salut guys! I found this article written par someone on a website and I thought I would let toi read it through. So im posting it.
first of all im a harry potter fan and i l’amour jkr. and i think that this article is not sensible. but toi all can read it to tell your views, so im posting it for toi all to give your opinions.
This article shows out what position jkr holds in the cœur, coeur of the author.
Sincere fans of jkr may get a bit annoyed par lire this, but for those who always thought she was a bit of …..well read it! Interesting view points have been brought out here!
So before toi go on, one simple note – the interviews are within {{...}} and the authors special commentaires are within [...] Once again, I didn’t write this but I found it somewhere.
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One area of continued controversy in the fandom is how much credence should one place on the chats and interviews with JK Rowling. After all, these are not a part of canon, but are merely the author’s comments, which may ou may not be accurate ou subject to change later on during the écriture process. The question boils down to: how much can toi really rely on them? My answer: I suggest we that treat them with suspicion and a grain of salt.
There is an assumption made par many people that JKR’s réponses are always reliable. There is on easy way to montrer that this is not the case. All that requires is one counter-example.
I shall do plus than that though. I shall try and put these interviews into a framework that will montrer that not only are her réponses sometimes inaccurate, but that they can be deliberately vague and intentionally misleading. It is possible to be factually honest, but misleading at the same time. And that is exactly what I think that Jo Rowling is practicing when she responds to questions that are sensitive toward future plotlines.
I will break things down into different categories for the ease of discussion. Let’s start with:
discrepancy to canon.
1. The Susan Bones Quote:
{{ Q. There is a girl named Susan Bones who was sorted in the first book, and there was a family called the Bones that Voldemort tried to destroy. Is this a coincidence, ou will Harry meet her in future books?
A. Susan Bones's grandparents were killed par Voldemort! }}
In OotP in the “Beetle at Bay” chapter we find out that she had an aunt, uncle, and cousins who all died at the hands of one of the ten Death Eaters who had escaped from Azkaban. So not only were there different relatives that were killed, but they were done in par a mere minion of Voldemort and not the Big Bad Guy himself. So both parts of JKR’s answer were different from what eventually showed up in canon. I know that Susan Bones’s dead relatives do not appear to be all that important to the global, ensemble plot, but this answer demonstrates that JKR is either willing to change her mind about things ou that she is not always reliable in her answers. Some have suggested that this subject will be revisited in the series so that it will prove that JKR was telling the truth. I find it highly doubtful that the subject of the Susan Bones’s dead relatives will come up again which would allow JKR’s interview statement to be acquitted in canon for us to see that Susan’s grandparents were personally killed par the Wizard Formerly Known As Tom Riddle.
2. James as Chaser:
{{ Q. What position did James play on the Gryffindor Quidditch team? Was it seeker like Harry, ou something different?
A. James was Chaser. }}
She gave a straightforward answer. No equivocation on her part. James was Chaser. Then came the first movie and on a plaque it a dit that James Potter was a Seeker. I wondered why they got that little detail wrong if Steve Kloves kept doing fact-checking with JKR as had been widely reported. Then we see in OotP in “Snape’s Worst Memory” chapter that James is doodling a Golden Snitch on the margins of a piece of paper and later we see him playing with that magical ball, similar to what Harry did after the Slytherin match. And he kept leaving the snitch out of his hands and catching it again – harry described that his reflexes were great. Does that sound like James played Chaser? It sure doesn’t to me. I would venture to say that the overwhelming majority of readers who were unaware of this chat session and this factoid of “James was Chaser” would conclude that James Potter played Seeker after lire OotP.
There are some HP fans that are so insistant that if JKR a dit something in a chat session that it is inviolate and that she will not change her mind on it. With this in mind, because she a dit James was Chaser, he must have been a Chaser and any evidence to the contrary should be summarily dismissed. This opinion can be witnessed on this thread at Fiction Alley Park where the majority of people that cast a vote picked "He was a Chaser, JKR a dit so."
So what happened? Did JKR change her mind about this detail, was the fact that James was playing with a Snitch and doodled it on the margins of a paper only indicate his l’amour for Lily and nothing more, ou did JKR misspeak? If she misspoke, then no correction of the transcript was made later when she realized her error.
3. The Fawkes Mistake. (Here is another source of that quote to verify the transcription.)
{{ Q. Would toi get a mythical pet from one of your books? If toi could, which one?
A. If I could, I would choose a Phoenix, because they have such useful properties, as Harry finds out in Book III. }}
Maybe I’m just being picky here, but it wasn’t in Book III that we found out about Fawkes and the magical healing power of phoenix tears. That of course was in Book II. I offered the other webpage source to montrer that there wasn’t an error on The Leaky Cauldron’s part. Nope, they did a fine job of copying the transcript. The error is in the original. This example is to montrer that JKR is human and can make mistakes and that later, they may not be corrected for posterity either. But are the mistakes right for an auteur who keeps on saying she spent 10 years on it and harry potter was everything in her life?
4.Population of Hogwarts:
{{ Q. How many students attend Hogwarts, and how many students per an per house?
A. There are about a thousand students at Hogwarts. }}
I mention this under the category of discrepancy to canon because this controversy has been the subject of discussion many times at HPfGU’s liste and of course it has not been resolved. Logically it doesn’t make sense that there would be 1000 students at Hogwarts when Harry’s class with one other house consistently has twenty objects for use. Twenty earmuffs, twenty brooms, etc. If each house had approximately ten students of each year, that would mean forty students per year. Seven years times forty gives toi 280 students. Far below the thousand mark. Had JKR thought about this before she answered? It makes many people wonder. Another great mistake par whom we considered a mastermind!
5. The Half-Loved Prince Mistake:
This came about as a transcription error par the BBC in their interview with JKR in October 2002. They didn’t realize that she said, “Half-Blood Prince” and transcribed instead “Half-Loved Prince.” This error was recognized only after it was announced that the titre for Book 6 was going to be the discarded titre for CoS, which was HP and the HBP. The BBC has since corrected their error and that link can be found here.. The significance of this error is that JKR hadn’t corrected them, so for almost two whole years, this error was just sitting there uncorrected. I am assuming that Jo is too busy with her day-to-day details of writing, being a mom, writing, having a life, writing, etc., to read all of her press and scan for errors.
This meant that anyone who was trying to win in HP trivia contests can no longer use the answer, “HP and the Half-Loved Prince” as the correct answer for the discarded titre of CoS.
Which makes me wonder, how many plus errors are out there that haven’t been corrected that we in the fandom are perpetuating simply out of our need to sift through interviews for clues in the interminable interim until livres 6 & 7 are published.
6. The Icicle Promise:
This comes from JKR making an off-the-cuff promise during a chat that she never really meant, and promptly forgot about. The problem became when the fandom expected that she was good as her word and tried to hold her to it. This created theories as to who “Icicle” would be, and what kind of Eeeevil character she could become. JKR was so befuddled about the origin of this rumor that she even addressed it on her website.
Section: Rumours
The mysterious 'Icicle'
{{ I have been told that I once promised a character with this name during an interview. I can only think that somebody misheard what I a dit because at no stage have I ever planned a character called 'Icicle.'
Professor Bicycle, on the other hand, will be a key figure in livres six and seven.* }}
*this is a joke
Well, Jo, here is where the mysterious Icicle came from:
I have two separate liens from the Barnes and Noble chat, here and here.
The problem comes in that many of the websites that reprint that chat session have stripped the screen names of the people who asked the questions. That is the case with the Quick Quills citations on The Leaky Cauldron site. So if Jo had tried lire old chats, she might not see that promise made, but here it is:
{{ Icicle: toi have such a phenomenal imagination! Is it a result of a very imaginative childhood?
JR: First of all, I will be using your name in a future book. To answer your question, yes, I lived a lot in a fantaisie world when I was younger and spent a lot of time rêverie -- to my parents frustration. }}
Now, I don’t blame Jo for forgetting this. She was most likely just being polite and didn’t think too much of it at the time. The problem is that her fandom is obsessive, and there are some of her fans that can’t accept the fact that she is human and is just as likely as any other human to make a slip of the tongue sometimes and not say *exactly* what she means, ou change her mind, ou say something off-the-cuff that isn’t always going to be followed through on. The only thing that we should say is going to definitely be canon is once it is in writing. Even then, if it is a Wand-Order mistake, that might just be set for correction in future editions. Because she and her editors are human!
7. The Age mistake:
This comes from the World jour Chat and it deals with the age difference between Charlie and Percy.
{{ Luisa: How old are Charlie and Bill Weasley in relation to their other siblings?
JK Rowling réponses -> Oh dear, maths. Let me think. Bill is two years older than Charlie, who is two years older than Percy. }}
Groan. Why didn’t Jo just say she didn’t have her notes with her? Because well…that just doesn’t match with canon. It doesn’t. No matter how toi slice it, it just doesn’t add up. If Charlie were only two years older than Percy, then he’d be in his seventh an during Harry’s first year, ou possibly just finished the an before.
In canon, there are several passages that indicate that it has been a while since the great Charlie Weasley had been at school. In PS/SS, there is when Harry first makes the team Fred said,
[ The Midnight Duel, SS, Scholastic paperback, p. 153
"We haven't won since Charlie left, but this year's team is going to be brilliant." ]
Pair that with a passage par McGonagal in PoA when she gives Harry back his Firebolt after being tested for jinxes.
[ The Patronus, Scholastic pb, p. 248.
"Do try and win, won't you? ou we'll be out of the running for the eighth an in a row, as Professor Snape was kind enough to remind me only last night..." ]
That seems to imply that Charlie left at least five years before Harry started school, which would make at least a seven an gap between him and Percy and not two years.
And yet, I’ve seen HP fans try to somehow make that Procrustean lit of logic fit. It doesn’t and I simply shake my head at that answer. I l’amour Jo and the incredible universe that she created, but I recognize that she has a problem with math and sometimes the fine details will trip her up.
