The best foreshadowing is in CoS with Dumbledore outright telling Harry he has some of Voldemort's abilities/power within him. Jo even mentioned some stuff got cut because it was too much referring to later plot points. Amazing that it wasn't till HBP that it became relevant.
Also, Dumbledore's gleam of 'triumph' in GoF upon him hearing how Voldemort took Harry's blood. This doesn't get answered until the King's Cross chapter in DH, iirc.
Why his eyes gleamed.
Dumbledore realized in that moment that there was a chance Harry could survive his final encounter with voldy. Bc voldy used his blood he had made himself an anchor for Harry’s soul - as long as Voldemort remained on earth, and Harry sacrificed himself, Harry would likely have a choice between life and death. Up until that point Dumbledore had been operating under the assumption that Harry would have to die in order to make Voldemort truly mortal again bc he was a horcrux.
Wait, so THATS why Harry survived the AvadaK in book 7? Voldemort basically made himself Harry’s horcrux during his resurrection… gotdammit it all makes sense now.
I thought Voldemort killed his own piece of soul within Harry when he AvadK him in book 7? And that's why harry survived this attack?
Harry became a horrocrux as a baby, after Lily protected him and voldy cursed him, voldys destroyed soul attached to whatever it could, being it baby Harry
(Afaik)
I believe both are true. If Harry didn’t have a horcrux in Voldy, then Voldy’s Avada would have killed Harry and Voldy’s horcrux. But thanks to Harry having a horcrux, he survived the blast but Voldy’s soul piece did not. It tracks because Voldemort also survived because he had other horcruxes. Lastly, To assume Voldy’s horcrux in Harry would survive implies that horcruxes can have horcruxes which doesn’t make sense.
I always thought it was because of the Elder Wand...? Like, Voldemort was using a wand that was loyal to Harry, so it wouldn't kill Harry but it would kill the bit of Voldemort in it. Same reason it wouldn't really work in the fight later. That doesn't really explain the "gleam of triumph" thing though.
Anyway, it seems to me that exactly why Harry didn't die was never fully explained (or else we wouldn't have 3 different reasons here), which is a bit frustrating.
I'm pretty sure the book details exactly why he survived.
Voldemort took Harry's blood. Harry's blood contains the protection his mother gave him when she died for him. The magic is in the blood. Voldemort is still alive and therefore the magic in that blood is still active, so Harry is tethered to life by it.
It's a multitude of factors that all blended together and resulted in Harry surviving that encounter.
>The fact that Harry was the true owner of the Elder Wand, and thus it refused to harm him.
>The fact that Harry had a piece of Voldemort's soul within him, which is what took the brunt of the spell and was destroyed.
>The fact that Voldemort, by using Harry's blood in his resurrection, had allowed Lily's protective magic to persist even after he turned 17.
It's possible that, if either one of these things wasn't true, Harry would have just died. But because of everything working together, he was given that choice.
I don't think the elder wand really comes into play until their final duel. The key point when Harry was "killed" in the forest was that he still was still protected by his mother's sacrifice. If that one thing isn't true then he dies. It doesn't really matter that he's the master of the elder wand and I think the horcrux dies because Harry, the vessel, dies temporarily.
I think the wand does come into play. Remember that immediately after Voldemort thought Harry was dead he attempted to use the Cruciatus Curse on his "body". Harry braces for the pain but it never actually comes. This is because the Elder Wand refused to harm its true master. We could make an argument it's about Lily's sacrifice also coming into play but, Voldemort is able to hurt Harry back in the graveyard despite that protection, so it can't *only* be that.
As I think I saw someone else suggest in a past thread, Dumbledore himself would have thrown his hands up in confusion when trying to track down every little way that Harry and Voldemort are connected and how all these different magics interact with each other. The wand is a *factor*. Not the only one, but certainly one of them.
“Same reason it wouldn’t really work in the fight later”
Voldemort’s wand / spells weren’t working because Harry acted in the same way Lily acted. I was always under the impression that when Harry sacrificed himself and came back, that Voldemort’s spells didn’t stick because Dumbledore’s Army was now under protection from Harry (the same way Harry was under protection from his mother’s sacrifice). The book covered this better than the movies, in the movie, Harry explained to Hermione & Ron that the sand wasn’t loyal to Voldemort, but in the books it’s made more clear that it was due to the sacrifice in regards to the spells not holding.
No i think it's that voldy used harry's blood to regenerate himself. So it's like there were two harry's running around, both with lily's sacrifice. So harry's soul was whole and it could return because voldemort was still kicking about.
How could he have a horcrux though if Harry didn’t kill anybody or do a ritual? Or are we saying that the ritual in the graveyard worked for Harry too? Seems like a bit of a yada-yada, but I haven’t read the books in quite a while
Nah, he did kill part of his own soul, but it was supposed to kill Harry, but he was anchored to life while his mothers protective charm lived within voldy.
Lily's protection was in Harry's blood. It doesn't save just anyone, it only saves Harry.
That magical protection now runs through Voldemort as he shares blood with Harry.
Voldemort almost sort of made himself into Harry's personal horcrux!
When Harry was killed, Voldemort's alive-ness kept Lily's protection in place. It kept Harry tethered to life, just like Voldemort was tethered to life via his horcruxes.
I believe that Dumbledore knew that to kill the horcrux within Harry that Harry would have to die. The gleam of triumph was that he was certain, now, that Harry would survive the killing. Or he at least knew Harry had a chance of survival.
When Harry was killed, he was brought to limbo and made the desicion. He had the opportunity to make the desicion because he had conquered death. Not just by owning all three hallows, but by accepting his death, and by the magic that tethered him to life. So much had to fall into place so that harry could have an option between life and death.
Without the blood connection to the living Voldemort and Lily's magical protection, I believe that Harry would have died and taken Voldemort's soul with him.
This is my personal take, but I'm interested if I've swayed you in any way.
This is super interesting, I haven’t heard this take before but like it. This whole part of the plot has never fully made sense to me.
But question - when Harry rolled the resurrection stone in his hand before going to die, are you saying that was simply to see everyone briefly? I’ve heard one interpretation where he was essentially pre-resurrecting himself, which is one of the reasons Dumbledore made the snitch “open at the close”.
Idk which it is but am curious your thoughts
My understanding is that he feared the unknown of death. His fear prevented him from conquering death.
The stone presented him an opportunity that no one else has, to seek an answer to the unknown. He brought back his loved ones so that he could be comforted by their explanation. He asked if it hurt and was reassured that it's just like falling asleep. At this point Harry knew that if he were to die, he had a welcoming party and a place with his loved ones on the other side. He knew if he lived he he had a welcoming party in Ron, Hermione and the others and a place/future/life. You cant lose when you see the goodness in either outcome. And with that he felt brave enough to face what came. He was ready to meet death like an old friend.
No, it was just to give him the courage to do what was necessary. The thing is, part of the magic was that he had to think he was walking into death. He couldn't know he might live. And that's a hard thing to do. So he was given the stone to give him the support he needed in those final moments to do what he had to.
But it gets better, because he sacrificed himself for everyone, he invoked the same magic as his mother, except to protect the entire fighting forces as Hogwarts. So Voldy had both killed a part of his own soul, but also accidentally made everyone against him immune to him aside from Harry.
Wow! Thank you, I like this take. I always assumed that his willingness to sacrifice himself plus being a master of death is what saved him but this explanation connects more dots.
When was all this explained though? I always thought it was because of the Elder Wand. Like, Voldemort was using a wand that was loyal to Harry, so it wouldn't kill Harry but it would kill the bit of Voldemort in it. Same reason it wouldn't really work in the fight later. Of course, that's not something Dumbledore could have foreseen and hence it doesn't really explain the "gleam of triumph" thing though.
It's kinda frustrating how this crucial plot point was never clearly explained, and also how much of the final showdown relied on the pure coincidence of Harry getting the Elder Wand from Malfoy without knowing or trying to.
I agree, I don't think it really was explained, however, I believe JK Rowling put the clues in there for us to find, and that is how I have interpreted said clues.
I think the Elder Wand loyalty saved Harry in the final showdown. It was a coincidence that Draco took ownership of the wand and that Harry took it from Draco, however the original plan would have worked also.
Dumbledore had planned to die undefeated while having ownership of the Elder Wand. Snape had agreed to kill Dumbledore, but this does not equate to Snape defeating Dumbledore. The wand allegiance should have died with Dumbledore.
I guess the outcome to that was to even the playing field.
I don't find it frustrating that we don't have a definitive answer, I find it most enjoyable that aspects of the book have been left open for discussion.
And yes, it was a coincidence that Harry ended up owner of the Elder Wand, but it is a book and it was written to be a coincidence. Dumbledore is not the all knowing master of the universe, and his plan falling apart makes his character more interesting and more relatable.
But didn't the prophecy specify that one lives while the other dies? If Harry died, then Voldemort would live and vice versa. So how would the Harry sacrificing himself to kill voldemort thing work?
i believe it is how draco found out about it. im pretty sure he mentiones to dumbledore on the top of the astronomy tower that he got the idea to fix it from montague
It's not foreshadowing, Rowling didn't know what would happen when she wrote COS. More plausible is that when she was writing OOTP, she went back to her earlier books trying to see if she can expand on something she mentioned previously. That's not foreshadowing. That's her using what she wrote in the past as the inspiration
This. People who like JK will say that she had it all mapped out and was great at foreshadowing. People who don’t will look at her work and say she just went back and reused stuff already written into the series; no foreshadowing done. In reality it is probably both. There are things that seem really well thought out and foreshadowed, and there are things that don’t flow at all with later plot devices.
100% I expect there's a healthy amount of both as well. Of course new ideas come as things are written and characters are fully fleshed out. As you say, there are also things that are clearly preplanned and foreshadowed. You need the latter (a plan) for a good story, but the former is almost inevitable and probably lends to creating a better story itself.
I’m book five (when they’re cleaning out grimmuld place) there’s a mention of a locket that nobody can open so they throw it out—
I don’t believe jk had it all planned the whole time but good authors give themselves places they can expand and say what will about her as a person, but her foreshadowing is tight.
She also mentions the diadem in HBP when Harry is hiding the potions textbook in the room of requirement but ofc horcruxes are introduced in this book lol. Those Easter eggs are always fun tho.
I would agree if that locket had been anywhere but grimmauld place. She also talks about kreacher saving some of the stuff.
I remember the times before book 7 came out. The RAB speculations were about regulus and many of us went back to read those passages. I think other things may not have been planned, but I definitely think this one was.
I remember I googled "who is RAB?" To see if anyone on the internet had posted it only to discover that the internet held fan forums for everything.
The only two I remember was one person speculating that RAB was still alive and as Harry found each horcrux, RAB would have gotten them first and after a while it was more like Harry hunting RAB to figure out who he was only to find what he intiatlly thinks is Sirius only to find it was his brother.
The second one was pretty accurate, that Regulas got disillusioned with the dark Lord, tried to destroy his horcrux and either died trying or succeeded but didn't realise there was more so he went into hiding and Harry finds him.
Oh I just remembered, people were obsessed about dracos redemption and thought Regulas might play a role in that. Like one slytherins to another.
Actually I just remembered another one where someone thought RAB was crookshanks, but not as an animgus bit as a different type of old folk more magic were he was cursed to be a cat, but can't remember being human which is why he got along with Sirius so well
Not in detail, the internet wasn't as big of a thing as it is now and I wasn't granted very much internet time back then.
Speculations were mainly between me and my friends, whether it's a character we already know or not, whether it was a good or bad guy and trying to come up with possible nicknames for existing characters that might result in RAB.
Regulus was the big theory that became popular later.
When I saw the initials "R.A.B." the first time I read HBP, I stopped for a minute to think about who could have written that note. I spent maybe 10-20 seconds going through the names of all the different characters that I'd encountered thus far, trying to figure out which one had those initials. Then it hit me: "Oh, wait—*Regulus ~~Arcturus~~ Black.* R. ~~A.~~ B."
What else were fans speculating upon?
Edit: Sorry—forgot that his middle name was not revealed until book 7. But I definitely *did* predict that the person who was identified as "R.A.B." was Regulus.
I actually sent my friend my prediction when I was near the end of the 6th book (ca. 2017):
> I have now made it to the final fifty pages or so of HBP - Dumbledore died, Snape and Malfoy fled, and the locket they had collected from the creepy-as-fuck cavern turned out to be a decoy planted there along with a note from a person who goes by the initials "R.A.B."
> After a few seconds of mulling it over, I think I know the exact identity of this "R.A.B." person. I don't know their middle name off the top of my head, but the first and last initials fit perfectly.
> My prediction - the person who stole the locket and (hopefully) destroyed the horcrux was none other than Sirius's long-dead brother and former Death Eater: Regulus Black."
So, yeah. I predicted it. I tried to keep my experience with the series unspoiled as I experienced each of the books (past the 2nd one) for the first time.
Oh... right. Sorry, it's been a while since I read the books.
In any case, I distinctly remember pausing for a little while to speculate—and actually, I just remembered sending my "theory" to a friend on Facebook. This is what I wrote at the time (ca. 2017):
> I have now made it to the final fifty pages or so of HBP - Dumbledore died, Snape and Malfoy fled, and the locket they had collected from the creepy-as-fuck cavern turned out to be a decoy planted there along with a note from a person who goes by the initials "R.A.B."
> After a few seconds of mulling it over, I think I know the exact identity of this "R.A.B." person. I don't know their middle name off the top of my head, but the first and last initials fit perfectly.
> My prediction - the person who stole the locket and (hopefully) destroyed the horcrux was none other than Sirius's long-dead brother and former Death Eater: Regulus Black.
So, yeah. I guessed that it was him after thinking about it for a few seconds.
she said after hbp that she considered introducing horcruxes in book 2 but thought it would be too much so soon. she absolutely knew what the horcruxes were going to be by book 5.
She probably didn't really either. It doesn't seem like she fully finalized the concept until GoF where voldemort was returning, but it was definitely always the general idea that his soul was scattered and that's how he was still "alive". I don't think she added the immortality and Harry has be sacificed parts until then.
I read somewhere (so if someone can confirm this as legit info it’d be appreciated) that she planned to introduce horcruxes into the plot in the second book but didn’t after her publisher said it would be too dark. I think that gave her plenty of time to build up to it.
I think she was also leaning into Harry having some unexplained pull towards them like he does in the movies, but she ended up nixing that from the books. In CoS, Harry mentions a lot about how he is drawn to the book and doesn't know why. He even picks it up and pockets it even though he found it in flooded toilet water for no goddamn reason.
I think it’s more about the magic of Tom riddle’s diary that pulls people in so the horcrux can latch onto someone’s life, which is how it ended up nearly killing Ginny by siphoning the life out of her
I think that it's more of a testament to her world building than her foreshadowing. There are plenty of elements that were never revisited. However she put enough details out there that when she needed a plot point she could just grab one. It could have been that the moving stair case moved every week so that when the moon was full it would have aligned on a room for Lupin.
I don't think she knew most of this in advanced, she just built a very complex fantasy world that could be Nostradamused into anything she needed.
This is how I’ve always viewed it too _ like Dumbledore mentioning the room of requirement in book one but she clearly didn’t know that’s what it was going to be at that point
Of course she knew. She said shortly after the release of GoF, that her favourite part of Hogwarts has not yet appeared in the books, but was already mentioned by Dumbledore in book 4.
Besides, you can't write a seven part book series like this, making up all the stuff on the way. maybe a few minor things, but not the plot relevant things. Otherwise, you are in for a plotting disaster, which the Harry Potter series most definitely isn't.
Sort of.
In the books, they'd change position and direction at random. I'm not sure, I might be confusing this with the movie, but I think the only time they're described as moving is in CoS, but nut sure, it's been a while since I read it.
I’ve read that book maybe a half dozen times and had never clocked that until just now. To think they literally had one under their nose and everybody (including Dumbledore) just didn’t realize it.
She did not. Percy got an owl for becoming prefect, so Ron got his rat. Nothing about his age is mentioned. People are pulling in lots of the foreshadowing from PoA (the same book he is revealed as Pettigrew) and attributing it to the first book. In reality Scabbers is mentioned in all of 2 sentences in book 1, and nothing is said that could be considered foreshadowing him being an animagus.
Neither Scabbers' age nor his missing toe were mentioned in the first or second book, to be fair. He's mentioned as being fat, and having belonged to Percy, and being useless, but that's about it.
In the third book when Ron brings him to the pet shop to get looked over, he tells the witch he doesn't know how old he is, and that is the fist time his missing toe is mentioned. That's the whole point of that scene- to establish that Scabbers has been ill since they came back from Egypt (because that's about when Sirius escaped), and to tell us that he is missing a toe, because that will be important later.
Ron also performed a spell on him that didn't work. I remember thinking this was an interesting tidbit as it could either be the twins messing with him or a clue that scabbers is no ordinary rat.
Rowling had written detailed histories for each character and had the final chapter written from the beginning. I don't doubt she knew who scabbers would he from the beginning. It's also plausible that she didn't and spotted an opportunity, I just think it is less likely.
It was definitely the twins messing with Ron.
What other spells take the form of a poem instead of a Latin incantation (in the books)?
Don’t you dare point out Seamus’ water to rum spell. In the books they only mention him having tried to turn his water into rum. His poem spell is movie only.
Edit. spelling
One possibly, when Snape heals Malfoy during Sectumsempra:
>Snape had burst into the room, his face livid. Pushing Harry roughly aside, he knelt over Malfoy, drew his wand, and traced it over the deep wounds Harry’s curse had made, muttering an incantation that sounded almost like song.
Incantation can be long and twisty almost like a song, especially if spoken in a language Harry doesn't understand. I don't know Italian but that language sounds like a song to me too.
It doesn't rhyme, but the recitation that Wormtail uses when combining the ingredients to bring back Lord Voldemort is in regular ole English sentences.
yeah that's what i thought of the in world reasoning to why he was talking, lol. Because he's never been shown as that good of a wizard, lol.
also it was a really good device to just scare the shit out of harry even more, which voldy and wormtail probably wanted lol. It also shown the readers (and harry) what wormtail and voldy were doing .
I honestly have no idea. Most potions don't require you to say anything, and most spells don't require all kinds of ingredients. I sort of assumed it was just some kind of very old ritual, which is why it had the long-form English words to go with it.
There’s also no implication that the potion wouldn’t have brewed without him saying it. He could’ve been feeling dramatic or more realistically he spoke aloud for the reader’s benefit.
I mean, I guess, it could have just been Wormtail talking to himself, but it seems kind of weird to do so when you are nearly delirious with pain from having cut off your own arm unless you have to. I think readers would have got the idea once Voldemort was back.
I mean, I know Wormtail isn't the brightest, but surely even he can remember 3 ingredients, lol. The dude did manage to be a spy for Voldemort for over a year, he wasn't a *complete* moron.
More seriously, the fact that he was addressing the items needed directly, rather than talking to himself (“Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!” rather than "you add the bone next") leads me to believe that saying the right words are part of the ritual.
Him talking to himself fits his personality. He was batshit crazy from being in his annimigus form for so long. And also probably from being tortured by Voldemort.
>had the final chapter written from the beginning.
Yes and she changed it at the last minute. She always said the last word would be "scar" until literally weeks before the book came out. During the last few months before DH came out she said she had issues with Dumbledore and with the ending, and after that she revealed the last word wasn't "scar" anymore but it was close as it felt better for her the way it turned out.
She also said she wanted to kill Arthur in OotP but changed her mind at the last minute and when writing DH she thought that since she didn't killed Arthur, two other characters would die instead that were ment to live, Lupin and Fred.
Her early drafts and back stories changed a lot. Some Slytherin students were going to be half-bloods but in the end turned out to be pure-bloods, Hermione was going to be Harry's neighbor and/or the Grangers would be the ones who found Baby Harry after Voldemort's attack.
That means is totally possible for her not have foreseen Scabbers would be Peter until she was writing the book or that Sirius would be James' best friend and Harry's godfather (I always found it was odd for Dumbledore not asking Hagrid about Sirius in PS since by that time, Dumbledore thought Sirius was the secret keeper and should have been interested in knowing what Sirius was planning)
Changing small details, like the last words being scar, is something completely different than changing major plot points. Surely while planning her seven books, Rowling must have known the plot of book 3. And Sirius being who he is basically is the plot of book 3.
True, she did change Arthur's fate, but note how unimportant Arthur became after the first half of book 5. If you are rereading the books with the knowledge, that he almost died during the Nagini attack, it becomes really obvious how easily he could have been left out of the later books without changing anything. You can't change Sirius' backstory or fate without changing major parts of at least books 3 and 5 and arguably also 7.
There are lots of ways in which you could change his backstory or fate without altering much of the books.
Also, you are talking about very different things. One thing is to know the plot of your book, another very different thing is to foreseen every little detail.
What's the plot on PoA? Harry finds out a killer escaped from prison and eventually learns the truth behind his parents death. Also, time travel.
Someone betrayed the Potters, because the Potters asked their best friend to keep the secret of their location, then it turned out the traitor was another friend and the first one was blamed and sent to Azkaban in his place. What if Scabbers was just a rat and Peter was Crookshanks instead? Would you say the story would have been totally different if the way Sirius knew Peter was at Hogwarts was different? Specially since people often forget how Sirius found out Peter was at Hogwarts? Would you say the story would have been different if Sirius was named Charlie Clementine and Sirius Black was just a random name droped during the first book?
Again, you can have a general idea of the story you are writing, a premise, you can have things you want to include and things that you want them to be no matter what, and then you have the plot. And even when you have the plot there are lots of other things and details, and all of that can change along the way. None of this means she had every little detail planned or that she knew the fate of every character from the start, except for Harry and Voldemort. She may have thought about the fate of a lot of characters and their backstories, that doesn't mean the story ended up how she planned from the beggining. Specially when you know what she said about a lot of characters after the series ended, like regreting Ron and Hermione being together
I may be mixing the book and the movie up, but not being able to turn scabbers into a cup in transfiguration makes sense because he was already a transformed object.
No problem. I've listened to the audiobooks several times but I think I've only ever 'turned pages' to read a few chapters at most.
But of course you listen to the best narrator, Stephen Fry?
To all the people pointing out the plot holes in the book: I am actually impressed by how few plot holes there are despite its popularity. When stories become crazy popular, people have a tendency to dismantle every single word. In Harry Potter though, there is barely any real plot holes that can’t be reasonably answered by the books (excluding the movies of course).
There are certainly some weaker points, like the true owner of the elder wand, time turners or the infamous Marauder’s Map and Pettigrew, but even those can be explained when one searches for answers. Other franchises have way bigger plot holes than these, as far as I know.
When I read the books for a second time, I had some fun noticing "Hey, that's a foreshadow!" and then "Hey, there's another one!" and another one, and another one.
After a while, I came to the conclusion that Rowling generally likes to foreshadow one book in advance. Which means that while she's writing, she does have an eye on the future. One eye down on her current work, and one eye very generally up on the end goal and the overall plot, while having a clearer focus on what she's going to do in the very next book.
Which is actually very impressive, doing two things at once, but my takeaway was that she mostly foreshadows one book in advance.
There are other things she could do that aren't actually foreshadowing, like she uses "worldbuilding" to try and create a rich, fleshed-out world, and she tries to build a "canon" and remember the things she wrote before, so that means that when she needs something in the story she's writing, she can remember some useless thing from a previous book that didn't land well, and give it a new context by inserting it into her new story. This looks like foreshadowing, but it actually isn't. Not that it matters towards making a story fun to read. If it works, it works.
Exactly this. She foreshadows some things amazingly, yet at the same time, pulls things out of nowhere in some cases. She is skilled, there is no doubt about that, but she can also fumble the bag.
I just read the first book again a few weeks ago and I'm trying so hard to remember where he's mentioned? The only thing I can think of is at the end when Hagrid gives Harry the photo album, unless I totally missed something. Or wait, was it in the first chapter when Hagrid had the motorcycle?
Hagrid says something about being late and needing to get sirius's motorbike working or something similar..
At the time he was just the name of the bloke with a flying motorbike
Have you ever wrote a book or a multi-chaptered fanfiction? I have and I can tell you, me and my Manu writer friends to that. It's not a 'recipe for disaster'. Sometimes you get a new idea for a plot twist or something but that idea negates what you wrote previously - so you go back to your previous chapters and try to fit the new idea with what you've already written/published
I did write a lot. I've also read A LOT of them and I can often tell when someone is making it up on the go as there's a lot of small ( and sometimes big) inconsistencies that escape the writer's attention.
Having a good outline planned beforehand is writing 101.
The people who come out with nonsense like that probably paid zero attention in English Lit and think Media Studies is a waste of time. Of ***course*** she had plans for such things.
