and be dragged along by Neville.  Again, these are conscious choices by Rowling, and while I don't pretend to think that I can guess exactly what she meant by such a choice, I think it's significant.  

Penny      



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