Does the woman not have an editor??

We not only have missing commas, but we also have JKR contradicting herself at least twice that I noticed.

On one occasion we have Mrs Weasley explaining



but then later on (about 200 pages later or so) Harry



Although I suppose technically there is a difference between

Then we have Hermione...



Allie

Yeah, I noticed those too. They're in the American version as well. Makes you wonder if she had to rush a bit at the end...although that's mostly the job of the continuity editors. She's got at least two - one for the US book and one for the UK version. I'm sure she'll be flocked with emails and letters about it.

I noticed a few other things, too, but most of those were probably products of the late hour and one too many coffees the night before...

I saw someone theorize an answer to the memory charm thing somewhere. The idea is that she merely modified the memories of her parents, rather than erasing them, and that's the key difference.

Kinda shaky, but it's better than nothing.

And another to add to Allie's list is


only to read a few pages later


I guess one explanation could be


but if that's the case



And, another one (which is not really spoilery) - Hermione's middle name. Is it a fandom invention that her middle name is Jane? I always thought that was canon, but in Dumbledore's will she's referred to has Hermione Jean Granger.

Hmm - I've come to the conclusion that there might be such a thing as reading too many fanfics!

JKR said Hermione's middle name was Jane in the World Book Day online chat back in 2004. But she changed it, grrr.

My middle name is Jean, too, but I tell everyone it's Jane (hey, it's the same letters!) because the only good thing about it being Jean is that it isn't Henrietta (which was the other option).

Allie

Perhaps a typo? Either online or in the books? They're really very close.

According to the Lexicon, she changed it deliberately for reasons mentioned here. I thought at first it was a typo, too!

Allie

but than why did she give Umbridge the name Jane too if Hermione's middle name is Jane?? That doesn't make sense since (I would assume) Jo had everything planned out. I feel like she wasn't keeping very good notes on her characters. If I wrote such a big story, I would have notes of everyones names and such just incase i got something wrong while i was writing or forgot something. Thats my two cents, also (I'm in a rush off to work so I can't find where to post this) in the past books, did we know what Dumbledores wand was? and if so, what was it?

kk off to work i go!
~Nicole

Thanks for the link, very interesting! I'm so glad it wasn't a typo - the thought of such a doozy getting past proofreading made my editor's heart sick!

Oh for heaven's sake, that's a perfectly RIDICULOUS reason to change it! Either she should have thought things through better when she named Umbridge, or she should have just left it! Jane is a very common name, so it's completely understandable that two people would have it!

I'm moving this thread, since it's more of a post-release discussion than a pre-release discussion.

The (possible) mistakes I noticed:

Lupin says that Hagrid can't use Polyjuice Potion because it's designed for human use, and he's half-giant. But Fleur uses it, and she's one-quarter Veela, isn't she?

JKR said on her site that when a Secret-Keeper dies, the secret dies with them and can no longer be told to anyone else. But in the book, Arthur says that when a Secret-Keeper dies, all the people who have already been told the secret become Secret-Keepers themselves, which certainly proves to be true in the course of the book.

I really didn't get the part in chapter twenty-four in which Bill tells Harry that the other Weasleys have moved to Auntie Muriel's house and are being protected there by the Fidelius Charm, with Arthur as Secret-Keeper. How can Bill tell Harry if Arthur is the Secret-Keeper of that information?

I also didn't get a couple of things about the Elder Wand, but that might be just me and not a mistake. If it's a wand that makes you unbeatable in a duel, how did Dumbledore beat Grindelwald in the duel in 1945? If it has to be won by violence, how did Draco, and later, Harry, become master of it through the nonviolent Expelliarmus? Was the violence thing just part of the myth?

The thing most people forget is that, whatever Jo may say in this or that interview, nothing is truly official until she puts it in the books. She's free to change her mind as many times as she likes until then.

This holds for the Fidelius Charm issue, too. I had no problems with any of those things.

I've been scratching my head about the Fidelius Charm from my very first days in the fandom, and it seems the more Jo shows it and tells about it, the more confusing it becomes.

I can only assume she wrote herself into a corner with her FAQ poll answer because, if she hadn't changed the rules to allow new people into Grimmauld Place, the trio would have been almost completely safe there for all of DH. I don't necessarily like her backtracking on her statements, but in this case it definitely made things more dramatic.

What Bill says is a major conundrum, though, because it directly contradicts what Snape says about the Fidelius Charm at Spinner's End in Book 6. The only thing I can think of that would explain the difference is intent. Perhaps you can pass on information -- but not the true secret -- to people who mean no harm to the people the Charm protects. Admittedly, though, that's quite a stretch, especially compared to what we though we knew going in.

