Back in February, we told you Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling was a guest at the James Joyce Awards in Dublin, Ireland. Thanks to La Gazetter du Sorcier there is a new report online containing a many of her remarks at this event. Answering a range of questions, Jo again says she intends to “write an Encyclopaedia which would hopefully incorporate a lot of back story I couldn’t… or flesh out back story that wasn’t in the books.” JKR was also asked if she thinks of the actors when she writes. Jo said “to be honest no, the only actor or actress who has ever, ever intruded while writing was Evanna Lynch, who is absolutely perfect as Luna. And I must admit I have heard her voice in my head when I wrote the book.”
Specifically on the topics of the books, J.K. Rowling reflected on the theories that she heard while writing the series and mentions several in particular, notably ” when Neville visits his parents in St Mungo’s and his mother presses sweets wrappers on him, which I always saw as a poignant moment… There was a theory that she’s passing secret messages on the sweet wrappers. There have been loads of them. But Dumbledore being Harry from the future is definitely my favourite of all the insane theories. But then you have people, I had people as early as Prisoner of Azkaban, the third book. I remember a woman saying to me : “I think Snape loves Lily”. I was “Oh my God what the hell did I give away ?”. But so people, people got stuff very unnervingly right. Often. Yeah.”
Jo also says she would like to go back and tighten up “Order of the Phoenix,” (“I must admit I was feeling the strength of the pressure a bit during that phase, and I think it shows in the book”) and mentions one hurdle she had to deal with when writing the series, stating : “The one thing, the difficulty I did sometimes have was I made a rule so tight it was sometimes hard to navigate around it myself. So not being able to Apparate in and out of Hogwarts was a pain in the back. Because it was necessary, I had to put that limit to make it a safe place. But finding a way to get in and out of Hogwarts was always a bit of a challenge. I was quite proud of Aberforth again, the tunnel. I like Aberforth. And his goat. [laughing] Yeah, Dumbledore pales into insignificance.”
Of interest are her comments regarding the plot lines and several of the characters. The Harry Potter author said some of the less crucial story lines were not always planned right from the begining and evolved as she went along, “But the big ones, the Dumbledore storyline, the Snape storyline were always there because you — the series is built around those.” Further comments on the importance of Snape and Dumbledore came from a question about the development of their story lines. Jo said:
“with Dumbledore quite deliberately, you find out little about Dumbledore’s own private life because his interactions with Harry are always about Harry, which sets up the fact that in the seventh book Harry thinks “but why did I never ask ?” He’s gone now and he’s never even thought of saying : “so how about you ?” you know, at the end of one of those conversations which I think is something that happens after the grief, the regret that he didn’t ask. And I think also that Dumbledore had always been such an almost god-like figure to Harry in some ways, that he felt he couldn’t ask him personal questions.
Snape, on the other hand, I had to drop clues all the way through because as you know in the seventh book when you have the revelation scene where everything shifts and you realize why Snape was… what Snape’s motivation was. I had to plot that through the books because at the point where you see what was really going on, it would have been an absolute cheat on the reader at that point just to show a bunch of stuff you’ve never seen before, you know… “Oh by the way, in the background this was happening.” So I did know. It was a complicated plotting process but by the time Philosopher’s Stone was finished, I definitely knew all the big things about Snape and Dumbledore because in many ways they’re the two most important characters in the seventh book… Well, other than the trio, Harry, Ron and Hermione.
i thought the interview was great. always new there was a real good reson for DD to trust snape without ? even though nobody else even when he killed DD!! it just made sense that DD was in on it. dint guess the lily connection i was completly surprised, i did enjoy ootp it kind of set up the next 2 books. upset about the movies leaving out some of what i thought were signifigant details like in poa about james animagus is a stag makes sense why harrys patronus is a stag and no mention of the locket being found at sirius’s house. if you haven’t read the books are you suppose to know it was there. also preferred the look of the dementors in aop then ootp. i thought they looked more like what jo described in her books in aop. also cant help visualising the late R harris as DD when i read he was as perfect a DD as Evanna was a luna all in i think WB did a great job of casting the characters excepet for bellatrix i was a little disappointed with her appearence thought they could have made her look alot more like her character sleek ,hauty and evil. cant wait for the encyclapedia it should be great. also so glad they are going to do DH in 2 parts better that then leaving so much sould have done it with gof and ootp who knows maybe even hbp. well we will soon see.. cant wait for november
Snape is to be pitted, but, as Jo has already said he isn’t much of a nice person. He is a person who took great enjoyment in bullying an innocent boy (Neville) This is something people can’t forget. He was good in the end, but there can be no excuse for his treatment of students, who shall we say were not Slytherin. When I finished DH, I was baffled at how he could have so much love for Lily, yet treat her son like a piece of dirt. Took me a while to get round that fact, but, I think he resented Harry. Maybe he tried to put blame on Harry for her death, when in fact he was to blame.
