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The book itself - opinions?

Is it just me, or is this the weakest of the all six books? The whole thing seemed to be fleshing out the back-story, malfoy getting away with a bit of mischief and the death sequence. All a bit drab after HPATOOTP Manning 01:52, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I see what you mean. The books have changed a lot since the first ones. A lot darker, a lot less friendly. The first four were what made everyone love Harry Potter, the characters were so real. They still are, but they're less like everyday life. Another thing, didn't Rowling use the word 'surreptitiously' at least five times in HBP? -TheArmadillo 04:40, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia Talk Pages are supposed to be about the article. But I won't take my own medicine and toss in my two cents: solid story, but not the same suspense as The Order of the Phoenix. It's not as big (the book) it seems.
What I hate is the people working over at the BBC who interview the little 11 year old ankle-biters, about the books, who say things like, "Harry was too grumpy (in the OotP)." or "He's noticing girls too much. He shouldn't be doing that." He's growing up for the love of Pete! No, let's have him notice boys. Wait, I'm can hear the roar of millions of slashers reaching my ears! I must hide. -Hoekenheef 04:16, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
I'm absolutely terrified at what Harry Potter and its ilk are doing to the world of fiction. --B. Phillips 04:44, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
What do you think they are doing to the world of fiction?
My statement is poorly worded. It is not the books themselves doing the damage, they're passable little fantasy novels, but rather the society that reads them and elevates them into our age's Ulysees. It hurts me to see adults read the books as if they were works of serious literature.
I've yet to encounter anybody who treats Harry Potter as terribly serious literature -- all of the older people that I know who read the books do so for fun. And as for the incredible sensation these books cause with younger people, it's wonderful -- there are _no_ other books out right now that get so many people so excited to read. Also, likening the world's reaction to this series to the way Ulysses is treated is far from accurate -- where Harry Potter sells amazingly well, the books aren't regarded as timeless works of art. Ulysses was, remember, banned for being pornographic in the US when it was published. Its publication had a completely different effect than Harry Potter's has -- it was immediately recognized for what it was by the scholarly community but was kept out of most people's hands by society. What I'd worry about is The da Vinci Code -- people do seem to be treating that one (still!) as serious literature :-) Christiant 18:18, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
Ugh, true. I guess when we start to see "ROWLING" bigger than the title we know we're in trouble. --B. Phillips 07:16, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
I have been searching for this area for quite some time now... HBP is strikingly similar to a fanfic in most aspects except one- J.K. Rowling wrote it. The following are not what are cocurrent to the series... 1. Obvious Ron/Hermione. I noticed Ron liked her a long time ago, but I never really saw the other way until HBP... 2. Harry/Ginny. Where did this come from? 3. Dumbledore dying. Obviously a plot changer, which are common in fanfics. 4. Horcruxes. A new concept introduced near the end that completely changes the premise of the series, which was Harry's school years ('One book for one year at Hogwarts' ring some bells?) 5. Lupin/Tonks. Once more, WHERE DID THIS come from?

Shouldn't the External Links be deleted as they are all related to stuff that was important before the release? They are already in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Crystal Ball)--May the Force be with you! Shreshth91($ |-| r 3 $ |-| t |-|) 06:24, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

I just came to the Talk page to suggest the same thing. Yes, I think they should, and if no-one objects, I shall. Telsa 11:25, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
Just to reiterate, I want to remove almost all the external links. The old ones are archived in Crystal Ball. Most of the new ones are not really notable: NYT articles should not be linked anyway because they are not free to view after a week. --Telsa 11:36, 19 July 2005 (UTC)


I believe this is not true for the book reviews, if you follow the link to the review of Half-Blood Prince, it includes links to a review of Order of the Phoenix which is still freely available. No opinion on the other links.

Goblet of Fire review Order of the Phoenix review- Another Order of Phoenix Review --newsjunkie 12:18, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Oh, fair enough. But looking at External links, now I see "In general, external links should be accessible by the widest audience possible. That is, try to avoid sites requiring payment, registration, or extra applications". NYT requires registration. I have no idea what to do now. Argh --Telsa 12:45, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Fug

I removed the following line from the article:

There is also an error near the beginning of the book, where it is written that a "fug" appears on the window. It should be "fog". In the Bloomsbury edition it is "mist".