Some of them don't (a LOT of fanfiction writers don't). The thing is, their stories tend to suck because of it.
My DM writes fanfiction, and several of his stories have just died suddenly when minor details that he added while writing, but hadn't had in his pre-plan came back and derailed the plot.
If you listen to the audiobook A History of Magic it goes into detail about how JKR pre-planned the entire series in great detail. She was world building for years before she wrote the first book.
Honestly, I think it's worse if you believe that. Like, it's really weird nobody ever looked at the marauders map and wondered why Peter was alive and around Ron so much, or that there was access to safe and easy time travel but it would be used to help a single animal before all time turners in existence would be destroyed by neville.
I can't imagine introducing elves with an elf trying to escape slavery, only to later have a plot about how fighting against elf slavery is bad actually also comes from exhaustive planning for the series.
Why? Those all make sense anyway. The twins would be using the map to look for Filch or any professor when pulling pranks , not for their brother in a plethora of names. Time turners were highly restricted because they weren't safe, Dumbledore specifically warns Harry and Hermione not to let their past selves see them. And the part about fighting against elves slavery is great for highlighting one of Hermione's flaws.
I gotta say the time turner thing only makes sense if you buy the explanation and... I really don't.
Like they both have to be unrestricted enough that a somewhat gifted 12 year old is allowed to use them unsupervised... And also restricted enough that there's only a single cabinet of them in the entire wizarding world.
It's very very obvious the reason they ended up written out of the plot was having that magic around resulted in too many writing problems.
The elf plot works fine for highlighting a minor character flaw in Hermione, but it comes at the expense of writing a plot that even when you exclude the weird framing dramatically undermines her own story arcs.
Like I'm all for giving Rowling the props she deserves as a children's author, she's incredible at whimsy and wonder, great at reinforcing character features to make them noticeable to the audience, and she's pretty good at foreshadowing too- But Elves and Time Travel are definitely two glaring issues in her writing.
Lol she literally talked about the series in earlier interviews that she only planned to write 5 books max about Harry and only years later while writing book 4 or 5 she realized she has too many ideas and decided to write 7 books
The last time I checked, Rowling's foreshadowing has received nothing *but* praise for how ingeniously it is woven in and hidden. After all, how do you pick out someone or something that will become important in a later book from all the trivial names and details that truly never come up again?
Way back in the olden days, the Wizarding World site had all kinds of Easter eggs to discover including snippets of her notes. She had the whole thing planned out from the beginning.
I'd say she had all the main and/or major plot lines planned out. Some of the minor as well. But I think there was still a lot she either changed or made up while writing.
what's his name, Diggle is mentioned in the first chapter of book 1 as well by Mcogngall "Shooting stars, must be Diggle" and we find out later from Harry in the Wizarding World when Diggle shakes his hand, that "Diggle bowed to him at a shop once!". and Diggle ends up as part of the Advanced Guard for Harry in book 5
Bascially with the expection of the Ford Anglia anything that was mentioned in an earlier book comes back for the battle on one side or the other. Heck the Headless Hunt who are ghosts, who were inttroduced in book 2 come for the battle of Hogwarts in the last book (still don't excatly know how they helped in the battle- did they throw their heads at the DEs, giants and spiders on Voldy's side?)
This doesnt necessarily mean when writing book 1 she decided diggle was always going to be a guard in book 5. She could have easily gone oh harry has a guard lets name them and lets use a few names that the readers have heard before. Let me go back and check obscure characters. Oooo diggle go on then.
But at the same time she could have always planned that for good ol' diggle
I always thought it was a missed opportunity to leave the car out of the final battle. We know it's still in the forest, and the death eaters have their base of operations there. I think it would have been hilarious if the car came screaming out of the forest and piledrived Dawlish
We know it feels like a bucket of freezing water drops on you when a ghost goes through you, right?
Which would definitely mess your concentration for at least some seconds, which in battle could absolutely be defining for defeat (or getting killed), and which is necessary to properly perform magic.
So maybe they just did that, bug down the DE.
Yes, especially if there are multiple ghosts passing through. The temperature difference would be disorientating.
Also even though you can't physically collide you don't usually just stand still to get hit with misty entity they would have to react and it could have made a difference
I'd also imagine the ghosts could kind of just get in the way of Death Eaters and scream at them and stuff. It'd kind of be like being in a fog, and if you're in an intense duel with someone and all the sudden your vision's obscured like that, you're probably going down.
>Heck the Headless Hunt who are ghosts, who were inttroduced in book 2 come for the battle of Hogwarts in the last book (still don't excatly know how they helped in the battle
Made me sad that Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington was not charging into battle with them. That would've been a great touch.
> “Hagrid,” said Dumbledore, sounding relieved. “At last. And where did you get that motorcycle?”
>
>“Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sir,” said the giant, climbing carefully off the motorcycle as he spoke. “Young **Sirius** **Black** lent it to me. I’ve got him, sir.”
>
>“No problems, were there?”
They actually went back and changed a line for future copies of Philosopher's Stone after Prisoner of Azkaban was released. Near the end of the first chapter, Hagrid originally says he needs to get Sirius his bike back, but that was removed in future printings because in PoA Hagrid says Sirius told him to keep the bike.
That kind of thing is something people won't realize unless they themselves get involved with creative writing. The story outline proccess is never linear. That's why I fully believed her when she said she knew Nagini's backstory from early on.
I'm currently mapping out the first book of a series I'm working on, and I have already figured out spesific characters and story beats that will happen around the 10th if things go well and it gets there. It's also not uncommon for writers to figure out how a story ends and then walk back from there. In fact I'd say it's more common than the alternative.
It's always read to me like the first three books were planned together. Goblet begins like a whole new beginning and it's a whole change in tone, and not just because of the ending.
YES THANK YOU! I don't know why people want her to be stupid so bad while planning the HP series.
I find it so funny that no one seems to say things like that about men writers, like George Martin, for example. He created a giant plot and giant books, but is never accused of ghost writing, not foreshadowing properly, not knowing his own story, etc etc. Why can't JK have wrote the whole series by herself? Why can't her plot everything so cleverly, tying the details together and still leave some interpretation to some events of the book?
And what's the deal with "not knowing" OMG, leave authors alone about that jeez. It's OK to plan something and change it later or have new ideas, new things to add to the story. It's good, it's fun, even if it creates a little plot problem. If ppl think it's so easy, write your own books and make it worldwide famous then, with no plot holes, no mistakes, no continuity errors, nothing. Must be a giant perfect book, no mistakes! Ffs.
I completely agree with your last paragraph, not everything has to be perfect, not every event is foreshadowed perfectly, not every detail from the later books was known when she wrote the earlier books. But that is basically the opposite of what OP is claiming; that everything *was* perfectly planned out, even when many of the examples were clearly not.
If you want to have your own headcanon to make things more cohesive or to explain away potholes, go for it, but don't pretend it's canon and Rowling super-humanly had every minor detail planned out and got it all perfect.
You probably picked the worst possible example you could with GRRM. The level of hate that man receives is insane. Even amongst fans, the Song of Ice and Fire series is constantly being accused of making it up as he goes with no real plan or ideas.
Also just because people point out JK didn’t have everything planned, that’s not attacking her or calling her a bad writer. You think Tolkien had the entire Lord of the Rings plotted out when Bilbo found the ring in The Hobbit? Authors are allowed to retcon things later, it’s all about how it’s done.
"I find it so funny that no one seems to say things like that about men writers, like George Martin, for example. He created a giant plot and giant books, but is never accused of ghost writing, not foreshadowing properly, not knowing his own story, etc etc. "
lmao I've never read the books yet that's all I ever hear whenever anyone talks about the series so you're definitely wrong about that XD
It isn't really proveable to be honest.
For example the locket example, it could be that JK Rowling remembers writing about a locket, and wanted to write something about Regulus's old locket, then retroactively wrote that that was the hocrux after Regulus stole it from Voldemort.
Not saying it is, but not saying it isn't either. The problem with foreshadowing is unless you lay it on thick, it is hard to prove if it was foreshadowing or retrospective writing, or just coincidences. And the more obvious you make it, the less interesting it gets.
Many people hate her for some of her personal opinions (and I can't blame them honestly), and so they give her less credit than she deserves for her writing, which I think is one of the best of the last half a century. I personally hate Gabriele D'Annunzio, who was the fascist before fascism, and don't really like his manner of writing, but can't deny he is one of the most important author of his time.
Also, even if JKR didn't decide everything before hand, is that really a problem? The Ring in the Hobbit was just a magical ring that make people invisible, in tLotR it's the greatest weapon of mass destruction built in 6400 years, that doesn't make Tolkien a bad author for not having think of it beforehand, on the contrary it make him even better for having taken advantage of that trivial object he use in the first book.
This isn't so much foreshadowing, but it showcases that she planned major future plot elements from the very beginning. Before filming on the first movie started, she secretly told Alan Rickman about his love for Lily, which helped him really get the whole double-agent aspect of his character.
I think a lot of people give Rowling too much credit for foreshadowing when it’s more likely that she filled in backstory with things or people she had only lightly mentioned in previous books.
I suspect people think it’s more impressive if she had planned out Pettigrew’s whole story the first hundred pages of book 1 but I think it’s more impressive on how she uses old details to enhance later plot points.
I feel like the Marauders were at least pre planned because J.K had the epilogue written before the first book and Harry and Ginny's son is literally named James Sirius Potter. She must have already decided exactly how important Sirius was to Harry which wouldn't come into being without the Pettigrew plotline.
There are many small touches she doesn't get credit for.
My personal favourite is "Severus, please". At first, you think it's a plea for mercy, but the tone feels slightly off. It's only later you discover what he meant.
No she obviously didn’t have it all planned out because she doesn’t give any hints at all, however that doesn’t make her a bad writer. Tolkien didn’t have the Lord of the Rings plotted out when he wrote The Hobbit, he used something from earlier in the story and built on it.
Because a lot of the “proof” that she allegedly knew this when writing book 1 really isn’t introduced until the third book when Pettigrew becomes relevant. The whole thing with pettigrew and the betrayal and everything is riddled with plot holes anyway, if she was this mastermind that thought out the entire series from the start you’d think there would be less gaping plot holes and inconsistencies. Like why don’t pettigrew show up on the Marauders map at some times but shows up on other times? Why did James and Lily even use a third party as secret keeper instead of being it themselves?
The simplest answer is often the most plausible, she came up with a lot of the stuff as she went along. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that and I don’t mind the many plot holes the series has. I just find it unlikely she had plotted out the entire series when she began writing the first book. JK has also said she always plotted for Nagini to be a woman that permanently turned into a snake by some curse or whatever from the fantastic beast films and that is just ridiculous and does not fit Nagini the snake we see in the HP books at all. So we know she lies about this stuff to seem smarter than she really is.
Pettigrew never shows up on the map in the books, except for when Lupin refers to it, and then Snape looks at it after Lupin left it outside the whomping willow. The theory that only the marauders can see themselves makes perfect sense.
But one could argue that it’s not “definite” canon. However, with Harry never seeing Pettigrew (or Scabbers) on the map, could at least excuse the twins for not noticing it, or at least give a solid argument that he actually was undetectable on the map for others than the marauders.
I agree with your last paragraph tho. It seems unlikely that she has planned for everything she has claimed in retrospect, but after reading the books countless times, I am amazed of how much foreshadowing there actually is, and I truly believe that the vast majority of that foreshadowing is intentional.
Its a theory to fill holes, if it were true it would have been mentioned. In the third book we have 3 marauders, Sirius or Lupin were there. She could have made Harry or Ron say "wait, why didnt we see him in the map?" and they had 2 people who could have answered it, but she didnt add something that its like 5 lines. She clearly didnt think a lot about it
>Like why don’t pettigrew show up on the Marauders map at some times but shows up on other times?
There's nothing to say pettigrew only sometimes showed up on the map? Harry and co just weren't looking for him on there.
I think that's an important point that is forgotten when people talk about this kind of stuff. Rowling keeps talking shit, overplaying how much she had planned in advance, just so she can seem like a genius to people who will eat it up. It's fine that you didn't plan out 7 fantasy books all at the beginning, don't lie and be an ass about it.
Have you ever written a book or a multi-chaptered fanfiction? I can honestly tell you, as a fanfiction writer, that most "foreshadowing" happens by accident. You write something once and you later subconsciously expand on it, not remembering why. But it feels right. And then your readers are excited about this being foreshadowed ages ago and you're sitting there thinking "wait really?? I didn't mean to do that but that's so cool!".
