The Journals: Some Questions

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

I. How many journals are there?

* I'm puzzled. I thought that the Lord Protector had distributed journals to everyone in Wizardom, even out-of-country wizards and those in hiding (a daunting thing, logistically, but he's Voldemort, so he could probably pull that off).

* Sirius said early on (September 6) that he'd received two: his own and one for his cover identity: "Bloody Hell... another journal. This one to my official persona. Brilliant. It brings up an intriguing question of what to do with this journal."

* Now Frank Longbottom posts to say that "Alice made me get one of these but I'm not certain I know how they work." This statement implies something very different about the journals and how they *do* work.

* Did Voldemort fail to reach everyone (particularly some, like Frank, who are flying beneath the Ministry's radar)?

* Has the Order filled the gap by adding some Order-only-spelled journals to the "network"? That would seem to require a retrofit of some magnitude on top of Bill Weasley's impressive bit of curse-breaking that allowed Order-only posting.

II. How do the journals work?

* I'm not sure whether it's been suggested in the game, but I think we've discussed the likelihood that these journals are like Tom Riddle's diary in having some sort of enchantment to coerce the owner to write -- otherwise, they'd not be much good as a surveillance tool.

* If every witch and wizard received a journal and most are posting in them, there are many posts that we readers are not seeing. (I'm cool with that. I'm not a Ministry drudge assigned to track all of the journals, and I don't want to see every dreary detail of every little life across Wizardom.)

* But... what are we to imagine that each journal owner sees on the pages of her/his journal? Is every post being recorded on every journal like a great and all-encompassing flist on LJ?

* Sirius's Grim Truth posts seem, indeed, to appear in every journal across Wizardom and in the camps, but perhaps that has required a special spell to achieve?

* Perhaps others are able to read only those posts they ask their own journal to show them (aside from Sirius's unavoidably intrusive posts that turn up in your journal without your permission)?

* If everyone's seeing every post by every witch and wizard, then it's hard to imagine anybody being able to keep up with a set of 40+ journals like we've got in game -- it's hard to imagine anybody (besides Ministry drudges and a few extremely disturbed persons) remaining at all curious about what others are posting in that sort of info-dump morass.

* Sirius wrote (in that same September 6 post) that he imagined it would take some time before his posts would be noticed by the Death Eaters, but he was then formulating his plan to make his posts noticeable: "I suppose if I keep posting, eventually some Death Eater will find it, but it seems only fair to give them a sporting chance. All my cousins and in-laws out there, enjoying their fatted calves, hear that? That's right, I'm not afraid of you. Perhaps I ought to use this [journal] as an opportunity to give Malfoy and those Ministry toadies exactly what they want: Information about the state of the Wizarding world outside their fascist, oppressive regime."

III. Why does it seem that some people aren't using their journals?

* The meta-answer is that they haven't been cast yet, but I'm asking about the game's explanation not that pragmatic answer.

* Some, like Ernie and Frank, have entered play with posts that suggest they have not been writing in their journals (Ernie says he's been busy; Frank seems only recently to have gotten a journal at all).

* Might others be able to ask us to assume they've been posting all the time but without our taking notice until now? Perhaps someone has to reply before a writer gets caught up in the web of inter-related journals we can see... or something like that.


* Might some (Snape? The Carrows?) be better equipped to resist the powerful pull of the journal (if that is indeed a feature of these Protectorate-provided devices)?

ETA (11/15): Molly has just remarked in passing that once she learned who the twins dog turned out to be, she "charmed" her journal to allow her to read alt_terry's back posts. So. Molly is capable of cooking up a spell that manipulates what her journal shows her. Interesting!

Comments

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

Those are excellent questions. It's true that, although the game limits the number of people actually posting, I'd like there to be some sort of in-game explanation for why we are only seeing the ones that we are seeing. Are the characters in the game seeing more, or do they see only what we see?

