Pottering about

The Dr. Dementor Show


It seems there are dementors roaming my neighborhood. I'm still looking forward to getting the new Harry Potter book on opening night. I have a lot of questions, just like everybody else.

Some of the questions have become standard for each book in the series:

* What l'il beastie will Hagrid adopt this year?

* Who is the new Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher?

We have more information on, and more opportunity to debate, other notions:

* What word games is JK Rowling playing? I suspect a connection between Dumbledore and Voldemort. Their names are nearly anagrams, especially when you consider how pronunciation shifts: d ≈ t; v ≈ b (like in Spanish); u ≈ o (imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger's accent).

* What about Harry's romantic life? Will he end up with Hermione? Ginny? Draco?

* What big secret is being concealed from Harry this year?

* Who dies in this book? In Britain, there's been heavy betting, suspiciously centered on the town where the books were printed. In honor of this, the Grauniad ran a contest to tell the death of this character in the style of a writer other than Rowling. I especially liked the one after PG Wodehouse. Harry Flashman's account, as told to John M. Ford, is also excellent.
I would like to point out that Bloomsbury could have generated this hype and misdirection for very little money. I would also like to point out that there are an awful lot of Weaselys running around.

* And of course, what happens to Harry?

The really big question, though, is : what's up with the house elves? I'll save that for a future post.