Haha, Vandy, I always thought Snape loved Lily, too, ever since the moment I read OotP. But I was in denial, too, although I loved the idea. :D. JKR shouldn’t worry about why we worked it out, though. For me, it was in what he DIDN’T say about Lily that made me pretty damn sure he had something for her. He would have a good insult for a pat of butter if it even looked at him, yet he never mentioned Lily’s name-not once-until The Prince’s Tale. :-)
jkr is so bloody full of herself. for a supposed very important character, she sure treated him like crap, wrote him crapily and treats her fans that don’t hate him like crap.
jkr is so bloody full of herself. for a supposed very important character, she sure treated him like crap, wrote him crapily and treats her fans that don’t hate him like crap. That all her “good characters” we’re supposed to admire didn’t emotionally mature, are good only because of how they were sorted, are ‘good’ even though they are often worse bullies than nasty ol snape- really it is just sickening. at the end, they’ve won a world that is hetero-normative, the girls sit back and wait for their men and then reproduce like bunnies, the only good gay character is an asexual dead one, and every example of homophobia in the Celluloid Closet can be found in the HP books. I had high hopes early in the series, but I am glad that I read the ‘carpet!version’ of book 7 and didn’t spent a penny on the actual book, nor will i on any of the movies. JKRs books teach intolerance and sexism, and it is a shame the media hyped them to a point that people are afraid to seriously criticise them in the mainstream.
Neil said “When I finished DH, I was baffled at how he could have so much love for Lily, yet treat her son like a piece of dirt.”
Well, Lily treated Snape like crap- she didn’t give him chance to explain himself, she refused to help when he needed it, she defended people who hexed/bullied for fun as opposed to snape’s hexing for self defense… yet we are told that love was lily’s greatest gift. Bull. if lily was the epitome of love, the snape’s toughness on harry was just as shining of an example.
Don’t forget … JK & Evanna corresponded before Luna was cast (As a younger child, she constantly wrote to J.K. Rowling, and in one such letter the youngster commented how much she would love to act in a Harry Potter film but doubted this would happen as she lived in “this sleepy little place called Termonfeckin, where nothing ever happened”. To Lynch’s surprise, Rowling replied, saying “Don’t be too hard on Termonfeckin; it does have a brilliant name! And I come from a very sleepy place”.[*]
... I have always had a theory in my own mind that Evanna was the inspiration for Luna.
Or you could always fall back on theory that HP is really a documentary and JK is the official documentarian (is that a word) ... and Luna/Evanna is one of those wizards who prefers to live in both worlds and has Hermione’s time turner (although she does a good job at keeping muggles from seeing the magic :-)
a b First Interview with Lynch Family (English). The Tubridy Show. RTÉ Commercial Enterprises Limited (2006-02-15). Retrieved on 2007-08-01.
OotP was my absolute favorite of all the books. Although DH is a close second. I don’t think there is anything in it that should have been different. The only part I didn’t like was when Sirius died. Even though I understand why that happedned, I still cried. I loved all the books, but that one is the best in my opinion. I also think Evanna Lynch is the perfect Luna. I picture her when I read the book. I don’t think anyone else could be her. It must make her feel good to hear Jo say that. And as for Snape…I always thought he was good. Even when he killed Dumbledore in HBP I knew there was a reason and that he would turn out to be on the Order’s side. That doesn’t mean I like the way he treated Harry, but I’ve always sorta liked his character.
Tim, what I’ve gotten from all the questions she’s answered about that ‘friendship’ was that Grindelwald would have milked Dumbledore’s feelings for him for all he could get, just because DD was a smart kid who could help him with his plans of domination. It definitely wasn’t a requited thing, though. Kind of like with Snape and Lily, only Lily wasn’t an evil genocidal nutcase.
FYI, I didn’t mean to imply that Lily milked her friendship with Snape. I was just pointing out how both Snape and Dumbledore both experience the whole unrequited love monster.
I totally agree with JKR, that Evanna is absolutely perfect for Luna…It´s just quit annoying that she (Evanna) doesn´t know how to step out of character during interviews. But just keep speaking in the same whispering voice..So yes Evanna IS Luna…(literally)
Karkaroff spat onto the ground at Dumbledore's feet. In one swift movement, Hagrid seized the front of Karkaroff's furs, lifted him into the air, and slammed him against a nearby tree.[br]"Apologize!" Hagrid snarled as Karkaroff gasped for breath, Hagrid'
i thought the interview was great. always new there was a real good reson for DD to trust snape without ? even though nobody else even when he killed DD!! it just made sense that DD was in on it. dint guess the lily connection i was completly surprised, i did enjoy ootp it kind of set up the next 2 books. upset about the movies leaving out some of what i thought were signifigant details like in poa about james animagus is a stag makes sense why harrys patronus is a stag and no mention of the locket being found at sirius’s house. if you haven’t read the books are you suppose to know it was there. also preferred the look of the dementors in aop then ootp. i thought they looked more like what jo described in her books in aop. also cant help visualising the late R harris as DD when i read he was as perfect a DD as Evanna was a luna all in i think WB did a great job of casting the characters excepet for bellatrix i was a little disappointed with her appearence thought they could have made her look alot more like her character sleek ,hauty and evil. cant wait for the encyclapedia it should be great. also so glad they are going to do DH in 2 parts better that then leaving so much sould have done it with gof and ootp who knows maybe even hbp. well we will soon see.. cant wait for november