Present at the Creation (well, almost…)
In 1972 a diverse group of people, all with vague ties to Science Fiction fandom, all of whom also happened to be fans of children's fantasy literature, formed an APA (Amateur Press Association). It’s still running, and I’m still a member.
For those who may never have encountered the term before, participating in an APA is rather like carrying on a pen-pal conversation with a couple dozen other people. It’s one of the things special interest groups did to keep in touch before there were listgroups, let alone the worldwide web, or social media.
In 1997 or early ’98 a married couple who were members took a holiday to Britain and caught the buzz regarding a first novel by a new author which seemed to be a runaway success. Of course they purchased copies and told the rest of us about it.
So, when the re-christened ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone’ hopped the pond, we were all there, waiting.
Having been reading the books since ’98, and participating in the online community since ’99, it stands to reason that I've drawn a few conclusions.
Explaining the Grouping of the Subjects:
The “Foundation” Essays: Theories need a base to reason from. Unfortunately, J. K. Rowling didn’t really provide much of one. This is an attempt to draft out some workable paradigms for Magic in the Potterverse. Accepting them isn’t obligatory, but this particular set of assumptions underpin the rest of the Potterverse theories on this website.
Oh Wide, Wide (Wizarding) World: Topics pretaining to general subjects related to the Wizarding World, as it is portrayed throughout the series. Which is to say, modern-day Wizarding Britain. Addressing how things appear to be done there. Touches uopn various social issues and the Art of Wandmaking.
O! The Times are Out of Joint!: An attempt to construct a timeline for the Wizarding World leading up to the opening of the series of Harry Potter. Which, in effect, boils down to tracking events of the British Wizarding World over the course of the lifetime of Albus Dumbledore.
Harry Potter & The Dark Lord: Matters specific to the issue of Harry Potter and the former Tom Marvolo Riddle. Examines some problems with Prophecies, and includes more extrapolations about Horcruxes than you probably ever wanted to have to deal with.
Missed Oportunities: Matters where I truely believe that with only a slightly different handling (and perhaps a stronger grasp on the concept of numbers) we would have had something that played out rather better than what we got in canon.
With 20/20 Hindsight: A second, closer look at some of the things we thought we knew.
The Briar Patch: Wherein breed plot bunnies. Anything posted here reads more like fiction than theory. But is still not altogether flights of fancy.
The Out on a Limb Collection: These are all exercises in “extreme” theories. As with extreme sports, you tend to wipe out spectacualrly. Sometimes that’s the point. These are also all predominately Snape-related essays.
The 7th Son Collection: Theories which were all shot down/abandoned well before the series was complete. Feel free to point and laugh
The Endgame Assortment: Considerations made after the release of HBP, while looking forward to the final book.
Scorecard: Considerations and criticism of the series as a whole, after the release of ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.”
Note: Quite a few of these pieces are very long. Over a period of five years, while the canon was still open, the whole collection was gone through and updated semi-annually. During this period, I didn’t always delete an older theory just because I’d worked out a new one. Consequently, several of these articles are a historical overview of theories as they developed over a span of several years.
In addition, I don’t know just where anyone is likely to be starting out with this collection, due to the possibility of their accessing it from external links, so, for clarity, there’s a a fair amount of duplication as well.