# Well, I just read the Harry Potter series (thoughts, questions, SPOILERS aplenty) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 19, 2004, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-read-the-harry-potter-series-thoughts-questions-spoilers-aplenty/255751 "2004-07-19T01:17:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-read-the-harry-potter-series-thoughts-questions-spoilers-aplenty/255751/81 "2004-07-26T03:02:37Z")
> [@Hamish](#): > > As I said Dobby makes a clear distinction between the two. Clearly we’re meant to think of them almost as different people, even if one became the other, like we’re encouraged to think of Darth Vadar and Anakin as different people in Star Wars – so different that Obi Wan Kenobi has no problem saying that Vadar killed Anakin. I point out again, Rowling’s aversion to anything that bears any significant resemblance to Star Wars. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-read-the-harry-potter-series-thoughts-questions-spoilers-aplenty/255751/82 "2004-07-26T03:29:04Z")
> [@Brutus](#): > > Slytherin has the Bloody Baron. > Gryf-howeveryouspellit-dor has Nick > Hufflepuff has the Friar > > So who is Ravenclaws ghost? It’s the Grey Lady. Interestingly, there is several stories in England about ghosts named the Grey Lady. ---
**Author:** ![Hamish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a5b964/32.png) [@Hamish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamish)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-read-the-harry-potter-series-thoughts-questions-spoilers-aplenty/255751/83 "2004-07-26T03:31:42Z")
:smack: Sorry, once again, posted under my roommate’s name (I didn’t think he was here long enough tonight to log me out…) > [@Tengu](#): > > I point out again, Rowling’s aversion to anything that bears any significant resemblance to Star Wars. Noted, but I was just using that as a pop-culture example. Rowling makes very clear in Chamber of Secrets that one can refer to Voldemort, and not mean Tom Riddle. That’s exactly what Dobby does. ---
**Author:** ![Brutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-read-the-harry-potter-series-thoughts-questions-spoilers-aplenty/255751/84 "2004-07-26T03:32:28Z")
> [@matt\_mcl](#): > > It’s the Grey Lady. > > Interestingly, there is several stories in England about ghosts named the Grey Lady. Thanks! Doesn’t get much mention compared to the others, it seems… ---
**Author:** ![Hamish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a5b964/32.png) [@Hamish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamish)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-read-the-harry-potter-series-thoughts-questions-spoilers-aplenty/255751/85 "2004-07-26T03:38:09Z")
> [@Brutus](#): > > Thanks! Doesn’t get much mention compared to the others, it seems… I think Ravenclaw is the least-mentioned house. I mean, until Luna and Cho started hanging around, I pretty much forgot they were there. Even a few of the Hufflepuffs had personalities before the fourth book. Not surprisingly, it works the same way for the ghosts. We see the most of Nick, then the Baron, then the Friar. The Grey Lady is almost an afterthought. ---
**Author:** ![Avenger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de0a6/32.png) [@Avenger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avenger)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-read-the-harry-potter-series-thoughts-questions-spoilers-aplenty/255751/86 "2004-07-26T07:01:51Z")
It would be suprising if Krum had been allowed into Durmstrang if he were a half-blood, I believe that Draco mentions at one point that Lucius had considered sending him there as the headmaster, unlike Dumbledore, was very selective as to the ancestry of those allowed to attend. Although, with the inherent contradiction of Tom Riddle being a half-blood, perhaps these considerations can be overriden if a person is percieved to have the right charachter? ---
**Author:** ![Hamish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a5b964/32.png) [@Hamish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamish)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-read-the-harry-potter-series-thoughts-questions-spoilers-aplenty/255751/87 "2004-07-26T12:20:43Z")
Well, I was wrong, for my Tom Riddle theory. Rowling killed it on her website – Tom Riddle is not the half-blood prince. The reason the second book was titled that was because there was a whole chunk of the story she later cut out, and decided to put in the sixth book. She decided it didn’t fit with the diary/basilisk story. ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-read-the-harry-potter-series-thoughts-questions-spoilers-aplenty/255751/88 "2004-07-26T12:33:36Z")
Shit, maybe it IS Peeves. Hey, Rowling’s pregnant!! ---
