I read (but did not check) she had a talk with the publisher before publishing book 1, as they were not that sold on book 1, so she explained the main story line up to and including book 7, and that convinced them. So she did have the big plot line in her head at least.
And every predicament is going to be solved by a him discovering a spell that was never mentioned before. What? No, it's not Deus Ex Machina, because there is a book of spells that we tell you about.
What exactly are you talking about? One of the biggest criticisms I see about the books is that they don't learn new spells and keep using the same very limited arsenal. Damn it, the final villain is defeated by using a disarming spell introduced in book 2
that's not true. even from the first book it's pretty clear she had a lot of stuff already planed, she herself said she had the ending already written (i'm guessing the epilogue)
one of the things that come up from the top of my head is that Hagrid mentions Sirius Black when he delivers harry to dumbledroe at the dursleys. (Hagrid was using Sirius's motorcycle) I don't think Sirus come ups until book 3
Rowling has always maintained that she had everything planned out but tbh I don't believe she did. She likely started charting out the bigger picture by book three, though, once she found the whole horcrux plotline
If that was at all true why weren't the Deathly Hallows and the "muggleborns steal magic" concepts introduced earlier and if the invisibility cloak was so special why could Moody see through it just fine? If the diary was always "a horcrux" why was Tom Riddle's mission to set the snake on the school, and kill Harry Potter, not to urgently resurrect himself?
Very good points. It's been a while since I read the books but I remember being baffled at a lot of chamber of secrets logic, that's why my hunch is she only started thinking it through by Azkaban.
The DH can sort of be explained away as being held back on purpose for bigger effect when they're revealed, I suppose
I completely forgot Moody could see through the cloak, though
That can't be all he was in the movie was it? I haven't really watched them but in the book he is just a charismatic person that Harry looked up to, even in the tournament.
I thought that's why they brought on Pattinson, to be charismatic?
The whole 'potter stinks' buttons were a wayyy bigger thing in the books and Cedric tried to stop them. They also meet before the World Cup , where Cedrics Dad tries to brag about his son being a better flier than the boy-who-lived because Harry fell from his broom when attacked by dementors in the Gryffindor vs Hufflepuff game the year before and Cedric being Hufflepuff seeker and captain didn't. Cedric was very unhappy about it. I also hated how they completly cut out the World Cup from the movies! This plus the week in diagon ally in book 3 where the only times Harry is actually out in the public wizarding world and they included neither.
It's not made as apparent in the movie, but Time-Turners can in fact change past events, Hermione says there are several instances of wizards accidentally killing their past or future selves (the movie presents it as if it's a stable time loop the whole time but the book doesn't) and the Ministry heavily regulates their use to avoid the numerous disasters this could cause. Hermione was given special permission to have one because McGonagall could vouch for her as a responsible student and had to promise to only use it for her classes (she signed up for every available class when given the chance), so it's not something every student has access to. After Year 3 ends, she drops several classes because even with time travel she was overwhelmed with the workload, and gives the Turner back to the Ministry. Then in Year 5, during the battle at the Ministry of Magic, the kids accidentally destroy the entire supply of Time-Turners, and Voldemort's return being exposed means the Ministry doesn't have the time or manpower to devote to making new ones.
...I'm not sure how an explanation of "there's multiple layers of regulation around this very dangerous bit of magic and at one point it's straight-up impossible to perform because the necessary tools no longer exist and aren't easy to reproduce" is weak. There was ample explanation provided on multiple levels towards why this isn't common, and it makes sense precisely because of how powerful time travel is.
For a real-world comparison, do we need to frequently use nukes in warfare because it will end the fight quicker? Or will doing that cause just as much problems as it solves unless there's no other alternative? Should any civilian who wants to be able to use them freely to solve all their problems?
Plus, again, once the government body that regulates the technology finally realized that the most powerful evil wizard in history was back, they no longer had any to give out, so even if they wanted to use it on him they couldn't.
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u/IshaNuva 3d ago
She had ~0 plans for future books as she wrote, and barely had plans involving the previous books as she wrote