(no subject)

[a_t_rain]

The interview is here, in case you're one of the 0.1 people who hasn't seen it yet.

First reaction -- I am SO glad Jo and Emerson and Melissa did this, it's the interview that I've always wanted to read, and I can't believe people are whining about ship-related stuff when there's so much more here.

ES: This is one of my burning questions since the third book - why did Voldemort offer Lily so many chances to live? Would he actually have let her live?

JKR: Mmhm.

ES: Why?

JKR: [silence] Can't tell you.

I'm dying to know. My one, very tentative guess is that he promised one of the Death Eaters who passed him information about the Potters, and I'm holding out for Peter rather than Snape -- I noticed that JKR did say that James was not the only one with romantic feelings for Lily, and she offered to tell us whether either Lupin or Snape was in love with her (although she didn't really answer either question, come to think of it), but she kept mum about Peter. And there are a couple of hints that we should keep an eye on him:

Pettigrew, who they, in a slightly patronizing way, James and Sirius at least, who they allowed to hang round with them, it turned out that he was a better wizard than they knew. Turned out he was better at hiding secrets than they knew.
...
MA: Does she [Ginny] have a life debt to Harry from book two?

JKR: No, not really. Wormtail is different. You know, part of me would just love to explain the whole thing to you, plot of book seven, you know, I honestly would.

Want to know more...

MA: Are we going to see more of her [Umbridge]? [Jo nods.] You say that with an evil nod.

JKR: Yeah, it's too much fun to torture her not to have another little bit more before I finish.

I'm not sure I'm looking forward to more Umbridge, but the "evil nod" bit cracked me up. Wonder how she's getting along with Scrimgeour?

ES: Has the sorting hat ever been wrong?

JKR: No.

Interesting. I've never really thought the Hat was wrong about Peter -- what he did took a twisted kind of courage, after all -- but after this book, I was seriously beginning to wonder about Percy.

Dorothy L. Sayers, who is queen of the genre said — and then broke her own rule, but said — that there is no place for romance in a detective story except that it can be useful to camouflage other people’s motives. That's true; it is a very useful trick. I've used that on Percy and I’ve used that to a degree on Tonks in this book, as a red herring.

Pretty much confirms what I thought about Tonks' behavior -- you're supposed to be wondering if she's under Imperius or a Polyjuiced impostor. She isn't, but she has to be wandering around Hogsmeade acting oddly to divert your attention from Madam Rosmerta, which is where you ought to be looking.

I'm amused no end that JKR was shocked to find ONE person who saw Lupin / Tonks coming; obviously she hasn't spent a lot of time following Lupin-centered discussions. After that comment, I suspect that Lupin / Sirius may have been completely off her radar -- not only had the thought never crossed her mind when she was creating the characters, she didn't know it had ever crossed anybody else's mind, let alone that people were going through everything she had ever said about either character with a fine-toothed comb looking for possible subtext. Which would explain why she rushed in where angels fear to tread, and also why she sometimes seems to be sending mixed messages on this point (i.e., she's said and written stuff that most authors wouldn't say or write if they were aware that two of their characters were rumored to be lovers and they were actively trying to nix that idea, but I think it's clear from HBP that she truly doesn't see them that way).

And while we're on the eternally riveting subject of Lupin's love life...

Lupin was very fond of Lily, we'll put it like that, but I wouldn't want anyone to run around thinking that he competed with James for her. She was a popular girl, and that is relevant. But I think you've seen that already. She was a bit of a catch.

Gawd, I hope she doesn't mean he was fond of her that way. (I dislike Remus / Lily about as much as Remus / Sirius, and for many of the same reasons.)

ES: It's gotta be a bad idea to stick all the Death Eaters' kids together in one place.

[All crack up again ]

JKR: But they're not all — don't think I don't take your point, but — we, the reader, and I as the writer, because I'm leading you all there — you are seeing Slytherin house always from the perspective of Death Eaters' children. They are a small fraction of the total Slytherin population. I'm not saying all the other Slytherins are adorable, but they're certainly not Draco, they're certainly not, you know, Crabbe and Goyle. They're not all like that, that would be too brutal for words, wouldn’t it?

ES: But there aren't a lot of Death Eater children in the other houses, are there?