The American Heritage dictionary says fug is "A heavy, stale atmosphere, especially the musty air of an overcrowded or poorly ventilated room". It may be a mistake, but at a message board I was visiting, people were pointing out that it might not be a mistake. *shrug* TheCoffee 14:48, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't think a fug can appear on a window. Through, or at maybe. Rich Farmbrough 18:41, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
It's obviously being used as the visible.. erm, "huff" of breath that condensed on the window. Whether this is proper English or not is really not something I think needs to go into an encyclopedia: do we have mentions of "used flout instead of flaunt" in other book articles? It seems to me inappropriate here. "We can pick holes in JKR's English", sort of thing. I think it should come out. Again :) --Telsa 11:35, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Adult edition?

What's the difference between the Adult edition and the normal editions?

To my information, only the cover page. Adam78 20:26, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes, a different, more "mature" (more bog-standard) cover design. I think the point of this is to allow adults to read it on trains without being too self-conscious. --Oldak Quill 02:03, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
Yeh, I thought that too but can anyone tell me (because although Rowling herself has stated that they aren't really children or adults' books, I find it hard to believe this next thing) if like the IE/UK Adult Edition, the IE/UK Children's Edition has the word "slut" in it, because either way it will tell me for sure if they are the same. It's on P342, line 14 - Gerbon689
Note that slut means slovenly, too, so I don't see why you find it hard to believe that it is used in a children's book. (Granted, the context makes either meaning possible.) Yes, it's there in the children's edition. --Telsa 14:21, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
I Forgot about that other meaning, it's just I'm a bit suprised 'cause I doubt that I am the only one who would jump to the other meaning first. I'd say most people would think of it the sexual way aswell whether or not that's how Rowling meant it. But thanks for telling me. -Gerbon689

Who is he?

The copyright page for the Bloomsbury edition says that the cover illustration is by Jason Cockcroft. Who is he and why does Wikipedia have nothing (yet) on this clearly talented artist? --Auric The Rad 02:57, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

Which adult or child? Rich Farmbrough 14:17, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
Child edition --Auric The Rad 01:58, July 19, 2005 (UTC)
Yes, for the Child editions of HBP and OoTP. I don't like his illustrations though. :) -Occono 15:27, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

I don't "get" the spoiler vandalism.

I can almost understand, on some level, the spoiler vandalism re: so-and-so dying and being killed by someone else, before the book is released.

But it's been out for a few days now. Everyone who would otherwise be desperate to know already knows. So why do they keep doing it?

Seriously, vandals: what's up? Explain it to me. I want to understand.

Nandesuka 17:39, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

There are people who want to read the book but who did not immediately go out and buy it; there are people who started reading it, but have not finished it in the whole 3 days it has been out. →Raul654 17:46, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
Not everyone who really wants to know has the time to have it read it 3 days, but that doesn't mean that they want to go on to wikipedia and just have the most major parts of the plot spoiled on them (like me). - Gerbon689

Chapter-by-Chapter?

Is it necessary for this article to have a Chapter-by-Chapter description of the whole book? I know it's a good and popular book, but I think this is getting into the realm of the too-much-detail. None of the other books go into this much detail. It's making the article absurdedly large and unwieldy. I would much prefer to have a brief plot synopsis. --Deathphoenix 01:16, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree. This appears to be the only book article that has this type of chapter-by-chapter synopsis (I've looked at several) and I don't think it belongs here. In general, the synopses on Harry Potter books have grown a bit unwieldy. We only need short overviews, not blow-by-blows. Exploding Boy 01:24, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Fat Lady's Passwords in this Book

Passwords for Getting into Gryffindor Common Room

I felt this book had a wierd emphasis on passwords to tell the fat lady to get into the Gryffindor common room. I espically thought the password "abstinence" was odd. Did anyone else notice this change, or is it just me? --Cameron 01:30, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

The password "abstinence" was the Fat Lady's choice, on a morning when she had a bad hangover from drinking with some drunken monks from another painting. It doesn't refer to sexual abstinence, but abstinence from alcohol. This does lead into what is a particularly curious motif of this book, though: alcohol. Half-Blood Prince is practically soaking in booze, from Rufus Scrimgeour's whiskey to Trelawney's sherry to Slughorn's poisoned mead. Trelawney's is the particularly unusual one -- her attempt to hide empty sherry bottles strongly suggests that she's a secret drinker. --FOo 02:21, 19 July 2005 (UTC)


Removed for discussion

(Chapter-by-chapter synopsis moved to /Archive2)

