Harry Potter: How [a TERF] Writes Mystery

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The Harry Potter novels are excellent mystery stories. In this episode, I take a look at a handful of the techniques J.K. Rowling uses to successfully hide clues throughout the novels so that the reader always has a chance of successfully solving the mystery themselves.

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“Electric Mantis - Daybreak | Majestic Color”

“I’m Going For A Coffee,” by Lee Rosevere, Music For Podcasts 3

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[CaptainRiterraSmith]

Oh you didn't mention one of my favorite examples of this. Rita Skeeter. The book tells you Krum pulls a beetle from Hermionie's hair, there is a beetle in the bush outside the Yule ball, Harry hears one at Divination class, the Slytherins are huddled talking to something in their hands. Each time it seems like an odd detail to include but each one is followed by an article by Rita. Hermione puts it all together in the end. :)

[TheLithp]

To be fair, the film makers didn't have to make the moon look so bloody obvious.

[lilyme]

Also, all SEVEN books together communicated a much larger mystery, with clues planted all along the way. Now THAT is an amazing accomplishment.

[ThatNutmegGirl]

It's also cool when JK Rowling subverts her own established styles to misdirect the reader. For instance, in the Goblet of Fire when Harry goes to the Yule Ball and sees Krum with "a pretty girl in blue Harry didn't know." He later discovers that Krum's date is actually Hermione with a makeover, but without her "bushy brown hair" both Harry and the reader just skim right over her.

[Pointillax]

I remember discussing the R.A.B. signature in the horcruxe at the end of book 6 with my best friend, I was absolutely sure to know who it was. I waited and waited for the release of book 7, and when it confirmed that I was right, I felt like Sherlock Holmes, one of the most gratifying attentive reader's experience I ever had.

[swanpride]

Ah, you forgot her favourite trick...I call it her Wronsky feint. Meaning telling the Reader something and then providing the wrong answer. Off the top in my head she does it twice in book 2 - once when Ginny reacts shocked to seeing Harry with the diary, but her reaction is immediately explained away with her being embarrassed about the Valentin card, and again when she tries to tell him the truth and gets interrupted by Percy who immediately assures Harry (and the reader) that whatever she wanted to tell them has something to do with him, wrongly assuming it was about his romance with Penelope. And in book four Snape accuses Harry of stealing from him, and Harry immediately jumps to the theft Hermione committed in book 2, not realizing that Snape is talking about a more recent theft, thus distracting the reader from an important clue that someone in the castle uses polyjuice potion.



She also likes to use some suspect as distraction. In book 1 it is Snape. In book 2 she rightly expects the reader to have caught on and throws in Hagrid as the obvious suspect (nobody will buy anyway) and Percy as the more suspicious suspect, while secretly burying arrows pointing at Ginny. In Book 3 to 4 she ups the ante by throwing in more and more suspects, while also giving them a clever way to hide (as rat and as someone else who seems completely trustworthy), until she goes in book 6 and practically throws the suspect right in the face of the reader who, after so many misdirections, is practically trained to look elsewhere.

[maedhrosfeanorian]

She also works with red herrings a lot. Think about it - in Philosophers Stone we think it was Snape while it was actually Quirrel, in Chamber of secrets were lead to think that it's draco - when it's actually Tom Riddle. Same with Prisoner of Azkaban (Sirius - Peter), Goblet of Fire (Karkaroff - Moody /Barty Jr) etc etc

[RaketenKuhGewehr]

5:45 You know what's even more amazing? I read the books in a different language and STILL could identify two of the three.

[rickpgriffin]

"It takes more effort for the reader to figure out that Lupin is afraid of the moon in the books" you say that, but his name is basically Wolfy McRaisedbywolves, so for some of us that level of hinting was just as blatant

[aronmo]

I also find that sometimes time is on her side. Like when it is mentioned that Draco was looking at a cursed necklace at the beginning of book two, that then becomes important again in book six, when it is used in one of the attempts at Dumbledore's life. Because there are so far between the two times it's mentioned, only someone who has paid a lot of attention to detail will be able to figure it out. I myself did not. But when rereading the second book, suddenly it all made sense.

[ThierryVerhoeven]

There's this one very subtle hint that Bruce Willis's character is dead in The Sixth Sense: HE GETS KILLED IN THE VERY FIRST SCENE.

[jennilocke]

One of my favorite things about reading Harry Potter while the books were still being written was all the wild theories about what could be important and how minor things might play into future books. When the last book was being written, i knew a few people who brought up the heavy locket from Order of the Phoenix as Slytherin's locket. I don't recall many people remembering the diadem, though.

[Katy]

Excellent video! I think another great thing J.K. Rowling does is use red herring characters. Some good examples include: Snape in the first book (we're led to suspect he wants to steal the stone), and Hagrid in the second book (we're fooled into suspecting that he opened the Chamber of Secrets).

[AustinThomasFilms]

This is an incredible video essay. Makes me want to read the books all over again! (and watch the movies too)

[Asura]

Dude, in the first few minutes of this video you made me realize one of the reasons I like Harry Potter so much and also, why I don't care much for Sherlock

[ActiumFilms]

Props to you for using images of the original UK editions of the books.

[HarrysMovingMedia]

This is a CRACKING video man! I've always felt like the series had mystery elements to it, but you put the finger on it so excellently in this video. 10/10

[risky_busine]

Editing the title to accurately represent the author is *chef's kiss*

[niclasbengtsson]

If you think the original Sherlock holmes book mysteries were solvable then you are mistaken, Sherlock (at least the first seasons) followed the original structure of the books really well. The author who really made solvable mysteries mainstream was Agatha Christie.

[matesafranka]

This is something I've been meaning to write an essay about as well; more broadly, the topic of "magical mysteries". The core problem of a magical mystery is that magic makes anything possible, which puts the reader at a disadvantage in trying to solve the mystery on their own: since anything is possible, the author can, theoretically, make up any explanation ("A wizard did it"). Strictly speaking, the explanation will be valid, but it will be hugely unfair to the reader. Thus, any writer crafting a fair magical mystery must find a way to level the playing field.

One way is the "Magic A is Magic A" approach, where the writer establishes a fixed set of rules that govern magic, and makes them clear in the text, thus providing the reader with all the necessary information. One trick they can use in this case is to explain the rule *after* we've seen it in action. Perhaps the greatest example of this from the HP series would be the rule of claiming wand ownership via dueling: we see it at the end of the Half-Blood Prince, we hear it explained midway through the Deathly Hallows, and then at the climax Harry explains what *really* happened at the top of the tower that night. All the information was there, it was just presented "out of order", thus it never occurred to us to put two and two together.

Another one is simply to shift the focus of the mystery from the "how" to the "who and why". Rowling also uses this at the very beginning of the series, in the Philosopher's Stone: the mystery there is not so much centered on the theory of magic, but rather the children misjudging the characters of Snape and Quirrel. Fitting enough, since we don't really know enough about magic to construct meaningful, solvable mysteries just yet.