Attempted Transcription of JKR's OotP Chart

[dr_c]

Thanks to tartanboxers for posting screencap here (neither IE nor Firefox would let me grab the pen). In case anyone hasn't seen it already (although I'm sure somebody somewhere must have beaten me to it):

Comments

[dr_c]

Hmmm... I'm not so sure about that. I mean, the point of the LavLav subplot was that it was right there in Hermione's face, leading toward the eventual (apparent) resolution at the end of HBP. Having sleazy magazines under his bed, on the other hand, wouldn't really advance the plot-- it would just be a way of saying "Ron wants a girlfriend and will take the photographic kind if he can't have a real-life one." Presumably only Harry would know about it. In particular, it would still take something like a LavLav situation to bring him and Hermione together in Book 6. (Unless Hermione-- or perhaps Ginny-- discovered his stash on Christmas break, and there was a big blowup over it?)

Anyway, yeah, I do agree that-- even allowing for JKR's abilities with innocent descriptions of things-- I like it better that that bit got dropped from the story as published.

It would be interesting to know, though: When JKR wrote the Yule Ball scene, did she know that it would take two and a half school years for Ron and Hermione to reach the obvious conclusion from the evening? GoF still reads to me like something was ready to happen fairly soon. (On the other hand, the chart also has me wondering whether Hermione's epistolary relationship with Viktor was originally planned to be more clearly romantic than it is in the published OotP.)

(Note to angua9: I've also decided to follow your suggestion on "slip kiss." On further examination, they do indeed look like two separate words. I'm not sure if your interpretation of what it means is correct, but it seems as good a theory as any, at least.)

[angua9]

It would be interesting to know, though: When JKR wrote the Yule Ball scene, did she know that it would take two and a half school years for Ron and Hermione to reach the obvious conclusion from the evening? GoF still reads to me like something was ready to happen fairly soon.

Hee. Yeah. It seemed to me that there was a distinct slowing of pace between GoF and OotP. But then OotP feels like a holding action to me on almost every plotline.

I can't quite get over the fact that we still don't know whether Hermione went to Bulgaria or not two years ago, and yet we have indications that we will know at some point. I don't know... that seems like a long time to expect audiences (not us, of course -- normal people) to remember that it was ever a question. Of course, that won't be an issue for future readers who will go right from one book to the next. But poor Ron!