**Author:** ![Hamish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a5b964/32.png) [@Hamish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamish)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-read-the-harry-potter-series-thoughts-questions-spoilers-aplenty/255751/89 "2004-07-26T12:43:21Z")
> [@Askia](#): > > Shit, maybe it IS Peeves. > > Hey, Rowling’s pregnant!! Yep, and she said she “couldn’t forsee any baby-related interruptions or delays” to this one, so that might be a hint as to how far along she is with her book. After all, _going into labour_ would be quite an interruption. She dropped another hint about the next book – the hint she mentioned in the Chamber of Secrets for the identity of the prince is in, well, the Chamber of Secrets. In the Chamber itself. So I’m going back to my original theory – Godric Gryffindor is our Half-Blood Prince. I think the sword is the clue. ---
**Author:** ![RitzyRae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/aca169/32.png) [@RitzyRae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitzyRae)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-read-the-harry-potter-series-thoughts-questions-spoilers-aplenty/255751/90 "2004-07-26T12:57:25Z")
> [@Peter Morris](#): > > About the Half Blood Prince - My WAG is that it will be Hagrid. I was thinking Neville, but I haven’t read the books again in ages… ---
**Author:** ![Hamish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a5b964/32.png) [@Hamish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamish)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-read-the-harry-potter-series-thoughts-questions-spoilers-aplenty/255751/91 "2004-07-26T13:24:43Z")
> [@RitzyRae](#): > > I was thinking Neville, but I haven’t read the books again in ages… Can’t be, since he’s pure-blood. If it’s one of the fellow Gryffindors in Harry’s year, it could be either Seamus Finnigan or Dean Thomas. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-read-the-harry-potter-series-thoughts-questions-spoilers-aplenty/255751/92 "2004-07-26T18:38:11Z")
Here’s a wacky theory: Salazar Slytherin is the Half-Blood Prince. Not Half-Muggle (although, given Voldemort’s attitude, that’s not impossible) - half non-human. I’m not entirely sure what his other half might be - something serpentine, though. Perhaps a naga. I can’t remember offhand if she’s ever mentioned any such beings before, but that doesn’t neccessarily mean they don’t exist…just that she’s been a little lax at dropping hints. ^\_\_~ Bases of this conjecture: Well, it’d be a right little twist, wouldn’t it? He was a passelmouth, which is also supposed to mark his descendants. ‘Slytherin’. ---
**Author:** ![Hamish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a5b964/32.png) [@Hamish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamish)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-read-the-harry-potter-series-thoughts-questions-spoilers-aplenty/255751/93 "2004-07-26T20:28:03Z")
> [@Tengu](#): > > Well, it’d be a right little twist, wouldn’t it? > He was a passelmouth, which is also supposed to mark his descendants. > ‘Slytherin’. Neat theory. Could be true, too. Can’t remember where, but I seem to remember Umbridge refering to half-magical-creatures/half-wizards as “The worst kind of half-bloods” – a dig on Hagrid. So these creatures are considered half-bloods, at least by modern-day bigots. And Prof. Binns said Slytherin’s objection to teaching non-purebloods was because he found them “untrustworthy.” I took that to mean that, living in an era of witch hunts, Slytherin was afraid that Muggles would use their magic-using children as spies. Ron believed that Salazar started the whole whole prejudice against the Muggle-born. If your theory was correct, maybe Salazar didn’t consider part-humans mudbloods – maybe he kept that title for full humans with Mugle parents. Or maybe he just exempted himself, the way Voldemort seems to have. I still think it’s Godric Gryffindor, though. (This is fun – this last year I’ve been out of school, I haven’t had a chance to discuss a novel this in-depth. I’m jonesing for English Lit courses. Can’t wait to start Grad courses) ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2004, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-read-the-harry-potter-series-thoughts-questions-spoilers-aplenty/255751/94 "2004-07-27T15:03:00Z")
> [@](#): > > This is fun – this last year I’ve been out of school, I haven’t had a chance to discuss a novel this in-depth. I’m jonesing for English Lit courses. Can’t wait to start Grad courses) Snort. After six years of graduate English courses, you lose all interest in discussing anything EXCEPT Harry Potter in this much depth. If I put half as much effort into my dissertation, I’d be done by now. I still think the HBP is most likely Godric Gryffindor, as I said on an earlier thread, but I’m willing to consider Salazar Slytherin as a possibility now that she’s mentioned the “discovery from CoS that foreshadows another discovery” – perhaps Riddle’s half-bloodedness foreshadows Salazar’s? Totally wacked-out theory, just for fun: Maybe it’s Tonks, and we’re going to find out she’s biologically male but has chosen to use her Metamorphagus abilities to live as a woman? ---
