I no longer believe JKR is writing the info for this website.

Fucking Pottermore.

 

You're giving too much credit to JKR's ability in world building, I think.

 

I think she intends to leave the Horcrux process to our imagination. Whatever we came up with would probably be worse than anything she could set down on paper.

 

I liked the bit about Lupin. It gave a bit of perspective on his actual flawed personality as opposed to young (i.e. before 7th yr) Harry's perspective. His running out on Tonks seems a little less out-of-nowhere, though I still think their "romance" was weird.

 

From the Lupin text:

Doesn't seem particularly notable, but actually there's something rather interesting here. This is one of the few references from Rowling for the effect of "conditioning" on the magical skill of adults. I suppose it's sort of a no-brainer, but it's nice seeing it in writing regardless: if you aren't some monster talent like Dumbledore, you can neglect your skills and become "rusty." And (as with "battle-hardened" Dolohov), excess practice makes you better.

It also shows why it is a mistake, IMO, to sneer at Harry's peak dueling skill based on what we see in the series. It seems very reasonable to suggest that with plenty of extra practice, and his natural bent toward Defense, Harry might one day have attained a level of dueling skill capable of matching the vast majority of adult Order members.

That assumes that he actually did try to work on his dueling as an adult, but as a career Auror, this seems feasible. Harry isn't always lazy.

 

Bump for update.

Start of GoF is out, not that impressed, so basic info on Floo network which I thought was uninspired.

 

Finally got around to checking out Pottermore when I saw this thread. It's alright for what it is, and it does sort of reignite my love for the Potterverse which has been tarnished by certain elements of canon and ten years of mostly awful fanfic.

I expected to get sorted into Ravenclaw, got Gryffindor instead. Spruce wand, dragon heartstring core, 12 and a half inches, surprisingly swishy. Which, according to the Pottermore wand lore, basically means I have the theatricality of Lockhart.

 

I am thinking about getting the audio books (cheaply / 10% off). Are they worth getting from Pottermore?

 

Honestly, check the prices on other sites, such as Amazon, first.

 

If you have a torrent downloader go to kickasstorrents and download all 7 for free.

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Agreed but I thought the new addition about Lockheart was kind of interesting. Especially the part about Dumbledore hiring him to get him caught. Ties in nicely to the "Manipulative" dumbledore genre.

 

I must have missed this, where was this information?

 

In pottermore insider they mention the addition and leave a hyperlink but, If you go to book 2 valentines day chapter click on Gilderoy.

 

Thanks, missed this information. Heh, Dumbledore knew two wizards who were obliviated by Lockhart, knew that he was incompetent fraud and made him a teacher anyway to give children another morality lesson.

 

Yeah, I always figured Dumbledore had to be fucking with people with regards to Lockhart. Bit of a dick move when it came to buying all those books as required reading, though.

The chapter on colors and symbolism was kind of cool, and even the magical transportation bits were somewhat interesting. Maybe it's just me but I like when JKR discusses her creative process. I am the type of person who can be smacked upside the head with a metaphor and still miss it, so that might be why.

 

I always Lockhart really was an odd choice for DADA. Take a moment to consider the other six:

1. Quirrel. Pay no attention to the man under the turban, and he is actually not a bad choice. He spent at least one year teaching at Hogwarts, another travelling abroad 'studying,' and is actually decent at the Art (judging by his skill with trolls).

2. Lupin. If I need to explain why Dumbledore would hire him, you are in the wrong thread.

3. Mad-Eye. For our purpose, let's assume Crouch accurately portrayed him the whole time. He has a lot of experience fighting the Dark Arts, he can help Dumbledore keep an eye out while Hogwarts hosts the Tournament, and while the Unforgivable lesson was a bit early and Crouch was poking at certain students, you can't deny it was an effective lesson and the class on fighting the Imperious Curse teaches a really useful skill.

4. Umbridge. While she has no real qualifications to teach the Class, we all know the Ministry got her in since she's loyal to Fudge and all.

5. Snape. Ignoring how Dumbledore knows Snape will have to leave by the end of the year and how he needed Slughorn back, Snape was actually a good teacher. His speech at the first class sounded a lot like Harry's with the DA, he knows his shit, and non-verbal spell-casting is useful.