Maybe the journals are connected in mini-networks, or clusters, somehow, and so Lucius and people at the ministry can read all the different clusters, but we are only seeing one of them. If so, can you change which cluster of journals yours is connected to? Did Millicent connect herself to another one, and that's why we haven't seen her lately? Is Snape posting all the time, but he's on a different cluster than we're seeing? I like that explanation, because it has a lot of flexibility. I also like your idea that some posts, like the Grim Truths (and probably posts by Lucius) would be universal throughout all the clusters of journals.

Or maybe, if there is a Riddle's-journal-esque enchantment on the books, Voldemort (or the ministry) only activates it when a person becomes of interest to him, so for many people they have a journal but it is enchanted to seem uninteresting to them. Perhaps Voldemort saw Ernie at the game and became interested, or he for some reason was interested in Ernie's parents, and so suddenly Ernie feels the urge to pick up this journal that has been sitting on the shelf previously unnoticed.

Or maybe this journal project is just in testing phase, so not everyone has one yet but more and more people are getting them and will all connect into the one large central network. But then you're correct that at some point in the future the number of posts would get overwhelming if that were the case.

The funny thing is, I'd never really thought about this issue before. I do hope we get some answers, though, now that you've brought it up.

[jenett]

For me, it reads like we're reading - well, someone's friends list. I don't know whose. Not McG's, because we'd be seeing more students. But maybe Madame Pomfrey's? Or one of the (adult) Weasleys?

And maybe Millicent is posting, but in a custom-type filter (or privately), so that we can't see it (but presumably the Ministry/Voldemort/etc. can if they wish.)

And then Grim Truths or some posts by Lucius would be equivalent to a News comm or something similar.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

I wondered about a filter, but that's what the Order-only spell is and we've been told that was very advanced magic and has been used at great risk to its creator and users should it be detected, so I doubt that students are using filters to shield their posts from other readers.

Certainly it would have helped Pansy to have a select filter so she could pick her readership at times.

[alt-player.livejournal.com]

Ha-ha, we've had this discussion as players, too. Game mechanics are fun!

The characters do see more than the readers, as Lucius has mentioned posts and comments from his sister that are through the journals. Also note that Sirius has been posting, he reports, in the other journal he received for his alias, but we don't see those posts, either.

The best guideline is that it's very close to Livejournal, except that the "Order Only" is the only filter (or flock) there is. So far, anyway.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

So does every witch and wizard have a journal? And have had all along? And is there something to encourage them to post in the journals? (A spell? A Ministry directive? A general sense that if the Lord Protector sent me this thing, I'd best write it in like a good little citizen?)

[alt_moderator]

1. Not every witch and wizard has a journal, but most do. Some may have shoved their journal in their back drawer and forgotten about it; some (like Frank Longbottom) are really out of touch; a few may have refused it, which might or might not lead to consequences.

2. No pressure outside social pressure.

3. You didn't ask this, but - there is much more than you see; the characters can see much more than you see; but, a complicated spell process controls who they see and who they don't. If you don't know Wizard Y from Little Whinging and have no connection with him, you will not see his posts. The magic is complex and capricious completely understood only by a few people (and they're probably wrong). It's hard to maneuver it so that only the people you want can see your posts - which is why ORDER ONLY was such a big accomplishment. The journals are something of a black box: you put words in, you get words out, who knows what happens in between?

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Thank you. That's a very helpful answer, particularly your description of the magic as "complex and capricious." I very much like the idea that this magic is fully understood by only a few "(and they're probably wrong)" -- oh, the plot possibilities that suggests! Clearly Voldemort himself may be wrong about the journals' magic, if, indeed, the Order Only spell has circumvented his control of them. Certainly that's a useful reminder that we may see them work in unpredictable ways and may someday see breaches of the Order's screening spell.

[longstrider.livejournal.com]

A couple people have referred to posts in the actually hpalternity community as being pushed out to everyone. Is that accurate?

[alt_moderator]

Posting in the hpalternity community is a way of signaling that your post ought to be read by more people. What the magic defines as "more"? Probably the community you live in, whether or not they're your friends. But who knows? It's a vague and magic-ridden category, and while Voldemort's people would like to say that the alternity community's posts are pushed to everyone, they can't tell you why or how.