Maybe Rowling needed a convenient plot device. As always.

 

Here's the quote from PS just to refresh the mind:

"On the other hand, he'd gotten into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens. Dudley's gang had been chasing him as usual when, as much to Harry's surprise as anyone else's, there he was sitting on the chimney. The Dursleys had received a very angry letter from Harry's headmistress telling them Harry had been climbing school buildings. But all he'd tried to do (as he shouted at Uncle Vernon through the locked door of his cupboard) was jump behind the big trash cans outside the kitchen doors. Harry supposed that the wind must have caught him in mid-jump."

My interpretation of that is more of an instantaneous apparition than "super jump", and Harry is merely speculating with the reasons, as he very much knows that apparition just isn't possible... My reasoning is that you don't land "sitting on a chimney" if you jump there, where as with magic anything is possible.

But as said, it's accidental and as such doesn't count.

 

James and Lily, IIRC, were born around 1959 or 1960, one of them earlier than the other. That would put them at 21 or 22 at the time of their deaths. Assuming Sirius is near that, that's when he was put in jail until the age of thirty-three(ish?).

EDIT: Hence, perhaps, part of the reason he never really learned to be an adult, or at least had trouble transitioning. They put him in there at the beginning of his young adult/bachelor-hood

 

James, Lily were born in 1960. So Sirius would have been 21 when he went to prison.

 

Were Molly and Arthur in the Order for Voldemort's first campaign?

 

No, They were not. Here is what the Harry Potter Wiki Says

 

While HP Wiki is notorious for including fanon along with their "canon" material, this is pretty much it.

 

More like they extrapolate their own fanon from the canon; they see it as "looking between the lines", so to speak.

A perfect example? The Lavender Brown issue.

'Nuff said.

 

This as well. They seem to consider everything canon including the video games and movies.

Random choice: I'm sorry, but no -- Bombarda is not actually a spell; it's something the screenwriter for the movie thought sounded cool for a third year bookworm to randomly shout.

 

I think that whenever Heather posts in a thread, the next reply should be something that pesters her for an update to Death's Knight.

1/1 so far.

 

Actually, what is the canon policy for HP? Does one even exist?

 

'Canon' in this meaning is really something created by internet geeks so there has been no offical word, nor is there likely to be. That said, here's my oppioin.

Everything released by Rowling concerning the Harry Potter books is canon. It's her universe and she can add anything she wants, in any fashion she wants, using any medium she wants. The 'concerning the Harry Potter books' qualifier is needed otherwise the Casual Vacancy would be canon.

The movies are not canon for the books, since they form their own separate continuity. Rowling may have had input in some of them but just as Casual Vacancy is not canon, neither is anything she added to the movies.

Having said that, the movies are canon within their own continuity, which is separate but equal to the books. In the movies, Snape canonically died in the boathouse. In the books, he canonically died in the Shrieking Shack. Neither can overrule the other because they are separate things, nor can they add things to the other. Non contradictory facts from the books are not canon to the films, just as non-contradictory facts from the movies are not canon for the books. Likewise, the games form a number of separate continuities. Its also possibly for canon to be a one way street. For example, the films could be canon for a given computer game but the verse need not be true. I don't follow the games closely enough to know if any fit into this category.

 

Books came first which means they are of superior truth. The movies are poor imitations.

 

This, pretty much. It differs from person to person. People expect that a wiki has all the relevant facts taken from canon sources. Given that pretty much anyone can go in and change things we also know to take those facts with a grain of salt.

I was researching there for a story and found a dozen or so names that I didn't even know existed in canon. They were from the video games.

They give facts that aren't in evidence. For instance: they insist that Susan Bones has red hair. It's only because the actress in the movie had red hair. Nowhere else is that stated. So to me it isn't canon, but virtually everyone out there believes it.

I don't believe DLP has a policy one way or the other, but having Voldemort jumping out of the shadows and yelling, "Bombarda!" at his enemy just makes me click that little red X that much faster. And yes, I actually read that in a story recently.

It's not that we'll trash your for using fanon crap, we just want you to use it well. Referring to the above example: Voldemort yelling out a spell that a third year could use? Seriously? The only ones that he even uses an incantation for are the Unforgivables, and even then not all the time. Everything else he silently casts, even in the middle of a pitched battle.

 

A canon discussion and Taure hasn't appeared yet. Colour me surprised.

 

You have to speak its name three times.

 

Pfft. The topic of conversation isn't canon (i.e. the content of the HP universe) but rather a meta-discussion of what counts as canon. As for that, the concept is pretty unambiguously defined:

All definitions say canon is about the written word in the form of a work.

Interviews, movies, games: these are not canon by definition. They are either not written works, not created by JKR, or both.

Pottermore and the material on JKR's old website are where the debate lies. They're written directly by JKR and published. But are they a work, as such?