On chapter-by-chapter summary

I've removed this and replaced it with a simple plot summary and list of chapter titles, which follows the example of the other books. There's really no precedent for this type of super-detailed summary, and I don't think it's necessary or helpful. If people are willing to read that type of detail, they'll be better of reading the book. Exploding Boy 02:27, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, Exploding Boy. Looks like this can be one of the first sections to be archived, which I'll do if there are no more objections. --Deathphoenix 02:58, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
Argh, the "only slightly shorter than the book" synopsis returned? Now that you have removed that (thanks, ExplodingBoy), I see that the seven-sentence summary we had a couple of days ago has grown back to eight paragraphs overnight. Can we come to an agreement about what length is appropriate and then put big "hidden comments" (with the angle brackets) in the edit text to tell new arrivals to read the talk page first? --Telsa 09:31, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
It's quite hard to fit a 650-page novel into less than a few paragraphs. I think that the size it's at now is just *perfect*. -koolman2 11:29, July 19, 2005 (UTC)
I could fit this into two or three sentences if necessary:
  1. Harry learns more about Lord Voldemort.
  2. The Death Eaters continue their campaign of evil.
  3. _SPOILER_ dies.
Anyways, with the existence of the large plot description (I won't call something that large a "summary") article that is likely to be kept, this main summary article just requires a small description no greater than, say, ten sentences. Or maybe we should put a word count limitation. I'd be in favour of something like that, and I love Telsa's <!-- Hidden comments that tell you not to expand this section without reading the talk page first. -->. Some folks tend to ignore comments (see Earth), but at least this may dissuade most of the well-intentioned fans of Harry Potter. --Deathphoenix 13:04, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Removed from trivia and mistakes sections

  • In this first day, J.K. Rowling had made $36 million (£20.6 million) off the books.

-- unsourced and potentially unverifiable.

  • The word 'surreptitiously' is used five times in the book.

-- seems beyond trivial...

  • Slughorn, failing to remember Ron Weasley's name correctly at one of several points in the book, mistakenly calls him "Rupert," perhaps a tribute by Rowling to Rupert Grint, the actor who plays that character in the Potter films.

-- Is this an error? In my book he calls him Ralph, not Rupert.

Exploding Boy 16:53, July 19, 2005 (UTC) 

      No. He calls him Ralph first, and then Rupert later on.

Poor editing allowed to propagate

Some very poor editing has occurred 22:16, 19 July 2005 by 212.59.61.140 and no one seemed to had checked the diff before continuing to edit. There seems to be some very poor grammar in several of the additions, and the entire 'mistakes' section has been removed and reverted back to an older one.

There's a fair bit to fix up and consolidate back. If I didn't know any better, it looked like a very stealthy way to vandalise. I'm just mentioning this for people to be a little more wary about it. --takagawa-kun 18:55, 19 July 2005 (UTC)


All plot synopsis gone?

Earlier today I re-added a link to the chapter-by-chapter summary to the plot synopsis. Now even that's gone. Is there any reason for them being removed entirely? I think that the plot synopsis was an important part of the article. --Sanguinus 19:08, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Flicking through the revision history, it appears that the plot synopsis was lost as a result of vandalism. Perhaps I jumped the gun a little by asking why it was gone. However, it didn't get readded so I'll add it back in myself from the last sane version of it. --Sanguinus 19:20, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Teenage Times and the Future of Harry's Life

The characters in this book go through many things teenagers have to go through. I thought it odd how Hermione and Ron acted so immature throughtout the book, yet Harry acted well (espically compared to how he acted in OotP). I also thought the whole Hermione-Ron thing odd. Did anyone else feel this way? It seemed as if the characters had some kind of maturity and somewhat of an overall mood change. My two biggest questions are if Harry is going to come back to Hogwarts (which I think he is sure to do) and if he does kill Voldemort (which there is more of a chance for him killing Voldemort than vice-versa) will Harry get back with Ginny? This book seemed to have such a different mindset than OotP, it kind of hit me by surprise on how all the characters acted, although I don't think a Hermione-Ron relationship would ever work out... I don't know if this is the right place to post this, but these questions and events in the book have been driving me nuts to get other people's feedback on (along with Dumbledore dying, but there will still be his portrite and who knows what side Snape is on). --Cameron 21:38, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

I think you need to find one of the many Harry Potter fansites online. Try the Leaky Cauldron. Exploding Boy 22:33, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Removed

For placement in the general Harry Potter article:

Pope Benedict XVI, as Cardinal Ratzinger in 2003, wrote a letter claiming the Harry Potter books subtly seduce young readers and "distort Christianity in the soul" before it can develop properly. The letter appears to have been written by an underling, but was issued under the Cardinal's signature. This letter and a second that allowed publication of the first have been posted to the Internet by Gabriele Kuby, who had sent her book, Harry Potter - Good or Evil, attacking J.K. Rowling's best-selling series about the boy wizard, to the Cardinal.

