HP Hoaxer “Speaks”

Jul 01, 2004

Posted by: Melissa Anelli

Uncategorized

HPANA has a short interview with the Book Six Title hoaxer, in which the “anonymous” person (who says he didn’t expect all the attention yet e-mailed every HP news site with the hoax) says, “If I had not started the hoax, would we all know the real title to book 6 right now?”
Loath as we are to give more publicity to the hoaxer, something must be corrected right now. Yes we would have the title. Absolutely. Read it right from JKR herself.

Unfortunately, however, the door opened on the very same day the ‘Pillar of Storgé’ hoaxer struck, which left a lot of Harry Potter fans bemused …

Unfortunately – owing to circumstance or chance, a purely coincidental relationship leading to negative consequences – so, unless you think she is misleading, which she says outright she will not do on that site, she did not release the title as a response to the hoaxer. There was never a reason to expect she would. The trick brick wall couldn’t have been whipped up over Monday morning coffee; it was planned, as, it seems, were all her other updates (excepting, of course, the ones about the hoax).

That said, she did say giving us the detail about HBP being neither Harry nor Voldemort was due to the hoax, and yes, we must thank the hoaxer for that. I mean thanks in the blame sense, not in the give gratitude sense, which I should have clarified. So let’s make it…we must admit that he is responsible for that piece of information being released. : ) (I remain convinced we would have gotten that piece of information next in some fashion, probably the next piece of info that went behind the door, as JKR said she was giving it to us without making us push any bricks.)

More below.
(Portions of the below are opinionated.)

The hoaxer says he wanted to have this title simply infiltrate the fandom and linger the way Green Flame Torch has, not try and convince people it was real. Well, people don’t usually do this by creating elaborate video hoaxes contrived just to convince. A subtle “Hey, I heard this is the title,” does a lot more to the “infiltration” technique than the email that was sent around, which upon re-reading post-hoax is truly astonishing in level of duplicity. Plus, coming forward and saying, “Hey, this was a hoax, didn’t mean for all this to happen,” during those three days, instead of holing up and letting HP fans stew, would have been just a trifle courageous – not to mention being the way to stop the attention he never expected or wanted.

In case you’re interested, I’ve posted the text of the original email below. (Personally, I thought it was fun to watch everyone theorizing and obsessing and wondering, but that gives me absolutely no warm fuzzy feeling to the hoaxer. Theorizing is fun no matter what, and the hoax could have been ended during the weekend.)

A friend found this source, and sent it to me, but I’m not sure exactly how reliable the source is. It does seem like JKR, and the screencaptures do look like her website, but I’m not sure if it is true or not.

The message is located below the dotted line.

———————————————————————————————————————————–

JKR released the title of book 6!!!!!!!

so i was fooling around at http://www.jkrowling.com (an awesome site if you haven’t been there before, with lots of information) and i don’t know what i did but that door that no one has been able to open suddenly opened after a big gust of wind. (Peeves?) inside was this book with a message from JKR herself where she released the name of book 6!

i think it was a software glitch or something because i have no idea how i got the door open… then again, i was fooling around with the web site for hours yesterday, so it might have been something i did. the reason i think it’s a glitch though is because the date of the message is the first of July, which is like a week away. i think we weren’t supposed to find it until then.

anyway, i turned on my screen capture software and went back to the book room to record what happened. i captured the movie and uploaded it (although it would be better if someone could host it for me because geocities might clunk out). you can find it at this link:….

you can’t really see what her message is in the video, so i retyped it below:

01/07/04

Erm… it is perhaps time for me to reveal the title of Book 6! I am nearing completion of the first draft and have definitely decided upon a title. I had numerous possibilities in mind, but as I wrote, I realized that only one did the book justice.
The more clever Potter fans may recognize that the title relates directly to both ‘Order of the Phoenix’ and ‘Chamber of Secrets.’ I will be highly amused if one of you can guess exactly what’s going on!
On a side note, the length of the book is growing so fast, I could swear Filius has put anEngorgement Charm on it; an editor’s nightmare! I promised myself not to exceed the length of ‘Order of the Phoenix,’ but every day that passes makes that undertaking more difficult. Incidentally, I have much more work ahead.
Alas, the time has come! Here is the reward for you lot that so diligently figured out all the puzzles on the site. If you scroll down to the bottom of
this page, I will reveal to you the title of Book 6!

The title of Book 6 is:

Harry Potter and the Pillar of Storgé

***end message***

I was sooooo excited when i read it! i can’t believe she’s released the title so early! what pillar? where is it? who/what/where is Storgé? to me it sounds like the name of a powerful wizard… Dumbledore’s relative perhaps??? if you have any theories about this, i’d love to hear them.

i have a better quality video of the open door and the message. you can email me at [email protected] and i’ll try to send it to you (it’s a big, big file). i’d also love to hear what you have to say about the title! i’m sooooo excited, i can’t believe it!





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