One Two more question about yesterday's interview...

[heidi]

Why does she think Uncle Vernon is that much more despicable dislikable than Voldemort? Or Lucius? Or Bellatrix?


And does anyone remember that in OotP, when Dennis Creevey is a second year, he shows up in Hogsmeade for the first DA day anyway? And that the term FLINT comes from the fact that she had Marcus at school a year after he should've left? She has an established track record of messing up ages. It doesn't mean she is TEH EBIL or that she's a terrible writer or a bad person.

But she does it. She's done it in the past, and crowns to galleons she'll do it again. We poke, we snark and we *ignore it* because it doesn't mesh up with the rest of the universe.

I'm wondering, here, how many people were in the fandom back when we lived through the Wand Order Issue of 2000? It might look now like we are making a big deal of the fact that the maths make no sense, but belive me, this is NOTHING compared to what happened when we read GoF and James and Lily didn't come out of the wand in the expected order.



Who died first? James or Lily?

According to Book 1, Ch. 17, Voldemort tells Harry that he killed James first,
then Lily (who was protecting Harry). Also in Book IV, JKR restates in that
Voldemort killed James and then Lily, which goes against the idea that she made
an error in the graveyard scene. Elsewhere in Book IV, however, during the
Priore Incantatum, which makes spells come out of a wand backwards, James’
‘shadow” may have come out before Lily’s; if it did, then she was cursed first,
and he was cursed second. However, there has been speculation that the “shadow”
that Harry thought was James was either Voldemort himself, or a version of
Harry, as the result of the rebounded Avada Kevadra curse. Discussion on the
list has developed various theories of how James and Lily were killed. (1)
Voldemort arrived with the intent to kill Harry, encounters James in a front
room and brushes past him, intent on his target. James is unable to deflect him
or hold him off, but Voldemort does not curse him at this point. Lily is trying
to shield Harry and won't get out of the way, so, Voldemort kills her. Then,
James steps in & tries to shield his son, and Voldemort disposes of him too.
However, this theory does not explain why Lily’s death, rather than the deaths
of both parents, gave Harry the protection Dembledore spoke about in Book 1, or
how the house was destroyed, which is not a common occurance in Avada Kedavra
curses, as Voldemort would not have had the strength to do this after being hit
by the rebounded curse. (2) Voldemort came to the Potters’ house, killed James,
demanded that Lily step aside so he could kill Harry, then killed Lily when she
refused, then tried to kill Harry, and the curse then rebounded; the order in
which his parents came out of the wand was somehow controlled by Harry himself.
(3) James may have been killed by a curse which he deflected, but which
rebounded against the house, causing something to fall on him which he could not
prevent. (4) James somehow wasn’t killed by Voldemort, but after Lily was
killed, and Voldemort destroyed, a Death Eater on the scene (possibly Wormtail
or Snape) killed James with Voldemort’s wand. (5) Voldemort was after Harry, not
James, so James gave Harry a polyjuice potion so he looked like James and then
James drank one himself to look like Harry, so Harry would be protected since
Voldy wasn't after James. For more discussion, see Message 4232, 4241, 4267,
4270, N2871, N1530, N1767, N1825 or the Mysteries FAQ.


When the book was "corrected" pennylin posted to HPfGU:

I too would have preferred if she'd just come up with a
creative explanation or plot device in a later book for why it worked
the way it did. After all, our group came up with several plausible
reasons why James might have come out first! This, in my mind, would be
preferable to having such a big "goof-up" in over 3.8 million US copies
alone. And, the fix just seems lame to me; the scene doesn't read right
at all.

Sounds vaguely similar to some of the chatter of the past few days, in earnestness if not in actual topic, doesn't it?

Pointing out errors in things she says doesn't mean that said error-pointer should leave the fandom (as I saw someone suggest yesterday) and it doesn't mean that we have no respect at all for JKR's writing or her universe or her creativity or anything. It's just a *thing* and perhaps it's only a little thing, but it's a day's diversion and amusement and isn't that what fandom is for?

To be honest, I'd rather be reading everyone's takes on the interview, even where there are debates about the meaning of certain of her answers, than read yet again that people have gone to battlestations.

Comments

[ari-o.livejournal.com]

I thought she said he was her least favorite character. I can see sort fo reveling in the evil of Voldie - he would be sort of fun to write. But Vernon is just painful.

[sundancekid.livejournal.com]

She said he was the character she most disliked. And I can see why, maybe. Voldie has no *reason* to be anything but evil to Harry, but Uncle Vernon, he's supposed to love Harry and take care of him. He's the cause of just as much (maybe more) of Harry's angst as Voldemort is, and there's no excuse for it.

...if that made any sense.

[narcissam.livejournal.com]

I agree with Ari that she finds Uncle Vernon most painful to write, not necessarily the most evil objectively. But if she's seeing Vernon as having a) destroyed Petunia (which I think is quite possible) b) never let Dudley have a chance, he could come out as very painful and horrible. I presume Dudley's dementor memory has something to do with this.

