Pottermore-

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Okay - I confess; I joined Pottermore, out of sheer curiosity. I want to know if, by any strange chance, I will sort to Slytherin, and also what sort of wand I get. Still, some things struck me at once (I've spent about 20 minutes exploring the first chapter):

When describing Number 4, Privet Drive, Rowling said that she chose the number four because she disliked that number, finding it hard and unforgiving. I believe those were the exact words! Do you suppose that feeling is limited to the number four, or might it extend to other numbers?

On a more serious note, she based the look and floorplan of the house on that of a house she lived in herself - and got wierded out because, without discussing it with her, the filmmakers got the floorplan exactly right.

And - this is fascinating! - she had to argue with the publishers, who wanted to convert all the British measurements into metric ones. She also said that Wizards can do complex calculations magically. Can they, really? Then why did we never see them doing this?

Oh, dear. Maths.

But I'm very glad that she talked the publishers into keeping the old fashioned measurements. Can you imagine a metric Wizarding World? I can't.

Comments

[wolf-willow31.livejournal.com]

Most things I can think of are better, so I guess the bigger challenge is to think of something that's worse. Maybe Grimm's Fairy Tales? According to Wikipedia, "although they were called "Children's Tales", they were not regarded as suitable for children". Many of us here would doubt the suitability of HP, too.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

That's not a fair comparison, though, because they were never intended to be children's stories. The Grimm brothers were historians who were collecting folklore for posterity before the stories died out. Nothing but adult bigotry towards fantasy and supernatural stories caused people to regard them as "children's stories." A lot of stories that were never intended to be children's stories have been classified that way out of what I call book bigotry, e.g. Jack London's dog novels and Black Beauty. Those stories are about animals, so they have to be kids' books, right? The latter is actually a social protest novel about cruelty to carriage horses. No decent Victorian lady would have put graphic descriptions of animals being shot, mutilated, burned to death, or dying of abuse in a children's book.

In addition, the Grimm stories teach a much healthier worldview than HP does. For example, they teach the importance of being kind to everyone, no matter how insignificant they may appear to be; that hard work and perseverance are necessary to success; that people who are fawned over and pampered by authority figures become lazy, self-indulgent failures who expect everything to be given to them just because they're so wonderful, while people considered by the powerful to be no-account losers are the real heroes/heroines because they exemplify the virtues of kindness, hard work, and perseverance.

It just occurred to me while writing that, but I think that's a big reason so many fans see Snape as the real hero of HP: He fits the trope of the despised character who succeeds because he works hard and perseveres (although he's not kind, unfortunately). Harry and the other designated good guys mostly fit the trope of the favored children who fail because of their laziness, selfishness, and conceit. And in fact, the only reason they did succeed was because of divine authorial intervention. In a universe based on fairness, they would have failed spectacularly. Harry et al are like the scions of a rich and powerful family who are never allowed to fail because Mommy and Daddy always come along and bail them out when they make mistakes (e.g., old fashioned European royalty, or the modern Bush and Kennedy families).

[wolf-willow31.livejournal.com]

Interesting ideas. Thanks. There is indeed an unfortunate prejudice against Imaginative Fiction in our culture. And yes, now that I think about it, Grimm's Fairy Tales do teach some sound moral lessons, unlike HP. Although JKR makes an attempt at a moral message about racism and fascism, it's very clumsy and it misses its target IMO (in fact, I think it would be fair to say that it shoots itself in the foot).

Yesterday I heard a talk by the sci-fi author Robert J Sawyer on how to write good Imaginative Fiction, and without launching into a major essay here, I noticed that HP failed on every point. All the characters (with the exception of Snape, and possibly the Malfoys), and the wizarding world itself, end up pretty much the same as they started out, with no real change at all.

I like your observation that Harry et al. are like the scions of a rich and powerful family who are never allowed to fail … That switches them into the position that JKR no doubt intended Draco to occupy. Fascinating.