-KC

Maybe the secret was where Auntie Muriel's house was, and not who was hiding there. If so, Bill could have freely told anyone he liked that his family was there.

The kill-the-former-master thing definitely was part of the myth, but a part that a lot of folks in search of that wand definitely adhered to. I could be wrong, but I think as Grindelwald stole the Elder Wand from the stockroom, he never truly conquered it and thus had the same problem with it that Voldemort did.

Ooh, excellent point. But then how did Dumbledore become master of the wand, as we know he certainly was? He never conquered Gregorovitch, either. Hmmm.

I'd like to point out that the reasons for changing Hermione's middle name given in the HP Lexicon are speculation, not anything stated by JKR.

I agree. I was thinking that maybe the Secret is that Harry has no idea where Auntie Muriel's house is. So, even if he's told by Bill that the Weasley family is there, he wouldn't be able to find it or them.

Maybe because she is more human than veela? Or also because being half giant makes Hagrid so large, he couldn't shrink enough? That's a good question though, maybe veelas are more closely related to human than giants or something.

Or perhaps because Polyjuice's flaw is the transformation into non-humans, not the other way around. (It came up with Hagrid when he demanded to know why they didn't suspect him of being a Death Eater in disguise.)

That makes the most sense. We know from experience you're not supposed to use it for non-human transformations, after all.

Oh, right *palm, head* That goes back to Book 2, with Hermione and the cat hair. I guess it only makes sense it would go both ways. But that still leaves the subject of Fleur. I am sure I missed something along the lines somewhere about the veela. I'll have to go look it up.

No, what we're saying is that one cannot use Polyjuice Potion to turn into something not fully human. Nowhere does it say that someone who is part but not entirely human can't use it. In other words, Fleur can use the potion to turn into Harry, but Harry could not use it to turn into Fleur. Make sense?

I have another quibble, but I'm not sure whether it's valid, so perhaps someone can correct me:

In Chamber of Secrets (which I don't have a copy of to hand) I was under the impression that the Obliviation/Memory spell had the incantation "Oblivious", and that action of removing/modifying a memory was called "obliviation", but in Deathly Hallows, someone uses the incantation "Obliviate" instead...

...or does my memory deceive me?


...and, editing to avoid a double post:

If Hermione was able to turn into a cat (non-human) using Polyjuice (unintentionally) in Chamber of Secrets, why couldn't someone impersonate Hagrid?

As for the "oblivious"... I'm not finding that anywhere. My memory is that it was always "obliviate", but I'm not going to swear I'm remembering it 100% perfectly, either. I just remember Lockhart (from both the book and the movie) doing his "Obliviate!" to try to charm Ron & Harry's memories.

As for Hermione and the cat... I think part of it is that you can't *successfully* turn fully into an animal (or creature, etc.) w/Polyjuice. Hermione had cat features, etc., of course, but she wasn't "really" a cat, even in the sense that McGonagall is when she transforms (or Sirius as Padfoot, etc.) -- she was just an odd-looking human who had to have medical assistance to get back to normal

In regard to that working with Hagrid... not sure, unless it's maybe something to do with the mass that a person would have to "acquire" to be Hagrid...? Obviously (as Harry learned), you can be fatter/thinner, etc., w/Polyjuice, but I'm guessing it has something to do with other, magical properties as well, maybe? For instance, Hagrid's immune to so many spell effects b/c of his giant blood, so maybe that's part of why it wouldn't work to turn in to some sort of "magical creature"...?

Have just re-read DH for the xth time and - wonder of wonders! - I actually spotted a typo/proofreading error/mistake/boo-boo in my book!!! It is VERY minor, so do not get your hopes up. I have the Bloomsbury first edition, and the mistake is on p.116 (ch. 8) , about half-way down:

permettez-moi to assister vous

says Fred, trying to impress nameless French cousins.

If you look closely you will definitely see that the 'i' at the end of 'moi' is not italicised as it should be! (Compare it to the 'i' in 'assister' that follows.)

HA HA! I am delighted to have spotted a mistake - makes me think i could be good enough to proofread for Bloomsbury!

I know: small things ...

Haha! Actually, now that you say that I found one, too. Can't recall where, but it was a misspelling of some sort. Not spelled Nol, something along those lines.
And I almost yelled at my copy of SS when I reread it for saying things like "Mom" instead of "Mum". Those sort of easy-for-Americans-to-understand Britishisms changed in later editions.