Ambiguity in citations
A good example of ambiguous meanings in JKR’s réponses can be found with the final…closing scene quote that has been discussed here at length.
{{ I think that my publishers were keen not to have the embargo broken, but they have my wholehearted support in that not from the marketing point of view, but because this was the book in which toi saw the first death and also at the end of the Book Four something *huge* happens in terms of the over all plot, which I don't want to say on the radio obviously in case people haven't read the book ou is half way through it. And I didn't want that to leak because for children ... that would... toi know... I... I've... I've spent ten years... I mean, the final... the closing scene in Book Four... I've spent ten years écriture my way towards that scene and people who have read that will know why it's so significant, why it's so important. I did not want that leaked. Because I knew that kids were waiting with bated breath and I really genuinely wanted that to be a magical experience. That they would get the book and read and get frightened and excited and overwrought as they approached that ending. (emphasis mine) }}
The portion that was debated on this forum was the phrase “the final…closing scene” and whether ou not the significance of that word choice indicated an importance to Hermione’s goodbye Kiss to Harry.
The infamous National Press club lire and Q&A session from which the famous “Platonic” quote originated was interpreted par a Newsweek rapporter as:
Rowling revealed to an eager audience that the fourth book in her blockbuster series will feature a Quidditch World Cup (ask a Harryhead), but no romance between the young Harry and his pal Hermione. Also, Potter will never become an animagus (whatever that is), as his father did.
Clearly that reporter was assigned to cover the event and had no real idea ou interest in covering the subject before filing the rapporter before deadline. donné this superficial coverage of that JKR event, would it be beyond the realm of possibility that the auteur and the publishers might be worried about reporters skimming the large book, checking out the last few pages and think that Hermione s’embrasser Harry is a big development and then use that as a tease to sell papers? We saw that the New York Daily News broke the embargo for OotP and mentioned Harry’s rendez-vous amoureux, date with Cho which caused a lawsuit to be filed. So why is the fear that Hermione’s Kiss might be blown out of proportion par the press dismissed out of hand? Truthfully, I could see that JKR’s remarks could be interpreted in a number of ways. The simplest explanation is that she simply misspoke and that she was clearly intending to mean Voldemort’s reanimation, but there is also the thought that she might have also been concerned with how a final clue was laid and that it wouldn’t be donné too much prominence. Unless she clarifies things in the future and tells us exactly what it was that she meant here, I feel that it is indicative of an ambiguous statement.
So let’s get back to the idea of what exactly is the purpose of these chats and interviews. They are used par the auteur and her publishers to help stir up interest in the series and to increase the sales of the livres (and audio versions, as well as toys, merchandise, etc.) It will sometimes provide insight to aspects of the livres that might not be really clear from the text. For example, I was glad that someone asked her about the Thestrals in the Royal Albert Hall interview and she explained why she hadn’t had Harry be able to see them at the end of GoF. I’m not sure that I agree with the logic of her explanation, but at least we are told what her rationale was behind that dramatic choice.
James potter – mischief maker – not made prefect but becomes head boy?
I wish that someone had asked her about the discrepancy of James Potter not being a prefect but that (at least according to Hagrid in PS/SS) ending up to be Head Boy. Well either it should be false ou it is true in an unrealistic way which we don’t expect of jo! I would argue that the purpose of JKR doing interviews is not necessarily to provide us with any information about future books.
The question on this forum is how do her interviews impact the Shipping Debates? ou how best to interpret her cagey réponses about what is to come in the romance subplot. To me, I don’t think she wants to give away anything and she has deliberately tried to mislead people. Because yes, I think she is TRIXY.
Secretive nature
In fact, she freely admits that she is very secretive about her story. This is shown in the BBC Paxman interview which aired the eve of the publication of OotP
{{ JEREMY PAXMAN: But do toi find the whole secrecy issue, the need for secrecy, a bit ridiculous?
JK ROWLING: No.
JEREMY PAXMAN: Why not?
JK ROWLING: No not at all. Well, a lot of it comes from me.
JEREMY PAXMAN: Really?
JK ROWLING: Yeah definitely. I mean, of course one could be cynical, and I'm sure toi would be disposed to be so and say it was a marketing ploy, but I don't want the kids to know what's coming. Because that's part of the excitement of the story, and having - toi know – sweated blood to create all my red herrings and lay all my clues.... to me it's not a ...this is my ....this is my....I was going to say this is my life, it's not my life, but it is a very important part of my life. }}
Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! It is very important in her life, but she does not even remember small but important details from it!
Her commitment to secrecy has climbed to new heights and has alienated some members of the press in the process. The Londres Times had an exclusive interview with Rowling that appeared on the eve of the publication of the OotP. This was done after "a laboriously negotiated six-page contract".
Honest, but misleading réponses :
Deception does not always equate to lying. toi can be honest, but deceptive at the same time. I have an example of another writer who was asked two questions and he answered them truthfully, but he knew that it could disguise his true feelings.
Martin Lee had worked very hard in securing an interview for his book The Beast Reawakens: Fascism’s Resurgence from Hitler’s Spymasters to Today’s Neo-Nazi Groups and Right-Wing Extremists. The interview was with Hitler’s former chauffer and bodyguard. This elderly man was considered to be an elder statesman for the Far Right. Lee had traveled all the way to Germany after the man agreed to be interviewed par him, but before the man would answer any questions, he had two of his own.
He wanted to know if Martin Lee read the National Alliance newsletter. Martin answered truthfully that he did.
He also wanted to know what Martin thought of Patrick Buchanan. Lee replied that he thought that Pat Buchanan was a good public speaker.
The interview went on as scheduled.
If Martin Lee had elaborated on his réponses and a dit that the only reason he read anything put out par the National Alliance was as opposition research and that he hated everything that Pat Buchanan stood for – then the interview would have been cancelled. That’s because it would have been revealed that he was not a kindred spirit of Hitler’s followers, but instead an enemy trying to rapporter on their current activities. (The source of this anecdote was my hearing Martin Lee being interviewed on a radio program as well as my personal communication with him.)
Deep breath, okay, now back to the Potterverse and Jo Rowling.
With that example in mind, and knowing how much she prizes secrecy regarding her plotline - why should anyone be willing to believe that just because she verbally responds to a question that toi can take her réponses at face value? Mystery writers want to surprise their readers and they do so par planting red herrings to drive the amateur sleuths off the track. Why should we not consider the possibility that she is doing the same with her interviews as she does in her text if she values secrecy as much as she does? A good example of her being deceptive, but not lying outright is in her reply to a question is one about Gilderoy Lockhart.
{{ Q. People on the internet want to know if Gilderoy Lockhart is going to come back.
A. Gilderoy Lockhart, bless him, is currently residing in St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries and his memory is still gone. So at the moment, he’s in no fit state to go anywhere. Which I think serves him right. }}
If toi took this answer at face value, it would seem like we would never see Lockhart’s bright shining face ever again. Yet, of course he had a big toothy cameo appearance in “Christmas on the Closed Ward” chapter in OotP. The difference in this quote is that the reporter actually recognized that JKR didn’t really answer the question that was posed, because the interviewer asked this follow up question:
{{ Q. toi didn’t quite answer the question as to whether he will be back ou not.
A. Yeah, well, toi know, you’ve got to sometimes dodge these things. }}
Exactly. She admitted that she will dodge questions she doesn’t want to answer. What else should toi expect from someone that has placed such a strong emphasis on secrecy?
Another example of the Lockhart deceptive dodge is:
{{ Q. Gilderoy Lockhart, one of my favourite characters...
A. Gilderoy's left in, he's still in Saint Mungo's Hospital for Magical Ailments and Injuries because his memory's just gone but I'm making no promises about Gilderoy. }}
This isn’t quite as overtly avoiding the question with the added bit of hindsight being 20/20 as the first example, but she wasn’t straightforward with her réponses about Lockhart now was she?
And when it comes to the topic of shipping in the series she has donné enigmatic réponses that may be perceived as straightforward, but I don’t interpret them that way as others do. This is because I do not believe that she would give away such an important aspect of her series simply because someone asked her.
She has also made repeated statements that she wants to surprise her readers. In the Paxman interview, she was asked an open-ended question specifically about romantic pairings.
{{ JEREMY PAXMAN: So there will be some pairing up will there in this book?
JK ROWLING: Well in the fullness of time.
JEREMY PAXMAN: Unlikely pairings? Not Hermione and Draco Malfoy ou anything like that?
JK ROWLING: I don't really want to say as it will ruin all the fan sites. They have such fun with their theories ... and it is fun, it is fun. And some of them even get quite close. No-one has ever - I have gone and looked at some of it and no-one's ever ... There is one thing that if anyone guessed I would be really annoyed as it is kind of the cœur, coeur of it all. And it kind of explains everything and no-one's quite got there but a couple of people have skirted it. So toi know, I would be pretty miffed after thirteen ou fourteen years of écriture the livres if someone just came along and a dit I think this will happen in book seven. Because it is too late, I couldn't divert now, everything has been building up to it, and I've laid all my clues. (emphasis mine) }}
This is as straightforward as I have seen her discuss the desire of not being a predictable writer. She “sweated blood” to come up with some of her plot twists. And it is because I was surprised at her imaginative plot twists, buried clues and myriad layers of meanings to the livres that I am utterly fascinated par this series. I know that I am not alone in my respect for JKR’s ability to take me on a wild ride with a far from typical formulaic ending. She loves a perceptive reader, but she still doesn’t want anyone to guess where she’s going. Because she doesn’t want to be predictable.
If she wanted to be straightforward and say where the romantic subplots were going, she could have done it there and then. She didn’t. She is also well aware of the fan sites and of some of the imaginative theories that we as a subculture have come up with.
She is concerned that one of us might come up with her Grand Surprise and she doesn’t want that. Some on the Good Ship say that her interview citations indicate that the series will go R/Hr and H/G. I have to ask why she would freely give that information away in interviews and then write Hermione’s romantic intentions so Sphinx-like? That doesn’t make any sense to me, if the romantic subplot(s) is/are not important to the global, ensemble plot of the series.
