Yes, I know, much with the spamming. Sorry.

[heidi]

Q: How old are Charlie and Bill Weasley in relation to their other siblings?

A: Oh dear, maths. Let me think. Bill is two years older than Charlie, who is two years older than Percy.

I think ALL of fandom, regardless of SHIP preference, regardless of who you're friends with and who you find annoying, regardless of when you entered fandom, whether you're on LJ or not, whether you write NC17 or G-rated stuff, is in FULL agreement when we say...

Wha?

And I think we all agree that she should hire sjbranford to walk two paces behind her at all times, and do her maths for her. Think of what she'd save in tips per year!

Comments

[moonlight69]

but...but...that would have put CHARLIE in seventh year in PS/SS! ARGH! Jo, don't do this to us! *head explodes*

[chinawolf.livejournal.com]

*laughs and laughs and laughs* But what of the Simon fangirls if he is out of reach? Wibble! Wah! Despair!

[nyx-wench.livejournal.com]

I am thoroughly enjoying your spamming. Totally agree that does not add up anyway you try.


Do you have the link for the puppet movies you have made icons of? I was trying to find it. Thanks

[perceval.livejournal.com]

Indeed. There goes the missing Weasley!

[chinawolf.livejournal.com]

(Oh, and yes, the mention of the ages is very unfortunate - especially as the Gryffindors didn't win the cup since the legendary Charlie Weasley, if I remember correctly - and Slytherin had won it the seven years before Harry arrived... I may remember incorrectly, though, since I've been out of touch with HP for almost two years now. Meep.)

[tefkas.livejournal.com]

Odd, too, don't you think, that JKR can take
Harry + Ron + Hermione + Parvati + Lavender + Neville + Seamus + Dean,
then add two, hitherto unmentioned, fifth year girls
and end up with a class of 30 Gryffindors in Umbridge's DADA class in OotP?

[shelaghc.livejournal.com]

Ah for the meticulousless of the good Professor at times like these, eh?

(Would anyone like to hear the story of the LotR chapter re-written because of the phases of the moon?)

Ms. Rowling writes a good story, but she really needs to be more accurate in her details.

[shelaghc.livejournal.com]

Sorry - "meticulousless" should have been "meticulousness."

(Obviously, I'm less meticulous than JKR, eh? ;->)

[faelori.livejournal.com]

Aye.

... brain... hurts...

[wordplay.livejournal.com]

Wordy mcword. I can easily forgive her Ginny Molly Weasley (wtf?) and the weird vagueness re. Hr/R vs. Hr/H but this is just bad. I am irritated and have just realized this morning just how caught up I am in this silly thing if I can be this irritated over how sloppy she is on HER OWN WORK - wtf should I care if she does shoddy work?

That said, I'm agreed that sjbranford would make a fine math lackey, although that might be the kind of thankless task that would require compensation beyond cash.

[shelaghc.livejournal.com]

I loff your icon!!!!!!!!

:snerk:

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

May I gack your icon?

[wordplay.livejournal.com]

Of course - snag at will. :)

[musikologie.livejournal.com]

Well, it could be a case similar to Hermione. JKR said... somewhere (or was it on the CoS DVD?) that Hermione was 10 when she started Hogwarts, and turned 11 on Sept. 19. If that was the case, then Charlie could actually be three years ahead of Percy school-wise, and only two years ahead of him age-wise...

Or JKR could have screwed up with the math again. Yes, probably more likely

[anemonerose.livejournal.com]

No, trust me--you remember correctly. *sigh* It all just makes my brain hurt. :)

[ex-mahoney365.livejournal.com]

I can easily forgive her Ginny Molly Weasley (wtf?) and the weird vagueness re. Hr/R vs. Hr/H but this is just bad.

Then I too am awful. Ask me a math question and make me answer on the spot and I'll get it wrong every time. Yesterday I said I could get a project done in ten working days, and was asked "When will that be?" (meaning the date, not the day of the week). And I got it wroooooooong. Twice. Until I picked up the calendar and counted with my finger. *empathizes with Rowling*

[ladyguenivere.livejournal.com]

i just posted about that too! So, is Bill 23 and Charlie 21? and Percy 19? Oh, crap, I dunno. And what about the whole, "havent been back in five years" thing? does that work with this? *confused*

[ari-o.livejournal.com]

I can just see Barb tearing her hair out!