JKR: You will have people connected with Death Eaters in the other houses, yeah, absolutely.

YES!!! Thank you, Jo! I trust that this also means we're not leaving the Hogwarts setting behind for Book Seven.

MA: Oh, here’s one [from our forums] that I’ve really got to ask you. Has Snape ever been loved by anyone?

JKR: Yes, he has, which in some ways makes him more culpable even than Voldemort, who never has.

Ooh. Punch to the gut, that one, and up until that point she'd avoided being pinned down about Snape's evilness or lack thereof. I have to say that I'm not truly surprised; I was sort of hoping he'd turn out to have been acting on Dumbledore's orders, but I think my "the Dark Arts are addictive, and he's been a dry drunk for fifteen years" theory just got a big boost. (Because honestly? I cannot believe he's been evil all along. It doesn't compute in my head.)

What I'm tentatively predicting is that Book Seven is going to be the Book of Many Redemptions, and Snape and Peter will get their day, as will some of the current Slytherin students, and of course we'll find out more about Regulus. This may well be wishful thinking on my part -- but I have a half-formed theory that the series as a whole is about love, in its myriad forms, but each book delves into different aspects of love. And so, just as PoA was about parental and mentorly bonds, and OotP was about learning compassion for the Other, and HBP was about romantic love -- I think Book Seven is ultimately going to be about redemptive love. I know it's totally sappy, but somehow it just seems to fit, and reallly, I don't think we'd like these books so much if they didn't have their sappy side.

MA: Was there anyone else present in Godric’s Hollow the night Harry’s parents were killed?

JKR: No comment.

That means yes :-)

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

MA: Was there anyone else present in Godric’s Hollow the night Harry’s parents were killed?

JKR: No comment.

That means yes :-)

I've always liked the theory that Peter was present that night to reveal the Secret. He then scarpered with Voldie's wand and set up the confrontation with Sirius after everything blew up.

Lorelei Lynn

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

My own, admittedly batshit insane, theory is that Harry was present, having stolen a Time-Turner and gone back to prevent his parents' deaths, and so was somebody else who is alive in the present-day timeline -- Hagrid, Lupin, McGonagall, Arthur, whomever. And Harry, faced with the wrenching choice between saving his nearly-unknown parents and saving another person whom he does know and whose death would devastate other people he cares about, chooses to save the other person instead.

I'm really hoping JKR doesn't put him through this, but a tiny sadistic part of me keeps thinking it would make a good plot.

[thunderemerald.livejournal.com]

:: (I dislike Remus / Lily about as much as Remus / Sirius, and for many of the same reasons.)

I'm curious now, because I dislike Remus/Lily too (although I like them as friends) -- what are your reasons for disliking Remus/Sirius? I constantly read so many arguments in favor of the pairing, that it now occurs to me that I don't really know what the other side thinks, aside from the usual "I don't think he's gay" blanket statement.

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Well, you have to realize that I didn't get into HP fandom until after OotP was released, so one of my major reasons for disliking R/S was that it just seemed monstrously, cosmically unfair to Remus -- I mean, on top of everything else that's happened to the poor man, the love of his life is dead? And (check one depending on the pairing) Lily's marriage to James / the twelve years Remus believes Sirius to be a traitor adds an additional wallop of nastiness, plus some serious canon-plausibility problems when you try to work out the details of the backstory and reconcile them with what we saw in Snape's Pensieve.

Also, I feel like both pairings are too pat to be believable, in an "everybody finds True Love while they're still teenagers, except Peter because we don't like him, and the object of their love coincidentally happens to be one of the six people from that generation that Harry's met" sort of way. (Of course, Rowling's just confirmed that she's definitely going with R/Hr and H/G, so I have a feeling she doesn't mind pat as much as I do.)

[yma2.livejournal.com]

It was a really good interview. It's somewhat helped sink the R/S ship, which is a shame 'cos I really rather like it, but there you go. I found the stuff about the Marauders very interesting, not least the bits about Lily. That is opening up a real gold mine of stuff for the fans, not least of which the Lily/Snape shippers. It is an intreaging idea, I must confess. I also liked the stuff with the Slytherins, so reassuring! Ah, so much to look forward to. I like your theory about love, it seems to make a bit of sense.