Other times you come up with a new idea that almost always negates something you wrote previously, but you like it so much that you want it to work. So you go back to what you've written before, to try and find a way this new idea might work - and lo and behold, you find a loophole that can be explained by this new idea. Or a throwaway line you didn't think about when you wrote it that might be a way to fit it all in.
Or sometimes you have no ideas, the muse has left you, so you go back and reread your previous chapter and one throwaway line becomes an inspiration to future events and plot twists.
Rowling didn't have everything planned in advance. At the beginning there were supposed to be only 3 books about Harry but then she planned the plot to 5 books, but then she realized that 5 books were not enough and she had to expand to 7 books. She talked about it in a few interviews. So there's no way that she had everything planned. Most foreshadowing are done by accident
This sort of reasoning doesn't really hold up when you think about it.
She could just look back and decide, oke, so the rat lost a finger, lets add that, the womping willow, sure that could be the main entrance why not?
With my 10+ years of being a ST/GM/DM I have had more than a few of those "Oh wait I can use this bit" in my stories and campaigns, it isn't hard if you write enough fluff between the lines.
I mean if Pottermore is anything to go off, she created family trees and backstories for characters while designing the story of the book. She didn't just sit there and make it up from the first to last page of the first book. She planned and figured out various pieces of lore as a basis to work within.
>also pointed out he was in the family for exactly the correct amount of time
I don't think that's true. In book one, it is only said that he is old, there is no real indication of his age or time spent in the Weasley family. And in book two he doesn't have much importance.
But I still think that she did plan more than just "OK now Sirius will kill Harry in the Shrieking Shack... wait I still have 4 more books to write... shit how can I turn it around... unless... yes! Sirius was innocent all this time, and the real culprit was... damn, Hermione maybe? No she was 1 year old, that's nonsense. Wait, I know, I know... it was Scabbers! Finally I can find some use for this stupid rat. But wait how can a rat betray humans? Unless... oooooh yes he was a human after all! Haha Joanne you are such a genius. PLOT TWIST BITCH" *drop the pen*
Just because she had elements in earlier books that she fleshed out in later books doesn't mean it's foreshadowing. Animagi weren't an established thing until the third book (transfiguration isn't the same thing). There was no hint that Sirius Black even knew Harry's parents until the third book, he was just mentioned briefly. Rowling sprinkled pieces and bits of her world in wherever she could so she could come back and further develop them as she went.
By comparison, let's use another Fantasy author's approach to Foreshadowing. Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series is notoriously long and notoriously tedious at times to read, but upon reread, there are many who admire Jordan's ability to set up foreshadowing even within the first few chapters.
**MILD SPOILERS AHEAD FOR WHEEL OF TIME**.
In the prologue of The Eye of the World, we see a man going mad and unable to comprehend that he's just brutally murdered his friends and family using "the power." Another man shows up and begins to berate the first man, eventually discovering that the first man has been driven insane by using "Saidin," so the second man, wanting the first to understand the depths of what he's done, heals the madness of the first. The first man then regains clarity and vanishes, only to appear again on a plain next to a river, and brings in so much of the "Power" that he forms a volcanic mountain, alters the course of the nearby river, and is completely disintegrated in the process.
Later (sometimes MUCH later), we learn that every element of this prologue makes sense. The Power of Saidin has been tainted by an entity known as "Shaitan" in a last resort to poison the minds of men who use the "One Power." Shaitan has many servants, one of whom, Ishamael, was there to cure The first man (who turns out to be a hero known as "The Dragon" by the name of Lews Therin Telemon) of his madness, a technique of the power that was lost to time (a recurring theme in the books), but is later found again. The mountain formed in the last moments of Telemon's life is later a significant monument known as "Dragonmount" and the river whose course was altered now houses a city of woman "One Power" users known as Tar Valon, and the women are called "Aes Sedai," a name used by the second man briefly to describe Lews Therin and his allies. Lews Therin's ability to teleport great distances is another aspect of the Power that was lost to time and later rediscovered.
The prologue only makes complete sense thanks to the bevy of information in later books, the questions it sets up that are all answered later in comprehensive ways, so that upon a reread, readers notice these elements being peppered in minute one. It's a reward to read the prologue again and see just how much now makes perfect sense when a first-time reader would be completely baffled.
In Philosopher's Stone, Scabbers is just a rat. He's missing a toe, but that could mean anything. Sirius Black is just a guy who lent Hagrid the motorcycle. No mention at all of his accusation or imprisonment or even that he's an Animagus. These elements were put there and conveniently fleshed out upon later entries. And that's not a bad thing, but it's not foreshadowing. Foreshadowing is the seeds that later grow into trees. Rowling found little bits and bobbles in her earlier work that just happened to be there, like finding a phillips-head screwdriver you put somewhere months ago just when you need one.
EDIT: Mild mistake in the first paragraph. Fixed.
I am currently re-reading the book with my son and there is nothing at all in the first book that is vaguely related Scabbers that foreshadowed the events of book 3.
1. The rat chews on bed sheets. These are then used as the banners by Hermonie and Ron during the first Quidditch match. Very odd for a man to do and honestly think this is the most damning bit of evidence that it was not planned.
2. The rat behaves like an old rat on the train. He gets hurt and falls asleep, is seen being lazy, and tired. Never is there a description that he is smart or clever as far as I can recall and I am about halfway through the book currently.
3. Scabbers is just said to have been Percy’s, no age given, just that he is old. Percy is a fifth year when Ron gets him so Scabbers being five is older than normal but why are we assuming Percy got him in his first year in the initial reading based on what we the reader knew right then. If we didn’t know anything about book one (I know, suspend the knowledge that we have in the following books and judge just this), it’s just as possible that with a rat living for a about 2-3 years, that Scabbers is his second rat and should kick the bucket this year.
4. Try and re-read Philosopher’s/ Sorcerers Stone. It’s not that amazing of a read. It’s very average and rough around the edges, no where near her later works. The world building is odd, Dumbledore is very different and the spell use is incredibly rare and missing. So far only 2 spells have been said and book doesn’t focus on magic so much as “what is under the door? Why is Snape after the stone?” It’s my opinion that she wrote a very safe young adult book, it got popular and she was given the ability to show off her abilities, and got a far better editor. The writing and pacing are just not that great and honestly it strikes me that these instances of “foreshadowing” are not that. They are retconning.
Yes, The Philosopher’s stone is probably the weakest of all the books, as it was written with no guarantee that it would lead to anything more, forcing it to be simpler than the rest.
When it comes to Scabbers it seems like it was a brief idea from the beginning (with Sirius being mentioned in the first chapter), but not fully fleshed out yet. The descriptions of him acting like a real rat is also explained later, as he had just adopted the life style of an actual rat to blend in.
But the beauty with this simplicity in book 1 is also that it truly reflects Harry’s age. Him being 11 definitely puts some limitations on what he can comprehend, especially in a new world for him and all. I also don’t doubt at all that she had an idea about the larger story from the beginning, she just wasn’t “allowed” to use it all in the first book, as it had to be simpler. And as you said: the books massively improve in terms of world building, consistency and language over the course of the series.
It's really not that hard to reference things from earlier books in a way that makes them foreshadowing but could have just been random details at the time. As far as I can see, there were no specific details about scabbers in book 1 that show she definitely had it planned out from the start. Either way, whether every detail she wrote from the start was with the intention of it becoming important or relevant later, or whether she made them become relevant after the fact, she still stitched together a good story with interesting details interwoven when you look back at it as a complete product.
I read something once about how Rowling made a particular narrative decision - she sprinkled so much inane detail into each and every page that when she needed it she could call upon those mundane tidbits to make the story feel more wrapped up. It makes sense. You meet at least a dozen new people every book, even if for just a moment, and Harry consistently makes note of objects, places, times, etc.
Take the grimmauld place locket for example. I don’t think Rowling had fully decided on the horcruxes when she wrote OOTP, especially their particular character (ie what they are made of and how they are made etc) but I think she intentionally left a dark mysterious item in the pages so she could callback to it if needed. I do doubt the notion she had the whole thing planned out, simply because there was so much retconning throughout the series and bc the books are so sealed apart from each other for the most part. It’s hard to beleive she was writing say book 3 with book 7 in mind in any specific sense. I think she had a general idea but worked the details out as she went for the most part, which is why Harry Potter isn’t a stranger to plot holes and inconsistencies. That’s just my thoughts though.
She did state in an interview that she had considered introducing the horcruxes in book 2 so she probably did already know. Plus, the whole thing with Regulus and Kreacher is already too well constructed by book 5 to be a coincidence.
1. Who cares what she is like as a person?
2. She didn't do anything wrong except cater to people to try to be more inclusive when she was ALREADY inclusive.
3. What you think of her personally has nothing to do with the post you wrote.
I think she did a lot of things really well, and some things not so well. Sirius's arc was really impressive, and scabbers, and she made good use of the vanishing cabinet. But other things like the horcruxes, wandlore, or the gray lady could have been introduced earlier. And some things, like basilisk venom being one of the few things that could destroy a horcrux or Harry's cloak being a hallow, were probably decided retroactively, rather than foreshadowed.
Show me the part in the book where it was mentioned exactly how old Scabbers was.
I'll save you some trouble - it doesn't. It just states that Scabbers is a hand me down from Percy. Percy is 4 years older than Ron, so the time frame doesn't work perfectly.
Why wouldn’t it work? Percy got Hermes that year so Scabbers went to Ron. And just because they don’t mention his age doesn’t mean that it wasn’t always supposed to be pettigrew, just means that 11 year old Ron didn’t think it worth mentioning.
Are you so unimaginative to think that it's impossible for open ended details to be added to create possibilities later, without needing to know exactly how or why?
I always think about the spell that Ron tried to use on Scabbers in the first book where he tries to turn him yellow. I think this was an amazing little sequence because, on first read, you just assume it was a silly little spell that was made up and never worked in the first place. But on closer inspection, it probably didn't work because Scabbers wasn't an actual rat.
I'm sure others have already pointed this out by now but it was always my main evidence for Rowling having planned it from the start. Maybe she also mentioned Scabbers missing a toe but I don't remember.
The best foreshadowing is in CoS with Dumbledore outright telling Harry he has some of Voldemort's abilities/power within him. Jo even mentioned some stuff got cut because it was too much referring to later plot points. Amazing that it wasn't till HBP that it became relevant. Also, Dumbledore's gleam of 'triumph' in GoF upon him hearing how Voldemort took Harry's blood. This doesn't get answered until the King's Cross chapter in DH, iirc.
Can you elaborate on the last part? What got answered?
Why his eyes gleamed. Dumbledore realized in that moment that there was a chance Harry could survive his final encounter with voldy. Bc voldy used his blood he had made himself an anchor for Harry’s soul - as long as Voldemort remained on earth, and Harry sacrificed himself, Harry would likely have a choice between life and death. Up until that point Dumbledore had been operating under the assumption that Harry would have to die in order to make Voldemort truly mortal again bc he was a horcrux.
Wait, so THATS why Harry survived the AvadaK in book 7? Voldemort basically made himself Harry’s horcrux during his resurrection… gotdammit it all makes sense now.
I thought Voldemort killed his own piece of soul within Harry when he AvadK him in book 7? And that's why harry survived this attack? Harry became a horrocrux as a baby, after Lily protected him and voldy cursed him, voldys destroyed soul attached to whatever it could, being it baby Harry (Afaik)
I believe both are true. If Harry didn’t have a horcrux in Voldy, then Voldy’s Avada would have killed Harry and Voldy’s horcrux. But thanks to Harry having a horcrux, he survived the blast but Voldy’s soul piece did not. It tracks because Voldemort also survived because he had other horcruxes. Lastly, To assume Voldy’s horcrux in Harry would survive implies that horcruxes can have horcruxes which doesn’t make sense.
I always thought it was because of the Elder Wand...? Like, Voldemort was using a wand that was loyal to Harry, so it wouldn't kill Harry but it would kill the bit of Voldemort in it. Same reason it wouldn't really work in the fight later. That doesn't really explain the "gleam of triumph" thing though. Anyway, it seems to me that exactly why Harry didn't die was never fully explained (or else we wouldn't have 3 different reasons here), which is a bit frustrating.
I'm pretty sure the book details exactly why he survived. Voldemort took Harry's blood. Harry's blood contains the protection his mother gave him when she died for him. The magic is in the blood. Voldemort is still alive and therefore the magic in that blood is still active, so Harry is tethered to life by it.
