JKR Answers mark Evans Question

[heidi]

He's nobody, and she didn't even realise what she'd done until people started theorizing. Evans, she says on her site, is a common name, and she just picked it because he was a nobody-character, like Madam Marsh, who needed to be named.

But at least she said that many of the theories people promulgated were highly plausible. I guess she just wasn't willing to rewrite her plot to incorporate any? ;)

Want to read her answer yourself? Follow these instructions:

Click the F.A.Q (the paper clips), then click "about the books" (envelope at the right), then at a note half hidden to the left of the FAQ list, then on "F.A.Q. poll".

Comments

[mincot.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear. Yeah, the speculation was fun, but sheesh. First off, re-writing your story to take fandom into account opens up a can of legal issues that I suspect Rowling really doesn't want to get into. Secondly, why should she make a change? I don't see it as evidence of sloppiness--Evans is a common name! Only in fiction do unrelated characters never share surnames. Thinking that she should accommodate us is arrogant, to say the least. So his name doesn't mean anything? Enh.

[harlequincy.livejournal.com]

I don't think this was really an issue of accomodating fandom... I mean, it's not really important that she let *us* down by confusing us, or whatever you might be thinking. I think it was just an issue of sloppiness, really, just as lizardlaugh said before.

I don't personally care all that she was sloppy, but I can understand those who do. In general JKR is incredibly unsloppy. Everything happens for a reason in her books, and everything is connected, like a giant puzzle. For example, Sirius gave Hagrid his flying motorcycle in PS/SS before we even knew who he was, and then VOILA! He showed up in PoA.

Along the same logic, one might assume that Mark Evans would be important in later books. I mean, we haven't really heard much about Lily Evans, but we know she's important, because let's face it, she is the reason Harry is alive. Yet we've only heard about James's friends and James's life so far. No Lily. Mark Evans's name stood out because hey, we haven't heard much about the Evans clan yet, and maybe he's the window into that hazey bit of the story.

It just seemed very important that his last name was Evans... there are many other common names, but JKR chose Evans, Lily's last name. And now she's saying that she just didn't *notice*? It's just... very odd for that kind of thing to be happening with JKR... *shrug*

Jesus, this turned out to be really long. I'm really sorry about that. :">

[lizardlaugh.livejournal.com]

It has nothing to do with the fandom. It has to do with writing a well crafted mystery.

A huge part of the appeal of the Harry Potter series is that it is a mystery. JKR has said herself, if you are paying attention, you can figure it all out. That's the whole reason I personally got involved in the fandom in the first palce. Wasn't fic. It was the mystery, the puzzle. The assumption that things could indeed be figured out.

If things really are completely random, you can't solve the puzzle. The pieces don't fit. Little things like dates, phases of the moon and the number of students at Hogwarts don't bother me as they aren't really important in terms of the overall mystery. Something like this, something that looks like a clue, smells like a clue, but isn't even a Red Herring? Makes me think she's making it up at she goes along. Fine for a neat little fantasy story, not so fine for an epic mystery, which Harry Potter is supposed to be.