Thursday, April 3, 2008

New JKR Interview: Dumbledore and Snape Plot Lines

Back in February, J.K. Rowling was in attendance at James Joyces Awards in Dublin. A new report is now online from a question and answer section conducted with Jo at the awards ceremony. In the interview Jo talks about a number of things. When asked she thinks of any of the actors when wrting the books, Jo said:

“To be honest no, the only actor or actress who has ever, ever intruded while writing was Evanna Lynch, who is absolutely perfect as Luna. And I must admit I have heard her voice in my head when I wrote the book.”


Jo also was asked about the construction of the plot lines throughout the series:

“But the big ones, the Dumbledore storyline, the Snape storyline were always there because you — the series is built around those.

"With Dumbledore quite deliberately, you find out little about Dumbledore’s own private life because his interactions with Harry are always about Harry, which sets up the fact that in the seventh book Harry thinks “but why did I never ask ?” He’s gone now and he’s never even thought of saying : “so how about you ?” you know, at the end of one of those conversations which I think is something that happens after the grief, the regret that he didn’t ask. And I think also that Dumbledore had always been such an almost god-like figure to Harry in some ways, that he felt he couldn’t ask him personal questions.

Snape, on the other hand, I had to drop clues all the way through because as you know in the seventh book when you have the revelation scene where everything shifts and you realize why Snape was… what Snape’s motivation was. I had to plot that through the books because at the point where you see what was really going on, it would have been an absolute cheat on the reader at that point just to show a bunch of stuff you’ve never seen before, you know… “Oh by the way, in the background this was happening.” So I did know. It was a complicated plotting process but by the time Philosopher’s Stone was finished, I definitely knew all the big things about Snape and Dumbledore because in many ways they’re the two most important characters in the seventh book… Well, other than the trio, Harry, Ron and Hermione.


You can read the whole and lengthy interview here (scroll down for English translation).

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