That brings us to the NBC Dateline Interview with Katie Couric. This interview has been trumpeted loudly as proving that R/Hr is the way that the series will go. This is due to her words and her facial expressions.
{{ Couric: “Any snogging with Hermione?”
Rowling: “Hermione and Harry?! Do toi think so?”
Couric: “No I’m kidding.
Rowling: “Ron and Hermione, I would say, have plus tension there
Couric: We should probably explain that snogging means kissing.”
Rowling: “Yeah.”
Couric: “Lest people think they were shagging!”
Rowling: “Lest people think you’re talking about something completely inappropriate.” }}
Before I give toi my analysis of this interview, I’d like to quote something else. This comes from Time Magazine, “The Cool Passion of Dr. Dean,” par John Cloud, August 11, 2003, p. 28.
<
At a July 15 forum sponsored par the Human Rights Campaign, a gay political group, moderator Sam Donaldson of ABC grilled Senator John Kerry, who is favored over Dean par many in the Democratic Party establishment, on why he supports allowing gay couples all the rights that married straight couples enjoy except the right to be called married. Kerry waded in, invoking history and religion to argue that marriage is viewed par “the body of America…as a contract between a man and a woman.” Boos and hisses. Dean, who shares the exact same position, avoided the question par joking with Donaldson about the newsman’s pointed interrogation. The crowd giggled, a disarmed Donaldson apologized, and Dean moved on to his support for gays in the military. Cheers. Dean had done something preternaturally political – avoided a question, changed the subject—and got away with it. (emphasis mine.)
Notice a pattern here?
**Avoid a question. Disarm the host with humor. Bait and switch.**
Let’s go back to the Couric interview again with my analysis in […..]
Couric: “Any snogging with Hermione?”
Rowling: “Hermione and Harry?!
[ She avoids answering a direct question. ]
Do toi think so?”
[ Disarms the host with humor. ]
Couric: “No I’m kidding.
[ Host is clearly disarmed. ]
Rowling: “Ron and Hermione, I would say, have plus tension there.
[ Bait and switch. ]
Couric: We should probably explain that snogging means kissing.”
[ Couric is so disarmed, she doesn’t realize that her question wasn’t answered and she is now trying to montrer how hip she is that she knows British slang. ]
Rowling: “Yeah.”
Couric: “Lest people think they were shagging!”
Rowling: “Lest people think you’re talking about something completely inappropriate.”
Facial expressions can always be faked as any actor can tell you. Frankly, I refuse to abandon my gut instincts on this series because of a few minutes on a televised interview where JKR avoided answering a question that was donné to her. Especially to a reporter that didn’t at least think to ask follow-up questions in this situation. Instead, I shall be content to wait until the end of Book 7 to see if my intuition was correct of if I was wrong.
Okay here are some famous shipping quotes. I’m going to liste them first and then analyze them.
Harry/Ginny quote:
Poor Ginny Quote
{{ Glynnis L - Will Harry ever notice the long-suffering Ginny Weasley?
You'll see... poor Ginny, eh? }}
Ron/Hermione quotes:
1. Something going on quote.
{{ Q. Is it just me, ou was something going on between Ron and Hermione during the last half of Goblet of Fire? I l’amour your books, par the way, and two of them I've read straight through cover to cover in under 24 hours.
A. Well done on the lire speed! Yes, something's "going on," but Ron doesn't realize it yet. Typical boy. }}
2. Ron getting a girlfriend quote
{{ Q. Will Ron ever get a girlfriend?
A. I'm laughing again.... Why wouldn't he?! Though he's not doing too well at the moment, is he? But then, Fleur Delacour was really aiming a bit high. }}
3.More than a friend? quote
{{ Zsenya - Does Hermione like Ron as plus than a friend?
The answer to that is in Goblet of Fire, Zsenya! }}
Harry/Hermione quotes:
1. Time to change his mind quote
{{ Q. Is Harry Potter ever going to fall in l’amour with Hermione ou is he going to fall in l’amour with Ginny Weasley?
A. In Book IV Harry does decide he likes a girl, but it's not Hermione ou Ginny. However, he's only 14, so there's plenty of time for him to change his mind. ;-) }}
2. D’you think they’re suited? quote
{{ Q. As Harry matures, does a l’amour interest develop between him and Hermione?
A. Harry and Hermione…d’you really think they’re suited? }}
3. The Platonic Quote
{{ JKR: *looking through questions* No, don’t like that one. Oh, I like this one… do Harry and Hermione have a date? [laughter] No. They are – they’re very platonic friends. But I won’t answer for anyone else, nudge, nudge, wink, wink. [laughter and sound of kids going “Aaah!”] }}
Okay, now that these famous and oft-debated citations have been listed, I shall give toi my analysis. First off, what must be noted is that there are no direct réponses to any of these questions that were put before her. If any witness in a court of law responded with a rhetorical question like, “do toi think they’re suited?” they would be reprimanded par the judge and directed to answer the question with either a “yes” ou a “no.”
We have no such clear and unambiguous replies. Therefore, I shall give toi my interpretation of how these very same réponses could be masking H/Hr without her actually resorting to lying. My analysis is in […]
Glynnis L - Will Harry ever notice the long-suffering Ginny Weasley?
You'll see... [ Stick around to find out how this ends. ]
poor Ginny, eh? [ Just wait until OotP! You’ll find out about her Quidditch skills as well as her ability to do the Bat Bogey Hex. She’s plus than “Ron’s little sister” she’s a powerful little witch who just hasn’t had a chance to shine on her own. ]
{{ Q. Is it just me, ou was something going on between Ron and Hermione during the last half of Goblet of Fire? I l’amour your books, par the way, and two of them I've read straight through cover to cover in under 24 hours.
A. Well done on the lire speed! Yes, something's "going on," but Ron doesn't realize it yet. Typical boy. }}
[The something going on is that Ron likes Hermione, but isn’t yet cognizant of it. Later on he’ll realize it, but Hermione doesn’t reciprocate those feelings.]
{{ Q. Will Ron ever get a girlfriend?
A. I'm laughing again.... Why wouldn't he?! Though he's not doing too well at the moment, is he? But then, Fleur Delacour was really aiming a bit high. }}
[Here’s a reason that he might not get a girlfriend, because the girl he wants, namely Hermione, doesn’t reciprocate his feelings. She is in l’amour with Harry and will try to keep Ron’s attentions toward her at baie through using Krum as a smokescreen.]
{{ Q. Zsenya - Does Hermione like Ron as plus than a friend?
A. The answer to that is in Goblet of Fire, Zsenya! }}
[Despite the repeated insistence par R/Hr shippers, JKR does not affirmatively answer this question. It is still left open for interpretation. As we’ve seen on this forum before, widely divergent interpretations of Hermione’s actions and words have been reached par the two ships. But now we know that ron did end up with hermione.]
{{ Q. Is Harry Potter ever going to fall in l’amour with Hermione ou is he going to fall in l’amour with Ginny Weasley?
A. In Book IV Harry does decide he likes a girl, but it's not Hermione ou Ginny. However, he's only 14, so there's plenty of time for him to change his mind. ;-) }}
[She’s not going to tell us the answer of whom Harry winds up being romantically involved with at the end of Book 7. We’ll just have to stick around and see for ourselves.]
{{ Q. As Harry matures, does a l’amour interest develop between him and Hermione?
A. Harry and Hermione…d’you really think they’re suited? }}
[Would the witness please answer the question for the court! Do toi wish to have the court stenographer read it back to you? ou in other words, she didn’t want to answer that question, so she avoided it entirely par responding with a rhetorical question.]
And now back to the famous National Press Club question. One thing that is constantly brought up is the fact that JKR chose this question. She announced that she liked that question. At first blush it seems like a slam dunk that JKR wanted to dissuade anyone from thinking that H/Hr from happening. I wonder why she would try to remove the mystery from her series, unless…it was a deliberate act on her part. I would argue that she liked that question because she had a carefully constructed prepared answer for this type of question.
I say this, because it reminds me of the preparation I went through for the Great Shipping débats at Nimbus. For several months beforehand I tried to anticipate what my opponents might say and ask. I had many different réponses crafted for those questions I thought likely. So when Angua asked me her age-old question about Harry and Hermione being “just friends” I smiled because I was ready for that. I had rehearsed for several weeks beforehand a verse from Kenny Loggins’s song “Whenever I Call toi ‘Friend.’” It was so much fun to sing that and to see the look of surprise on people’s faces.
So, if I was able to come up with some pithy réponses for predictable questions, I will make the assumption that JKR who spent years meticulously plotting her series out, would take the time to prepare some réponses for questions that she knew would be asked at one time ou another.
So let’s break down her answer into parts. My analysis is once again in italics.
Do Harry and Hermione have a date?
Part I. No. No they never share a date. They happen to be the ultimate romantic pairing of the series, but technically they never share a ‘date.’
Part II. They are – they’re very platonic friends.
[The word ‘platonic’ has many different meanings. One definition holds it “transcending physical desire and tending toward the purely spiritual ou ideal: platonic love.” The word history includes: “Marsilio Ficino, a Renaissance follower of Plato, used the terms amor socraticus and amor platonicus interchangeably for a l’amour between two humans that was preparatory for the l’amour of God.”
This sounds a lot like the idealized Power of l’amour that Dumbledore spoke of as residing in the Department of Mysteries. ]
Part III. But I won’t answer for anyone else, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
Harry and Cho share a rendez-vous amoureux, date in Book 5. She knew of this ill-fated rendez-vous amoureux, date when she spoke that jour and she knew that this answer could send many fans in a different direction. If she wants people to think that she’s going R/Hr, but wants to surprise people in the fullness of time with H/Hr than this particular answer would aid in that misconception.