NM

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

I think it's because Vernon is an exaggerated example of a real-life type, and therefore his unpleasantness has a "realism" that the standard evil overlord and henchpeople doesn't.

Or that he and Marge, and to some extent Petunia also, have actually wandered over from a Dahl book, and are increasingly looking out of place in the Potterverse, which would make them hard to write.

[abigail89.livejournal.com]

Unlike Voldie, Lucius, & Bellatrix, Vernon Dursley is family. Not blood, but he is Harry's uncle. I think JKR is put off by his despicable verbal and mental abuse of Harry, which is more insidious than what Lucius or Bellatrix can dish up. Voldie is probably getting there as far as mental abuse, but still, Vernon has known him since he was a baby.

[bloodybrilliant.livejournal.com]

I agree. I mean, my most hated HP characters are Vernon, Marge, and Umbridge. And I totally see where she is coming from, as you say, with Vernon being family and treating Harry so cruelly and just worse than a pest in your home. I was really stunned when I first read the books at the hatred the Dursleys had for Harry. I get such a bad feeling when I read about Harry's summers with those people! I think I would say the same thing if I were her.

[abigail89.livejournal.com]

Reading the "Dursley" section of the books to my kids was always really hard. But it prompted a lot of discussion about how this kind of shit goes on for real, probably for some of their classmates. It was an eyeopener for them; they can't imagine family members treating little kids that way.

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

Apropos of flints, in OoTP she has Hermione noticing that Oliver Wood is no longer with them, despite the fact that he left over a year ago and she met and chatted to him at the World Cup about, inter alia, his first job.

I just think someone at Bloomsbury ought to do some damn editing. After all, they're making enough out of it, too.

From the Publisher's perspective...

[clio-the-muse.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's probably not Bloomsbury who does the copy-editing. No publishing company that I can think of does in-house copy-editing; rather, they all rely upon a motly assortment of freelance copyeditors. Because of pressure to produce books by deadline (especially books as longed for as HP), there is rarely enough time to review each individual copyedit, and almost never enough time to send a manuscript back for more copyediting.

And especially with fantasy series books (HP, Wheel of Time, etc.), the file of characters' names, descriptions, and ages can be extremely thick and hard to crossreference for that freelance worker. What surprises me is that there are so many small age errors in her books, but that there are so few. Imagine if you, working on a really tight deadline, had to proofread and error check a 500 page manuscript with over one hundred characters each in four houses and seven years.

To make matters worse, it's probably not the same copyeditor reviewing each of the installments in the series. To make matters even more worse, the British, American, Australian, Finnish, etc., editions are all licensed to different publishing companies, who might themselves call upon difference copyeditors for each different edition. Remember also that there is no master list of character details; each company producing an edition of HP has to compile the list themselves.

Yeah, it's that there are so few errors that shocks me.

[abbeyrd.livejournal.com]

Nothing to do with the post, but I heard a rumor you wouldn't mind seeing video of Billeh on the Sharon Osbourne show. :)

Hear, hear

[gwendolyngrace.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. Flints happen, that's why they're called mistakes.

If we weren't so invested in the books, then we wouldn't be half so annoyed when they go off differently to what we envision.

I said this at FAP, and I'll say it here: any fan can easily accept things that they agree with. Some fans are better than others at letting go of things about which they're wrong. But *every* fan has certain issues they feel strongly about, and the nice thing about fanfic is that we are always, always, within our prerogative to turn canon on its ear if we so wish.

[hiddenhibiscus.livejournal.com]

You know, I agree with your question about why Vernon was worse than Voldie, but I have even more of a problem with Petunia than Vernon. (Must be that 'mom' thing.) This has left me wondering heavily on what we'll see about her in book six and seven.

[heart-of-wine.livejournal.com]

I remember the wand order debates and speculation. I was more of a lurker then, but I remember being disappointed when she changed the scene. Like Penny said, it just doesn't read right with the change.

[bloodybrilliant.livejournal.com]

Not meaning to go off on a old topic but about the scene change:
I first read the books right over a year ago and in paperback, so I am pretty sure I probably read the "re-written" scene. What is the difference? I mean, in the version I read, I remember being sort of confused by it and thinking, "Wait a minute! Something is wrong here." So now I am not sure if I got the original goof or the confused version. If it is too long to explain here, you can go on my lj.
Or is there a page somewhere with the two versions I could read for myself?
Thanks.

[heart-of-wine.livejournal.com]

In the original version Harry's father, and then Harry's mother came out of the wand. If they are supposed to come out in reverse order to how they were killed, that would imply that Harry's mother was killed first, and then his father.