However, other Christian readers have pointed out themes in the Harry Potter books which reflect values exemplified or preached by Jesus. Lily Potter sacrificed her own life to save her child (John 15:13). Harry's Muggle guardians attempt to keep him from knowing of his gifts, yet he is taken away and sent to learn to use his powers responsibly (Math. 5:13-16). Harry has died, or come close to death, in several stories, yet is resurrected and more determined than ever to fight evil. It is also said in the books that love is the strongest magic (1 Cor 13:13). Some Christian bookstores even sell the Harry Potter series. J.K. Rowling is on record as a Christian who admires C.S. Lewis, and says she did not emphasize Christian ideals in the book because if she had, any intelligent reader would be able to guess important plot details.

Exploding Boy 23:32, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

I have added it to the general Harry Potter article. Change whatever you think could be better. Cheers. Gero

Plot synopsis cut down

I have cut down the article from an unwieldy 578 words to a slightly more manageable 299 words. I also added the following comments (as suggested earlier by Telsa) in an attempt to cut down on some of the, um, shall we say "detail-oriented" edits in the article. If you feel these comments are a little strong, please feel free to edit them as you see fit:

DON'T PANIC.
BUT PLEASE DO NOT INCREASE THE SIZE OF THIS PLOT SYNOPSIS.
This section is meant to be for readers who merely wish to skim through a quick summary of this book.
On the Discussion page, we have agreed that with the existence of a chapter-by-chapter summary, this plot synopsis does not need to be very large. If you add too much unnecessary content to this section, the editors may remove it to bring this section back to a manageable size.
If you wish, please continue to improve this section without increasing its size, or you can try to expand the chapter-by-chapter summary.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR CO-OPERATION
(Current word count: 299)

Cheers all, and here's to a leaner, meaner article! --Deathphoenix 03:10, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Possible Error?

the bit with the O.W.L. results - wasn't it only fred & george who called T troll and it was actually T for terrible?

Nope. The results of the OWL came back (by owl, pardon the pun), and among the legend of the grades was "T - Troll". I immediately regreted my "known colloquially as Troll" edits earlier on. The fact that I immediately thought of my Wikipedia edits is very sad. --Deathphoenix 04:36, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

OK. what about the use of the word "ejaculated" in chapter 29? I think the line was '"Snape!" ejaculated Slughorn'

Not an error; the word doesn't mean (just) what you think it means. See wikt:ejaculate#Transitive. —Cryptic (talk) 05:13, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Copyvio problems

Hi folks. Someone appears to be pasting the entire contents of the book, word for word, into this article. My browser (I'm currently on dialup) isn't loading the full contents, but I count at least three chapters, word-for-word, from the book. User:Koolman2 has been reverting the damage, but the text of the book still resides in the article history. This is a very serious problem, and Wikipedia could get in serious trouble (since J.K. Rowling isn't shy with the lawyers) for even having the text of the book in the article history, because someone can simply link to a previous revision and thus read the book online for free. I don't know if this is possible in MW 1.5, but is it possible for an admin to delete select versions of this article from the History? --Deathphoenix 04:45, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Harry Potter and the Enormous Headache, it needs a developer. If there's a way to get ahold of one in a hurry other than IRC (which I'm unfamiliar with, and won't have access to for at least another six hours), I don't know about it. —Cryptic (talk) 05:21, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
Thanks. I don't know how to get a hold of one quickly, unfortunately. I've been swimming in these Harry Potter articles so much lately that I didn't even THINK of WP:AN. Definitely time for me to sleep. (forgot to sign last night, telling you JUST how tired I was) --Deathphoenix 11:58, 20 July 2005 (UTC)


Hi folks. I don't know what I've done, but I just clicked on "save this page" (I had corrected a minor spelling mistake) and then all of a sudden, the whole article changed into what it was before the reduction to 299 words. Feel free to decide which of the two versions is the best and change it. I only had the intention to correct a spelling mistake. Sorry if I offended someone. Cheers. Gero

It looks like it's been fixed. --Deathphoenix 11:58, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Who stole Sirius's stuff?

Can someone who's read the book remind me who it was who stole stuff out of Sirius's house? I can't remember his name and I don't feel like re-reading the whole book just to find it. Thanks! --Angr/tɔk tə mi 13:47, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

It was Mundungus Fletcher --Auric 13:53, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

I've created a watchlist

(CCed to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Harry Potter)

Hi all. To help deal with the many edits we are getting, I created a Harry-Potter related Watchlist at User:Deathphoenix/HarryPotterWatchlist. You can see the list here, though you should probably tweak some of the settings to get an ideal watchlist.