[wordplay.livejournal.com]

I see a bit of a difference - this is material she's been working with for a very long time, and a world that she's created. The characters of Bill & Charlie Weasley are different people this morning if they are ~6 years younger than they were a couple of days ago, and the dynamic of the family is different. This is a big change in the status of arguably the most central family of the story.

Even if she couldn't remember the exact number, there's no reason she shouldn't be able to say "I don't remember exactly, but there's a big gap between Charlie and Percy." This assumes, though, that she's figured all this out, which I suspect is not the case.

[anemonerose.livejournal.com]

You know, I was just telling olivia_lupin that I'm terrible at math, but even *I* can see that this is simply not correct. Wah, JKR--what are you *doing* to us? Surely you must realize that if Charlie's age is indeed two years older than Percy than you *probably* should have included him in PS/SS seeing as he *still would have been at Hogwarts*? *implodes*

[ex-mahoney365.livejournal.com]

Is it really bad that she can't remember the exact ages of a couple of minor characters, who are in fact just two out of lots and lots and lots of other minor characters? I don't know if she does or doesn't have it figured out, but I don't see why she absolutely has to, or why she should even come close to the right answer in a chat.

Someone said in Heidi's first thread about this chat that Rowling doesn't seem to put so much thought into every tiny element of the story, whereas the fans are trying to suss out Mrs. Norris's past. That's a funnily apt distinction - I think we fans put a lot of thought into the bric-a-brac because we sit and stare at the walls, whereas Rowling is still building the rest of the house.

Which is not a judgement on whether or not that's a bad thing; it's just an attempt to explain why I'm on the other side of the issue, and don't get irritated about this sort of thing... :D

[meril.livejournal.com]

I take it this is one of J.K. Rowling's patented Crazy Math Errors?

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH. Agreed. She needs a detail beta ASAP.

[wordplay.livejournal.com]

Someone said in Heidi's first thread about this chat that Rowling doesn't seem to put so much thought into every tiny element of the story, whereas the fans are trying to suss out Mrs. Norris's past.

Yeah, that was me. :)

As I said, I'm pretty sure she doesn't have an answer figured out here - I don't think she has really paid much attention to this. The problem, of course, is that she can't just SAY that, so she makes stuff up. Often that may be inspired, but this is an area in which making stuff up in not a strength. I don't see anything wrong with wishing she would either have notes on this stuff or not talk about it.

Does it distract from the enjoyment of the work to have this inconsistent? No, I don't think so. Does it make things more complicated from a fandom POV? Yeah, it does. Not only for me personally (b/c I like to write Weasley family dynamics, and now I don't know how seriously to take this very off-the-cuff answer - is this what she's intended all along, or was this just being sloppy?) but on a larger scale. What's AU now - the books or the chat? Who knows?

And I see all of the Weasleys, Malfoys, Hogwarts faculty & MWPP folks as significant enough characters to at least have their own consistent timelines. It really doesn't take that long to sketch them out, particularly if she's going to reference events in their lives. We expect fic authors to do it. I don't know why she hasn't done this, if she hasn't.

Not the end of the world. Still not cool.

[dreamstigmata.livejournal.com]

my (non fnadom understanding friend) happend to glance through my f-list, and was so horribly confused how 'so many people could be flipping out over something so...irrelivant'. ourloveissomisunderstood.

i am so bad at math sometimes i wonder if i should hire sjbranford to walk around behind me and do my maths.

[psychic-serpent.livejournal.com]

Yes, that one takes true mathematical incompetance. I suggest that anything in this chat that refers in any way, shape or form to NUMBERS be completely and utterly disregarded. Other info is great to have, such as the MWPP house definitely being Gryffindor after all of the folks insisting that somehow four boys from four different houses became close enough for three of them to want to become Animagi for the fourth. (That's something that always produced a "huh?" in me.)

But poor Ron! "Ron Bilius Weasley." Good god. Have mercy, Molly and Arthur (and JKR). Argh. I truly hope this isn't Bill's full first name. Ron's middle name sounds like a word that means "Resembling bile, especially in color: a bilious green." and "Having a peevish disposition; ill-humored." Was she worried we'd see the slug-vomiting incident a mile away if we knew about this?