(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 :-)