6. Carrow. Voldemort and Government wanted someone loyal. Enough said.

So, that leaves four people who were pretty good at their jobs, and two people who only got in by the Ministry. And if we discount Carrow since Dumbledore was dead by then, that leaves only one terrible teacher, and even then Dumbledore didn't have much of a choice.

While it was nice of Dumbledore doing it to screw with the man and teach a cute little lesson for the kids, I honestly think he should have looked a little harder for a real teacher.

 

^

Well Hagrid did mention that he was the only candidate. Dumbledore might have thought asking Snape to teach would have probably resulted in him being eaten by the basilisk or something. Moody had only agreed because of the tournament and Lupin might not have accepted without Sirius's escape. Asking Lockhart to teach would not only keep the ministry appointed teachers like Umbridge away for a year but would also uncover a fraud which isn't a bad deal. He probably asked Lupin and Moody in the following years to compensate their eduction.

 

The next part of GoF has been unlocked, and we have some small bits of information about other wizarding schools. There's really only two facts of note:

"Beauxbatons has a preponderance of French students, though Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Luxembourgians and Belgians also attend in large numbers (both Beauxbatons and Durmstrang have a larger studentship than Hogwarts)."

"Durmstrang once had the darkest reputation of all eleven wizarding schools."

So, there are only eleven schools of magic in the world. I quite like that. We know of six:

Hogwarts (Britain)
Beauxbatons (Mediterranean)
Durmstrang (Northern Europe)
Salem (North America)
Mahoutokoro (Japan)
Unnamed school (Brazil)

...this adds a whole new level of mess to worldwide wizarding numbers lol. Either some of those schools are absolutely huge, many people do not receive formal education, or wizarding numbers are very unevenly distributed.

If we take JKR's word that Hogwarts has around 1000 students, and say that Hogwarts is the smllest, guessing a student population of 1500 for the others... that's around 2300 wizards being born worldwide a year, which combined with a lifespan of around 150 means global wizarding population of around 350k and a wizarding population of around 21,500 in Britain.

Incidentally, while I love the Pottermore artwork, I'm getting really fed up of only seeing the backs of people's heads.

Edit: we have some faces in later pics, but only of side characters. Could this be Daphne Greengrass?



Clearly you have Snape and Draco, then next to Draco I think you have Pansy, bent over with laughter and pointing. Then there are two Slytherin girls, a blonde whose face we don't see and a brunette whose face we do see. I wonder which one is which...

 

Personally, the limited number of schools always bothered me. I can accept it if there are not that many schools, and there are a few big ones that serve key regions. It actually makes sense if Beauxbatons was the main school for Western Europe.

But I think eleven schools is a bit ridiculous. Regardless of how small the population is and how large the other schools are, it seems more than a little insane to have so few schools. Even in Pottermore, they discuss how until the Hogwarts Express was built, it was a logistical pain to get students to Hogwarts, and that's just for two relatively small islands; how is it any easier for kids from Amsterdam to Lisbon to go all the way to Beauxbatons, which just happens to sit on a pretty big mountainous area?

Just taking America as an example, I think it would make more sense if there was one major school that people always try to go to (say, Salem, even if the only reference to that in the book was a throwaway line that referenced a Witch Institute, and presumably excludes wizards), found somewhere in Massachusetts. But would it really make sense for someone in California to go three thousand miles away? No, he would go to a school that caters to the West Coast area.

 

Is it just me or is Mad-Eye thinner than you imagined him?

 

Why would that be an issue for wizards?

To be honest there being a wizard school in the USA at all seems odd. There's no logical reason for there to be wizard settlers, and muggleborn birth rates are actually incredibly rare going by canon. So taking incredibly low birth rate for naturally occurring wizards in purely muggle populations, and how small the magical population that developed over thousands of years in canon is, the US shouldn't have existed long enough for magicals to be much more than some people causing weird occurrences through accidental magic, especially when you take into account how much bigger they are geographically.

Which in turn means any ministry of magic and education equivalents in the US would've basically been charity by Europe, and in that case I have trouble seeing that they'd put effort into making more schools just because some muggleborns might be put out by the distance. They'd probably just have a simple means by which muggleborns could cross the long distance to Salem in every major population centre. You know, since they're fucking wizards.