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

Well, I took the fondness comments to pretty much mean that just about everyone in Hogwarts had a tiny crush on her. It kinda seemed that way to me anyway from her descriptions of Lily.

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but I kind of wish everyone hadn't -- it seems a little too Lily-of-Aquitaine-ish, to paraphrase chrysantza. Ah well.

[mafdet.livejournal.com]

Me too. I don't like the thought of "Lily of Aquitaine" being actual canon. Oh well. I'm sure Sirius wasn't after her that way, and I doubt Remus was either. As friends, sure. But I'm taking JKR's remark rather conservatively - that she was popular, attractive, and had lots of male attention, not that every male and most females in Hogwarts wanted her.

[sixth-light.livejournal.com]

I've never thought it implausible that Remus liked Lily a lot, maybe had a one-sided crush on her at one stage, but it went no further than that and he was perfectly happy to see her marry James.

It's really interesting to think that she might not even know R/S exists...one argument a lot of people used for her tacit intention to write it/acceptance of it was that the first site she gave an award to on her website hosted R/S fic. But if she never looked at the fic section, and I'm sure she didn't, then she probably missed that altogether. I really think people over-estimate her knowledge of the fandom.

I don't know if she was confirming Snape's evilness with the love comment; after all, we know he must have done some pretty heinous things as a DE before his redemption, whether it was real or not. However, it is strongly suggestive.

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

I really think people over-estimate her knowledge of the fandom.

Indeed. We're so hyper-aware of her that it's easy to forget she's not equally aware of us. (I ran across an LJ entry the other day that seriously claimed that a reference to "deluxe Sugar Quills" in HBP was a nod to The Sugar Quill (http://www.sugarquill.net). Um, OK.)

I don't know if she was confirming Snape's evilness with the love comment; after all, we know he must have done some pretty heinous things as a DE before his redemption, whether it was real or not.

Good point -- I hadn't even thought about his first term as a Death Eater.

[dharmavati.livejournal.com]

Lupin was very fond of Lily, we'll put it like that, but I wouldn't want anyone to run around thinking that he competed with James for her. She was a popular girl, and that is relevant. But I think you've seen that already. She was a bit of a catch.

Gawd, I hope she doesn't mean he was fond of her that way.

Personally, I think a temporary form of Remus/Lily has a cute aspect to it, but that's just my opinion. However, I took this to mean that Remus/Lily was more platonic.

[mafdet.livejournal.com]

I think it most likely that Remus/Lily was largely platonic, too. Lily sounds as if she had lots of friends, and was the type to befriend a fellow student even if he was quiet and shabby. Remus, for his part, probably wished he had a girlfriend like her, but I don't think he (or Sirius) would actually make a play for the girl James liked.

[mafdet.livejournal.com]

Wonder how she's getting along with Scrimgeour?


"Hem, hem, Rufus..."

"Be quiet, Dolores," Scrimgeour growled as he bent her over his desk.

Oh my...did I just write Scrimgeour/Umbridge?

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

You're a bad person and you're going straight to hell.

[sprite6.livejournal.com]

Ew, ew, ew, EWWWW!

:D

[snorkackcatcher]

There's a Fudge/Umbridge too in the latest Chapter Owls ...

:: rushes off to scrub brain ::

[snorkackcatcher]

My one, very tentative guess is that he promised one of the Death Eaters who passed him information about the Potters, and I'm holding out for Peter rather than Snape -- I noticed that JKR did say that James was not the only one with romantic feelings for Lily, and she offered to tell us whether either Lupin or Snape was in love with her (although she didn't really answer either question, come to think of it), but she kept mum about Peter. And there are a couple of hints that we should keep an eye on him

Sounds like an excellent guess to me - it makes a lot of sense about why he would have given her a choice. I do think Snape is more likely though (I think she didn't mention Peter because the interviewers didn't - they asked her directly about Snape and Lupin?)

Pretty much confirms what I thought about Tonks' behavior -- you're supposed to be wondering if she's under Imperius or a Polyjuiced impostor. She isn't, but she has to be wandering around Hogsmeade acting oddly to divert your attention from Madam Rosmerta

I do hope so - that "used that to a degree on Tonks" worried me somewhat, as if there wasn't a bit more to it I think JKR may have overcooked it slightly.