**Author:** ![Hamish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a5b964/32.png) [@Hamish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamish)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2004, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-read-the-harry-potter-series-thoughts-questions-spoilers-aplenty/255751/95 "2004-07-27T15:56:09Z")
You know, I’m re-reading _Chamber of Secrets_ right now, and every once in awhile, I trip over a wonderful bit of foreshadowing, or some detail that only becomes interesting once you’ve finished the book. Two I really like (emphasis mine): When Gilderoy Lockhart is first introduced: > [@](#): > > The real Lockhart was wearing robes of **forget-me-not** blue And as the Weasleys are trying to leave the Burrow in time to make the Hogwarts train: > [@](#): > > They’d almost reached the motorway when Ginny shrieked that **she’d left her diary** That second quote makes me think how Rowling is a magician, too, though in her case a stage magician. She’s great at directing attention to one hand so you don’t see what the other hand is doing. Really, though, if you put a real effort into it, you might be able to solve the mystery before everything’s explained. All the details you need are somewhere in the book. No one ever does, but the possibility that you could is one of the things that appeals to people about these books, part of their power to draw people in. ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2004, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-read-the-harry-potter-series-thoughts-questions-spoilers-aplenty/255751/96 "2004-07-27T16:05:51Z")
I totally agree. I’m still kicking myself for not guessing that reporter Rita Skeeter was an insect animagus (especially when Krum brushed her out of Hermione’s hair) – but I’m proud that I’d figured out that Hermnione was somehow time-travelling by in PoA. ---
**Author:** ![Agrippina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@Agrippina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agrippina)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2004, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-read-the-harry-potter-series-thoughts-questions-spoilers-aplenty/255751/97 "2004-07-27T18:41:42Z")
I’m currently re-reading the first book and something caught my eye. > [@](#): > > Sometimes, Harry noticed, the hat shouted out the house at once, but at others it took a little while to decide. “Finnigan, Seamus”, the sandy-haired boy next to Harry in the line, sat on the stool for almost a whole minute before thet hat declared him a Gryffindor. As we know later, for a short time Harry obsesses over the fact that the hat almost put him in Slytherin. I wonder if it’s worth noting that the hat had a hard time placing Seamus. I’m probably looking too much into it, but as Rowling has said before, the clues to what happens in the rest of the series can be found throughout the books. The hat also took a while with Neville Longbottom before placing him in Gryffindor… ---
**Author:** ![VunderBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/839c29/32.png) [@VunderBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VunderBob)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2004, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-read-the-harry-potter-series-thoughts-questions-spoilers-aplenty/255751/98 "2004-07-27T18:53:45Z")
> [@Fretful Porpentine](#): > > Totally wacked-out theory, just for fun: Maybe it’s Tonks, and we’re going to find out she’s biologically male but has chosen to use her Metamorphagus abilities to live as a woman? Tonks is my favorite minor character. Not because she did anything of note, but because of her hipness. ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2004, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-read-the-harry-potter-series-thoughts-questions-spoilers-aplenty/255751/99 "2004-07-27T21:52:48Z")
🆒 Half-Blood Prince is Sirius Fox 😃 ---
**Author:** ![VunderBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/839c29/32.png) [@VunderBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VunderBob)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2004, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-read-the-harry-potter-series-thoughts-questions-spoilers-aplenty/255751/100 "2004-07-27T23:39:47Z")
> [@ouryL](#): > > 🆒 Half-Blood Prince is Sirius Fox 😃 Who the hell is Sirius Fox? :dubious: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-read-the-harry-potter-series-thoughts-questions-spoilers-aplenty/255751.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-read-the-harry-potter-series-thoughts-questions-spoilers-aplenty/255751.md?page=6)