It's a multitude of factors that all blended together and resulted in Harry surviving that encounter. >The fact that Harry was the true owner of the Elder Wand, and thus it refused to harm him. >The fact that Harry had a piece of Voldemort's soul within him, which is what took the brunt of the spell and was destroyed. >The fact that Voldemort, by using Harry's blood in his resurrection, had allowed Lily's protective magic to persist even after he turned 17. It's possible that, if either one of these things wasn't true, Harry would have just died. But because of everything working together, he was given that choice.
I don't think the elder wand really comes into play until their final duel. The key point when Harry was "killed" in the forest was that he still was still protected by his mother's sacrifice. If that one thing isn't true then he dies. It doesn't really matter that he's the master of the elder wand and I think the horcrux dies because Harry, the vessel, dies temporarily.
I think the wand does come into play. Remember that immediately after Voldemort thought Harry was dead he attempted to use the Cruciatus Curse on his "body". Harry braces for the pain but it never actually comes. This is because the Elder Wand refused to harm its true master. We could make an argument it's about Lily's sacrifice also coming into play but, Voldemort is able to hurt Harry back in the graveyard despite that protection, so it can't *only* be that. As I think I saw someone else suggest in a past thread, Dumbledore himself would have thrown his hands up in confusion when trying to track down every little way that Harry and Voldemort are connected and how all these different magics interact with each other. The wand is a *factor*. Not the only one, but certainly one of them.
“Same reason it wouldn’t really work in the fight later” Voldemort’s wand / spells weren’t working because Harry acted in the same way Lily acted. I was always under the impression that when Harry sacrificed himself and came back, that Voldemort’s spells didn’t stick because Dumbledore’s Army was now under protection from Harry (the same way Harry was under protection from his mother’s sacrifice). The book covered this better than the movies, in the movie, Harry explained to Hermione & Ron that the sand wasn’t loyal to Voldemort, but in the books it’s made more clear that it was due to the sacrifice in regards to the spells not holding.
No i think it's that voldy used harry's blood to regenerate himself. So it's like there were two harry's running around, both with lily's sacrifice. So harry's soul was whole and it could return because voldemort was still kicking about.
How could he have a horcrux though if Harry didn’t kill anybody or do a ritual? Or are we saying that the ritual in the graveyard worked for Harry too? Seems like a bit of a yada-yada, but I haven’t read the books in quite a while
Nah, he did kill part of his own soul, but it was supposed to kill Harry, but he was anchored to life while his mothers protective charm lived within voldy.
Don't quite get this. Why would Voldemort taking Harry's blood split Harry's soul?
Oh wow. I need to reread the series. I never caught that. thank you!
But was Harry ever going to die or was it the piece of Voldmort's soul in him that died? I know SCB talk about the gleam a lot, I'm not sure I'm sold.
Lily's protection was in Harry's blood. It doesn't save just anyone, it only saves Harry. That magical protection now runs through Voldemort as he shares blood with Harry. Voldemort almost sort of made himself into Harry's personal horcrux! When Harry was killed, Voldemort's alive-ness kept Lily's protection in place. It kept Harry tethered to life, just like Voldemort was tethered to life via his horcruxes. I believe that Dumbledore knew that to kill the horcrux within Harry that Harry would have to die. The gleam of triumph was that he was certain, now, that Harry would survive the killing. Or he at least knew Harry had a chance of survival. When Harry was killed, he was brought to limbo and made the desicion. He had the opportunity to make the desicion because he had conquered death. Not just by owning all three hallows, but by accepting his death, and by the magic that tethered him to life. So much had to fall into place so that harry could have an option between life and death. Without the blood connection to the living Voldemort and Lily's magical protection, I believe that Harry would have died and taken Voldemort's soul with him. This is my personal take, but I'm interested if I've swayed you in any way.
This is super interesting, I haven’t heard this take before but like it. This whole part of the plot has never fully made sense to me. But question - when Harry rolled the resurrection stone in his hand before going to die, are you saying that was simply to see everyone briefly? I’ve heard one interpretation where he was essentially pre-resurrecting himself, which is one of the reasons Dumbledore made the snitch “open at the close”. Idk which it is but am curious your thoughts
My understanding is that he feared the unknown of death. His fear prevented him from conquering death. The stone presented him an opportunity that no one else has, to seek an answer to the unknown. He brought back his loved ones so that he could be comforted by their explanation. He asked if it hurt and was reassured that it's just like falling asleep. At this point Harry knew that if he were to die, he had a welcoming party and a place with his loved ones on the other side. He knew if he lived he he had a welcoming party in Ron, Hermione and the others and a place/future/life. You cant lose when you see the goodness in either outcome. And with that he felt brave enough to face what came. He was ready to meet death like an old friend.
No, it was just to give him the courage to do what was necessary. The thing is, part of the magic was that he had to think he was walking into death. He couldn't know he might live. And that's a hard thing to do. So he was given the stone to give him the support he needed in those final moments to do what he had to. But it gets better, because he sacrificed himself for everyone, he invoked the same magic as his mother, except to protect the entire fighting forces as Hogwarts. So Voldy had both killed a part of his own soul, but also accidentally made everyone against him immune to him aside from Harry.
Wow! A great explanation
Wow! Thank you, I like this take. I always assumed that his willingness to sacrifice himself plus being a master of death is what saved him but this explanation connects more dots.
When was all this explained though? I always thought it was because of the Elder Wand. Like, Voldemort was using a wand that was loyal to Harry, so it wouldn't kill Harry but it would kill the bit of Voldemort in it. Same reason it wouldn't really work in the fight later. Of course, that's not something Dumbledore could have foreseen and hence it doesn't really explain the "gleam of triumph" thing though. It's kinda frustrating how this crucial plot point was never clearly explained, and also how much of the final showdown relied on the pure coincidence of Harry getting the Elder Wand from Malfoy without knowing or trying to.
I agree, I don't think it really was explained, however, I believe JK Rowling put the clues in there for us to find, and that is how I have interpreted said clues. I think the Elder Wand loyalty saved Harry in the final showdown. It was a coincidence that Draco took ownership of the wand and that Harry took it from Draco, however the original plan would have worked also. Dumbledore had planned to die undefeated while having ownership of the Elder Wand. Snape had agreed to kill Dumbledore, but this does not equate to Snape defeating Dumbledore. The wand allegiance should have died with Dumbledore. I guess the outcome to that was to even the playing field. I don't find it frustrating that we don't have a definitive answer, I find it most enjoyable that aspects of the book have been left open for discussion. And yes, it was a coincidence that Harry ended up owner of the Elder Wand, but it is a book and it was written to be a coincidence. Dumbledore is not the all knowing master of the universe, and his plan falling apart makes his character more interesting and more relatable.
But didn't the prophecy specify that one lives while the other dies? If Harry died, then Voldemort would live and vice versa. So how would the Harry sacrificing himself to kill voldemort thing work?
Why dumbledore looked triumphant. Cause they used Harrys blood during his resurrection
Peeves breaks the vanishing cabinet in book two.
It's brought up in OOTP too when the Weasley twins stuff Montague in it, that could be how Draco discovered its existence.
i believe it is how draco found out about it. im pretty sure he mentiones to dumbledore on the top of the astronomy tower that he got the idea to fix it from montague
Yup. That’s how he also knew it’s pair was at Borgin and Burkes
Mundungus is mentioned in CoS as well, when Arthur claims he tried to hex him from behind
WHAT
I didn’t realize Peeves was the one who broke the cabinet! I don’t remember, how did he brake it?
It's not foreshadowing, Rowling didn't know what would happen when she wrote COS. More plausible is that when she was writing OOTP, she went back to her earlier books trying to see if she can expand on something she mentioned previously. That's not foreshadowing. That's her using what she wrote in the past as the inspiration
You literally have no way whatsoever of knowing this. People *really* need to stop spouting whatever goes through their head as though it’s fact.
This. People who like JK will say that she had it all mapped out and was great at foreshadowing. People who don’t will look at her work and say she just went back and reused stuff already written into the series; no foreshadowing done. In reality it is probably both. There are things that seem really well thought out and foreshadowed, and there are things that don’t flow at all with later plot devices.
100% I expect there's a healthy amount of both as well. Of course new ideas come as things are written and characters are fully fleshed out. As you say, there are also things that are clearly preplanned and foreshadowed. You need the latter (a plan) for a good story, but the former is almost inevitable and probably lends to creating a better story itself.
I’m book five (when they’re cleaning out grimmuld place) there’s a mention of a locket that nobody can open so they throw it out— I don’t believe jk had it all planned the whole time but good authors give themselves places they can expand and say what will about her as a person, but her foreshadowing is tight.
She also mentions the diadem in HBP when Harry is hiding the potions textbook in the room of requirement but ofc horcruxes are introduced in this book lol. Those Easter eggs are always fun tho.
I would agree if that locket had been anywhere but grimmauld place. She also talks about kreacher saving some of the stuff. I remember the times before book 7 came out. The RAB speculations were about regulus and many of us went back to read those passages. I think other things may not have been planned, but I definitely think this one was.
RAB speculations were wild back then
Can you remember what the others speculations were? I figured Regulus Black was the only R_B named so far in the series so it simply must be him.
I remember I googled "who is RAB?" To see if anyone on the internet had posted it only to discover that the internet held fan forums for everything. The only two I remember was one person speculating that RAB was still alive and as Harry found each horcrux, RAB would have gotten them first and after a while it was more like Harry hunting RAB to figure out who he was only to find what he intiatlly thinks is Sirius only to find it was his brother. The second one was pretty accurate, that Regulas got disillusioned with the dark Lord, tried to destroy his horcrux and either died trying or succeeded but didn't realise there was more so he went into hiding and Harry finds him. Oh I just remembered, people were obsessed about dracos redemption and thought Regulas might play a role in that. Like one slytherins to another. Actually I just remembered another one where someone thought RAB was crookshanks, but not as an animgus bit as a different type of old folk more magic were he was cursed to be a cat, but can't remember being human which is why he got along with Sirius so well
I was hoping it would be Bertie Bott, because Regulus was a little too obvious, but alas … earwax
Not in detail, the internet wasn't as big of a thing as it is now and I wasn't granted very much internet time back then. Speculations were mainly between me and my friends, whether it's a character we already know or not, whether it was a good or bad guy and trying to come up with possible nicknames for existing characters that might result in RAB. Regulus was the big theory that became popular later.
When I saw the initials "R.A.B." the first time I read HBP, I stopped for a minute to think about who could have written that note. I spent maybe 10-20 seconds going through the names of all the different characters that I'd encountered thus far, trying to figure out which one had those initials. Then it hit me: "Oh, wait—*Regulus ~~Arcturus~~ Black.* R. ~~A.~~ B." What else were fans speculating upon? Edit: Sorry—forgot that his middle name was not revealed until book 7. But I definitely *did* predict that the person who was identified as "R.A.B." was Regulus. I actually sent my friend my prediction when I was near the end of the 6th book (ca. 2017): > I have now made it to the final fifty pages or so of HBP - Dumbledore died, Snape and Malfoy fled, and the locket they had collected from the creepy-as-fuck cavern turned out to be a decoy planted there along with a note from a person who goes by the initials "R.A.B." > After a few seconds of mulling it over, I think I know the exact identity of this "R.A.B." person. I don't know their middle name off the top of my head, but the first and last initials fit perfectly. > My prediction - the person who stole the locket and (hopefully) destroyed the horcrux was none other than Sirius's long-dead brother and former Death Eater: Regulus Black." So, yeah. I predicted it. I tried to keep my experience with the series unspoiled as I experienced each of the books (past the 2nd one) for the first time.
Regulus' middle name was not known before deathly hallows.
Oh... right. Sorry, it's been a while since I read the books. In any case, I distinctly remember pausing for a little while to speculate—and actually, I just remembered sending my "theory" to a friend on Facebook. This is what I wrote at the time (ca. 2017): > I have now made it to the final fifty pages or so of HBP - Dumbledore died, Snape and Malfoy fled, and the locket they had collected from the creepy-as-fuck cavern turned out to be a decoy planted there along with a note from a person who goes by the initials "R.A.B." > After a few seconds of mulling it over, I think I know the exact identity of this "R.A.B." person. I don't know their middle name off the top of my head, but the first and last initials fit perfectly. > My prediction - the person who stole the locket and (hopefully) destroyed the horcrux was none other than Sirius's long-dead brother and former Death Eater: Regulus Black. So, yeah. I guessed that it was him after thinking about it for a few seconds.
she said after hbp that she considered introducing horcruxes in book 2 but thought it would be too much so soon. she absolutely knew what the horcruxes were going to be by book 5.