This watchlist is VERY sparse, so please add more articles to the list for all to use. Thanks! --Deathphoenix 15:14, 20 July 2005 (UTC)


Political comment

For anyone with a knowledge of recent UK history - there was a politician with the initials given. If anyone wishes to use the pun that arises, do so.

Where in the book would that be?

We or He

There was a discussion on the article itself if "He" is right or "We" regarding the use of the Room of Requirement. I think the discussion should be done here.

The passage/discussion in question is reproduced here:

In the American edition, Chapter 21, The Unknowable Room, on p. 453, about a quarter of the way down the page, in the paragraph that begins: "But I don't think you will, Harry," said Hermione slowly. It continues to "because that stupid Marietta had blabbed."
The next words there, in my copy, are "He needed the room to become the headquarters of the D.A., and so it did." I believe that it should read, "We needed" ....
"HE" is Malfoy, and at that point the children do not know That HE NEEDS the room, what he needs it for, let alone that "HE NEEDED IT" ... but THEY needed it for the D.A. and Malfoy was not a part of that ... which is to say, "WE NEEDED IT" should be the way it reads, I think.

I think it's "he" that is the proper word here, as Malfoy needed the headquarters of the D.A. to show up in OotP so that he could catch them in the act. Hermione is just pointing out that Malfoy had access to information about the D.A., but Harry doesn't have the same kind of knowledge about Malfoy's activities. Gemtiger 17:32, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Sounds like it makes sense.

You have to look at the discussion in context. Harry is planning to try to get into the Room of Requirement (which changes according to the needs of each person) to see what Draco is up to. Hermione is trying to put him off, saying that he's unlikely to succeed. Harry points out that Draco was able to get into the room the previous year when Harry and the others were doing their secret DADA lessons in the room. Hermione agrees, but points out that he (Draco) needed the room to become the HQ of the DA (Dumbledore's Army) so he could see what they were doing in there/catch them in the act. The word "he" is correct here. Exploding Boy 18:46, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Removed...again...

Previous Prime Minister

On page eleven of the Bloomsbury edition Fudge says: "... you're taking it a lot better than your predecessor. He tried to throw me out of the window...". According to the official time line commonly used with the Harry Potter Series, Fudge should have said "she" because the predecessor in question was female, Margaret Thatcher. The man Fudge was talking to would have been John Major.

--85.74.131.62 23:54, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

There's absolutely no indication that Rowling intended readers to understand that she was describing a real Prime Minister. This is a work of fantasy, and as such the word "he" cannot be considered an error.

Of course there is a lot of indication what she meant. This is taking place in the U. K. and therefore the British Prime Minister is meant. Therefore the above statement is correct. --85.74.131.62 18:59, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
It doesn't matter. This is still a work of fantasy. Notice that Fudge does not address the PM as "Prime Minister Major." Using real locations is a common feature of works of fantasy, and without evidence to the contrary we cannot assume that any resemblance to a real person is intended. This cannot be considered an error. Exploding Boy 19:04, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Of course it matters! Such things as the Muggle Prime Minister are links to the real world. And you also don't have evidence that it is NOT so! So please don't delete that piece of text any more! --85.74.131.62 19:07, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Look, clearly you feel rather passionate about this, but you're not looking at the evidence, and you're not engaging in any actual discussion here. For the last time: this is a fantasy novel, it is not reality. Rowling is a careful writer. Where she intends things in her work to explicitly refer to things that exist in reality (King's Cross Station, for example), she names them as such, even when her own vision of them differs from real life (Platform 9 3/4, for example). In this instance she clearly does not intend to reference a real prime minister (and in any case it's not integral to the plot) or she would have made it clear. I don't recall any bridges splitting in two and freak hurricanes in recent British history, do you? Calling this an error amounts to pure speculation, and it doesn't belong in an encyclopaedia article. Please, leave it out. Exploding Boy 19:13, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
"don't recall any bridges splitting in two" Tower Bridge? Rich Farmbrough
I concur with Exploding Boy (although I disagree with your "fug" thing ;-) ). This is about consensus, and I agree with Exploding Boy that this is not a mistake. I don't know if JK Rowling herself has officially acknowledged the timeline in the books. Only the movie establishes the date, and only Warner Brothers (the movie distributor) supports it. I doubt the movie will explicitly state that the previous prime minister is male or female, and in any case, the movies and the books are different "worlds". This is about the book, not anything established in the movie. For all we know, this book could actually be set in the future, and John Major is the previous PM! Or this is an alternate universe where magic exists, and Margaret Thatcher was never the PM. In any case, there is no error. --Deathphoenix 19:36, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
I remember something in one of the first four books that mentions something that leads to Harry being born in 1980. Can't remember where, though. However, I agree that it is a fantasy, and therefore is not a mistake. -koolman2 20:09, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
It's pretty clear that the books take place in the 1990's, Harry even mentions in a letter in Chamber of Secrets that Dudley has a brand new Playstation. Fudge could have misspoken, and referencing a real train station or video game machine is a little different than making a real political figure into a book character, so she oould have easily been glossing over the issue by making it vague, so adults can think of Margaret Thatcher and Corneius Fudge wrestling in 10 Downing Street, while little kids don't have to worry about political figures and focus on the plot at hand. Also, JK Rowling made a similar mistake in the first book, when she mentioned Platform 9 & 3/4 as being at King's Cross station when she was thinking of between platforms 9 & 10 at Euston station. --Wingsandsword 08:13, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
That Playstation does not help in the whole timeline thing, actually. Dudley in the book world had one before it had come out in the real world. The people over at Harry Potter For Grown-Ups went over this at length some years ago. http://www.hp-lexicon.org/timelines/essays/timeline-facts.html is a nice summary of problems with the time line. To my mind, it reinforces ExplodingBoy's point: it's a fantasy book. The Muggle world is based on our real world. But it isn't precisely the same. --Telsa 09:26, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

