Harry Potter hanky-panky

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News Media Commentary
Title: Harry Potter hanky-panky
Commentator: Kera Bolonik for Salon.com
Date(s): 12 January 2001
Venue: online
Fandom: Harry Potter
External Links: https://www.salon.com/2001/01/12/potterfix/
http://www.cnn.com/2001/books/news/01/12/salon.potter/index.html
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Harry Potter hanky-panky is a 2001 article by Kera Bolonik for Salon.com about the "wand order error" in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and its correction in later editions. The subhead reads: "Book publishers’ furtive change of a key detail in “The Goblet of Fire” has fans buzzing."

The article is notable for its focus on the HPforGrownups mailing list. It features quotes by list members Brian Dorband, Penny Linsenmayer, and Neil Ward.

The article, posted both at Salon.com and CNN.com, led to a massive influx of new members to the HPforGrownups group.

Background

Salon.com had previously published the article "Harry Potter fans detect devilish discrepancy" in July 2000 about the apparent error in the book.

In subsequent months, some new printings of Goblet of Fire were revised to correct the discrepancy, and Neil Ward reported in November 2000 that he had contacted Bloomsbury about the changes and Bloomsbury confirmed the original version was an error.[1] However, no official announcement about the change was made and there was no news coverage of the change.

According to a December 2000 post to HPfGU by Brian Dorband, Brian contacted Salon.com via a letter to the editor about the updated situation. Kera Bolonik contacted him about doing a piece on the correction, and Brian referred her to HPfGU.[2] Penny Linsenmayer contacted Bolonik individually and gave her permission to quote her in the article and requested that HPfGU as a whole be credited as well.[3]

Excerpt

In July, careful British and American readers of J.K. Rowling's children's fantasy series took immediate notice of an error that appeared in the fourth installment, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." The mistake concerned the order of Harry's parents' emergence from villainous Lord Voldemort's wand in the novel's climactic scene. In the previous Potter books, Rowling makes it quite clear that Voldemort killed first James and then Lily Potter. In "Goblet of Fire," however, the ghosts of the evil wizard's victims emerge from his deadly wand, we are told, in the reverse order in which they were killed, yet James steps out of the wand before Lily.

This led many of Rowling's most ardent fans to speculate that the discrepancy was intentional, a plot twist to be picked up in Harry Potter V, a notion that sent readers' imaginations running wild and inspired innumerable theories. According to Brian Dorband, one of more than 500 members of the international HPforGrownups mailing list on eGroups, this has been a subject of discussion for months. The "list mom" for HPforGrownups, Penny Linsenmayer, says that members have been coming up with theories "ranging from the perfectly plausible to the insane."

Aftermath & Response

Publicity from the article led to a massive influx of new members to the HPforGrownups group and a dramatic increase in list volume.[4][5][6] Group membership increased by about 100 in just the first two days after the article's publication,[7] and nearly doubled over the next two months.[8] Messages to the group increased by over 50% from December 2000 to January 2001, reaching a then-"all-time high of 3,086."[9] In an attempt to stem message volume, HPfGU established a separate list for "off-topic chatter" (anything not directly related to the HP canon) in early February 2001.

HPfGU's reaction to the article itself was minimal but overall positive, although Neil Ward noted that his words were misrepresented in the article. Neil's quoted statement concludes that J.K. Rowling must have been directly involved in the correction, but the text of the article states in response to the question posed by Brian Dorband—"Did she actually correct it, or did she just say, 'Oh jeez, we got it wrong. Go ahead and change the words'?"—that "Neil Ward, a British member, thinks it must be the latter...." However, his statement was not intended to support the "latter" point.[10]

Other news outlets also responded to the article. Penny reported that in the days following the Salon.com article, multiple other reporters contacted her with inquiries about the wand order issue and correction.

Additional media coverage includes:

  • Letters to the Editor: "Harry Potter hanky-panky", responses to the article at Salon.com
  • A follow-up to the Salon.com piece for the New York Daily News, which appeared in the Monday, January 16th issue and temporarily online.[11] Penny Linsenmayer was also interviewed for that article.
  • "A Harry Potter Mystery" by David D. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times (21 Jan 2001). Refers to "Internet discussion groups" and quotes Trina Gabbard (a member of HPfGU and also co-host of the iVillage.com Harry Potter Fans board and chat[12])

References

  1. ^ Neil Ward at HPforGrownups. The wand order mystery... (Message #6239), posted 30 November 2000. (Messages are restricted to list members, but membership is unmoderated.)
  2. ^ Brian Dorband at HPforGrownups. Wand Order Story for Salon.com (Message #6712), posted 12 December 2000.
  3. ^ Penny Linsenmayer at HPforGrownups. Re: Wand Order Story for Salon.com (Message #6906), posted 14 December 2000.
  4. ^ John Walton at HPforGrownups. ADMIN: Welcome! (Message #9141), posted 13 January 2001.
  5. ^ Penny Linsenmayer at HPforGrownups. Wand Order Publicity; Obsession Quiz (Message #9496), posted 17 January 2001.
  6. ^ Neil Ward at HPforGrownups. ADMIN: Re: New OT Group/response to Rita and some background (Message #13972), posted 09 March 2001.
  7. ^ Jan 14 2001 chat (long!), posted by Catlady at HPforGrownupsChatScripts. babynick34 reported that at the time of the chat there were 160 more members than the 500 members reported in the article, and flying_ford_anglia replied, "We have about 100 new members because...of the Salon article."
  8. ^ By March 6, 2001, there were 999 members of HPfGU at Yahoo! Groups (accessed via the Wayback Machine).
  9. ^ Harry Potter for GrownUps: A History, Archived version by Penny Linsenmayer and Cindy C. at Fantastic Posts & Where to Find Them states: "The OT-Chatter list, established February 7, 2001, [...] was originally formed after list volume on the main list reached an all-time high of 3,086 in January 2001." (10 November 2002, last update 06 July 2003)
  10. ^ Neil Ward at HPforGrownups. Re: Penny etc. are famous again (Message #9105), posted 12 January 2001.
  11. ^ Linked at The Leaky Cauldron, Salon prints some Letters to, posted by bkdelongTLC on 18 January 2001. Penny Linsenmayer also posted the link to HPfGU, noting that it may only be available for a few days (Link to Daily News Article on Wand Order Problem (Message #9695), 19 January 2001).
  12. ^ According to a post by Trina at HPfGU: HP Obsession (Message #9829), posted 19 January 2001. See also cl-triner2001's profile and Harry Potter Fans at iVillage.com (accessed via the Wayback Machine).
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