213
votes
Accepted
Why is JK Rowling considered 'bad at math'?
Dates
From alexwlchan's excellent answer here (emphasis mine):
I know that Harry Potter Wikia isn’t usually considered canon, but they have a list of dating contradictions which looks fairly ...
- 134k
193
votes
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Harry Potter: Why 7?
Seven is the most powerfully magical number.
“Yes, sir,” said Riddle. “What I don’t understand, though — just out of curiosity — I mean, would one Horcrux be much use? Can you only split your soul ...
- 134k
87
votes
Accepted
Why did Rowling seemingly make light of the house-elf situation?
Hermione's crusade is portrayed as comically misguided because it kind of is comically misguided, but perhaps not for the reasons you think. Rowling commented on this in a 2000 interview with CBC ...
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83
votes
Can Hogwarts students belong to multiple Houses?
JKR's tweets are usually inspired from some form of intoxication.
Her tweets are not to be considered Primary Canon especially when they seem completely facetious, and completely contradict the ...
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64
votes
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What is JK Rowling "bad" at?
She is bad at returning library books
Question: Did you use the library a lot as a child?
J.K. Rowling responds: Yes, I loved the library, though I was very bad at returning books on time. I once ran ...
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59
votes
When did J.K. Rowling decide to make Ron and Hermione a couple?
It seems like it was planned from the very beginning. In a February 2014 interview with Emma Watson for the magazine Wonderland Rowling stated:
I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of ...
- 9,763
55
votes
Accepted
Has JK Rowling ever directly contradicted the movies?
Yes, at least twice.
Both come from Philosopher’s Stone, which was released a year after the book version of Goblet of Fire:
In the film, after escaping from Fluffy for the first time, Ron and Harry ...
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54
votes
Why was the old Pottermore shut down?
According to an article by The Bookseller, Susan Jurevics, Pottermore's CEO, had essentially three reasons. We might argue over whether or not they were good reasons1, but these are hers:
They don't ...
- 161k
54
votes
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Just how much of The Cursed Child is JKR's?
It would appear that JKR co-authored the play's story (which presumably includes character creation) but Jack Thorne wrote the actual play. Consultation was held at each stage of the play's ...
- 659k
52
votes
Were parts of Harry Potter inspired by James and the Giant Peach?
It's worth noting that parental abandonment in some form or other is an extremely common trope in juvenile literature and particularly prevelant in British literature. Whether due to literal ...
- 691
50
votes
Accepted
What other Harry Potter related writings has Rowling written?
Note: Many smaller tidbits (example) are not mentioned in this list. Lots of these can be found on Accio-Quote
Companion books
Quidditch Through The Ages
Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them (...
- 84.7k
49
votes
Accepted
Has the original Fantastic Beasts book been pulled off shelves?
Looks like it:
But with the selection of Fantastic Beasts to become the foundation
for a trilogy of films, and Scholastic’s new deal with Warner Brothers
to publish it as part of the spin off ...
- 10.4k
48
votes
Harry Potter: Why 7?
7 is a magic or prominent number in folklore, and is also important in many religions. The 7th son of a 7th son is said to have magical qualities. This is not a concept J.K. Rowling came up with nor ...
- 3,575
48
votes
Has JK Rowling ever directly contradicted the movies?
I’m not sure this is quite cut and dried as you’d hope, but the first thing that comes to mind is Lavender Brown’s skin colour.
(In)famously, by now, Lavender Brown was a minor character in the first ...
43
votes
Accepted
Is this JK Rowling "pocketeded" story true?
UPDATE: Rowling has apparently just addressed this on Twitter.
Good story, but it isn't true! @stephenfry wasn't condescending, he was completely lovely, and that phrase isn't in 4 books! #...
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41
votes
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What was the flaw in Goblet of Fire?
I thought about this issue too and researched some time ago. I found half of the answer but not the whole one. So JKR told us in BBC Newsround, 7/8/2000 interview there are two plot holes.
The ...
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40
votes
Accepted
Who was J. K. Rowling referring to in this quote about the change to the last chapter?
This was discussed in an interview with Today.com's Jen Brown. Apparently Arthur Weasley was the one who was originally slated to die but got a reprieve, largely due to the author's desire to keep ...
- 659k
38
votes
Accepted
Has Rowling ever recognised mistakes or inconsistencies?
Yes.
As explained in “Why did Harry's father emerge before his mother in HP and the Goblet of Fire?”, early editions of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire have a mistake in chapter 34 where the ...
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37
votes
Did Rowling ever say why more isn't said about Minerva McGonagall?
Actually Rowling has given us an insight into Minerva McGonagall's life through an article on Pottermore titled 'Professor McGonagall'. This article provides a quite comprehensive look into McGonagall'...
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34
votes
Accepted
When and why had Dumbledore taken James’s Invisibility Cloak?
Does not
'You. You have guessed, I know, why the Cloak was in my possession on the night your parents died. James had showed it to me just a few days previously. It explained much of his undetected ...
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34
votes
Accepted
Did J.K. Rowling say that a gun would beat a wand?
I'm gonna go ahead and say this is most likely a made up quote.
In the first link provided (to Post-Modern Magik), after that quote it says
(see Muggles Do It Better)
In the literature examples of ...
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34
votes
Accepted
When did J.K. Rowling decide to make Ron and Hermione a couple?
Rowling began publicly hinting at the relationship from at least 2000.
Since the question seeks Rowling quotes, I thought I'd assemble an answer of public statements she made before she had finished ...
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33
votes
Accepted
When did J.K. Rowling decide to make Harry and Ginny a couple?
This was planned years before Book 6
In an interview at Leaky Cauldron in 2005, Rowling revealed that she intended for these two character to end up together, because Harry needed someone "who ...
- 4,203
32
votes
Were parts of Harry Potter inspired by James and the Giant Peach?
As far as I know, JK Rowling has never said anything about James and the Giant Peach as a direct influence on Harry Potter, or for that matter, any other book. From a radio show transcript in 2000:
...
- 102k
32
votes
Accepted
Is there a complete list of JK Rowling's Harry Potter tweets?
This list should be complete as of December 2016, though it is very possible that some tweets were missed.
This list was started by @Alexwchan using some Python scripts that used the Twitter API to ...
32
votes
Significance of Harry Potter's glasses
As has been noted in other aspects of her opinions, Rowling is a member of an older generation with attitudes to some aspects of modern culture that could at best be called old fashioned.
Wearing ...
- 2,659
32
votes
Significance of Harry Potter's glasses
A quote from a BBC interview she did in 2005 supports Separatrix's answer:
Eun Ji An for Raincoast.com, Canada - I was wondering why Harry had glasses?
JK Rowling: Because I had glasses all through ...
- 429
28
votes
Just how much of The Cursed Child is JKR's?
Based on what Rowling has said in interviews, it would seem that the original idea was created by Jack Thorne, John Tiffany, Sonia Friedman, and Colin Callender before Rowling was even involved. Like ...
- 84.7k
28
votes
Accepted
How could MACUSA exist in 1693 or be in Washington in 1777?
Probably for the same reason MACUSA is called MACUSA in 1693, over 100 years before the United States became the United States, and why Dudley had a Playstation before Playstations existed!
Poor or ...
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28
votes
Accepted
How did this Fantastic Beasts character disguise themselves?
Through an advanced spell
J.K. Rowling answered this question in the FAQ of her new website.
Obsolete answer below:
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Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible