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So back in 1998, Jo Rowling claims that as a child she would read and re-read the Narnia books and that "even now, if I was in a room with one of the Narnia books I would pick it up like a shot and re-read it." There are numerous other interviews from the early years of HP in which Rowling claims to be a fan of Lewis and makes specific references to things like the Wardrobe and Eustace as having inspired her for ideas in the HP books.

Now, within the space of two days, we have the Time interview and the interview with the cub reporters, both of which claim (and in the latter, it's said as a direct quote from JKR) that she wasn't that taken by Narnia and in fact never even finished the last book (though that apparently doesn't keep her from talking nonsense about it in Time, but I shall reserve my rant about the whole "poor Susan was banished from Narnia because she grew up and discovered sex" rubbish for another opportunity).

Dear Jo: I'm not sure I quite get this concept. Were you lying back in 1998 (and 1999, and 2001) to make antsy readers and critics feel better about your inspirations, or did Philip Pullman just hit you with Obliviate? Yours in bewilderment, RJA.

But to continue on a happier note, in the CBBC Newsround cub reporter interview Jo says this:

Another very good question. [Petunia] overheard a conversation, that is all I am going to say. She overheard conversation. The answer is in the beginning of Phoenix, she said she overheard Lily being told about them basically. ... [but] there is more to it than that. As I think you suspect. Correctly, but I don't want to say what else there is because it relates to book 7.

I KNEW IT!!! "That dreadful boy" Petunia overheard warning Lily about the Dementors etc. wasn't James, it was Snape. Ha ha! *dances*

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WHERE did you find the CBBC interview?

I've been looking for it everywhere and all my googling hasn't produced anything for this release.

The CBBC Newsround is here

Ooh! And there's a question in there from our very own

highstone, I see!

Good question. I must say that there always was a nagging doubt in me about the supposed importance of Narnia to JKR - I do not think it is very evident in the books, and in fact one other source (of which I never heard her speak) is far more evident: superhero comics. In terms of the nature and use of their powers, JKR's wizards are superheroes without their capes. The only thing I could see in common was the occasional ironic tone in both CLS and JKR, and if that were symptomatic, half the English nation would qualify. As for Susan - I must say that although it is badly expressed ("sex" has nothing to do with it), JKR is not the only one who feels that there was a bit of the grouchy Victorian bachelor about CSL's attitude to women. Remember that in the ideal house in That hideous strength, there was no mirror, and this was taken to be a step forward in female virtue...

CBBC interview is at :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_4690000/newsid_4690800/4690885.stm

Yes, I now agree, Petunia overheard an interview between Lily and Severus. It makes sense, and I wondered how Lily was so good at Potions when her wand is especially good for Charms.

So Lily and Severus were close friends then, or maybe they were related in some way. Wonder who the Snapes are related to, and the Princes for that matter.

Is there anything to explain why she thought using 'ejaculated' as a speech tag was a good idea?

It's actually an old, Victorian way of saying "burst out", which you will find in plenty of old novels. Originally it means "to throw out in the manner of a dart or spear", from Latin iaculum throwing weapon, dart, spear. The sexual meaning is derivative and secondary.

Well, yes. I realize that, having grown up on old Zane Grey novels and the like. It just struck me as unnecessary, given that it's out of common usage, it has that secondary meaning, and she's writing children's books that are already causing controversy. A good ol' 'exclaimed' or 'blurted' would have done.

Oh, I beg your pardon. Did not want to sound patronizing. Well, it just shows that she lives on books to a considerable extent, and we knew that anyway.

Try the Sherlock Holmes stories, for instance. Holmes and his friends and enemies are constantly "ejaculating" - and you are welcome to the dirty pun.

How does any of that add up to Snape?

Potions - we know from Sughorn that Lily was extraordinarily good at them, and we know from the HBP's textbook that Snape was genius level, one of those rare students who are better than their teachers. Dark arts - Snape knew more about them, according to Sirius, before he entered Hogwarts, than most students did leaving. Who else would know about Dementors? And would even Petunia call James "dreadful", or neglect to mention that Lily married him? And what would it be about getting the Potters killed that would be so terrible for Snape, worse than anything else he had done as a Death Eater, and that would make his repentance look so ironclad to Dumbledore - who was merciful, but not a fool? In spite of the fact that he hated James, and hates James' image in Harry? At least, I guess that is what the other folks on this thread have in mind.

Well, that's all clear conjecture, I'm not seeing the evidence.

Why would Petunia call James "Dreadful" - er, because she clearly could not stand him, see exchanges with Aunt Marge in POA, for starters.

The "awful boy" is still just another internet theory. It has no legs.

Dementors - plenty of canon characters know about them. Voldemort used them in the first war, to terrible effect. That war was underway before the Marauders left school.

I agree that Petunia's calling James dreadful is plausible -- but it's the combination of the theory that she was talking about Snape and JKR's saying just now that there was "more to it than that" and some people had guessed it.