Further evidence that she was indicating H/C here and not R/Hr is the quote from the San Francisco Chronicle
{{ In the fourth book, due out in July, Harry will develop his first crush.
"Careful readers of book three will already know who the girl is,"
Rowling said, smiling mysteriously. }}
Then there is the quote from the CoS DVD interview where JKR said:
{{ And also Chris in the seconde film has kind of foreshadowed what I don't do until the fourth book, which is that toi get hints of certain feelings between the three of them, that belong to a sort of slightly plus mature person. }}
Now if JKR wanted us to think that there was something “going on” between Ron and Hermione and that Hermione and Harry are totally “just friends” then why did she choose the words “certain feelings between the three of them”? She could have easily have a dit something vague like “Chris foreshadowed what I don’t do until the fourth book which is that toi get hints of certain feelings of attraction, which belong to a slightly plus mature person.” This would have been vague enough to include all three of them, ou just two of the three. Instead she used “between the three of them” which indicates that there is some form of a l’amour triangle going on between the Trio members. Especially since Cho Chang is nowhere to be found in CoS, either in the movie ou in the book. Unless someone is going to seriously say that there is hints of Harry/Ron going on in the movie, then it should be assumed that JKR’s choice of words showed that she was indicating some form of Harry/Hermione feelings as well as Ron/Hermione feelings being foreshadowed par Chris and par extension, GoF.
Yes, but whenever the dreaded Geometric Shape That Must Not Be Named is mentioned, there is the Can’t afford to alienate his Friends quote that is brought up:
{{ Q. I see those hormones kick in in this book, are we going to see Harry becoming even plus like Kevin the teenager, are we going to see him going - Oh Sirius I hate you, I wish toi were back in Azkaban?
A. I think Ron's plus like that isn't he - Ron's plus Kevinish. Harry's got so many worries, he needs his friends, he can't afford to alienate them. He's plus your sensitive hero isn't he. Yeah plus of that stuff happens. }}
As if Rowling were guaranteeing that Harry wouldn’t do anything to risk his friendship with Ron and Hermione again. So he couldn’t possibly allow his cœur, coeur to fall for Hermione, because it would make things difficult with Ron. I don’t buy that. Instead, I think we should consider what if Harry starts to recognize “certain feelings” towards Hermione, how would he react if he believed that Ron felt the same way. And what if Harry wasn’t sure how Hermione felt towards either one of them in a romantic fashion? I would think that this would be a recipe for Conflict. And as Michael Shurtleff says, “Conflict is drama.”
Then of course there is the Humorous, well within the tone of the livres quote:
I want Harry Potter and his Friends to grow up as well as older, though I'll keep it all humorous, well within the tone of the books. I want them eventually to be truly 17 and discover girlfriends and boyfriends and have sexual feelings - nothing too gritty. Why not allow them to have those feelings?
As if this were a promise carved in stone to her readers that all the romantic subplots she will write will be humorous. The only promise that I think she has made to us is to write seven livres in the Harry Potter series and that she will write the story that she wants to write.
Tone of the Series
The seconde part of that aforementioned quote that seems to be frequently overlooked ou dismissed out of hand is the phrase “well within the tone of the books.” A récent quote deals with just that issue.
The surprised about the series getting darker quote.
“I’m surprised that people are surprised that the series is getting darker, because the first book started with a murder. And although toi didn’t see the murder happen, that for me was an announcement that these things would continue within the series.” But she’s not blind to the fact that very young children will want to read these books, and that they will be disturbed: “I was always ambivalent when people told me that they’d read the first book to their 6-year-old, because I knew what was coming. And I have to say even with the first book, that is a scary ending.”
Perhaps the biggest surprise in “Phoenix” is that Harry, now 15, is finally jouer la comédie like a moody, misunderstood teenager. “I’ve a dit all along that I want Harry to grow up in a realistic way, which means hormonal impulses, and it means a whole bunch of adolescent angst and anger, actually. Harry’s a lot plus angry in Book 5, which I think is entirely right, donné what he’s been through. It’s about time he got angry about how life has dealt him.”
I wrote something similar back in this post on June 7th where I said:
Hmmm, now remember this lady has a strange sense of humor. The scene where Dudley's tongue became purple and grossly enlarged was something that I did laugh at, but I daresay that Harry's relatives found nothing funny about it. We also have to take the tone of the livres into account. Remember the very first chapter? It described a double homicide having just occurred not 24 hours earlier and Dumbledore asked why Professor McGonagall wasn't out celebrating. Of course, people weren't celebrating the murders, but in Voldemort's fall. Nevertheless, toi don't shed a tear in her opening chapter. That's not the tone, nor the emotion that she is evoking from her readers, even if Hagrid and McGonagall do tear up.
JKR has dealt with such issues as serial murder, torture, parricide, and betrayal. Some parts of the livres are light and humorous, others are tense and dark. Remember William Shakespeare used misunderstandings as a basis for his romantic comedies very often. However, that didn't mean that he wouldn't choose to use dark themes in a comedy when it fit his needs. It just wound up with a happy ending and not a body count like his tragedies did. Think of "Much Ado About Nothing" where Claudio is deceived and believes that his beloved Hero has betrayed and cuckolded him before their wedding. He publicly accused her of such grievous sins on the wedding altar. Later a fake burial of Hero was done to bury the slander. In the end, all was revealed and Claudio and Hero were happily married.
Hey, if Shakespeare can take such serious themes and do them in a classic comedy that is produced thousands of times each an - well I have faith that JKR could do a little FITD and have it fit well within the tone of the books. (As for the not too gritty bit, I've mentioned this before but for the newbies benefits: I think that would refer to her reluctance to want to write about such things as nocturnal emissions, which are realities for male adolescents.)
To continue on that theme comes the Graphic ou scary quote.
{{ Q. I noticed each book gets a little plus graphic than the last. Where do toi draw the line on how graphic ou scary to make each book?
A. When the plot demands scary, I make it scary! I am led par the story, not par artificial considerations about how graphic each book should ou shouldn't be. }}
And the Tone it down quote.
{{ Have toi ever thought "Maybe I should tone it down"?
No. I know that sounds kind of brutal but no, I haven't. The bottom line is, I have to write the story I want to write. I never wrote them with a focus group of 8-year-olds in mind. I have to continue telling the story the way I want to tell it. I don't at all relish the idea of children in tears, and I absolutely don't deny it's frightening. But it's supposed to be frightening! And if toi don't montrer how scary that is, toi cannot montrer how incredibly Rebelle Harry is. }}
To illustrate that JKR is willing on making Harry suffer in regards to romance is the récent
Relationship “of sorts” quote.
{{ Harry now “is very much in puberty, having as easy a time of it as I did.” And that was? “What I was, I wasn’t sure and I don’t think anyone else was either! I just think it is a very confusing time. Yes, he’s very confused in a boy way. He doesn’t understand how girls’ minds work.” I say that, at age 15, boys don’t normally say anything at all. She laughs and says Hermione is plus than happy to fill in all those silences with her advice.
“This time Harry really, for the first time, does have a relationship of sorts. The emphasis very much on the ‘of sorts’. That was really fun to write, actually. I think toi will find it painful. toi should find it painful, it is painful, but it was such fun to write. Poor Harry! What I put him through.” }}
And then comes one of my personal favori citations which I think if anything proves that she would not hesitate to make Harry, Ron and Hermione suffer in a l’amour triangle should she choose to go that route is the Torture quote.
Rowling, Jessica and Harry. It makes for an intimate family. And when she talks about Harry, how anxious she was that a Hollywood studio didn't come along and ruin him, how he's reaching puberty and about to discover girls, she does sound like a doting mother. She says she is possessive of him. What's the worst thing anyone could do to him? She mishears me. "I can do to him whatever I like. I'm allowed to torture him as much as I want. He's mine."
Jo Rowling will torture Harry as much as she likes. Even if that means that the romantic subplot might not be light and humorous. And even if it doesn’t please some of her readers.
The I cannot write to please other people quote.
{{ As your fan base is growing larger, and maybe even younger, do toi feel any sense of social responsibility, any sense of responsibilities to their sensibilities?
I cannot write to please other people. I can't. When I finish book 7, I want to be able to look in the mirror and think, I did it the way I meant to do it. If I lose readers in the process, I'm not going to throw a party about it. But I would feel far worse if I knew that I had allowed myself to write something different. }}
Some people will still insist that she simply will not deviate from their predicted pairing(s) of R/Hr (with a subset of H/G) because of the Tricked not conned quote.
{{ "I l’amour a good whodunnit and my passion is plot construction. Readers loved to be tricked, but not conned," Rowling says, warming to her theme. "The best twist ever in literature is in Jane Austen's Emma. To me she is the target of perfection at which we shoot in vain." }}
They feel that JKR cannot possibly be trying to set up H/Hr because they don’t see the buildup for it and she would have to be lying to her readers in order to bring it about. That leaves me with the final quote for this essay. It comes from the Royal Albert Hall interview w/ Stephen Fry.
{{ Stephen Fry:
Now Order of the Phoenix. It’s 766 pages long. That is a big book par any standards and as I have to sit in front of a microphone and read it all for hours and hours I’m very traverser, croix with toi [He was joking kids!] but on the other hand it’s extraordinary good value as toi planned seven livres in the series and toi could have written eight just with the words you’ve done in the first five. Did toi know it was going to be this long?
JK Rowling:
No I didn’t. I will say this. I had to put in some things because of what’s to come in livres Six and Seven and I didn’t want anyone to say to me: “What a cheat. toi never gave us clues!” Because if I didn’t mention certain things in Order of the Phoenix, toi could have said: “Well toi sprang that on us!” Whereas I want toi to be able to guess if you’ve got your wits about you. There are a few surprises coming. }}
Oh! Just because we are going to ask questions, she wrote 776 page long book! but still there are a thousand questins to draw from it. isnt it? so after all this i really wonder - is she great as everyone thinks she is?