After that comment, I suspect that Lupin / Sirius may have been completely off her radar

Yeah - especially as later on she mentioned Sirius not having time to get a girlfriend, which would be a rather odd comment if he already had a long-term Twoo Wuv boyfriend. (I'm only half pleased with that comment - it fits my take on Sirius in the Tonks-story flashback as Mr Casual Relationships Man, but knocks another hole in Whatever Gets You Through The Night.)

I trust that this also means we're not leaving the Hogwarts setting behind for Book Seven

50-50 on that - hopefully somebody will point out that he can use the protections of Hogwarts, access to the library, information about the Founders etc, but she did also say there would be no more Quidditch matches.

Ooh. Punch to the gut, that one, and up until that point she'd avoided being pinned down about Snape's evilness or lack thereof

Too true. I think that one's 50-50 too (after all, she obviously anticipated this line of questioning), and I suppose she might have been thinking of when he joined the Death Eaters the first time around. I wonder if that meant that snape's mother loved him, which Tom Riddle never got?

I kind of wish everyone hadn't -- it seems a little too Lily-of-Aquitaine-ish

Possibly, but given the way she's been described - pretty, vivacious, charming, smart, a nice person - it would be more surprising if there hadn't been quite a number of people crushing on her, or at least who would definitely have been interested had the chance arisen. Not sure which category Remus would come into, as he might just have considered her a bit out of his league even before James took an interest. Or it could indeed be that all that "Lily was very kind and there for me when others weren't" stuff from the movie actually did hit on something by accident.

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

...50-50 on that - hopefully somebody will point out that he can use the protections of Hogwarts, access to the library, information about the Founders etc, but she did also say there would be no more Quidditch matches.

Well, there weren't any Quidditch matches in Book Four either, apart from the QWC; perhaps the House Cup is going to get cancelled again because of the war?

I wonder if that meant that snape's mother loved him, which Tom Riddle never got?

That would certainly have been my guess if it hadn't come on the heels of so much Snape / Lily hinting. Maybe it's still my guess. I haven't decided.

[hannahmarder.livejournal.com]

(I dislike Remus / Lily about as much as Remus / Sirius, and for many of the same reasons.)
Me too! I've never liked the 'everyone was lusting after Lily' idea, and by the far the worst thing about film!PoA was the bridge scene. My mum (not an HP reader) described Lupin as 'that poor man with the moustache who was in love with Harry's mother.' I'm absolutely convinced now that Snape and Lily were good friends at one point, and it seems increasingly possible there may have been something more, on his part at least. I wonder who did love him? His mother, or someone else. Or more than one person?

I was sort of hoping he'd turn out to have been acting on Dumbledore's orders,
I'm still convinced he was. JKR is always clear that she does not like Snape, but I still think that there's too much evidence in favour of DD asking Snape to kill him. I know, my avatar says it all!

What I'm tentatively predicting is that Book Seven is going to be the Book of Many Redemptions, and Snape and Peter will get their day,
I do hope so! I wrote my first Peter fic today, and he's kind of growing on me. There were definite hints in his brief appearance that he's getting defiant - and what a dreadful idea of LV's, putting him to serve Snape of all people! I wonder if they'll band together, or if they will be redeemed independently? I reckon the latter. I'd love to know what Peter's actually meant to be assisting Snape with, other than his housework!

but after this book, I was seriously beginning to wonder about Percy.
Maybe Percy values courage, even if he doesn't exhibit it. I'm trying to think of an example of him being brave, but stuggling a bit. That's another redemption I badly want to see in book 7 - I still can't believe he hasn't made up with the family yet!


I am SO glad Jo and Emerson and Melissa did this, it's the interview that I've always wanted to read, and I can't believe people are whining about ship-related stuff when there's so much more here.
Well said. It was so great to read an interview that asked questions we wanted to hear the answers to, posed by people who actually knew and understood their HP. Full credit to Emerson and Melissa for doing a good job.

