Thus quoth my husband upon hearing of the excitement surrounding J.K.Rowling's newest gift to her fans. But before going further I should explain I came to consider myself a fan of this book series, rather than just an avid reader.
When J.K. Rowling's sixth and seventh Harry Potter books had not yet come out, and I was an unemployed expatriate stay-at-home-mother-to-be, I used to go on an internet forum where we would theorise about the clues JKR might have left for us in the books already written, and try to work out what might happen next. Might Remus Lupin end up with Nymphadora Tonks? Would one of the Weasley family die - and if so, which one? Were Ron and Hermione meant to be, or was that just a distraction from the real Harry-Hermione romance? (In case you're wondering, yes they were, and no it wasn't.) And other, deeper questions as well - of course I don't remember those!
Before joining that forum, which I came across by accident through MuggleNet, I had read the books at face value. They were a good read to pass the time and I loved the references to real mythology (I still can't get over the American publishers' changing the title of the first book to "HP and the Sorcerer's Stone", when there is no such thing as a sorcerer's stone, whereas "the Philosopher's Stone" actually has historical meaning. Tch.) But the New Clues forum gave a new depth to the reading - as well as helping pass the time while my husband was at work! You can only do so much cleaning in one house. Seeing that so many of the clue-based guesses turned out to be right in Book Six got me even more interested. If you don't quite see how that could be a worthwhile way to spend my time, let me ask you this: do you enjoy murder mysteries? If you do, you can probably see that trying to guess before the author tells you is quite compelling, and getting it right can be a kick for someone like me who doesn't drink or do drugs. :-)
Anyway, all of that is in the past now. I made some good online friends through it, developed my critical thinking skills (and conspiracy-seeking skills, most likely!) and generally had a great time. And as a full-time mother of two, I don't miss it, most of the time.
But now, there is Pottermore. What is it? We don't know. We'll find out on the 23rd... which means JKR has once again given us the chance to create wild, inventive, crazy, highly unlikely theories about what is going to happen. Alongside perfectly reasonable, plausible and accurate ones. I'd like to think that my theory, which I will discuss in my next post here, falls in the latter category, but we shall see!