When fixed in subsequent editions, the order out of the wand was Harry's mother, and then his father, which is much more in keeping with what we know about that fateful day - that Harry's father met Voldemort first athe door, and then Harry's mother died trying to protect him after Harry's father was killed.

I hope that helps!
Elia

[marinarusalka.livejournal.com]

Well, the question was which character she disliked the most, not which she considered most evil/despicable/whatever. I know I often find, both when reading and when writing, that I hate some particularly obnoxious minor character a lot more than I hate the villain. The villain after all, has a Big Villain Agenda (TM) that both explains his or her nastiness and serves to move the story along in interesting ways. The obnoxious minor characters, OTOH, are just obnoxious.

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

So many theories. We know JKR looks at fansites, so she must know that her every word is going to be parsed and analyzed and rendered unconscious and quoted until The End of Time^TM.

So she's bad at math--not that big a deal, is it? It was still a great chat to read. Very gracious of her to take the time to answer questions at all.

[debellatrix.livejournal.com]

She has an established track record of messing up ages.
Actually I liken that to when parents can't keep their kids name's straight. Heck, that happened at our house and there were only 2 of us.

[kokopoko.livejournal.com]

I do remember the wand order issue. Quite the topic for awhile.

I think Uncle Vernon is horrid because he tormented and abused a child for 10 years. He in my mind is also worse than voldemort. I lived with an uncle vernon. At least volemort cuts to the quick and doesn't draw it out.

[meril.livejournal.com]

And does anyone remember that in OotP, when Dennis Creevey is a second year, he shows up in Hogsmeade for the first DA day anyway?

No, I missed that. Oops.

I came in on the tail end of the wand order thing. It amused me for various reasons--no, not the arguments; the existence of the error.

It's not just the HP fandom that nitpicks canon errors. Somehow I think that the David Weber fanbase is even *worse* on that point (me included.) Then again, he encourages us to find errors and to let him know...

[no-remorse.livejournal.com]

The wand order thing, Marcus Flint, Charlie's age... all this will be nothing compared to complaints that will pile up after Book Seven is released. No, not even the "hate the ending" complaints. The good stuff.

The problem is right now everyone in fandom is on the "JKR is going to fix it in the next book" drug. So if Rowling doesn't finish a storyline, leaves questions open like "What about the mirror, veil, Snape, Narcissa, Winky, SPEW..." or doesn't explain why Peter didn't appear in OotP or how the veil really works, then we believe that she will answer all these question, finish all the storylines, explain everything we want to know in Book Six and Seven.

We believe that Rowling is going to fix up her own plot perfectly. She has still two books to do that after all. Now imagine what this fandom will do with all the inresolved plots and issues when there won't be another book for fixing, explaining, finishing on the horizon?

I am getting a headache by just thinking about it.

[meril.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking "write fanfic" is what the fandom's going to do.

JKR won't fix the holes. I never had infinite faith in her in the first place, unlike some Potterfen, but at this point my confidence in her is somewhere in the tank, and the tank's located in the Marianas Trench.

[ani-bester.livejournal.com]

I think the general explanation for Vernon over Voldemort that others have posted is pretty good.
Plus, villains, evil slime though they may be, are usually interesting to write on some level.

All I can say though is, considering she only once since the third book used Peter's first name, I was surprised it wasn't him. Makes me more curiouser about where he's going/where he's been if he's not her least liked character cause I'd say he mucked up lives as much as Vernon ever has and how!

As for mistakes, God Lord, The Gunslinger by Stephen King had so many mistakes in it when compared to the continuity of later books that he has completely re-written the whole thing. I mean people were taken out, added in, names were changed etc. At least she hans't decided mid way thorught that Lucius and Bella are actually the same person ^^;;

And the third volume of the ElvenBane chronicles was messed up bad enough that they actually recalled the book and didn't release it for another 5 years, making it something like 10 or so years between book 2 and 3.

By which I mean to say, JKR has the least amount of problems with her books than an other ongoing series I'm reading so I gotta give her credit for that. *L* That might be way I'm generally laid back aobut her flints and how they're dealt with. I'm too busy throtteling Stephen King =P

As for bad blood in the fandom . . . I guess when people feel storngly and have the anonimity of the net, things happen that normally might not. Sad but true.

Everyone's reactions have been interesting though, that's for sure.

[lifeinpoetry.livejournal.com]

I remember the Wand Order issue. Was I in fandom? Heh. Can't remember. 'Twas a long time ago.

Uncle Vernon more dislikable? He's blood. He's completely human. He's related to Harry and is supposed to love and take care of him. Leaving a baby in the care of the Dursleys is horrible. Abusive, mean, nasty people that they are. Deatheaters are show to us as somewhat less than human while Uncle Vernon is like many other people in our society. We know (I hope we do ;) ) that there aren't really Deathaters running about and killing people with magic while we do know that there are children out there in the care of "Uncle Vernons."

Gabrielle