A BIAS in the Pensieve: A Batty Idea About Snape

[Barry Arrowsmith]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, Randy Estes <estesrandy at y...> wrote:
> With all these comments about JKR hiding things with
> her comments, I feeled compelled to say something. 
> She is in a room full of adoring kid fans during some
> of these interviews.  
> 
> snip> 
> So, you cannot assume that some of JKR's answers are
> not misleading.  She has an obligation to the greater
> fandom not to give the ending away 3 years before the
> book comes out.  This is not an obligation to Warner
> Brothers!  It is an obligation to her faithful kid
> fans who don't want to have their Christmas spoiled
> (so to speak).
> 


I tend to agree, though her answers can fall into a variety
of types.

There's the straightforward factual information - what
House a character is/was in, for example - or their middle
name. We can be fairly sure that no key plot development
hinges on the answer.

Then there're the ones where with regret she refuses to
tell us anything - the answer would reveal too much and
we mark such subjects as worth  watching.

A few questions seem to catch her unprepared, aspects of
the story or suspected plot wrinkles that the fans have 
hatched in their fevered speculation and the question comes 
as a surprise. 
The possibility of a Snape/Vampire connection was one of 
these - "Er - I don't think so" to my mind has the implication 
that Sevvy is not a Vamp, if he were the question would have 
been on a (to her) known character twist and would not be
unexpected and would have been prepared for with either a 
"wait and see", "I can't tell you", "what do you think?" or
some other deflecting reply.
However, a further implication is that there're vampires around
somewhere, maybe peripherally, and Snape could have some
sort of dealings or actions with them either in the past  or in
the future. It all depends on what you mean by "connection."

Then there are the others - answers that deliberately tease.
A prime example of one of these occured in her webcast a year
ago:-

Q: "Can  we believe what the Sorting Hat says?"
A: "Well, it's certainly sincere!" 

I leapt on that one like a starving stoat.
Was this partial confirmation of an idea I'd posted?
It's not smart to take the Hat's words at face value.
What it believes to be true and what is actually true are not necessarily
the same thing. It may even be open to persuasion, or as I put it in
a couple of posts - it may have been fixed by DD at least once (the
sorting in PS/SS) and perhaps twice (the Marauders) - with the best
of intentions naturally.

Or it could have been a red herring thrown in to cause harmless 
speculation by some of the fans on a not very important subject.
You pays your money and you makes your choice.

Getting positive and/or critical information on future events in HP falls
within the ambit of the Chance brothers - Fat and Slim. Negative or
unimportant information is more likely, though some negative information
could be as revealing as any. 

We're as likely to be misled (but not lied to) as to be enlightened by
some of the answers. It really is most provoking.
 

Kneasy