Of course, I'd imagine somebody somewhere guessed that the Evanses got attacked by Dementors, and that would be 'more to it' as well.

I also think that Snape being friends with Lily was the 'remorse' par tof the story he told DD.

DD didnt lie to Harry about the reasons he trusted Snape, he just ommitted some of the facts in my opinion. He did seem to hesitate before he gave the reason.

Also, Snape has never made any nasty comments about Lily to Harry, plus that memory that Harry saw in the Pensieve maybe Snapes Worse Memory because he called a friend who was trying to help him a Mudblood - Lily stared at him as if she could not believe what he has called her.

Right after Petunia says "that dreadful boy", Harry says to Petunia, "If you mean my father, why don't you use his name?" or words to that effect. But Petunia remains silent. From the moment I first read that, I wondered whether the "dreadful boy" really was James, and I strongly suspected it wasn't.

Now, in the CBBC interview I quoted, JKR could easily have said, "Petunia overheard a conversation between James and Lily", but she didn't. She said, somewhat awkwardly, that Petunia had overheard a conversation, carefully not identifying the other speaker (which she'd have no reason to do if it had been James). And it's fairly heavily implied in her answer that the identity of the person who spoke to Lily was an important element of Book 7 that she wasn't about to divulge.

I am not yet willing to jump on board with Snape/Lily in the classic sense, but there's a number of good reasons (not least Dumbledore's account in this book of Snape's horror and remorse over the Potters' deaths) to suspect that Snape cared about Lily in some fashion, whether it was a strong friendship or an unrequited passion. (Or, as we were beaten over the heads with early on in this book, an obsessive infatuation, which Slughorn tells us emphatically can be a powerful thing and not to be underestimated.) In which case it's perfectly natural to assume that Snape might have taken it upon himself to warn Lily, naive Muggle-born that she was, about such wizardly dangers as Dementors.

Of course, Petunia's "dreadful boy" might be someone else, and not Snape. But I think Snape the most likely candidate so far. It's definitely not James, though, or like I said, JKR wouldn't have been so cagey about it.

Another part of the picture and something that's been nagging at me for a while, even before HBP, but returned after HBP with Dumbledore's comment to Harry something to the effect of 'you can still love after all you have been through', was the idea that the thing Dumbledore isn't telling us about Snape and why he trusts him so completely is that sometime in Snape's past he loved someone and it was because of that or because of something that happened to that person that he turned away from Voldemort. I'm not ready to jump on board Lily/Snape in the classic sense either, I think it could have been Lily (whether it was or not, I think you're right that there probably was some amount of caring there) but it might also have been someone else.

Regardless, it is that Snape did love that Dumbledore trusts. And if the love had ended painfully or was something difficult to explain to other people it would explain Dumbledore's reluctance to give any one the reason why he trusts him. I found it actually odd that even McGonagall did not seem to know the reasons at the end, and she is the one person I would have expected Dumbledore to have shared that information with.

I've got more ideas running around in my head then ever, and I really don't want to be at work today. I want to be home writing out thoughtful essays on the 'real' Severus Snape!

It's definitely not James, though, or like I said, JKR wouldn't have been so cagey about it.

I do agree that's probably very right.

I've been wondering all along about Dumbledore's opinion that the ability to love is the ironclad armor against absolute corruption and how that relates to his reasons for trusting Snape. JKR said before HBP, in answer to some question she was asked, that Voldemort had never loved anyone in his whole life. And we all know about Harry's ability to love, and how that protects him from Voldemort. So I too think the evidence is mounting for a Snape-Lily relationship of *some* kind. At the very least, I think we're going to learn something of Snape's past in the next book that indicate who he loved in the past, whether it was Lily or his mother or Argus Filch.

I feel dreadfully sorry for poor little Eileen Prince. I wish we could know more about her. She tugs at my heart strings the way Luna did.

You have this amazing tendency to come up with theories that connect canon clues in a way I never pieced together myself, but strike me as incredibly *right*. I like your brain. :-) And I like the idea that Snape was the "dreadful boy." I know better than to get *too* attached to any theories, but...if I were a betting creature, my money would be there.

Not only do I think that the "dreadful boy" was Snape, but I think that the handwriting in the book (which Hermione thought was a woman's) was actually Lily's - and that "she" came up with the nickname "half blood prince" for him!

And that Slughorn paired his two proteges as potions partners.

I liked this idea on first thought, but on second thought, recalled the Pensieve scene where Snape calls her the frightful name and she stomps away. If they were in NEWT Potions together, it would have been after that event. Lily would have to have been mighty forgiving to have been any sort of friend after that, especially one who might have given such a nickname.

I must admit I do wonder why Harry did not recognise the writing in the Potions book. After all, he did see how small and cramped Snape's writing was during the OWL Penseive scene.