*************************************************
So what do toi guys think of this?
first of all im a harry potter fan and i l’amour jkr. and i think that this article is not sensible. but toi all can read it to tell your views, so im posting it for toi all to give your opinions.
This article shows out what position jkr holds in the cœur, coeur of the author.
Sincere fans of jkr may get a bit annoyed par lire this, but for those who always thought she was a bit of …..well read it! Interesting view points have been brought out here!
So before toi go on, one simple note – the interviews are within {{...}} and the authors special commentaires are within [...] Once again, I didn’t write this but I found it somewhere.
************************************************
One area of continued controversy in the fandom is how much credence should one place on the chats and interviews with JK Rowling. After all, these are not a part of canon, but are merely the author’s comments, which may ou may not be accurate ou subject to change later on during the écriture process. The question boils down to: how much can toi really rely on them? My answer: I suggest we that treat them with suspicion and a grain of salt.
There is an assumption made par many people that JKR’s réponses are always reliable. There is on easy way to montrer that this is not the case. All that requires is one counter-example.
I shall do plus than that though. I shall try and put these interviews into a framework that will montrer that not only are her réponses sometimes inaccurate, but that they can be deliberately vague and intentionally misleading. It is possible to be factually honest, but misleading at the same time. And that is exactly what I think that Jo Rowling is practicing when she responds to questions that are sensitive toward future plotlines.
I will break things down into different categories for the ease of discussion. Let’s start with:
discrepancy to canon.
1. The Susan Bones Quote:
{{ Q. There is a girl named Susan Bones who was sorted in the first book, and there was a family called the Bones that Voldemort tried to destroy. Is this a coincidence, ou will Harry meet her in future books?
A. Susan Bones's grandparents were killed par Voldemort! }}
In OotP in the “Beetle at Bay” chapter we find out that she had an aunt, uncle, and cousins who all died at the hands of one of the ten Death Eaters who had escaped from Azkaban. So not only were there different relatives that were killed, but they were done in par a mere minion of Voldemort and not the Big Bad Guy himself. So both parts of JKR’s answer were different from what eventually showed up in canon. I know that Susan Bones’s dead relatives do not appear to be all that important to the global, ensemble plot, but this answer demonstrates that JKR is either willing to change her mind about things ou that she is not always reliable in her answers. Some have suggested that this subject will be revisited in the series so that it will prove that JKR was telling the truth. I find it highly doubtful that the subject of the Susan Bones’s dead relatives will come up again which would allow JKR’s interview statement to be acquitted in canon for us to see that Susan’s grandparents were personally killed par the Wizard Formerly Known As Tom Riddle.
2. James as Chaser:
{{ Q. What position did James play on the Gryffindor Quidditch team? Was it seeker like Harry, ou something different?
A. James was Chaser. }}
She gave a straightforward answer. No equivocation on her part. James was Chaser. Then came the first movie and on a plaque it a dit that James Potter was a Seeker. I wondered why they got that little detail wrong if Steve Kloves kept doing fact-checking with JKR as had been widely reported. Then we see in OotP in “Snape’s Worst Memory” chapter that James is doodling a Golden Snitch on the margins of a piece of paper and later we see him playing with that magical ball, similar to what Harry did after the Slytherin match. And he kept leaving the snitch out of his hands and catching it again – harry described that his reflexes were great. Does that sound like James played Chaser? It sure doesn’t to me. I would venture to say that the overwhelming majority of readers who were unaware of this chat session and this factoid of “James was Chaser” would conclude that James Potter played Seeker after lire OotP.
There are some HP fans that are so insistant that if JKR a dit something in a chat session that it is inviolate and that she will not change her mind on it. With this in mind, because she a dit James was Chaser, he must have been a Chaser and any evidence to the contrary should be summarily dismissed. This opinion can be witnessed on this thread at Fiction Alley Park where the majority of people that cast a vote picked "He was a Chaser, JKR a dit so."
So what happened? Did JKR change her mind about this detail, was the fact that James was playing with a Snitch and doodled it on the margins of a paper only indicate his l’amour for Lily and nothing more, ou did JKR misspeak? If she misspoke, then no correction of the transcript was made later when she realized her error.
3. The Fawkes Mistake. (Here is another source of that quote to verify the transcription.)
{{ Q. Would toi get a mythical pet from one of your books? If toi could, which one?
A. If I could, I would choose a Phoenix, because they have such useful properties, as Harry finds out in Book III. }}
Maybe I’m just being picky here, but it wasn’t in Book III that we found out about Fawkes and the magical healing power of phoenix tears. That of course was in Book II. I offered the other webpage source to montrer that there wasn’t an error on The Leaky Cauldron’s part. Nope, they did a fine job of copying the transcript. The error is in the original. This example is to montrer that JKR is human and can make mistakes and that later, they may not be corrected for posterity either. But are the mistakes right for an auteur who keeps on saying she spent 10 years on it and harry potter was everything in her life?
4.Population of Hogwarts:
{{ Q. How many students attend Hogwarts, and how many students per an per house?
A. There are about a thousand students at Hogwarts. }}
I mention this under the category of discrepancy to canon because this controversy has been the subject of discussion many times at HPfGU’s liste and of course it has not been resolved. Logically it doesn’t make sense that there would be 1000 students at Hogwarts when Harry’s class with one other house consistently has twenty objects for use. Twenty earmuffs, twenty brooms, etc. If each house had approximately ten students of each year, that would mean forty students per year. Seven years times forty gives toi 280 students. Far below the thousand mark. Had JKR thought about this before she answered? It makes many people wonder. Another great mistake par whom we considered a mastermind!
5. The Half-Loved Prince Mistake:
This came about as a transcription error par the BBC in their interview with JKR in October 2002. They didn’t realize that she said, “Half-Blood Prince” and transcribed instead “Half-Loved Prince.” This error was recognized only after it was announced that the titre for Book 6 was going to be the discarded titre for CoS, which was HP and the HBP. The BBC has since corrected their error and that link can be found here.. The significance of this error is that JKR hadn’t corrected them, so for almost two whole years, this error was just sitting there uncorrected. I am assuming that Jo is too busy with her day-to-day details of writing, being a mom, writing, having a life, writing, etc., to read all of her press and scan for errors.
This meant that anyone who was trying to win in HP trivia contests can no longer use the answer, “HP and the Half-Loved Prince” as the correct answer for the discarded titre of CoS.
Which makes me wonder, how many plus errors are out there that haven’t been corrected that we in the fandom are perpetuating simply out of our need to sift through interviews for clues in the interminable interim until livres 6 & 7 are published.
6. The Icicle Promise:
This comes from JKR making an off-the-cuff promise during a chat that she never really meant, and promptly forgot about. The problem became when the fandom expected that she was good as her word and tried to hold her to it. This created theories as to who “Icicle” would be, and what kind of Eeeevil character she could become. JKR was so befuddled about the origin of this rumor that she even addressed it on her website.
Section: Rumours
The mysterious 'Icicle'
{{ I have been told that I once promised a character with this name during an interview. I can only think that somebody misheard what I a dit because at no stage have I ever planned a character called 'Icicle.'
Professor Bicycle, on the other hand, will be a key figure in livres six and seven.* }}
*this is a joke
Well, Jo, here is where the mysterious Icicle came from:
I have two separate liens from the Barnes and Noble chat, here and here.
The problem comes in that many of the websites that reprint that chat session have stripped the screen names of the people who asked the questions. That is the case with the Quick Quills citations on The Leaky Cauldron site. So if Jo had tried lire old chats, she might not see that promise made, but here it is:
{{ Icicle: toi have such a phenomenal imagination! Is it a result of a very imaginative childhood?
JR: First of all, I will be using your name in a future book. To answer your question, yes, I lived a lot in a fantaisie world when I was younger and spent a lot of time rêverie -- to my parents frustration. }}
Now, I don’t blame Jo for forgetting this. She was most likely just being polite and didn’t think too much of it at the time. The problem is that her fandom is obsessive, and there are some of her fans that can’t accept the fact that she is human and is just as likely as any other human to make a slip of the tongue sometimes and not say *exactly* what she means, ou change her mind, ou say something off-the-cuff that isn’t always going to be followed through on. The only thing that we should say is going to definitely be canon is once it is in writing. Even then, if it is a Wand-Order mistake, that might just be set for correction in future editions. Because she and her editors are human!
7. The Age mistake:
This comes from the World jour Chat and it deals with the age difference between Charlie and Percy.
{{ Luisa: How old are Charlie and Bill Weasley in relation to their other siblings?
JK Rowling réponses -> Oh dear, maths. Let me think. Bill is two years older than Charlie, who is two years older than Percy. }}
Groan. Why didn’t Jo just say she didn’t have her notes with her? Because well…that just doesn’t match with canon. It doesn’t. No matter how toi slice it, it just doesn’t add up. If Charlie were only two years older than Percy, then he’d be in his seventh an during Harry’s first year, ou possibly just finished the an before.
In canon, there are several passages that indicate that it has been a while since the great Charlie Weasley had been at school. In PS/SS, there is when Harry first makes the team Fred said,
[ The Midnight Duel, SS, Scholastic paperback, p. 153
"We haven't won since Charlie left, but this year's team is going to be brilliant." ]
Pair that with a passage par McGonagal in PoA when she gives Harry back his Firebolt after being tested for jinxes.
[ The Patronus, Scholastic pb, p. 248.
"Do try and win, won't you? ou we'll be out of the running for the eighth an in a row, as Professor Snape was kind enough to remind me only last night..." ]
That seems to imply that Charlie left at least five years before Harry started school, which would make at least a seven an gap between him and Percy and not two years.
And yet, I’ve seen HP fans try to somehow make that Procrustean lit of logic fit. It doesn’t and I simply shake my head at that answer. I l’amour Jo and the incredible universe that she created, but I recognize that she has a problem with math and sometimes the fine details will trip her up.