That is correct. It IS in the second book. Deathphoenix: You might have read the book a long time ago. I just re-read it last week. In the book Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (and not only in the movie) Sir Nicolas de Mimsy-Porpington (Nearly Headless Nick) celebrates his 500th deathday and says that he was (incompletely) beheaded on Oct 31, 1492. Therefore his 500th deathday party was on Oct 31, 1992. Simple math! This was in the 2nd book as I already wrote. So the 6th book starts four years later, in summer, 1996. Simple math again. Therefore, at the time John Major was in office. And therefore Fudge should have said "SHE tried to throw me out of the window (which would, fairly predictable, be the actual reaction Lady Thatcher would have displayed in the course that a Minister of Magic had introduced himself to her.) And therefore the assumption that there is an error concerning Fudge saying "HE tried to..." is correct, at least as long as J. K. Rawlings states nothing different. --85.74.131.62 20:24, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

You believe that the timeline in the books strongly corresponds to the events in the real-world timeline. We don't. It is quite apparent that Rowling doesn't either, with this and other "errors" such as getting the day of the week wrong for some other date in some other book. She is loose with the correspondence on purpose: she doesn't take it that seriously, because real-world events have very little to do with the plot or details of the magical world, which is what this series is about. — 131.230.133.185 20:52, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
Just how close to Ms. Rawlins are you? I stick with it: As long as she doesn't state anything different the "he" is an error. ;) And by the way, why do you talk about yourself using the plural? :D And, yes, she gets weekdays wrong. But in the case of the timeline she gave a very explicit hint. (see also Dates in Harry Potter) Ok, unless there's a statement from Ms. Rawlins, why don't we put it this way: According to the timeline and if the Prime Minister in question is not fictional Cornelius Fudge should have said "SHE tried to throw me out of the window because due to the official time line Book 6 was set in 1996/97 when John Major was in office, and his predecessor was Margaret Thatcher. Do you agree with this? --85.74.131.62 21:02, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't agree with it on several counts. First, taking the film's comments as canon is going to lead to problems, because the films and books are already known to contradict each other. J K Rowling did have some kind of input into the film and the extras on the DVD. But whether she or the scriptwriter came up with the date, who knows? If you want to use the film as canon, it is up to you to find proof that those dates came from Rowling. Second, I think the sentence itself is cumbersome and needs some reworking. Finally, this whole obsession with mistakes that the page seems to have is making me question whether a "mistakes" section has any place in an encyclopaedia article. I have a couple of David Eddings books where a printer has dropped some real clangers: upside-down question marks in the first few pages, for example. Wikipedia has nothing about typographical and continuity errors in the Eddings books. And to be frank, I would not expect it to. Why, exactly, are we covering this for Harry Potter? Has anyone asked this question? What is encyclopaedic about a series of "page xx. Uses the word foo. This is normally used in a different context. Perhaps this will be revealed later, or perhaps it will be fixed in a reprint" listings in the first edition of a book? Why are we doing this at all? I expect the question of whether they were authorially-intended to be a lot clearer when it comes to the eventual paperback edition. In the meantime, what other book article on Wikipedia contains laundry lists of queries of "she/he", "he/we" and "fug/fog"? --Telsa 22:00, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Sorry to say.. but however, Telsa, your post seems a little foggy to me... I don't exactly catch what you mean. Anyway J. K. Rawlins came up with the date. See the Bloomsbury edition (pocketbook) page 146 - here it says very explicitly - on Nearly Headless Nick's deathday cake -
Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Purpington
died 31st October, 1492