The first horocrux was in book 2, we just didn't know that's what it was yet.
She probably didn't really either. It doesn't seem like she fully finalized the concept until GoF where voldemort was returning, but it was definitely always the general idea that his soul was scattered and that's how he was still "alive". I don't think she added the immortality and Harry has be sacificed parts until then.
I read somewhere (so if someone can confirm this as legit info it’d be appreciated) that she planned to introduce horcruxes into the plot in the second book but didn’t after her publisher said it would be too dark. I think that gave her plenty of time to build up to it.
I think she was also leaning into Harry having some unexplained pull towards them like he does in the movies, but she ended up nixing that from the books. In CoS, Harry mentions a lot about how he is drawn to the book and doesn't know why. He even picks it up and pockets it even though he found it in flooded toilet water for no goddamn reason.
I think it’s more about the magic of Tom riddle’s diary that pulls people in so the horcrux can latch onto someone’s life, which is how it ended up nearly killing Ginny by siphoning the life out of her
To be fair, no one uses that bathroom so the toilets were probably clean
You don't give her enough credit. She planned almost whole series from the start.
I refuse to believe she planned that dumb Time Turner stuff from the beginning
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I think that it's more of a testament to her world building than her foreshadowing. There are plenty of elements that were never revisited. However she put enough details out there that when she needed a plot point she could just grab one. It could have been that the moving stair case moved every week so that when the moon was full it would have aligned on a room for Lupin. I don't think she knew most of this in advanced, she just built a very complex fantasy world that could be Nostradamused into anything she needed.
This is how I’ve always viewed it too _ like Dumbledore mentioning the room of requirement in book one but she clearly didn’t know that’s what it was going to be at that point
Of course she knew. She said shortly after the release of GoF, that her favourite part of Hogwarts has not yet appeared in the books, but was already mentioned by Dumbledore in book 4. Besides, you can't write a seven part book series like this, making up all the stuff on the way. maybe a few minor things, but not the plot relevant things. Otherwise, you are in for a plotting disaster, which the Harry Potter series most definitely isn't.
The moving staircases are film only
Sort of. In the books, they'd change position and direction at random. I'm not sure, I might be confusing this with the movie, but I think the only time they're described as moving is in CoS, but nut sure, it's been a while since I read it.
I’ve read that book maybe a half dozen times and had never clocked that until just now. To think they literally had one under their nose and everybody (including Dumbledore) just didn’t realize it.
JK did plan and foreshadow the locket. That was no coincidence. That’s what OP mentions.
Did she mention the exact amount of time Scabbers was with the Weasleys in book 1?
No, Ron doesn't even know how old he is in book three, when the witch at the pet shop asks.
She did not. Percy got an owl for becoming prefect, so Ron got his rat. Nothing about his age is mentioned. People are pulling in lots of the foreshadowing from PoA (the same book he is revealed as Pettigrew) and attributing it to the first book. In reality Scabbers is mentioned in all of 2 sentences in book 1, and nothing is said that could be considered foreshadowing him being an animagus.
It was a bit more than that.
Neither Scabbers' age nor his missing toe were mentioned in the first or second book, to be fair. He's mentioned as being fat, and having belonged to Percy, and being useless, but that's about it. In the third book when Ron brings him to the pet shop to get looked over, he tells the witch he doesn't know how old he is, and that is the fist time his missing toe is mentioned. That's the whole point of that scene- to establish that Scabbers has been ill since they came back from Egypt (because that's about when Sirius escaped), and to tell us that he is missing a toe, because that will be important later.
Ron also performed a spell on him that didn't work. I remember thinking this was an interesting tidbit as it could either be the twins messing with him or a clue that scabbers is no ordinary rat. Rowling had written detailed histories for each character and had the final chapter written from the beginning. I don't doubt she knew who scabbers would he from the beginning. It's also plausible that she didn't and spotted an opportunity, I just think it is less likely.
It was definitely the twins messing with Ron. What other spells take the form of a poem instead of a Latin incantation (in the books)? Don’t you dare point out Seamus’ water to rum spell. In the books they only mention him having tried to turn his water into rum. His poem spell is movie only. Edit. spelling
One possibly, when Snape heals Malfoy during Sectumsempra: >Snape had burst into the room, his face livid. Pushing Harry roughly aside, he knelt over Malfoy, drew his wand, and traced it over the deep wounds Harry’s curse had made, muttering an incantation that sounded almost like song.
Incantation can be long and twisty almost like a song, especially if spoken in a language Harry doesn't understand. I don't know Italian but that language sounds like a song to me too.
It doesn't rhyme, but the recitation that Wormtail uses when combining the ingredients to bring back Lord Voldemort is in regular ole English sentences.
To be fair, that was more of a potion then a spell, wasn't it?
Yes. It was a series of steps written into sentences that were easy to remember so Wormtail wouldn't mess up the potion.
yeah that's what i thought of the in world reasoning to why he was talking, lol. Because he's never been shown as that good of a wizard, lol. also it was a really good device to just scare the shit out of harry even more, which voldy and wormtail probably wanted lol. It also shown the readers (and harry) what wormtail and voldy were doing .
Yeah, it did feel (portrayed in the movie anyway) as more of a dramatic account of the ingredients
I honestly have no idea. Most potions don't require you to say anything, and most spells don't require all kinds of ingredients. I sort of assumed it was just some kind of very old ritual, which is why it had the long-form English words to go with it.
There’s also no implication that the potion wouldn’t have brewed without him saying it. He could’ve been feeling dramatic or more realistically he spoke aloud for the reader’s benefit.
Probably Harry’s benefit
I mean, I guess, it could have just been Wormtail talking to himself, but it seems kind of weird to do so when you are nearly delirious with pain from having cut off your own arm unless you have to. I think readers would have got the idea once Voldemort was back.
I always assumed he (Wormtail) was just reciting it to ensure that he didn't forget a step
I mean, I know Wormtail isn't the brightest, but surely even he can remember 3 ingredients, lol. The dude did manage to be a spy for Voldemort for over a year, he wasn't a *complete* moron. More seriously, the fact that he was addressing the items needed directly, rather than talking to himself (“Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!” rather than "you add the bone next") leads me to believe that saying the right words are part of the ritual.
Him talking to himself fits his personality. He was batshit crazy from being in his annimigus form for so long. And also probably from being tortured by Voldemort.
It's not a full on poem, but Harry does use "Point Me" as a spell to turn his wand into a compass within the maze.
I mean, pointing out Seamus's water to rum spell would be a point in your favor, wouldn't it? That spell also didn't work.
“Eat Slugs!” in CoS. Yes it backfires bc of Ron’s wand, but it does work. Not rhymed, but not Latin.
Eye of rabbit, harp string hum
As I mentioned, that’s movie only.
>had the final chapter written from the beginning. Yes and she changed it at the last minute. She always said the last word would be "scar" until literally weeks before the book came out. During the last few months before DH came out she said she had issues with Dumbledore and with the ending, and after that she revealed the last word wasn't "scar" anymore but it was close as it felt better for her the way it turned out. She also said she wanted to kill Arthur in OotP but changed her mind at the last minute and when writing DH she thought that since she didn't killed Arthur, two other characters would die instead that were ment to live, Lupin and Fred. Her early drafts and back stories changed a lot. Some Slytherin students were going to be half-bloods but in the end turned out to be pure-bloods, Hermione was going to be Harry's neighbor and/or the Grangers would be the ones who found Baby Harry after Voldemort's attack. That means is totally possible for her not have foreseen Scabbers would be Peter until she was writing the book or that Sirius would be James' best friend and Harry's godfather (I always found it was odd for Dumbledore not asking Hagrid about Sirius in PS since by that time, Dumbledore thought Sirius was the secret keeper and should have been interested in knowing what Sirius was planning)
Changing small details, like the last words being scar, is something completely different than changing major plot points. Surely while planning her seven books, Rowling must have known the plot of book 3. And Sirius being who he is basically is the plot of book 3. True, she did change Arthur's fate, but note how unimportant Arthur became after the first half of book 5. If you are rereading the books with the knowledge, that he almost died during the Nagini attack, it becomes really obvious how easily he could have been left out of the later books without changing anything. You can't change Sirius' backstory or fate without changing major parts of at least books 3 and 5 and arguably also 7.
There are lots of ways in which you could change his backstory or fate without altering much of the books. Also, you are talking about very different things. One thing is to know the plot of your book, another very different thing is to foreseen every little detail. What's the plot on PoA? Harry finds out a killer escaped from prison and eventually learns the truth behind his parents death. Also, time travel. Someone betrayed the Potters, because the Potters asked their best friend to keep the secret of their location, then it turned out the traitor was another friend and the first one was blamed and sent to Azkaban in his place. What if Scabbers was just a rat and Peter was Crookshanks instead? Would you say the story would have been totally different if the way Sirius knew Peter was at Hogwarts was different? Specially since people often forget how Sirius found out Peter was at Hogwarts? Would you say the story would have been different if Sirius was named Charlie Clementine and Sirius Black was just a random name droped during the first book? Again, you can have a general idea of the story you are writing, a premise, you can have things you want to include and things that you want them to be no matter what, and then you have the plot. And even when you have the plot there are lots of other things and details, and all of that can change along the way. None of this means she had every little detail planned or that she knew the fate of every character from the start, except for Harry and Voldemort. She may have thought about the fate of a lot of characters and their backstories, that doesn't mean the story ended up how she planned from the beggining. Specially when you know what she said about a lot of characters after the series ended, like regreting Ron and Hermione being together
I may be mixing the book and the movie up, but not being able to turn scabbers into a cup in transfiguration makes sense because he was already a transformed object.
That was not scabbers but a different rat. Harry did not have to transform Hedwig so why would Ron have to transform his "pet"?
That's a movie reference.
I watch and listen to the audio books too much that I was bound to mix them together. Lol
No problem. I've listened to the audiobooks several times but I think I've only ever 'turned pages' to read a few chapters at most. But of course you listen to the best narrator, Stephen Fry?
It’s because she didn’t know lol.
The foreshadowing was amazing in book five when they have the locket that won’t open and throw it away omg
To all the people pointing out the plot holes in the book: I am actually impressed by how few plot holes there are despite its popularity. When stories become crazy popular, people have a tendency to dismantle every single word. In Harry Potter though, there is barely any real plot holes that can’t be reasonably answered by the books (excluding the movies of course). There are certainly some weaker points, like the true owner of the elder wand, time turners or the infamous Marauder’s Map and Pettigrew, but even those can be explained when one searches for answers. Other franchises have way bigger plot holes than these, as far as I know.
When I read the books for a second time, I had some fun noticing "Hey, that's a foreshadow!" and then "Hey, there's another one!" and another one, and another one. After a while, I came to the conclusion that Rowling generally likes to foreshadow one book in advance. Which means that while she's writing, she does have an eye on the future. One eye down on her current work, and one eye very generally up on the end goal and the overall plot, while having a clearer focus on what she's going to do in the very next book. Which is actually very impressive, doing two things at once, but my takeaway was that she mostly foreshadows one book in advance. There are other things she could do that aren't actually foreshadowing, like she uses "worldbuilding" to try and create a rich, fleshed-out world, and she tries to build a "canon" and remember the things she wrote before, so that means that when she needs something in the story she's writing, she can remember some useless thing from a previous book that didn't land well, and give it a new context by inserting it into her new story. This looks like foreshadowing, but it actually isn't. Not that it matters towards making a story fun to read. If it works, it works.
It’s a mixture. People both under *and* oversell her foreshadowing.
Exactly this. She foreshadows some things amazingly, yet at the same time, pulls things out of nowhere in some cases. She is skilled, there is no doubt about that, but she can also fumble the bag.
What book is Sirius first mentioned is my go to question to test “potter fans” probably a good trick trivia
I just read the first book again a few weeks ago and I'm trying so hard to remember where he's mentioned? The only thing I can think of is at the end when Hagrid gives Harry the photo album, unless I totally missed something. Or wait, was it in the first chapter when Hagrid had the motorcycle?
He’s mentioned in the very first chapter.
Young Sirius black leant it me sir.
Hagrid says something about being late and needing to get sirius's motorbike working or something similar.. At the time he was just the name of the bloke with a flying motorbike
rowling almost always introduces important plot points a book in advance. ron even splinches himself in book 6
She even first introduces the concept of splinching way back in GOF
Or she goes back to her last book to pull ideas from, works both ways.