Ambiguity in citations
A good example of ambiguous meanings in JKR’s réponses can be found with the final…closing scene quote that has been discussed here at length.
{{ I think that my publishers were keen not to have the embargo broken, but they have my wholehearted support in that not from the marketing point of view, but because this was the book in which toi saw the first death and also at the end of the Book Four something *huge* happens in terms of the over all plot, which I don't want to say on the radio obviously in case people haven't read the book ou is half way through it. And I didn't want that to leak because for children ... that would... toi know... I... I've... I've spent ten years... I mean, the final... the closing scene in Book Four... I've spent ten years écriture my way towards that scene and people who have read that will know why it's so significant, why it's so important. I did not want that leaked. Because I knew that kids were waiting with bated breath and I really genuinely wanted that to be a magical experience. That they would get the book and read and get frightened and excited and overwrought as they approached that ending. (emphasis mine) }}
The portion that was debated on this forum was the phrase “the final…closing scene” and whether ou not the significance of that word choice indicated an importance to Hermione’s goodbye Kiss to Harry.
The infamous National Press club lire and Q&A session from which the famous “Platonic” quote originated was interpreted par a Newsweek rapporter as:
Rowling revealed to an eager audience that the fourth book in her blockbuster series will feature a Quidditch World Cup (ask a Harryhead), but no romance between the young Harry and his pal Hermione. Also, Potter will never become an animagus (whatever that is), as his father did.
Clearly that reporter was assigned to cover the event and had no real idea ou interest in covering the subject before filing the rapporter before deadline. donné this superficial coverage of that JKR event, would it be beyond the realm of possibility that the auteur and the publishers might be worried about reporters skimming the large book, checking out the last few pages and think that Hermione s’embrasser Harry is a big development and then use that as a tease to sell papers? We saw that the New York Daily News broke the embargo for OotP and mentioned Harry’s rendez-vous amoureux, date with Cho which caused a lawsuit to be filed. So why is the fear that Hermione’s Kiss might be blown out of proportion par the press dismissed out of hand? Truthfully, I could see that JKR’s remarks could be interpreted in a number of ways. The simplest explanation is that she simply misspoke and that she was clearly intending to mean Voldemort’s reanimation, but there is also the thought that she might have also been concerned with how a final clue was laid and that it wouldn’t be donné too much prominence. Unless she clarifies things in the future and tells us exactly what it was that she meant here, I feel that it is indicative of an ambiguous statement.
So let’s get back to the idea of what exactly is the purpose of these chats and interviews. They are used par the auteur and her publishers to help stir up interest in the series and to increase the sales of the livres (and audio versions, as well as toys, merchandise, etc.) It will sometimes provide insight to aspects of the livres that might not be really clear from the text. For example, I was glad that someone asked her about the Thestrals in the Royal Albert Hall interview and she explained why she hadn’t had Harry be able to see them at the end of GoF. I’m not sure that I agree with the logic of her explanation, but at least we are told what her rationale was behind that dramatic choice.
James potter – mischief maker – not made prefect but becomes head boy?
I wish that someone had asked her about the discrepancy of James Potter not being a prefect but that (at least according to Hagrid in PS/SS) ending up to be Head Boy. Well either it should be false ou it is true in an unrealistic way which we don’t expect of jo! I would argue that the purpose of JKR doing interviews is not necessarily to provide us with any information about future books.
The question on this forum is how do her interviews impact the Shipping Debates? ou how best to interpret her cagey réponses about what is to come in the romance subplot. To me, I don’t think she wants to give away anything and she has deliberately tried to mislead people. Because yes, I think she is TRIXY.
Secretive nature
In fact, she freely admits that she is very secretive about her story. This is shown in the BBC Paxman interview which aired the eve of the publication of OotP
{{ JEREMY PAXMAN: But do toi find the whole secrecy issue, the need for secrecy, a bit ridiculous?
JK ROWLING: No.
JEREMY PAXMAN: Why not?
JK ROWLING: No not at all. Well, a lot of it comes from me.
JEREMY PAXMAN: Really?
JK ROWLING: Yeah definitely. I mean, of course one could be cynical, and I'm sure toi would be disposed to be so and say it was a marketing ploy, but I don't want the kids to know what's coming. Because that's part of the excitement of the story, and having - toi know – sweated blood to create all my red herrings and lay all my clues.... to me it's not a ...this is my ....this is my....I was going to say this is my life, it's not my life, but it is a very important part of my life. }}
Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! It is very important in her life, but she does not even remember small but important details from it!
Her commitment to secrecy has climbed to new heights and has alienated some members of the press in the process. The Londres Times had an exclusive interview with Rowling that appeared on the eve of the publication of the OotP. This was done after "a laboriously negotiated six-page contract".
Honest, but misleading réponses :
Deception does not always equate to lying. toi can be honest, but deceptive at the same time. I have an example of another writer who was asked two questions and he answered them truthfully, but he knew that it could disguise his true feelings.
Martin Lee had worked very hard in securing an interview for his book The Beast Reawakens: Fascism’s Resurgence from Hitler’s Spymasters to Today’s Neo-Nazi Groups and Right-Wing Extremists. The interview was with Hitler’s former chauffer and bodyguard. This elderly man was considered to be an elder statesman for the Far Right. Lee had traveled all the way to Germany after the man agreed to be interviewed par him, but before the man would answer any questions, he had two of his own.
He wanted to know if Martin Lee read the National Alliance newsletter. Martin answered truthfully that he did.
He also wanted to know what Martin thought of Patrick Buchanan. Lee replied that he thought that Pat Buchanan was a good public speaker.
The interview went on as scheduled.
If Martin Lee had elaborated on his réponses and a dit that the only reason he read anything put out par the National Alliance was as opposition research and that he hated everything that Pat Buchanan stood for – then the interview would have been cancelled. That’s because it would have been revealed that he was not a kindred spirit of Hitler’s followers, but instead an enemy trying to rapporter on their current activities. (The source of this anecdote was my hearing Martin Lee being interviewed on a radio program as well as my personal communication with him.)
Deep breath, okay, now back to the Potterverse and Jo Rowling.
With that example in mind, and knowing how much she prizes secrecy regarding her plotline - why should anyone be willing to believe that just because she verbally responds to a question that toi can take her réponses at face value? Mystery writers want to surprise their readers and they do so par planting red herrings to drive the amateur sleuths off the track. Why should we not consider the possibility that she is doing the same with her interviews as she does in her text if she values secrecy as much as she does? A good example of her being deceptive, but not lying outright is in her reply to a question is one about Gilderoy Lockhart.
{{ Q. People on the internet want to know if Gilderoy Lockhart is going to come back.
A. Gilderoy Lockhart, bless him, is currently residing in St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries and his memory is still gone. So at the moment, he’s in no fit state to go anywhere. Which I think serves him right. }}
If toi took this answer at face value, it would seem like we would never see Lockhart’s bright shining face ever again. Yet, of course he had a big toothy cameo appearance in “Christmas on the Closed Ward” chapter in OotP. The difference in this quote is that the reporter actually recognized that JKR didn’t really answer the question that was posed, because the interviewer asked this follow up question:
{{ Q. toi didn’t quite answer the question as to whether he will be back ou not.
A. Yeah, well, toi know, you’ve got to sometimes dodge these things. }}
Exactly. She admitted that she will dodge questions she doesn’t want to answer. What else should toi expect from someone that has placed such a strong emphasis on secrecy?
Another example of the Lockhart deceptive dodge is:
{{ Q. Gilderoy Lockhart, one of my favourite characters...
A. Gilderoy's left in, he's still in Saint Mungo's Hospital for Magical Ailments and Injuries because his memory's just gone but I'm making no promises about Gilderoy. }}
This isn’t quite as overtly avoiding the question with the added bit of hindsight being 20/20 as the first example, but she wasn’t straightforward with her réponses about Lockhart now was she?
And when it comes to the topic of shipping in the series she has donné enigmatic réponses that may be perceived as straightforward, but I don’t interpret them that way as others do. This is because I do not believe that she would give away such an important aspect of her series simply because someone asked her.
She has also made repeated statements that she wants to surprise her readers. In the Paxman interview, she was asked an open-ended question specifically about romantic pairings.
{{ JEREMY PAXMAN: So there will be some pairing up will there in this book?
JK ROWLING: Well in the fullness of time.
JEREMY PAXMAN: Unlikely pairings? Not Hermione and Draco Malfoy ou anything like that?
JK ROWLING: I don't really want to say as it will ruin all the fan sites. They have such fun with their theories ... and it is fun, it is fun. And some of them even get quite close. No-one has ever - I have gone and looked at some of it and no-one's ever ... There is one thing that if anyone guessed I would be really annoyed as it is kind of the cœur, coeur of it all. And it kind of explains everything and no-one's quite got there but a couple of people have skirted it. So toi know, I would be pretty miffed after thirteen ou fourteen years of écriture the livres if someone just came along and a dit I think this will happen in book seven. Because it is too late, I couldn't divert now, everything has been building up to it, and I've laid all my clues. (emphasis mine) }}
This is as straightforward as I have seen her discuss the desire of not being a predictable writer. She “sweated blood” to come up with some of her plot twists. And it is because I was surprised at her imaginative plot twists, buried clues and myriad layers of meanings to the livres that I am utterly fascinated par this series. I know that I am not alone in my respect for JKR’s ability to take me on a wild ride with a far from typical formulaic ending. She loves a perceptive reader, but she still doesn’t want anyone to guess where she’s going. Because she doesn’t want to be predictable.
If she wanted to be straightforward and say where the romantic subplots were going, she could have done it there and then. She didn’t. She is also well aware of the fan sites and of some of the imaginative theories that we as a subculture have come up with.
She is concerned that one of us might come up with her Grand Surprise and she doesn’t want that. Some on the Good Ship say that her interview citations indicate that the series will go R/Hr and H/G. I have to ask why she would freely give that information away in interviews and then write Hermione’s romantic intentions so Sphinx-like? That doesn’t make any sense to me, if the romantic subplot(s) is/are not important to the global, ensemble plot of the series.