That's not something the scriptwriter came up with. It's in the book, clearly and undeniably. You might not have read the book or you might have read it a long time ago and therefore you might not remember the more intricate details of the story any more. But it IS in there! --85.74.131.62 22:13, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Got bored of the indenting :)) Oh, fair enough on the matter of book/film canon, then. I clearly misread badly and I apologise for that. But my remaining two points still hold:
  • I still think your proposed sentence is convoluted. That is, I think the wording could be better. The mention of why it should say "she", in this theory, comes at the end of a very long sentence. If I agreed with your reasoning (and you have probably guessed that I do not :)), then I would prefer something like If the timeline of the books is linear, starting in 1994, and the Muggle world of the books is the real world, then the Prime Minister in the first chapter is John Major, whose predecessor was female, not male". That puts the assumption and the information at the start of the sentence, and the consequence at the end.
  • Second, why does an encyclopaedia need to list apparent errors in the text in an article about a book when they are this trivial? What do we gain from a discussion of this point? Other book articles in Wikipedia do not approach this level of detail. I have a David Eddings book which has similar one-character errors in the printing, but the Wikipedia article on that book does not mention errors. My parents' copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover (a book at least as notable as Harry Potter!) had a misbinding similar to that described in the article, but does that mean I should go and enter the details that a Penguin paperback copy from the sixties was misbound? What makes these errors (if they are errors, and I am with ExplodingBoy here: I think this is a fantasy and that this is not an error at all) with that we have in this article remotely notable?
(On the misbinding, I think it would be interesting to find out what proportion of a print run printers expect to discard due to printing errors: Wikipedia's coverage of the mechanics of the book industry is not extensive, and I am now curious about whether two reported copies out of ten million is shocking or one of the better error rates in the business.Telsa 22:44, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
If such mistakes are rare enough, they might actually make the book more valuable. Not as valuable as stamps with mistakes on them, but still, it makes it more valuable than what the customer paid for them. --Deathphoenix 01:30, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
Once again, the important point is being missed that this is a work of fantasy. In a work of fantasy, events in the story do not necessarily correspond to events in the real world. Thus, absent any clear indication of who the Prime Minister is, even given explicit dates (which we're not, but, as pointed out, we can infer them) we can't say that "he" is a mistake. In other words, even if we know the exact real-world date when Fudge visits "the Prime Minister of Britain," we still can't assume that he corresponds to the actual Prime Minister, unless the author makes it clear that he does. And while we're on the subject, we can be pretty sure, given that this is a work of fiction, that the PM never had a secretary who was a wizard named Kingsley Shacklebolt. Exploding Boy 23:11, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
Dates in Harry Potter covers this in enough detail. Rich Farmbrough 17:49, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Certainly it is a work of fiction. However, there's a big chunk of reality to it, too and this should not be ignored. My, you're giving me a hard time... --85.74.131.62 23:54, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes, because all this is is pure speculation, and speculation has no place in an encyclopaedia article.

Oh well, there goes my point about movie vs. book. But I agree, the original point still stands. This is a work of fantasy. I don't remember all of the problems associated with Voldemort and the Death Eaters happening in England. This is a work of fantasy. Why else would Rowling not explicitly include the actual name of the Prime Minister (or the previous PM)? This is a work of fantasy. A question of whether the previous PM is a male or female is completely irrelevant. --Deathphoenix 02:48, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

So, according to the argument about the book's real-life events corresponding perfectly with the year they are supposed to have taken place in, come Book Seven (events of 1997) we should read about this new book a J.K.Rowling (or possibly Rawlins) has published that is about a boy wizard, hm? Sinistro 10:57, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

I do believe that this is a valid issue to have noted, and congratulate the poster who has done so for zir perceptiveness. That said, I must concur with other posters that it is neither conclusively an error (as some events in the muggle-world of the book have not actually happened in the real world, thus breaking the verisimilitude) nor germane to an encyclopedic article.

