Okay--Harry Potter fans; a couple of inconsistencies (May be SPOILERS)

I've been re-reading all the books (now that I no longer have to wait for the "next" one), and while I have discovered a few things in most of the books that bother me, there are a couple if things in #4 which are bugging me.

#1: In the beginning of #5, Harry is able to see the thestrals that drive the carriages, and Luna tells him it's because he has "seen death." Well, there are actually two arguments with this one: first of all, he saw his mother die (even if he was only a year old, he still "saw" the death, and therefore should have been able to see the thestrals right from the start. The second part of this is, even if the first point is discounted, he saw Cedric die BEFORE he went home at the end of #4, and therefore, should have seen the thestrals on the way to Hogsmeade for the return trip to London.

#2: During the regurgitation of Voldemort's past crimes in the "priori incantatem" in the cemetery, the wand brings back the murders and spells that Voldemort performed in chronological order. So the new hand for Wormtail, Cedric's murder, Frank Bryce's murder, etc. Except that James Potter is returned BEFORE Lily Potter in that scene, and in fact, Lily was murdered AFTER James, so she should have appeared first in the rewind.

Yeah, so these are minor points, and I'm sure there are more important things to discuss than old Harry Potter books, but shit it's better for me to dwell on HP than the mayhem and chaos in politics right now.

Oh, and one more thing. Harry names his middle child after Dumbledore and Snape because at the end he respects them both. Sorry--I don't give a damn how much Snape "redeemed" himself at the end, he was still a prick to Harry for 6 years, and I don't think that fessing up to his love for Lily redeemed him THAT much, nor was his "sacrifice" that noble either! If there had been even a foreshadowing of his true allegiance at any time (to Harry) it would have made it clearer why Harry cared that much at the end, but in every single matter otherwise, Snape hated Harry.

Oh, and one more thing I just realized! When Barty Jr., as Moody, asks to borrow the Marauders' Map from Harry, he takes it, but he never gives it back! Or perhaps I missed something?

Anyhow, there are other things I found dismaying, and I'm sure I'll remember them eventually, but those are the most obvious ones right now. :)

on edit--said Snape twice instead of Harry in sentence. :)

you aren't Harry Potter, or his creator. It isn't an inconsistency, it's what JK Rowling decided Harry Potter would do.

The thestrals caught me too.

She says he was in his crib when Lily died, so he didn't SEE it.

Also she freely admits she screwed up on Priori Incantatem.

but that only discount the first part of the first situation! Let's see how she wriggles out of the rest of it!

If she has admitted it, she might want to update it for future editions. Although, it changes a lot if there isn't another way around it.

the Fantasy Lit Group. All questions "Harry Potter" will be thoroughly discussed upon posting. :)

I totally agree about naming a child after Snape. :wtf: Snape was such an asshole to Harry to his face, he was only serving his own self-interest when he protected him. You'd have though Ginny would have had the sense to talk him out of it. :eyes:

Snape wasn't "serving his own self-interest" when he protected Harry. If Snape was acting out of love for Lily, he was acknowledging devotion to a woman who was dead and never coming back and who had chosen someone else over him anyway. Snape acts at a great personal risk, and his only reward is knowing that he remained true to Lily and also did the right thing for the wizarding world.

When Harry learns Snape's entire story, he makes a point of revealing it to Voldemort and everyone else within earshot, thus establishing Snape forever as not only on the side of the good but downright heroic.

Buthe still didn't like Harry, he still treated Harry with contempt 24/7, and so I stil think it's weird that Harry chose to honor him in this way. Now if Hrry had a series of dogs named after Snape, I could understand that! :P

Goblet of fire, US edition, page 667:
"The smoky shadow of a young woman with long hair fell to the ground as Bertha had done, straightened up and looked at him... and Harry, his arms shaking madly now, looked back into the ghostly face of his mother.
'Your father's coming...' she said quietly. 'Hold on for your father... it will be all right... hold on...'
And he came...first his head, then his body..."

I just re-read my copy tonight and made sure of what I was reading. In fact, I believe there is a retelling of the scene in a later book (though I might be mistaken) and it's the same--James first, Lily second in the re-wind.

Is this something she might have changed for later reprints? I have an older version on that book.

and on page 667 James comes first, Lily second. The edition came out in July, 2000. IIRC, it was the first one I bought as it came out in hardcover, so it had to have been close to original print date. Since then, I've bought them all in hardcover.

....however I don't remember how many books were released with James coming out before Lily, although JKR did address that issue as an error that wasn't caught in time.

Cheers

I guess I have an old copy! I'll just have to spend more money to get an updated one just so I won't bitch about it! :)

:hug:

though. It bothered me for awhile now as I've been re-reading (and re-reading and re-reading!) the books and finding little stuff that bugged me.

In book 3, they use the time travelling thingy. If they can travel through time, why not use it to... stop voldemort? Save Cedric/Sirius, etc. There are two arguments regarding this inconsistency, but both are easily disproved.

1) Time travelling has a time limit. For instance, you can't go back more than a couple of hours. Ok, so why didn't they use it directly after cedrics death, for instance? They could have gone back in time, saved cedric AND prevented the return of voldemort.

2) They can't go back and do anything that would cause a major change in the timeline. But they DID cause a major change, when they went back in book 3. Harry used the device to save himself from the dementors. Had that device not existed, Harry would have been killed by dementors, and I'm fairly certain Harry's death would have changed the timeline greatly.

on this, but I'm not an expert, obviously, and can only guess in general terms.

As far as changing Cedric's death or such, perhaps the issue is not how far back in time one can go, but how far in distance? The death of Cedric happened quite a distance away from Hogwarts, and perhaps there was no time-turner available, since Hermione handed in hers long before, and it could have been then sent back to the Ministry. And in that respect, the Dept of Mysteries was where the time-turners were kept, and getting in there was even a task in #5.

And also in #5, the time turners were all destroyed before Sirius died, IIRC. That would have made it impossible to change Sirius's death. Which is one of the major tragedies I have found--I love Sirius!

So that's non-issue number one.

#1 has also been heavily discussed by JKR. Harry never truly experienced his mother's death--he was a year old and has no recollection of it. His mother's death affected his fate, but the actual process of *dying* Harry had no memory of. As for Cedric, when he returned to Privet Drive at the end of his 4th year, the death had not yet sunk into Harry--he was in complete shock and confusion throughout that summer. Thestrals are only visible to people who have seen and registered the effects of death, which Harry did not do until the start of his fifth year.

The Marauder's Map has been discussed some. JKR again admits fault there--she says she automatically assumed in her head that Harry would simply go collect it from Moody/Barty Jr's office at the end of the year, and never really thought much about making that explicit in the text. She had a lot of other things to wrap up.

I simply disagree some about Snape. He loved a woman who would never love him and was willing to protect Harry for Lily's memory. I also think that Snape never really hated *Harry* so much as he hated James, and he transferred this hatred onto Harry, who looked like James except for Lily's eyes. I think when Snape died, he did not *love* Harry, but had perhaps come to realize that his hatred was really all for James and not for James's son, no matter how similar father and son might have been. Harry recognized this the moment he had finished with Snape's memories, recognized the profound love Snape always held, a love that ultimately overrode the hatred for James, and also recognized the danger Snape always put himself in for Lily and, to a lesser extent, Harry.

I think it's perfectly believable that Harry could forgive Snape for the nasty treatment in the classroom. After all, by the end of Deathly Hallows, Harry has seen several people die and has even offered his own life up for sacrifice. He understands now what the costs are of this entire struggle, and I think he knows how ridiculously petty it would be to nurse a grudge against Snape, especially now that he understands the man's motivations.