Silly Taglines and the Perils of Theorising

[annemehr]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "annemehr" <annemehr at y...> wrote:
> Annemehr
> off to develop a new theory that Caradoc Dearborn is the Heir of
> Gryffindor, the HBP, the new DADA teacher, and the guy who looks like
> a lion. Oh, and he's also Harry's Great Aunt, lives up the Pillar of
> Storge, and knows where Quirrell is.  On second thought, somebody's
> probably posted all this somewhere already...

Annemehr now:
Unfortunately, this can be taken as a sarcastic comment on Carolyn's
McGonagall ideas, which was not my intent at all, since I enjoyed her
post and actually think there's a very good chance that she's right.
Sorry, Carolyn!  Also, my apologies to CV if anyone thought I was
mocking her Quirrell theory, which she knows from the Hogs_Head is one
I am very interested in (though sadly, I do think JKR actually means
him to be dead).

What I was thinking of when I wrote that is a kind of feeling of
futility in trying to predict what may be coming next. It's a great
contrast to the period between GoF and OoP which was a very fertile
time for many well-thought-out and interesting theories, debated with
sharp-eyed attention to canon. But now here we are with only two books
to go, and after OoP I don't have much of a feeling at all about the
direction JKR is headed with this. 

When looking up Moody's photo of the old Order for my last post, and
noticing again that nobody knows what happened to Caradoc Dearborn,
the idea really did cross my mind that he was the HBP and/or the
lion-looking man. Then, sadly, I thought that that had just as much
(or little) chance of being the case as so many of the other theories
I've seen posted -- and simply because we have nothing to go by! Most
likely, Dearborn's mysterious disappearance is nothing more than JKR
injecting a little variety into her characters' demises, and the man
himself is basically another Mark Evans (thus the references to her
answer to the Evans FAQ from her site). So all of this came out in
exaggerated form in a silly tagline -- but, you know, I really do miss
the theorising, now that I've thought about it. These days, my most
serious posts seem to be all about Theme and Characterisation. But I
want to discuss the Story, too!

Ah, well. IIRC, at the Edinburgh book festival, JKR said it's no
longer time for hints and clues -- the last two books will be about
answers. I just hope she saves most of them for book 7, so we can have
some fun while we wait for it!

Annemehr
who should probably be on moderated status :P