Maybe she didn't mention every single aspect of her massive world upfront because that's both terrible writing and it would rob the series of any reveals down the road?

Untrue regarding the prophecy. When Harry tells Dumbledore about Trelawney's prediction re: Pettigrew, Dumbledore says that makes it the second true prophecy she's ever made. I would give her the benefit of the doubt that she at least figured out in advance the reason Voldemort went after Harry.

I do agree about the lack of setup for the Deathly Hallows though. That bothered me a lot when I read the final book.

EDIT: worth noting, it's also clear she DIDN'T have things all planned out by her own admission. She changed her mind about killing off characters which would have necessarily had major repercussions, and in the case of Goblet she's talked about getting halfway through before realizing she'd created a massive plot hole she had to do all sorts of calisthenics around. But the throughline of the Voldemort storyline -- and the backstory -- I expect she nailed down and could drop clues about whenever.

Last edited by Dorkman (2013-11-23 00:01:35)

I think you'll find he's declared himself impressed by HP as well.

What I'd love is if we someday got a book or set of books collating the early drafts and development notes, a la History of Lord of the Rings. (Naturally it would be called Hogwarts, a History.) But seeing as how she was super poor at the time and didn't know if it would go anywhere, she probably tossed a lot of that as she went or burned it for warmth or something.

I'm sure she had a series bible of her own, but I agree that a lot of details certainly got filled in as she went. What she knew when is a question only she can answer, but it's fun to guess.

EDIT: For example, I would bet that she had sorted out the broad strokes of horcruxes before she began writing the first book, though whether or not she'd given them that name isn't possible to know nor really relevant. An author as fixated on motivation, as Zarban pointed out, would have to know for her own peace of mind how Voldemort survived the rebounding curse.

She probably had not yet decided as of the first book what any of the others would be, though I would say she wrote Chamber knowing the nature of the diary. By the same token, I would bet she had not decided on the difficulty level of destroying horcruxes nor that basilisk venom was one of the only ways to do it -- at the time stabbing the diary just in general was probably enough -- and so that bit and the whole "goblin steel takes in that which makes it stronger" chicanery is pure retcon to create more of a challenge for the trio in the final volume.

But of course this could all be nonsense. Only Jo Rowling knows for sure.

Last edited by Dorkman (2013-11-23 02:25:24)

Well, she wrote the first novel at least on a typewriter, but yeah.

I'm personally trying to get in the habit when I write of saving drafts as I go, partially just in case I accidentally stumble into something awesome and want to be able to show the path that led me there but more so that I can always go back to what I wrote before or cannibalize earlier drafts for descriptions or dialogue I like. If we're lucky, she did the same.

I want an "I'm with Zarban" t-shirt.

Having DM'd several multi-year long RPG campaigns, the number of harmless background details and ass pulled events when something interesting needed to happen that later were retconned into having greater meaning is roughly equal to the number of things that had long term meaning from the second they appeared. What I've learned is, as long as it's done well, it doesn't matter. Your players/readers will enjoy it either way and, frankly, they never have to know which are which.

Last edited by ShadowDuelist (2013-11-24 08:44:30)

Yup. Vince Gilligan is very open about that fact. He's said in the past that the only thing the writers ever planned ahead for was the end of season 2, because they had those flash forwards. He said that they enjoyed finding details from past episodes and working them into new ones.

Curious, and someone had to ask it: how do you guys rank the books/films? My rankings are:

Books                                        Films
7. Chamber of Secrets           8. Order of the Phoenix
6. Philosopher's Stone           7. Goblet of Fire
5. Half-Blood Prince              6. Deathly Hallows Part 2
4. Prisoner of Azkaban           5. Half-Blood Prince
3. Goblet of Fire                   4. Philosopher's Stone
2. Order of the Phoenix          3. Deathly Hallows Part 1
1. Deathly Hallows                2. Chamber of Secrets
                                         1. Prisoner of Azkaban

Me too, I really loved that book.

Books                                   Films             
1.) Order of the Phoenix      1.) Prisoner of Azkaban
2.) Chamber of Secrets        2.) Chamber of Secrets
3.) Prisoner of Azkaban         3.) Deathly Hallows Part 2
4.) Deathly Hallows               4.) Order of the Phoenix
5.) Sorceror's Stone               5.) Sorceror's Stone
6.) Half Blood Prince                6.) Half Blood Prince
7.) Goblet of Fire                      7.) Deathly Hallows Part 1
                                                           .
                                                           .
                                                           .
                                                 8.) Goblet of Fire

I should note that my book list is tentative, since I've never gone back and re-read any of them, meaning it's been over a decade since I read the first one. As for the movies, I generally like most of them, with Goblet of Fire being the obvious terrible one. Deathly Hallows Part 1 is one of the best in the series for about an hour, and then turns into a shitty twilight movie for the last hour. I admit to being biased because I hate the trend of splitting stories in half and releasing them as seperate movies, meaning you get no climax and feel shitty walking out.

Prisoner of Azkaban and Chamber of Secrets are both great though. Like, for as progressively adult as the stories get, I'm always impressed by how dark Chamber of Secrets is for being only the 2nd one in the series. They're fighting giant killer spiders and snakes, and you've got your 12 year old kid protagonist bleeding to death at the end of it.

Last edited by bullet3 (2013-11-28 02:50:00)

Books                                                        Films
1) Deathly Hallows                                  1) Prisoner of Azkaban
2) Prisoner of Azkaban                            2) Deathly Hallows Part 1
3) Half-Blood Prince                                 3) Half-Blood Prince
4) Order of the Phoenix                           4) Order of the Phoenix
5) Goblet of Fire                                       5) Chamber of Secrets
6) Chamber of Secrets                             6) Goblet of Fire
7) Philosopher's Stone                             7) Philosopher's Stone
                                                                 8) Deathly Hallows Part 2

Azkaban was my #1 book until Deathly Hallows. The final book brings everything in for a landing and absolutely sticks it. The final film by contrast makes a complete hash of it. The buildup to the battle is great, but the battle itself and the complete failure to resolve the mystery plot or have the final confrontation be anything more than the magical equivalent of a knife fight... I mean, it was all there, right on the page. How you fuck that up when someone already figured it out for you is beyond me.

I'm with Jimmy.

1. Prisoner of Azkaban
2. Philosopher's Stone
3. Chamber of Secrets
4. Deathly Hallows Part 1
5. Order of the Phoenix
6. Half-Blood Prince
7. Goblet of Fire
8. Deathly Hallows Part 2

Actually I did read Azkaban on a whim one Summer in high school. Liked it a lot.