Rowling's Pottermore Notes

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

I'm not a member of Pottermore, so I'm glad that some bloggers have been collecting Rowling's notes from the site. The notes don't have that many surprises, but a few things did jump out at me.


According to one of the Slytherin Prefects, Merlin was a Slytherin. I'm hoping that we're supposed to take this tidbit with a grain of salt since I'm pretty sure that Merlin lived several centuries before Hogwarts was founded, even in the Potterverse.

In a 2007 web chat, Rowling said that Quirrell was previously the Muggle Studies professor, probably because fans had been asking how Percy had had him as a teacher before if the DADA professor changed every year. But she says nothing about him teaching Muggle Studies in his backstory on Pottermore. I suspect the truth may be that she didn't figure out the details of the DADA curse until after PS was published.

I think some of the most interesting new information comes from McGonagall's Backstory. Apparently, like Severus, Minerva had a muggle father. Her mother kept her wand locked away and didn't reveal to her husband that she was a witch until after Minerva was born. Also, I'm guessing that Rowling must have said something in the past about Minerva being around 70 years old, for most fans seemed to have believed that Minerva's years at Hogwarts had overlapped with Tom Riddle's. However, it now appears from her backstory on Pottermore that Minerva didn't start at Hogwarts until 1947, two years after Tom finished, for she started teaching at the school two years after she graduated, and we know from OotP that she started teaching in December of 1956.


In a note on the history of the Sorting Hat, Rowling writes:

The Sorting Hat is notorious for refusing to admit it has made a mistake in its sorting of a student. On those occasions when Slytherins behave altruistically or selflessly, when Ravenclaws flunk all their exams, when Hufflepuffs prove lazy yet academically gifted and when Gryffindors exhibit cowardice, the Hat steadfastly backs its original decision. On balance, however, the Hat has made remarkably few errors of judgement over the many centuries it has been at work.

So, in other words, Slytherins really are all evil? I think it's rather disturbing that this appears on an official fansite where all members are sorted by a personality quiz into one of the four houses, including Slytherin.

Comments

[harpsi-fizz.livejournal.com]

AHEM.

I think that it's JK who made the mistake, not the sorting hat. A person can be ambitious and cunning, but be selfless.
A person can be brave, but cowardly at times.
There isn't only one type of smart.
Hufflepuffs are also loyal and fair, which have no bearing on laziness. In fact, a flunking Ravenclaw could be lazy.

She's just now realizing how many "Slytherpuffs" and "Ravendors" there are, and that people don't just fall perfectly into four categories. If she'd back off of her universe a little bit and just say "the hat puts you where you'll do best, and nobody is good or evil" then there'd be no problem.

Again, Jo, very creative, entertaining writer, but you ruin it when you grip your darlings too tightly and refuse to admit your own fault. Nobody's going to hate you for saying you made a mistake/weren't clear/thought better of it on careful examination. Just own up.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. You can be ambitious in your desire to make the world better, like wanting to end hunger or homelessness. You might be fine speaking in front of hundreds or thousands of people yet terrified of riding roller coasters. And some of the most creative people ever were poor students.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Also, there are brave people on both sides of any conflict. One can be brave in the name of an evil cause (see Bellatrix). Bravery does not in its own make one a good person nor one who by necessity makes the world better.

Similarly, once can be loyal to a group who is doing evil.

[harpsi-fizz.livejournal.com]

DAMN! Until you said that, I didn't realize how damned intwined bravery and goodness were in my head! But yeah... I guess so. If bravery and goodness were a package deal, then there would be no evil because the evil would be too cowardly to come out and make bad stuff happen.

[oryx_leucoryx]

I suppose there is some negatively-colored word to describe the daring and self-sacrificing people of the 'other side'. But whichever it is, 'they' use it for 'our' brave people. Whoever 'we' and 'they' might be.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

----I suppose there is some negatively-colored word to describe the daring and self-sacrificing people of the 'other side'

Terrorists?

[harpsi-fizz.livejournal.com]

*Remembers Blackadder, all of 'em*

Let's pretend that JK was trying to do some subtle Brit humor in that style and her idiot fans were the ones that took it too far.

And Re: Danny_Sparks' comment... yeah, actually. I remember two DJs from New York were even speculating one day on their talk show about that. Ron Bennington, he said "What if I'm wrong and it's Bin Laden's God that's the real one? I don't know. Nobody does."

[harpsi-fizz.livejournal.com]

So damned true.
I don't wanna be "that fan" who looks into things too closely and speculates and makes assumptions about the author's beliefs and overcomplicates/runs things, but being "smart" ought to be more than being good at learning in the sit-down-and-listen way. Just about everyone proves himself/herself to be brilliant learners if they're presented with the material in the right way. Like audio learners, tactile learners, visual learners.

*Totally O.T here, you'll forgive me*
I know some ridiculously-old fashioned people will insist that some kids are "just lazy, that's why they don't learn" and that will think that these new methods of presenting material is a bunch of "hippie liberal bullshit" but they couldn't be any more wrong. People's brain chemicals and chemistry are different. Just like lactose intolerant people aren't "just being stubborn" when they get sick from drinking milk. There are lazy kids, sure, but it seems to be just as lazy to write every single one off as "lazy" without first trying to see if a diet change or a change in the way they're allowed to study would cure their behavior.

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

"A person can be ambitious and cunning, but be selfless."

And then there's people like the villain from the fourth-generation Pokemon games (a textbook Slytherin), who honestly thought he was being caring and selfless but made tons of trouble for everyone.

This was touched upon in a previous post, where someone suggested that Rowling isn't smart enough to understand or write about true cunning, so she just makes her "cunning" characters more selfish than the standard to compensate.

[harpsi-fizz.livejournal.com]

Are you talking about Team Aqua or another team? I know Team Aqua is trying to awaken a (Kraken-like Pokemon? Cthulhu?), and I'm not sure why they're doing it, but it probably isn't because they're trying to destroy the world. Yanno, 'cause... if you're gonna destroy the world, you'd better have a place to stand, right?

*Absolutely arbitrary direction* There really is no truly evil human being, as someone in a previous post said. Nobody thinks themselves "evil", even in H.P's world. Even the worshipers of the arguably most sinister God (and my personal favorite) Cynothoglys, the Mortician God... all summoning her does is bring her, "a shapeless, multiform entity with a single arm used for catching those who summoned it and bringing them painless, ecstatic death." That's not hurting anyone.

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'm talking about the leader of Team Galactic. Team Aqua (along with their counterpart Team Magma) is from a different generation entirely. What Team Galactic's leader Cyrus wants is to destroy the universe and rebuild it again from scratch, but that's because he honestly thinks that in doing so he could remove the problems that plague the world.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

Wow, nice distinction there. The "ambitious, cunning, yet selfless" thing makes me think of that famous Bible passage about being as wise as serpents, yet as innocent as doves. Was that sort of what you were thinking of?

[harpsi-fizz.livejournal.com]

I wasn't, though that would be a very appropriate passage. I was mostly just thinking about how unfair it is to just pigeonhole someone. (Made a Gaia thread about it and got some beautiful testimonials, including those from self-identified Gryffindors who were annoyed with the favoritism).

It's just very interesting that a woman who, when she wrote these books, had been on welfare and struggling. You'd think she'd think a little bit more about grouping people together and resigning yourself to how they're "just going to turn out".

But for our own sanity, let's just say that she realized that people were stupid and wanted things in absolutes and so she was just giving the half-thinking masses what they wanted.