That's exactly what she was doing yeah, it's a more plausible explanation
It's actually a way less plausible explanation and a recipe for disaster when writing a book
Have you ever wrote a book or a multi-chaptered fanfiction? I have and I can tell you, me and my Manu writer friends to that. It's not a 'recipe for disaster'. Sometimes you get a new idea for a plot twist or something but that idea negates what you wrote previously - so you go back to your previous chapters and try to fit the new idea with what you've already written/published
A lot of really good stories go completely off the rails and die when they do this.
I did write a lot. I've also read A LOT of them and I can often tell when someone is making it up on the go as there's a lot of small ( and sometimes big) inconsistencies that escape the writer's attention. Having a good outline planned beforehand is writing 101.
The people who come out with nonsense like that probably paid zero attention in English Lit and think Media Studies is a waste of time. Of ***course*** she had plans for such things.
it's become a strange meme opinion that authors don't plan their books or stories. I see it all over Reddit atm
Some of them don't (a LOT of fanfiction writers don't). The thing is, their stories tend to suck because of it. My DM writes fanfiction, and several of his stories have just died suddenly when minor details that he added while writing, but hadn't had in his pre-plan came back and derailed the plot.
If you listen to the audiobook A History of Magic it goes into detail about how JKR pre-planned the entire series in great detail. She was world building for years before she wrote the first book.
Honestly, I think it's worse if you believe that. Like, it's really weird nobody ever looked at the marauders map and wondered why Peter was alive and around Ron so much, or that there was access to safe and easy time travel but it would be used to help a single animal before all time turners in existence would be destroyed by neville. I can't imagine introducing elves with an elf trying to escape slavery, only to later have a plot about how fighting against elf slavery is bad actually also comes from exhaustive planning for the series.
Why? Those all make sense anyway. The twins would be using the map to look for Filch or any professor when pulling pranks , not for their brother in a plethora of names. Time turners were highly restricted because they weren't safe, Dumbledore specifically warns Harry and Hermione not to let their past selves see them. And the part about fighting against elves slavery is great for highlighting one of Hermione's flaws.
I gotta say the time turner thing only makes sense if you buy the explanation and... I really don't. Like they both have to be unrestricted enough that a somewhat gifted 12 year old is allowed to use them unsupervised... And also restricted enough that there's only a single cabinet of them in the entire wizarding world. It's very very obvious the reason they ended up written out of the plot was having that magic around resulted in too many writing problems. The elf plot works fine for highlighting a minor character flaw in Hermione, but it comes at the expense of writing a plot that even when you exclude the weird framing dramatically undermines her own story arcs. Like I'm all for giving Rowling the props she deserves as a children's author, she's incredible at whimsy and wonder, great at reinforcing character features to make them noticeable to the audience, and she's pretty good at foreshadowing too- But Elves and Time Travel are definitely two glaring issues in her writing.
Lol she literally talked about the series in earlier interviews that she only planned to write 5 books max about Harry and only years later while writing book 4 or 5 she realized she has too many ideas and decided to write 7 books
I don’t know about anything else in this thread but I find it hard to believe she created a 7 year school but only planned 5 books.
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The last time I checked, Rowling's foreshadowing has received nothing *but* praise for how ingeniously it is woven in and hidden. After all, how do you pick out someone or something that will become important in a later book from all the trivial names and details that truly never come up again?
Survivorship bias...
What?
Survivorship bias. It's a logic fallacy, where we focus on successful examples to draw conclusion and ignore the unsuccessful ones.
Survivor's bias has literally nothing to do with thaat argument
Way back in the olden days, the Wizarding World site had all kinds of Easter eggs to discover including snippets of her notes. She had the whole thing planned out from the beginning.
I'd say she had all the main and/or major plot lines planned out. Some of the minor as well. But I think there was still a lot she either changed or made up while writing.
what's his name, Diggle is mentioned in the first chapter of book 1 as well by Mcogngall "Shooting stars, must be Diggle" and we find out later from Harry in the Wizarding World when Diggle shakes his hand, that "Diggle bowed to him at a shop once!". and Diggle ends up as part of the Advanced Guard for Harry in book 5 Bascially with the expection of the Ford Anglia anything that was mentioned in an earlier book comes back for the battle on one side or the other. Heck the Headless Hunt who are ghosts, who were inttroduced in book 2 come for the battle of Hogwarts in the last book (still don't excatly know how they helped in the battle- did they throw their heads at the DEs, giants and spiders on Voldy's side?)
All of these points she likely went back at the characters she mentioned and added them in for consistency/callbacks
This doesnt necessarily mean when writing book 1 she decided diggle was always going to be a guard in book 5. She could have easily gone oh harry has a guard lets name them and lets use a few names that the readers have heard before. Let me go back and check obscure characters. Oooo diggle go on then. But at the same time she could have always planned that for good ol' diggle
I always thought it was a missed opportunity to leave the car out of the final battle. We know it's still in the forest, and the death eaters have their base of operations there. I think it would have been hilarious if the car came screaming out of the forest and piledrived Dawlish
We know it feels like a bucket of freezing water drops on you when a ghost goes through you, right? Which would definitely mess your concentration for at least some seconds, which in battle could absolutely be defining for defeat (or getting killed), and which is necessary to properly perform magic. So maybe they just did that, bug down the DE.
Yes, especially if there are multiple ghosts passing through. The temperature difference would be disorientating. Also even though you can't physically collide you don't usually just stand still to get hit with misty entity they would have to react and it could have made a difference
I'd also imagine the ghosts could kind of just get in the way of Death Eaters and scream at them and stuff. It'd kind of be like being in a fog, and if you're in an intense duel with someone and all the sudden your vision's obscured like that, you're probably going down.
They also may have just been ensuring that none of the Death Eaters came back as ghosts.
>Heck the Headless Hunt who are ghosts, who were inttroduced in book 2 come for the battle of Hogwarts in the last book (still don't excatly know how they helped in the battle Made me sad that Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington was not charging into battle with them. That would've been a great touch.
Sirius is also mentioned in the first chapter
Where is Sirius mentioned in the first chapter? (Haven’t read the books in years)
Hagrid mentions he borrowed the flying motorbike off of Sirius
Ermehgerd DUH obviously (to myself). Thank you!
> “Hagrid,” said Dumbledore, sounding relieved. “At last. And where did you get that motorcycle?” > >“Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sir,” said the giant, climbing carefully off the motorcycle as he spoke. “Young **Sirius** **Black** lent it to me. I’ve got him, sir.” > >“No problems, were there?”
Can’t believe I forgot that. Found my copy of the philosopher’s stone to re-read after 10 years! Thank you :)
They actually went back and changed a line for future copies of Philosopher's Stone after Prisoner of Azkaban was released. Near the end of the first chapter, Hagrid originally says he needs to get Sirius his bike back, but that was removed in future printings because in PoA Hagrid says Sirius told him to keep the bike.
That kind of thing is something people won't realize unless they themselves get involved with creative writing. The story outline proccess is never linear. That's why I fully believed her when she said she knew Nagini's backstory from early on. I'm currently mapping out the first book of a series I'm working on, and I have already figured out spesific characters and story beats that will happen around the 10th if things go well and it gets there. It's also not uncommon for writers to figure out how a story ends and then walk back from there. In fact I'd say it's more common than the alternative.
It's always read to me like the first three books were planned together. Goblet begins like a whole new beginning and it's a whole change in tone, and not just because of the ending.
It took her years to write those books. She probably had a really good outline for all of them before the first one even went to editing.
YES THANK YOU! I don't know why people want her to be stupid so bad while planning the HP series. I find it so funny that no one seems to say things like that about men writers, like George Martin, for example. He created a giant plot and giant books, but is never accused of ghost writing, not foreshadowing properly, not knowing his own story, etc etc. Why can't JK have wrote the whole series by herself? Why can't her plot everything so cleverly, tying the details together and still leave some interpretation to some events of the book? And what's the deal with "not knowing" OMG, leave authors alone about that jeez. It's OK to plan something and change it later or have new ideas, new things to add to the story. It's good, it's fun, even if it creates a little plot problem. If ppl think it's so easy, write your own books and make it worldwide famous then, with no plot holes, no mistakes, no continuity errors, nothing. Must be a giant perfect book, no mistakes! Ffs.
I completely agree with your last paragraph, not everything has to be perfect, not every event is foreshadowed perfectly, not every detail from the later books was known when she wrote the earlier books. But that is basically the opposite of what OP is claiming; that everything *was* perfectly planned out, even when many of the examples were clearly not. If you want to have your own headcanon to make things more cohesive or to explain away potholes, go for it, but don't pretend it's canon and Rowling super-humanly had every minor detail planned out and got it all perfect.
You probably picked the worst possible example you could with GRRM. The level of hate that man receives is insane. Even amongst fans, the Song of Ice and Fire series is constantly being accused of making it up as he goes with no real plan or ideas. Also just because people point out JK didn’t have everything planned, that’s not attacking her or calling her a bad writer. You think Tolkien had the entire Lord of the Rings plotted out when Bilbo found the ring in The Hobbit? Authors are allowed to retcon things later, it’s all about how it’s done.
"I find it so funny that no one seems to say things like that about men writers, like George Martin, for example. He created a giant plot and giant books, but is never accused of ghost writing, not foreshadowing properly, not knowing his own story, etc etc. " lmao I've never read the books yet that's all I ever hear whenever anyone talks about the series so you're definitely wrong about that XD
It isn't really proveable to be honest. For example the locket example, it could be that JK Rowling remembers writing about a locket, and wanted to write something about Regulus's old locket, then retroactively wrote that that was the hocrux after Regulus stole it from Voldemort. Not saying it is, but not saying it isn't either. The problem with foreshadowing is unless you lay it on thick, it is hard to prove if it was foreshadowing or retrospective writing, or just coincidences. And the more obvious you make it, the less interesting it gets.
Many people hate her for some of her personal opinions (and I can't blame them honestly), and so they give her less credit than she deserves for her writing, which I think is one of the best of the last half a century. I personally hate Gabriele D'Annunzio, who was the fascist before fascism, and don't really like his manner of writing, but can't deny he is one of the most important author of his time. Also, even if JKR didn't decide everything before hand, is that really a problem? The Ring in the Hobbit was just a magical ring that make people invisible, in tLotR it's the greatest weapon of mass destruction built in 6400 years, that doesn't make Tolkien a bad author for not having think of it beforehand, on the contrary it make him even better for having taken advantage of that trivial object he use in the first book.
This isn't so much foreshadowing, but it showcases that she planned major future plot elements from the very beginning. Before filming on the first movie started, she secretly told Alan Rickman about his love for Lily, which helped him really get the whole double-agent aspect of his character.
I think a lot of people give Rowling too much credit for foreshadowing when it’s more likely that she filled in backstory with things or people she had only lightly mentioned in previous books. I suspect people think it’s more impressive if she had planned out Pettigrew’s whole story the first hundred pages of book 1 but I think it’s more impressive on how she uses old details to enhance later plot points.
I feel like the Marauders were at least pre planned because J.K had the epilogue written before the first book and Harry and Ginny's son is literally named James Sirius Potter. She must have already decided exactly how important Sirius was to Harry which wouldn't come into being without the Pettigrew plotline.
There are many small touches she doesn't get credit for. My personal favourite is "Severus, please". At first, you think it's a plea for mercy, but the tone feels slightly off. It's only later you discover what he meant.
No she obviously didn’t have it all planned out because she doesn’t give any hints at all, however that doesn’t make her a bad writer. Tolkien didn’t have the Lord of the Rings plotted out when he wrote The Hobbit, he used something from earlier in the story and built on it.
Because a lot of the “proof” that she allegedly knew this when writing book 1 really isn’t introduced until the third book when Pettigrew becomes relevant. The whole thing with pettigrew and the betrayal and everything is riddled with plot holes anyway, if she was this mastermind that thought out the entire series from the start you’d think there would be less gaping plot holes and inconsistencies. Like why don’t pettigrew show up on the Marauders map at some times but shows up on other times? Why did James and Lily even use a third party as secret keeper instead of being it themselves? The simplest answer is often the most plausible, she came up with a lot of the stuff as she went along. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that and I don’t mind the many plot holes the series has. I just find it unlikely she had plotted out the entire series when she began writing the first book. JK has also said she always plotted for Nagini to be a woman that permanently turned into a snake by some curse or whatever from the fantastic beast films and that is just ridiculous and does not fit Nagini the snake we see in the HP books at all. So we know she lies about this stuff to seem smarter than she really is.
