Rowling on PotterCast!
The first part of Jo's PotterCast appearance in now up. There are summaries of what was said below. There are of course SPOILERS included.
- Helga Hufflepuff gave the Hogwarts House Elves good working conditions (which was the moral thing to do at that time).
- In The Tales of Beedle the Bard
- The Wizard and the Hopping Pot - the moral is to teach young witches and wizards to use magic altruistically
- The Fountain of Fair Fortune - (her favourite) about the qualities you need to achieve your heart's desire (magic isn't the best option).
- The Warlock's Hairy Heart - A dark, gothic tale. Voldemort would have done well to know this one before starting his reign of terror.
- Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump - (a stupid title) one witch's revenge on muggle persecution.
- Beedle the Bard was originally invisaged as about 30 tales but shrank to 5 when Jo realised she was going to hand write them.
- Horcri was considered as the plural to Horcruxes, but Jo didn't want it too similar to inferi.
- The first Horcrux was probably made by Herpo the Foul [cf. the Basilisk entry in Fantastic Beasts].
- The making of a Horcrux is a dangerous and evil thing, one of two things Jo considers might be too horrible to explain (the other is how Wormtail fashioned the child-like body for Voldemort).
- John Dawlish was originally powerful, but was weakened by Dumbledore's and subsequent attacks on him. However Augusta Longbottom is still a formidable opponent.
- Being gay in the Wizarding world is less of an issue (to those who care about such things) than blood status.
- Dumbledore, the great defender of the power of love, was made a fool by it. Grindelwald was almost his dark twin, Dumbledore wanted to believe he was good, and he appeared to offer a solution of the problem of caring for his family.
- Harry isn't really a Horcrux, which needs to be made intentionally. He wasn't an evil object with curses on him, and wasn't contaminated by it except on occasions in OotP when it fed off the dark time Harry was going through.
- Harry's scar hurts when the soul piece in him is drawn back to the master piece of soul in Voldemort
- The scar is the wound through which the soul piece found its way into Harry.
- The two-headed smoke snake was Dumbledore detecting that Voldemort's soul had split like this.
- Harry had to die to get rid of the soul piece in him, being poisoned by the basilisk but cured wasn't enough.
- Neville is the-boy-it-could-have-been. Harry has an edge more talent, particularly an instinct of the right thing to do which makes him such a good auror, but Neville proves by the end of the books that he could also have done it had Voldemort chosen him.
- Bellatrix went after the Longbottoms because they were efficient and successful at their jobs as aurors.
- James and Lily were asked out of school to join Voldemort, but they rejected him.
- Dumbledore knew what happened at Godric's Hollow because of an alarm spell on the house, but Jo couldn't remember if there was an explanation for the 24 hours until Harry arrived at Privet Drive.
- The Encyclopedia or "Scottish Book" is currently planned to be half facts and backstory within Harry's world, and half discarded plots and commentary on planning and what went in or not. Jo only wants to write it if it is amazing, she doesn't what to have to rush it out.
- Jo thinks of Hannah Abbott as pure blood (though she might be muggle born in Jo's notes.) She is landlady at The Leaky Cauldron.
- Jo was under pressure to do a fan club, but created her website as a better solution.
- There will be no more WOMBATs. She was told for legal reasons that it would be a bad idea to release snippets of information about DH, and saw the WOMBATs as a way of giving the fans something, though WOMBAT 3 had a lot of hints concealed within it. Jo might put up the answers.
- Harry and Ron didn't go back to school and were aurors, but Hermione did another year at Hogwarts to get her NEWTs. Kingsley wanted anyone in the Battle of Hogwarts on the right side, who was old enough, to help clean up the Ministry (including Ron, Neville and Harry).
- Hermione went with Harry and Ron through Deathly Hallows because ultimately her heart was bigger than her brain; she isn't naturally drawn to battle.
- Jo was sad that she wasn't going to write a Hogwarts graduation scene.
No comments:
Post a Comment