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Well, I'm sorry to have to disagree with you again. As mentioned, Jo hinted at so much that had to do with the first half of the series, and no one picked up on these clues. It wouldn't have spoiled anything! Sirius Black was mentioned in passing in the very first chapter of book one, but no one thought he would become important. The diary was a Horcrux all along, but it was never suspected of being anything more than it was in book two. These are examples of hints for the overall arc of the story. Then there are also the individual book clues, which include things like Pettigrew's and Scabbers's missing finger (I have yet to find someone who caught this before the reveal) and also the four appearances of a beetle throughout Goblet of Fire, which later turns out to be Rita Skeeter. Such hints and foreshadowing are very clever because they do not give away the secrets by drawing attention to themselves. Therefore, I do not buy the idea that hints for Deathly Hallows would have given anything away or have been "eye openers" for the reader. Allow me to further explain in detail:
1. INVISIBILITY CLOAKS: Perhaps the reason this is so irking to me is that it almost feels like a cheat, as if Jo is changing the rules of her universe in order to fit the plot (When analyzing a novel, you must go with the evidence in the book itself, and not upon what characters might have done or said outside the pages). I am not, however, suggesting that Hermione had to walk up to Harry and say, "Oh, you know there's something strange about that cloak of yours, I've always noticed it. You do know, don't you, that those things usually don't last as long as yours?" No, that would be a clear giveaway for later importance to the story. Yet a simple mention by Mad-Eye that he might be late for dinner at Grimmauld Place because he had to purchase a new Invisibility Cloak (meaning in secret that his had begun to wear out of magic) would pass over the majority of readers' heads. Perhaps Winky or Barty Crouch Jr. could also have mentioned that the cloak Barty used to hide at the QWC was his second or third cloak. ("Master had one when he was young too!" sobbed Winky. "But never for something like this!") as an example of an effective hint. In fact, the use of both of these quotes would only strengthen the idea, for it would be quite a coincidence if Crouch Jr. and Mad-Eye both shredded theirs or had theirs stolen (or something like that).
2. RESURRECTION STONE: Perhaps you are misunderstanding me in this area. We readers do not need to know its significance in earlier books; we just need to be able to go back and see that there are clues there for us to see that the stone within the ring is the Resurrection Stone, even though we didn't catch them. In HBP, we are never told what the Peverell coat of arms looks like upon the ring, and explaining that it looked like a triangle enclosing a circle and a line would NOT have given anything away. Even the symbol's appearance on the UK book cover for DH would not have given anything away. Only when we read Deathly Hallows would it have made sense. Perhaps when Tom Riddle Sr. rides past the Gaunt shack as he tells his girlfriend how crazy Morfin is, he could have mentioned that while Morfin sits in the yard playing with his ring, he hears voices and talks to them. That would not draw any suspicion toward the ring; it would just drive the point that Morfin is a little crazy.
3. ELDER WAND: Again, we did not need to know that there was really an Elder Wand; we just needed to have the small hints. As I said above, this could have been done as "swear" phrase (for lack of a better term) in the wizarding world. Like the wizards say "Merlin's beard!", perhaps "Wand of Elder!" or something like that. I think I remember Ron saying a related aphorism or something like that, but it was definitely in the last book - not earlier. Hermione mentions that Professor Binns talked about the Elder Wand, the Deathstick, Wand of Destiny before, but do we ever read that scene? No. Perhaps after Binns tells the story of the Chamber, someone else could have asked to hear about the Elder Wand, and Binns would refuse. ("Let's get back to fact, Mr. Finnigan!" or something of that sort). We readers also never hear any clues about anything odd going on with Dumbledore's wand. (Perhaps when he hears Ron's wand has broken, Dumbledore could say, "I'm very sorry to hear it. I have been rather lucky with this one. It's never been broken while I've had it." Or perhaps during the Weighing of the Wands, Ollivander could see that Dumbledore's wand is not the same he had years before: "Ah yes, a rather unfortunate happening, but these things happen. A change of hand for the better, I think.") Also, while Harry looks over the table of contents of the Quibbler, there could be a story titled "Elder Wand: Proven at Last?", which would make the idea appear silly. Maybe the use of ALL these hints would draw a little notice, but a few definitely would not. This issue is also very irking to me, because the Elder Wand plays a big role in the defeat of Voldemort. Since the defeat of the Dark Lord is the overall arc of the series, why would something so vital to that plot only be mentioned in the last half of the final book, especially when Jo has been so good about hinting at significant things?
Someone once told me that perhaps Dumbledore being so brilliant was because of the Elder Wand, but there is no evidence for that, and Jo herself said that she saw Dumbledore as being "self-taught."
4. TALES OF BEEDLE THE BARD: The idea that almost all witches and wizards know of these fairy tales is not hard to believe if you think logically about our world, but within the books, they are not even mentioned beforehand. That makes no sense to me. In this real world, one can find allusions to fairy tales all over the place - why not in the series? Sitting on a shelf in Flourish and Blotts or the Burrow would draw no attention. It would be no different than the early mentions of Sirius or the Lovegoods. In my opinion, this would be quite a simple one to setup.
5. DELUMINATOR: Perhaps you are right that the use of the Deluminator to find the Dursleys would give too much away. But its random new powers at the end seem just that: random.
Posted by momwitch: "By the time we get to DH, JKR had given us many clues to expect that the Deluminator had other properties." This might be true to expect that something would have other properties, but not the Deluminator itself. It's not fair to say that because other things were hinted at, it's reasonable that something that wasn't hinted at could hold secrets too. It's like taking into consideration all those wonderful clues in POA and saying, "Well, look what she did in the Shrieking Shack! She clearly planned that, so why couldn't Neville be the son of Dumbledore? I'd believe it!"
As for believing Jo, that's up to the individual to decide. I personally need the evidence for that. I love the series, and interestingly I once sided with all the "planning believers" once I read book six (in fact, I furiously defended it), only to completely change my mind once I finished Deathly Hallows.
Also, if I am completely wrong and Jo DID have all this planned, why would she not hint? I mean, she's usually so good at it, and surely she could have hidden the clues as seemingly irrelevant information as she always does.
This post has been edited by starlesswinter: Aug 21 2008, 10:30 PM
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Aug 1 2008, 05:47 PM