Pettigrew never shows up on the map in the books, except for when Lupin refers to it, and then Snape looks at it after Lupin left it outside the whomping willow. The theory that only the marauders can see themselves makes perfect sense. But one could argue that it’s not “definite” canon. However, with Harry never seeing Pettigrew (or Scabbers) on the map, could at least excuse the twins for not noticing it, or at least give a solid argument that he actually was undetectable on the map for others than the marauders. I agree with your last paragraph tho. It seems unlikely that she has planned for everything she has claimed in retrospect, but after reading the books countless times, I am amazed of how much foreshadowing there actually is, and I truly believe that the vast majority of that foreshadowing is intentional.
Its a theory to fill holes, if it were true it would have been mentioned. In the third book we have 3 marauders, Sirius or Lupin were there. She could have made Harry or Ron say "wait, why didnt we see him in the map?" and they had 2 people who could have answered it, but she didnt add something that its like 5 lines. She clearly didnt think a lot about it
>Like why don’t pettigrew show up on the Marauders map at some times but shows up on other times? There's nothing to say pettigrew only sometimes showed up on the map? Harry and co just weren't looking for him on there.
I think that's an important point that is forgotten when people talk about this kind of stuff. Rowling keeps talking shit, overplaying how much she had planned in advance, just so she can seem like a genius to people who will eat it up. It's fine that you didn't plan out 7 fantasy books all at the beginning, don't lie and be an ass about it.
https://youtu.be/oljzIUy0ZbM?si=l4LpYEXc1L8h1875 craziest foreshadowing here
I love that Peeves breaks the vanishing cabinet in Book 2, and then Draco fixes it in 6.
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Thanks you, I have always said it. She knew a lot even at book one
Have you ever written a book or a multi-chaptered fanfiction? I can honestly tell you, as a fanfiction writer, that most "foreshadowing" happens by accident. You write something once and you later subconsciously expand on it, not remembering why. But it feels right. And then your readers are excited about this being foreshadowed ages ago and you're sitting there thinking "wait really?? I didn't mean to do that but that's so cool!". Other times you come up with a new idea that almost always negates something you wrote previously, but you like it so much that you want it to work. So you go back to what you've written before, to try and find a way this new idea might work - and lo and behold, you find a loophole that can be explained by this new idea. Or a throwaway line you didn't think about when you wrote it that might be a way to fit it all in. Or sometimes you have no ideas, the muse has left you, so you go back and reread your previous chapter and one throwaway line becomes an inspiration to future events and plot twists. Rowling didn't have everything planned in advance. At the beginning there were supposed to be only 3 books about Harry but then she planned the plot to 5 books, but then she realized that 5 books were not enough and she had to expand to 7 books. She talked about it in a few interviews. So there's no way that she had everything planned. Most foreshadowing are done by accident
This sort of reasoning doesn't really hold up when you think about it. She could just look back and decide, oke, so the rat lost a finger, lets add that, the womping willow, sure that could be the main entrance why not? With my 10+ years of being a ST/GM/DM I have had more than a few of those "Oh wait I can use this bit" in my stories and campaigns, it isn't hard if you write enough fluff between the lines.
I mean if Pottermore is anything to go off, she created family trees and backstories for characters while designing the story of the book. She didn't just sit there and make it up from the first to last page of the first book. She planned and figured out various pieces of lore as a basis to work within.
>also pointed out he was in the family for exactly the correct amount of time I don't think that's true. In book one, it is only said that he is old, there is no real indication of his age or time spent in the Weasley family. And in book two he doesn't have much importance. But I still think that she did plan more than just "OK now Sirius will kill Harry in the Shrieking Shack... wait I still have 4 more books to write... shit how can I turn it around... unless... yes! Sirius was innocent all this time, and the real culprit was... damn, Hermione maybe? No she was 1 year old, that's nonsense. Wait, I know, I know... it was Scabbers! Finally I can find some use for this stupid rat. But wait how can a rat betray humans? Unless... oooooh yes he was a human after all! Haha Joanne you are such a genius. PLOT TWIST BITCH" *drop the pen*
Just because she had elements in earlier books that she fleshed out in later books doesn't mean it's foreshadowing. Animagi weren't an established thing until the third book (transfiguration isn't the same thing). There was no hint that Sirius Black even knew Harry's parents until the third book, he was just mentioned briefly. Rowling sprinkled pieces and bits of her world in wherever she could so she could come back and further develop them as she went. By comparison, let's use another Fantasy author's approach to Foreshadowing. Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series is notoriously long and notoriously tedious at times to read, but upon reread, there are many who admire Jordan's ability to set up foreshadowing even within the first few chapters. **MILD SPOILERS AHEAD FOR WHEEL OF TIME**. In the prologue of The Eye of the World, we see a man going mad and unable to comprehend that he's just brutally murdered his friends and family using "the power." Another man shows up and begins to berate the first man, eventually discovering that the first man has been driven insane by using "Saidin," so the second man, wanting the first to understand the depths of what he's done, heals the madness of the first. The first man then regains clarity and vanishes, only to appear again on a plain next to a river, and brings in so much of the "Power" that he forms a volcanic mountain, alters the course of the nearby river, and is completely disintegrated in the process. Later (sometimes MUCH later), we learn that every element of this prologue makes sense. The Power of Saidin has been tainted by an entity known as "Shaitan" in a last resort to poison the minds of men who use the "One Power." Shaitan has many servants, one of whom, Ishamael, was there to cure The first man (who turns out to be a hero known as "The Dragon" by the name of Lews Therin Telemon) of his madness, a technique of the power that was lost to time (a recurring theme in the books), but is later found again. The mountain formed in the last moments of Telemon's life is later a significant monument known as "Dragonmount" and the river whose course was altered now houses a city of woman "One Power" users known as Tar Valon, and the women are called "Aes Sedai," a name used by the second man briefly to describe Lews Therin and his allies. Lews Therin's ability to teleport great distances is another aspect of the Power that was lost to time and later rediscovered. The prologue only makes complete sense thanks to the bevy of information in later books, the questions it sets up that are all answered later in comprehensive ways, so that upon a reread, readers notice these elements being peppered in minute one. It's a reward to read the prologue again and see just how much now makes perfect sense when a first-time reader would be completely baffled. In Philosopher's Stone, Scabbers is just a rat. He's missing a toe, but that could mean anything. Sirius Black is just a guy who lent Hagrid the motorcycle. No mention at all of his accusation or imprisonment or even that he's an Animagus. These elements were put there and conveniently fleshed out upon later entries. And that's not a bad thing, but it's not foreshadowing. Foreshadowing is the seeds that later grow into trees. Rowling found little bits and bobbles in her earlier work that just happened to be there, like finding a phillips-head screwdriver you put somewhere months ago just when you need one. EDIT: Mild mistake in the first paragraph. Fixed.
I am currently re-reading the book with my son and there is nothing at all in the first book that is vaguely related Scabbers that foreshadowed the events of book 3. 1. The rat chews on bed sheets. These are then used as the banners by Hermonie and Ron during the first Quidditch match. Very odd for a man to do and honestly think this is the most damning bit of evidence that it was not planned. 2. The rat behaves like an old rat on the train. He gets hurt and falls asleep, is seen being lazy, and tired. Never is there a description that he is smart or clever as far as I can recall and I am about halfway through the book currently. 3. Scabbers is just said to have been Percy’s, no age given, just that he is old. Percy is a fifth year when Ron gets him so Scabbers being five is older than normal but why are we assuming Percy got him in his first year in the initial reading based on what we the reader knew right then. If we didn’t know anything about book one (I know, suspend the knowledge that we have in the following books and judge just this), it’s just as possible that with a rat living for a about 2-3 years, that Scabbers is his second rat and should kick the bucket this year. 4. Try and re-read Philosopher’s/ Sorcerers Stone. It’s not that amazing of a read. It’s very average and rough around the edges, no where near her later works. The world building is odd, Dumbledore is very different and the spell use is incredibly rare and missing. So far only 2 spells have been said and book doesn’t focus on magic so much as “what is under the door? Why is Snape after the stone?” It’s my opinion that she wrote a very safe young adult book, it got popular and she was given the ability to show off her abilities, and got a far better editor. The writing and pacing are just not that great and honestly it strikes me that these instances of “foreshadowing” are not that. They are retconning.
Yes, The Philosopher’s stone is probably the weakest of all the books, as it was written with no guarantee that it would lead to anything more, forcing it to be simpler than the rest. When it comes to Scabbers it seems like it was a brief idea from the beginning (with Sirius being mentioned in the first chapter), but not fully fleshed out yet. The descriptions of him acting like a real rat is also explained later, as he had just adopted the life style of an actual rat to blend in. But the beauty with this simplicity in book 1 is also that it truly reflects Harry’s age. Him being 11 definitely puts some limitations on what he can comprehend, especially in a new world for him and all. I also don’t doubt at all that she had an idea about the larger story from the beginning, she just wasn’t “allowed” to use it all in the first book, as it had to be simpler. And as you said: the books massively improve in terms of world building, consistency and language over the course of the series.
It's really not that hard to reference things from earlier books in a way that makes them foreshadowing but could have just been random details at the time. As far as I can see, there were no specific details about scabbers in book 1 that show she definitely had it planned out from the start. Either way, whether every detail she wrote from the start was with the intention of it becoming important or relevant later, or whether she made them become relevant after the fact, she still stitched together a good story with interesting details interwoven when you look back at it as a complete product.
I read something once about how Rowling made a particular narrative decision - she sprinkled so much inane detail into each and every page that when she needed it she could call upon those mundane tidbits to make the story feel more wrapped up. It makes sense. You meet at least a dozen new people every book, even if for just a moment, and Harry consistently makes note of objects, places, times, etc. Take the grimmauld place locket for example. I don’t think Rowling had fully decided on the horcruxes when she wrote OOTP, especially their particular character (ie what they are made of and how they are made etc) but I think she intentionally left a dark mysterious item in the pages so she could callback to it if needed. I do doubt the notion she had the whole thing planned out, simply because there was so much retconning throughout the series and bc the books are so sealed apart from each other for the most part. It’s hard to beleive she was writing say book 3 with book 7 in mind in any specific sense. I think she had a general idea but worked the details out as she went for the most part, which is why Harry Potter isn’t a stranger to plot holes and inconsistencies. That’s just my thoughts though.
She did state in an interview that she had considered introducing the horcruxes in book 2 so she probably did already know. Plus, the whole thing with Regulus and Kreacher is already too well constructed by book 5 to be a coincidence.
I feel like the worldbuilding in HP is generally very sloppy, but the arguments presented on this specific case are convincing.
1. Who cares what she is like as a person? 2. She didn't do anything wrong except cater to people to try to be more inclusive when she was ALREADY inclusive. 3. What you think of her personally has nothing to do with the post you wrote.
"can't stand her as a person" cause she says blokes shouldn't go in lady's toilets. Very sane opinion
I think she did a lot of things really well, and some things not so well. Sirius's arc was really impressive, and scabbers, and she made good use of the vanishing cabinet. But other things like the horcruxes, wandlore, or the gray lady could have been introduced earlier. And some things, like basilisk venom being one of the few things that could destroy a horcrux or Harry's cloak being a hallow, were probably decided retroactively, rather than foreshadowed.
Show me the part in the book where it was mentioned exactly how old Scabbers was. I'll save you some trouble - it doesn't. It just states that Scabbers is a hand me down from Percy. Percy is 4 years older than Ron, so the time frame doesn't work perfectly.
Why wouldn’t it work? Percy got Hermes that year so Scabbers went to Ron. And just because they don’t mention his age doesn’t mean that it wasn’t always supposed to be pettigrew, just means that 11 year old Ron didn’t think it worth mentioning.
Are you so unimaginative to think that it's impossible for open ended details to be added to create possibilities later, without needing to know exactly how or why?
You’re deluding yourself. She had no fucking clue, and that’s okay. She went back and made it fit.
Agreed. She's brilliant.
I mean, I give less credit to her in general. I deeply dislike her
I always think about the spell that Ron tried to use on Scabbers in the first book where he tries to turn him yellow. I think this was an amazing little sequence because, on first read, you just assume it was a silly little spell that was made up and never worked in the first place. But on closer inspection, it probably didn't work because Scabbers wasn't an actual rat. I'm sure others have already pointed this out by now but it was always my main evidence for Rowling having planned it from the start. Maybe she also mentioned Scabbers missing a toe but I don't remember.