Not to mention that he's been seeing is scrawled across his Potions essays for the past five years. And it's still parading across his DADA essays now.

Which is why I think it was Lily's writing in Snape's textbook and not Snape's... remember Hermione did say it looked like a girl's handwriting, and as you say, it doesn't make sense that Harry wouldn't recognize Snape's handwriting after seeing it both in the OotP Pensieve scene and also all over his essays for the past five years. Handwriting can change over the years, but not that much, I suspect.

Dear Jo: I'm not sure I quite get this concept. Were you lying back in 1998 (and 1999, and 2001) to make antsy readers and critics feel better about your inspirations, or did Philip Pullman just hit you with Obliviate? Yours in bewilderment, RJA.

I feel your confuzzlement, Rebecca. After I read the Times article, I scratched my head and said "Huh?" Part of the nose-thumbing at Lewis I'm sure we can attribute to the author of the article, but JKR's direct quote on Susan perplexes me. In fact, it sounds suspiciously similar to what Pullman said about the Narnia series.

Answer. She hadn't read Pullman in '98-2001.

It's always sad when ~~kids~~ writers change to try and fit in with the "in crowd". ;)

Hello! I came to a different entry in your journal from the Daily Snitch, but this one interested me more... I went to quick-quote-quill.org to look at what J.K. Rowling's said about the Narnia books.I saw the 1998 quote you mentioned, and then this one from 2003:

Did you read the Narnia books when you were a child?
JKR: Yes I did and I liked them, though all the Christian symbolism utterly escaped me. It was only when I re-read them later in life that it struck me forcibly..

And this from 2001:
Generally there isn't much humour in the Narnia books, although I adored them when I was a child. I got so caught up I didn't think CS Lewis was especially preachy. Reading them now I find that his subliminal message isn't very subliminal at all.

Really, CSLewis had very different objectives to mine. When I write, I don't intend to make a point or teach philosophy of life. A problem you run into with a series is how the characters grow up ... whether they're allowed to grow up. The characters in Enid Blyton's Famous Five books act in a prepubescent way right through the series. In the Narnia books the children are never allowed to grow up, even though they are growing older.

Maybe sometime between 1998 and 2001, J.K. Rowling reread the Narnia books for the first time since she was a child. I found it a little painful to reread my favorite books and find insinuating morality. It's not the "big" morality that bothers me - good and evil, themes of love and forgiveness, Christian symbolism - I love those things, and I love "adult" books that deal head on with morality like Hamlet and The Scarlet Letter. It's the little things, like Lewis's take on Eustace's school in the Narnia books or parenting methods in my favorite book from first grade, Understood Betsy, or the way birth control is dealt with in the Mercedes Lackey books I loved in middle school. Maybe it's because I noticed and thought about the big things when I read the books as a child (maybe it's my upbringing, but I remember finding a Narnia website when I was eleven that dismissed religious symbolism in Narnia and thinking, "But Aslan is obviously Jesus!") but when I see things I didn't notice, I feel like I was being "tricked."

Maybe sometime between 1998 and 2001, J.K. Rowling reread the Narnia books for the first time since she was a child.

Except the quote I gave states that she had read and re-read them countless times and still couldn't resist picking one up if she saw it, which makes it much less likely that she hadn't read them since childhood.

I don't object to her having a less glowing opinion of the books than it might have seemed at first, but I do find it baffling that in early interviews she spoke as though she were very familiar with and positive toward the books (even if she felt obligated to point out that HP is not an allegory like Narnia and that she does not wish to be "preachy" as Lewis could sometimes be, which is fine) but now she claims that she never even finished the series (?!). I'm confused by that.

No matter how I look at it, claiming to read them over and then claiming to have not read the last one is deceptive... She wasn't even asked about the Narnia books by the cub reporters; she could have easily not mentioned them so I have to conclude she's deliberately insulting them. She must have changed her opinion.

My idea about her motives is that before she fondly remembered a series she reread and reread as a child. Since then, she has realized that Aslan=Jesus, etc. but she still has fond memories and if she saw a copy, she thinks she'd read it! But she hasn't. Then finally she does and, like I did, feels tricked.

But that's purely self projection.

Maybe her motive is, "I am now a member of the secular elite and must deny my cultural religious origins." I'm not being sarcastic: people - sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciouly - do that. And it's wrong, but I can understand. Only since maybe 10th grade have I been able to admit, "Whatever my opinion of the series now, I loved the Babysitters Club books. I owned several shelves them and read at least 100 different Babysitters Club books over and over again." J.K. Rowling should have the honesty and self confidence to say, "I loved the Narnia books. I read them over and over. I don't have such a high opinion of them now, and I'll tell you why, but even as recently as a few years ago I thought they were wonderful."

I'm so, so, so disappointed in my Phillip Pullman. I can no longer respect his moral opinions: he has signed a contract to make His Dark Materials into a movie where the enemy is not the church but some sort of large corporation.

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