*sigh* Just my luck.

I've been wallowing in Harry Potter nostalgia during this lockdown, indulging myself with some long-overdue essay writing, re-reading the books, discovering new fan fiction, etc., and then finding myself really enjoying Rowling's new children's book "The Ickabog." So naturally J.K. Rowling has to choose this time to remind ( Read more... )

I am getting way too into The Ickabog. It's very upsetting!

How do Rowling and her collaborators Jack Thorne and John Tiffany use geometric patterns in the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child?

( Geometry Is the Science of Correct Reasoning on Incorrect Figures-George Polya )

Triangles are magical. In structural engineering they are the only sided shape that can't be distorted or collapse at the joints. In drama they are always dynamic. Unlike quartets, which tend to settle into static pairs, triangles present the constant possibility of any two people uniting against the third. It is no wonder they are so often chosen ( Read more... )

Long, long ago, writers started realizing that if one pair of lovers is fun, two or more pairs can be even more fun. The most common geometric result of this realization is the quartet. It has long been a convention of plays, movies, and musicals to have the lead pair and the supporting pair, the serious pair and the comic pair, the mature pair and ( Read more... )

The simplest romance geometry of all is the pair. It is a perennial classic, used in works from Abelard and Heloise to a large percentage of fan fiction. You will never, ever spark a shipping debate if you limit your romantic potential to one guy and one gal--or two guys or two gals if your audience is accepting. If you want to really dig in and ( Read more... )

This is sort of a continuation of this post I wrote a couple of years ago, using the new information from Jo Rowling's post-Potter works to reflect back on her writing of romance in the Harry Potter series. I want to return to Rowling's comments in her 2014 interview with Emma Watson:

What I will say is that I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship ( Read more... )

In my recent post about reconsidering JK Rowling's writing of romance in the Harry Potter series in light of the additional information from her later works, I declared myself puzzled by the following words of Rowling's:

What I will say is that I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of wish fulfillment.

I wrote:

And it is not quite clear ( Read more... )

I remember back when I first heard about the "Cursed Child" play, I was hardly excited at all. I saw it as kind of a local thing for people who live in London or are visiting there, kind of like the Harry Potter musical (there was something like that, wasn't there?). One of the reasons I wasn't too interested was because it was supposed to be about ( Read more... )

This is the fourth part of my attempt to cast light on the writing of J.K. Rowling in the Harry Potter series using the new information of her subsequent works. Part 1 (feminism) is here. Part 2 (weight prejudice and plot holes) is here. Part 3 (morality and messages) is here.

As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to her folly. ( Read more... )