I'm dying to know. [about why LV spared Lily]
My theory is that Lily was working in alchemy, possibly with Nicolas Flamel, something to do with the Philosopher's Stone. That would tie in with the abandonned plotline of having the stone in the Potter's vault. LV preferred not to kill her because he wanted the information from her. It falls down a bit with the knowledge of the Horcruxes, but even so, maybe LV wanted every angle covered (or didn't want anyone else gaining immortality). I like the idea of Snape asking LV to spare her, but I don't know if I can see him going along with it, even to the extent that he did.

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

It's a gorgeous Friday afternoon, meaning I simply cannot concentrate on this paper on the flexibility of polyunsaturated fatty acid chains and am surfing around on friends' friends lists.

And there are a couple of hints that we should keep an eye on him:

I SO want to know more about Peter.

My personal theory on why Peter turned tends to give him a bit more nobility- I gave him a family that he felt obligated to protect, and even though they weren't really threatened, Peter got into the Death Eaters to protect them. Once he was in, thinking he could control it, he just got sucked down deeper and deeper, especially as he recieved the acknowledgment (at least on the surface) he felt he never recieved from Sirius and James.

I'm amused no end that JKR was shocked to find ONE person who saw Lupin / Tonks coming; obviously she hasn't spent a lot of time following Lupin-centered discussions. After that comment, I suspect that Lupin / Sirius may have been completely off her radar

Gotta agree, 100%. And while Cuaron might have mentioned Lupin/Sirius to her, he has a reputation as having an adgenda, so just because HE said it doesn't mean she jumped to the conclusion that more than one person said it.

I'm also a little baffled about her saying she was surprised that someone saw Lupin/Tonks coming. If you want to put Lupin with an active character that's not a student, not twice his age, not married, and not a man, what other choice IS there??????

Gawd, I hope she doesn't mean he was fond of her that way.

Please, PLEASE, no! I would hate to see this, because I can take up to 2 canon characters having a crush on a female character. 3 or more makes her start exhibiting Mary Sue tendencies.

However, I've always been very fond of the idea that Lupin loved Lily like a brother. What I ended up doing was having her find out about the werewolf aspect independently, and accepting him anyways, which really opened him up to her. Sort of a Harry/Hermione relationship, in ways.

I trust that this also means we're not leaving the Hogwarts setting behind for Book Seven.

I don't think we will, not completely. (At least, I'm really, really hoping not!) I'm not really surprised there won't be Quidditch- I can see where Harry might not play, or where the games might not go on because it's too dangerous or whatever. Plus, Riddle/Voldie has such an attachment to Hogwarts.... I did see one theory I LOVED that one of the remaining Horcruxes wasn't something that belonged to Gryffindor or Ravenclaw, but was his plaque for Special Services to the School. I would so love to see that be true.

And as for who loved Snape... I think it's more than one person. His mother, his father, Dumbledore, I've even wondered about McGonagall, in a way. (Not that way. At least, not since I learned their ages.)

Anyway, hope you didn't mind the drive-by commentary here. Have a good one!

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

I'm also a little baffled about her saying she was surprised that someone saw Lupin/Tonks coming. If you want to put Lupin with an active character that's not a student, not twice his age, not married, and not a man, what other choice IS there??????

Well, that presupposes that you "want to put Lupin with" somebody in the first place, and I'd venture to guess that the thought has never crossed most readers' minds -- unless they read or write fanfic. And people who do enjoy fanfic are in the minority even among hard-core fans of the series.

Heck, I've had a raging crush on Lupin since a few days before Book Three was released (I was working at a bookstore at the time and got to read it in the back room), but it never even occurred to me to speculate about his love life until after OotP. Actually, I don't think it even occurred to me that we might be seeing more of him, since none of the other DADA teachers had reappeared as of GoF.

Please, PLEASE, no! I would hate to see this, because I can take up to 2 canon characters having a crush on a female character. 3 or more makes her start exhibiting Mary Sue tendencies.

:: shrugs :: Eh, I don't really care how many guys (or girls) had a crush on Lily -- from all we've heard about her, she was a bit of a catch, and such people do exist. I'd just as soon Lupin didn't, though, because it seems like over-the-top Remus torture to make him watch James walk off with the girl he liked, and I can't think of any possible plot relevance it might have (whereas I can see how Snape's or Peter's feelings for Lily might have had some impact on what happened at Godric's Hollow).