I feel somehow that maybe that question may have been triggered by the recent publication of SVA’s new book in UK which explores the possible locations in England that “may” have been mirrored fictionally in Jo’s books. Its a great question to ask Rowling. I hope we can see a video of Rowling’s Q&A soon!

Ooops, too many “mays” in my last post…think I’ll read more Rowling over again to improve my grammar :)

Reading the tales yesterday, I realized just how much I have missed her voice … which doesn’t mean that I haven’t read the HP books over and over again! It was just fantastic to read new stuff, and I absolutely adore the “Hairy Heart,” was laughing my head off at Beatrix Bloxam’s “sensitive” version of the Hopping Pot, and admired JKR’s scathing humour in the footnote “Make of it what you will.”
Such a special treasure to have her among us …

Yes, how could it NOT have been triggered by the new book by SVA, “In Search of Harry Potter”? Hmm. I admire JKR but I wonder if she volunteered that or just responded to a question? If the former it strikes me as a little petty; it may very well be, however, that she was merely responding honestly to a question from someone who wanted something controversial.

Oh neat…… so no old camping locations made it into the books? King Cross???

The Forest of Dean is real enough and there is a camping site, my husband has camped on it!

@linden swallow:
No, I don’t think it is “petty”.
Obviously there are many places in the Potterverse which have strikingly similar parallels in our world (e.g.: a city named “London” (Potterverse King’s Cross station however is a mashup and not a copy of the station in our world). I guess the main words here are “basis” and “invented”: if I understand JKR’s statement correctly it just says that in cases like Hogwarts she did not proceed so that she did take some castle A in our world and invent a few additional turrets etc. to make Hogwarts out of it.
There are caves in our world, but no single cave in our world is at the basis of the cave in HBP (though knowing about caves in our world is), etc..
This is little surprising. Had JKR striven for more than such general similarity: she would have probably have provided enough detail to make clear identification possible.
And still: a book about such, well, let’s call “general similarity” can be rather interesting reading for somebody who does not know England and Scotland very well.

It says “none of her invented Harry Potter locations were based on actual places in the real world.” Not none of the locations were based on acutal places in the real world. So the forest of Dean and Kings Cross are real places while Godric’s Hollow and Hogsmeade are invented.

@Jennifer: yes.
IMO: There is no problem with the content of JKR’s statement.

It’s just that the headline of the article we are commenting on (“Locations in Harry Potter Book Not Based on Real Places”) may be a little, well, “too general” and a tiny bit misleading, perhaps, for people who don’t read the article … .

@hck: I meant “petty” because if JKR volunteered the comment on her own, it seems like a swipe at a man who is down but has finally had some success, i.e., SVA. But I suspect that in fact she was not petty and merely answered a question as it was put to her. I haven’t seen any transcript of the whole interview, unfortunately – that would help.

I will be slightly critical here on the Sues News team for once! Yes just the once because without them, Leaky is nothing (for me), it is unbiased, informative and how they come up with several HP related news items a day is beyond me! But this is not one of their best posts simply because there is no source link to expand on Jo’s remarks in context. But in their defence, there probably isnt one and the news is too good not to publish. Having said all that, the key word is “invented places”. For example, Kings cross is in the book but she doesn’t claim to invent that. From what I can interpret, she is stating that the ones she created such as the burrow etc are not based on any real location. I love Jo but I might pick a friendly argument with her on that (should I ever have such a “dream on” opportunity ;) Surely some places would be an influence at least!

It’s like Jennifer says, “none of her invented Harry Potter locations were based on actual places in the real world.” INVENTED. Meaning places like Hogsmeade, Godric’s Hollow, etc…

What next? Is she going to say that Nicholas Flamel wasn’t a real person because she doesn’t believe in him anymore? Ya know – some of her places are in London – is that real for her? The Scottish Tourism Industry might wonder why you are trying to run them out of business.

Quote:
“In response to a question at the event yesterday in Edinburgh, Scotland, Jo said that none of her invented Harry Potter locations were based on actual places in the real world”

So, she answered a question that I suppose have been inspired by the recent SVA book.

SVA: Petty, petty, petty, petty, petty, etc…..Thank you, emmy, for stating the obvious, to those who might "jump to conclusions. The word “INVENTED” is in Ms Rowlings statements…..@Cynic: get a grip, dear. Not everything has to do with “money” and “tourism”…if that was all that was bringing folks to Scotland [and I doubt THAT highly] then their “tourism” was already in sad shape!