I must submit, however, one possibility that nobody seems to have hit upon: considering the magical powers of reconnaissance available to the Ministry of Magic, perhaps Cornelius Fudge knows something about Margaret Thatcher that we don't. ;) --Adam S. Clark 10:30 Central, July 28 of 2005

Fug/Fog

In the beginning of the novel when Rowling is describing the fog Harry's breath makes on his window as he waits for Dumbledore, the word "fog" is spelled "fug" (while this is a proper word, it describes an atmosphere or environment, not the actual water droplets, and therefore cannot appear on a car window).

While the word "fug" does refer to an atmosphere or environment, it also means "a stuffy or malodorous emanation" [1]. This is not an error.

Exploding Boy 18:42, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it was a typo, but given that fug can be interpreted in this fashion, I'll acknowledge your point. I really wish she'd written "fig" instead. --Deathphoenix 18:46, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
Actually, I don't think it's a typo at all. I think Rowling's a careful writer with a very good grasp of the English language. I'm pretty sure it was intentional; I read it that way. Exploding Boy 19:05, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
No matter how careful a writer one is, typos and mistakes are always present in a first edition, especially if the mistaken word exists in the English language. When I'm reading books from my favourite authors, most of whom are also very careful writers, I will still see an occasional there/their pair/par, and stuff like that. This happens especially for letters that "look" similar. I'm also sometimes surprised how any mistakes I'll see in final documentation, even after it's been looked over by two or three other tech writers (or editors). Maybe one can ask Rowling if she intentionally used "fug". --Deathphoenix 19:26, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
In fact, the word "fug" does exist, at least according to my old copy of the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English published in 1981. It says: fug (colloq) stuffy atmosphere (as in an overcrowded or badly ventilated room, etc) ... What a good thing I didn't throw certain school books away. ;) --85.74.131.62 21:41, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
(I missed this comment) No, I know about that. My argument was whether "fug" as an "atmosphere" is really appropriate. Exploding Boy pointed out that there is another definition that could be twisted around (okay, maybe not) to be used in this case. ;-) --Deathphoenix 15:58, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

But surely you agree that it's a bit of a stretch to think that she mistyped a word and the result was such a perfect fit? Just because a word's unusual doesn't mean that it has to have been a mistake. Exploding Boy 23:14, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

I agree on that point, at least. She could have used some other word apart from "ejaculated" for Slughorn. And surely you can agree that it's also a possibility that she might have made a typo that passed the editors for that very same reason, that it is a word that could be used? It is just as possible that she intended it to be "fug" as it is that she meant to type "fog", but had a fortunate mishap. --Deathphoenix 01:28, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough, but since "fug" is such a marvelously evocative word, I prefer to think she intended to write it. As for "ejaculate," that's very reminiscent of the William books, if you've ever read them; he was constantly "ejaculating" :) Exploding Boy 02:49, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, ejaculate is such an un-fugly word. ;-) --Deathphoenix 03:08, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm currently listening the Audiobook, performed by Jim Dale, and he calls it as Fug. This leads me to believe that it is not a typo. --takagawa-kun 20:57, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

I tip my hat off to you, and hope that the air conditioning doesn't die out tonight, otherwise I will have to sleep in fug. Lacking in proper beauty sleep, I will look pug fugly tomorrow! --Deathphoenix 21:04, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Merge from Harry Potter (plot)???

It has been suggested that Harry Potter (plot)#Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince be merged into this article or section.

Moved to Talk:Harry Potter (plot)#proposed split of this content into core book pages' synopsis sections, though I'm going to tone down the language a little bit. --Deathphoenix 02:34, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Some archiving required?

This page is now throwing up warnings when I try to edit it, and is over three times the recommended size for a page (Article size). I do not yet know how to do this archiving business, and the help pages are not proving helpful, so I'll just add suggestions from the back seat. :)

  • The first eight ("Release Date" to "The Canadian fiasco" are all pre-publication.
  • Then "Copyright?" to "Full plot summary moved" are mostly about plot summarising.
  • Then "Balkans" to "Passwords for Getting into Gryffindor Common Room" are mostly about the book's content.

And that leaves "the rest" on the talk page to provide context. (Although it's still fairly large like that.) How does this sound? If reasonable, would anyone like to do it, or to walk me through how to?

--Telsa 07:23, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

I was thinking the same thing. I've archived most of the discussions that haven't had any activity since July 18 to /Archive1, and moved the chapter-by-chapter text that's already there into /Archive2 because I anticipate eventually moving the Chapter-by-chapter synopsis that contained this text into that archive. --Deathphoenix 13:33, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
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