That brings us to the NBC Dateline Interview with Katie Couric. This interview has been trumpeted loudly as proving that R/Hr is the way that the series will go. This is due to her words and her facial expressions.
{{ Couric: “Any snogging with Hermione?”
Rowling: “Hermione and Harry?! Do toi think so?”
Couric: “No I’m kidding.
Rowling: “Ron and Hermione, I would say, have plus tension there
Couric: We should probably explain that snogging means kissing.”
Rowling: “Yeah.”
Couric: “Lest people think they were shagging!”
Rowling: “Lest people think you’re talking about something completely inappropriate.” }}
Before I give toi my analysis of this interview, I’d like to quote something else. This comes from Time Magazine, “The Cool Passion of Dr. Dean,” par John Cloud, August 11, 2003, p. 28.
<
At a July 15 forum sponsored par the Human Rights Campaign, a gay political group, moderator Sam Donaldson of ABC grilled Senator John Kerry, who is favored over Dean par many in the Democratic Party establishment, on why he supports allowing gay couples all the rights that married straight couples enjoy except the right to be called married. Kerry waded in, invoking history and religion to argue that marriage is viewed par “the body of America…as a contract between a man and a woman.” Boos and hisses. Dean, who shares the exact same position, avoided the question par joking with Donaldson about the newsman’s pointed interrogation. The crowd giggled, a disarmed Donaldson apologized, and Dean moved on to his support for gays in the military. Cheers. Dean had done something preternaturally political – avoided a question, changed the subject—and got away with it. (emphasis mine.)
Notice a pattern here?
**Avoid a question. Disarm the host with humor. Bait and switch.**
Let’s go back to the Couric interview again with my analysis in […..]
Couric: “Any snogging with Hermione?”
Rowling: “Hermione and Harry?!
[ She avoids answering a direct question. ]
Do toi think so?”
[ Disarms the host with humor. ]
Couric: “No I’m kidding.
[ Host is clearly disarmed. ]
Rowling: “Ron and Hermione, I would say, have plus tension there.
[ Bait and switch. ]
Couric: We should probably explain that snogging means kissing.”
[ Couric is so disarmed, she doesn’t realize that her question wasn’t answered and she is now trying to montrer how hip she is that she knows British slang. ]
Rowling: “Yeah.”
Couric: “Lest people think they were shagging!”
Rowling: “Lest people think you’re talking about something completely inappropriate.”
Facial expressions can always be faked as any actor can tell you. Frankly, I refuse to abandon my gut instincts on this series because of a few minutes on a televised interview where JKR avoided answering a question that was donné to her. Especially to a reporter that didn’t at least think to ask follow-up questions in this situation. Instead, I shall be content to wait until the end of Book 7 to see if my intuition was correct of if I was wrong.
Okay here are some famous shipping quotes. I’m going to liste them first and then analyze them.
Harry/Ginny quote:
Poor Ginny Quote
{{ Glynnis L - Will Harry ever notice the long-suffering Ginny Weasley?
You'll see... poor Ginny, eh? }}
Ron/Hermione quotes:
1. Something going on quote.
{{ Q. Is it just me, ou was something going on between Ron and Hermione during the last half of Goblet of Fire? I l’amour your books, par the way, and two of them I've read straight through cover to cover in under 24 hours.
A. Well done on the lire speed! Yes, something's "going on," but Ron doesn't realize it yet. Typical boy. }}
2. Ron getting a girlfriend quote
{{ Q. Will Ron ever get a girlfriend?
A. I'm laughing again.... Why wouldn't he?! Though he's not doing too well at the moment, is he? But then, Fleur Delacour was really aiming a bit high. }}
3.More than a friend? quote
{{ Zsenya - Does Hermione like Ron as plus than a friend?
The answer to that is in Goblet of Fire, Zsenya! }}
Harry/Hermione quotes:
1. Time to change his mind quote
{{ Q. Is Harry Potter ever going to fall in l’amour with Hermione ou is he going to fall in l’amour with Ginny Weasley?
A. In Book IV Harry does decide he likes a girl, but it's not Hermione ou Ginny. However, he's only 14, so there's plenty of time for him to change his mind. ;-) }}
2. D’you think they’re suited? quote
{{ Q. As Harry matures, does a l’amour interest develop between him and Hermione?
A. Harry and Hermione…d’you really think they’re suited? }}
3. The Platonic Quote
{{ JKR: *looking through questions* No, don’t like that one. Oh, I like this one… do Harry and Hermione have a date? [laughter] No. They are – they’re very platonic friends. But I won’t answer for anyone else, nudge, nudge, wink, wink. [laughter and sound of kids going “Aaah!”] }}
Okay, now that these famous and oft-debated citations have been listed, I shall give toi my analysis. First off, what must be noted is that there are no direct réponses to any of these questions that were put before her. If any witness in a court of law responded with a rhetorical question like, “do toi think they’re suited?” they would be reprimanded par the judge and directed to answer the question with either a “yes” ou a “no.”
We have no such clear and unambiguous replies. Therefore, I shall give toi my interpretation of how these very same réponses could be masking H/Hr without her actually resorting to lying. My analysis is in […]
Glynnis L - Will Harry ever notice the long-suffering Ginny Weasley?
You'll see... [ Stick around to find out how this ends. ]
poor Ginny, eh? [ Just wait until OotP! You’ll find out about her Quidditch skills as well as her ability to do the Bat Bogey Hex. She’s plus than “Ron’s little sister” she’s a powerful little witch who just hasn’t had a chance to shine on her own. ]
{{ Q. Is it just me, ou was something going on between Ron and Hermione during the last half of Goblet of Fire? I l’amour your books, par the way, and two of them I've read straight through cover to cover in under 24 hours.
A. Well done on the lire speed! Yes, something's "going on," but Ron doesn't realize it yet. Typical boy. }}
[The something going on is that Ron likes Hermione, but isn’t yet cognizant of it. Later on he’ll realize it, but Hermione doesn’t reciprocate those feelings.]
{{ Q. Will Ron ever get a girlfriend?
A. I'm laughing again.... Why wouldn't he?! Though he's not doing too well at the moment, is he? But then, Fleur Delacour was really aiming a bit high. }}
[Here’s a reason that he might not get a girlfriend, because the girl he wants, namely Hermione, doesn’t reciprocate his feelings. She is in l’amour with Harry and will try to keep Ron’s attentions toward her at baie through using Krum as a smokescreen.]
{{ Q. Zsenya - Does Hermione like Ron as plus than a friend?
A. The answer to that is in Goblet of Fire, Zsenya! }}
[Despite the repeated insistence par R/Hr shippers, JKR does not affirmatively answer this question. It is still left open for interpretation. As we’ve seen on this forum before, widely divergent interpretations of Hermione’s actions and words have been reached par the two ships. But now we know that ron did end up with hermione.]
{{ Q. Is Harry Potter ever going to fall in l’amour with Hermione ou is he going to fall in l’amour with Ginny Weasley?
A. In Book IV Harry does decide he likes a girl, but it's not Hermione ou Ginny. However, he's only 14, so there's plenty of time for him to change his mind. ;-) }}
[She’s not going to tell us the answer of whom Harry winds up being romantically involved with at the end of Book 7. We’ll just have to stick around and see for ourselves.]
{{ Q. As Harry matures, does a l’amour interest develop between him and Hermione?
A. Harry and Hermione…d’you really think they’re suited? }}
[Would the witness please answer the question for the court! Do toi wish to have the court stenographer read it back to you? ou in other words, she didn’t want to answer that question, so she avoided it entirely par responding with a rhetorical question.]
And now back to the famous National Press Club question. One thing that is constantly brought up is the fact that JKR chose this question. She announced that she liked that question. At first blush it seems like a slam dunk that JKR wanted to dissuade anyone from thinking that H/Hr from happening. I wonder why she would try to remove the mystery from her series, unless…it was a deliberate act on her part. I would argue that she liked that question because she had a carefully constructed prepared answer for this type of question.
I say this, because it reminds me of the preparation I went through for the Great Shipping débats at Nimbus. For several months beforehand I tried to anticipate what my opponents might say and ask. I had many different réponses crafted for those questions I thought likely. So when Angua asked me her age-old question about Harry and Hermione being “just friends” I smiled because I was ready for that. I had rehearsed for several weeks beforehand a verse from Kenny Loggins’s song “Whenever I Call toi ‘Friend.’” It was so much fun to sing that and to see the look of surprise on people’s faces.
So, if I was able to come up with some pithy réponses for predictable questions, I will make the assumption that JKR who spent years meticulously plotting her series out, would take the time to prepare some réponses for questions that she knew would be asked at one time ou another.
So let’s break down her answer into parts. My analysis is once again in italics.
Do Harry and Hermione have a date?
Part I. No. No they never share a date. They happen to be the ultimate romantic pairing of the series, but technically they never share a ‘date.’
Part II. They are – they’re very platonic friends.
[The word ‘platonic’ has many different meanings. One definition holds it “transcending physical desire and tending toward the purely spiritual ou ideal: platonic love.” The word history includes: “Marsilio Ficino, a Renaissance follower of Plato, used the terms amor socraticus and amor platonicus interchangeably for a l’amour between two humans that was preparatory for the l’amour of God.”
This sounds a lot like the idealized Power of l’amour that Dumbledore spoke of as residing in the Department of Mysteries. ]
Part III. But I won’t answer for anyone else, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
Harry and Cho share a rendez-vous amoureux, date in Book 5. She knew of this ill-fated rendez-vous amoureux, date when she spoke that jour and she knew that this answer could send many fans in a different direction. If she wants people to think that she’s going R/Hr, but wants to surprise people in the fullness of time with H/Hr than this particular answer would aid in that misconception.
Further evidence that she was indicating H/C here and not R/Hr is the quote from the San Francisco Chronicle
{{ In the fourth book, due out in July, Harry will develop his first crush.
"Careful readers of book three will already know who the girl is,"
Rowling said, smiling mysteriously. }}
Then there is the quote from the CoS DVD interview where JKR said:
{{ And also Chris in the seconde film has kind of foreshadowed what I don't do until the fourth book, which is that toi get hints of certain feelings between the three of them, that belong to a sort of slightly plus mature person. }}
Now if JKR wanted us to think that there was something “going on” between Ron and Hermione and that Hermione and Harry are totally “just friends” then why did she choose the words “certain feelings between the three of them”? She could have easily have a dit something vague like “Chris foreshadowed what I don’t do until the fourth book which is that toi get hints of certain feelings of attraction, which belong to a slightly plus mature person.” This would have been vague enough to include all three of them, ou just two of the three. Instead she used “between the three of them” which indicates that there is some form of a l’amour triangle going on between the Trio members. Especially since Cho Chang is nowhere to be found in CoS, either in the movie ou in the book. Unless someone is going to seriously say that there is hints of Harry/Ron going on in the movie, then it should be assumed that JKR’s choice of words showed that she was indicating some form of Harry/Hermione feelings as well as Ron/Hermione feelings being foreshadowed par Chris and par extension, GoF.
Yes, but whenever the dreaded Geometric Shape That Must Not Be Named is mentioned, there is the Can’t afford to alienate his Friends quote that is brought up:
{{ Q. I see those hormones kick in in this book, are we going to see Harry becoming even plus like Kevin the teenager, are we going to see him going - Oh Sirius I hate you, I wish toi were back in Azkaban?
A. I think Ron's plus like that isn't he - Ron's plus Kevinish. Harry's got so many worries, he needs his friends, he can't afford to alienate them. He's plus your sensitive hero isn't he. Yeah plus of that stuff happens. }}
As if Rowling were guaranteeing that Harry wouldn’t do anything to risk his friendship with Ron and Hermione again. So he couldn’t possibly allow his cœur, coeur to fall for Hermione, because it would make things difficult with Ron. I don’t buy that. Instead, I think we should consider what if Harry starts to recognize “certain feelings” towards Hermione, how would he react if he believed that Ron felt the same way. And what if Harry wasn’t sure how Hermione felt towards either one of them in a romantic fashion? I would think that this would be a recipe for Conflict. And as Michael Shurtleff says, “Conflict is drama.”
Then of course there is the Humorous, well within the tone of the livres quote:
I want Harry Potter and his Friends to grow up as well as older, though I'll keep it all humorous, well within the tone of the books. I want them eventually to be truly 17 and discover girlfriends and boyfriends and have sexual feelings - nothing too gritty. Why not allow them to have those feelings?
As if this were a promise carved in stone to her readers that all the romantic subplots she will write will be humorous. The only promise that I think she has made to us is to write seven livres in the Harry Potter series and that she will write the story that she wants to write.
Tone of the Series
The seconde part of that aforementioned quote that seems to be frequently overlooked ou dismissed out of hand is the phrase “well within the tone of the books.” A récent quote deals with just that issue.
The surprised about the series getting darker quote.
“I’m surprised that people are surprised that the series is getting darker, because the first book started with a murder. And although toi didn’t see the murder happen, that for me was an announcement that these things would continue within the series.” But she’s not blind to the fact that very young children will want to read these books, and that they will be disturbed: “I was always ambivalent when people told me that they’d read the first book to their 6-year-old, because I knew what was coming. And I have to say even with the first book, that is a scary ending.”
Perhaps the biggest surprise in “Phoenix” is that Harry, now 15, is finally jouer la comédie like a moody, misunderstood teenager. “I’ve a dit all along that I want Harry to grow up in a realistic way, which means hormonal impulses, and it means a whole bunch of adolescent angst and anger, actually. Harry’s a lot plus angry in Book 5, which I think is entirely right, donné what he’s been through. It’s about time he got angry about how life has dealt him.”
I wrote something similar back in this post on June 7th where I said:
Hmmm, now remember this lady has a strange sense of humor. The scene where Dudley's tongue became purple and grossly enlarged was something that I did laugh at, but I daresay that Harry's relatives found nothing funny about it. We also have to take the tone of the livres into account. Remember the very first chapter? It described a double homicide having just occurred not 24 hours earlier and Dumbledore asked why Professor McGonagall wasn't out celebrating. Of course, people weren't celebrating the murders, but in Voldemort's fall. Nevertheless, toi don't shed a tear in her opening chapter. That's not the tone, nor the emotion that she is evoking from her readers, even if Hagrid and McGonagall do tear up.
JKR has dealt with such issues as serial murder, torture, parricide, and betrayal. Some parts of the livres are light and humorous, others are tense and dark. Remember William Shakespeare used misunderstandings as a basis for his romantic comedies very often. However, that didn't mean that he wouldn't choose to use dark themes in a comedy when it fit his needs. It just wound up with a happy ending and not a body count like his tragedies did. Think of "Much Ado About Nothing" where Claudio is deceived and believes that his beloved Hero has betrayed and cuckolded him before their wedding. He publicly accused her of such grievous sins on the wedding altar. Later a fake burial of Hero was done to bury the slander. In the end, all was revealed and Claudio and Hero were happily married.
Hey, if Shakespeare can take such serious themes and do them in a classic comedy that is produced thousands of times each an - well I have faith that JKR could do a little FITD and have it fit well within the tone of the books. (As for the not too gritty bit, I've mentioned this before but for the newbies benefits: I think that would refer to her reluctance to want to write about such things as nocturnal emissions, which are realities for male adolescents.)
To continue on that theme comes the Graphic ou scary quote.
{{ Q. I noticed each book gets a little plus graphic than the last. Where do toi draw the line on how graphic ou scary to make each book?
A. When the plot demands scary, I make it scary! I am led par the story, not par artificial considerations about how graphic each book should ou shouldn't be. }}
And the Tone it down quote.
{{ Have toi ever thought "Maybe I should tone it down"?
No. I know that sounds kind of brutal but no, I haven't. The bottom line is, I have to write the story I want to write. I never wrote them with a focus group of 8-year-olds in mind. I have to continue telling the story the way I want to tell it. I don't at all relish the idea of children in tears, and I absolutely don't deny it's frightening. But it's supposed to be frightening! And if toi don't montrer how scary that is, toi cannot montrer how incredibly Rebelle Harry is. }}
To illustrate that JKR is willing on making Harry suffer in regards to romance is the récent
Relationship “of sorts” quote.
{{ Harry now “is very much in puberty, having as easy a time of it as I did.” And that was? “What I was, I wasn’t sure and I don’t think anyone else was either! I just think it is a very confusing time. Yes, he’s very confused in a boy way. He doesn’t understand how girls’ minds work.” I say that, at age 15, boys don’t normally say anything at all. She laughs and says Hermione is plus than happy to fill in all those silences with her advice.
“This time Harry really, for the first time, does have a relationship of sorts. The emphasis very much on the ‘of sorts’. That was really fun to write, actually. I think toi will find it painful. toi should find it painful, it is painful, but it was such fun to write. Poor Harry! What I put him through.” }}
And then comes one of my personal favori citations which I think if anything proves that she would not hesitate to make Harry, Ron and Hermione suffer in a l’amour triangle should she choose to go that route is the Torture quote.
Rowling, Jessica and Harry. It makes for an intimate family. And when she talks about Harry, how anxious she was that a Hollywood studio didn't come along and ruin him, how he's reaching puberty and about to discover girls, she does sound like a doting mother. She says she is possessive of him. What's the worst thing anyone could do to him? She mishears me. "I can do to him whatever I like. I'm allowed to torture him as much as I want. He's mine."
Jo Rowling will torture Harry as much as she likes. Even if that means that the romantic subplot might not be light and humorous. And even if it doesn’t please some of her readers.
The I cannot write to please other people quote.
{{ As your fan base is growing larger, and maybe even younger, do toi feel any sense of social responsibility, any sense of responsibilities to their sensibilities?
I cannot write to please other people. I can't. When I finish book 7, I want to be able to look in the mirror and think, I did it the way I meant to do it. If I lose readers in the process, I'm not going to throw a party about it. But I would feel far worse if I knew that I had allowed myself to write something different. }}
Some people will still insist that she simply will not deviate from their predicted pairing(s) of R/Hr (with a subset of H/G) because of the Tricked not conned quote.
{{ "I l’amour a good whodunnit and my passion is plot construction. Readers loved to be tricked, but not conned," Rowling says, warming to her theme. "The best twist ever in literature is in Jane Austen's Emma. To me she is the target of perfection at which we shoot in vain." }}
They feel that JKR cannot possibly be trying to set up H/Hr because they don’t see the buildup for it and she would have to be lying to her readers in order to bring it about. That leaves me with the final quote for this essay. It comes from the Royal Albert Hall interview w/ Stephen Fry.
{{ Stephen Fry:
Now Order of the Phoenix. It’s 766 pages long. That is a big book par any standards and as I have to sit in front of a microphone and read it all for hours and hours I’m very traverser, croix with toi [He was joking kids!] but on the other hand it’s extraordinary good value as toi planned seven livres in the series and toi could have written eight just with the words you’ve done in the first five. Did toi know it was going to be this long?
JK Rowling:
No I didn’t. I will say this. I had to put in some things because of what’s to come in livres Six and Seven and I didn’t want anyone to say to me: “What a cheat. toi never gave us clues!” Because if I didn’t mention certain things in Order of the Phoenix, toi could have said: “Well toi sprang that on us!” Whereas I want toi to be able to guess if you’ve got your wits about you. There are a few surprises coming. }}
Oh! Just because we are going to ask questions, she wrote 776 page long book! but still there are a thousand questins to draw from it. isnt it? so after all this i really wonder - is she great as everyone thinks she is?
*************************************************
So what do toi guys think of this?
