What Jo says about...
Fans and fan theories

Please note: unless you see quotemarks, these are summaries, and not JKR's word themselves. Please see the linked article for the actual text.

• "Children are reading them 12 times, or whatever it might be, and they really are starting to know the way my mind works." But, "[m]ostly what's happened is that people have put together something I've said, something they like to think I said, something someone else said - which is completely false - and drawn completely the wrong conclusions. […] But no one yet has guessed what's going to happen or come anywhere close in fact." [Read the exact quote from the cBBC Newsround interview, 2000]
• Book 6 will be a "time for answers, not more questions and clues…." [Read the exact quote from Edinburgh Book Festival, 2004]
• We should be asking "Why didn't Voldemort die?" Not, "Why did Harry live?" but, "Why didn't Voldemort die?" The killing curse rebounded, so he should have died. Why didn't he? At the end of Goblet of Fire he says that one or more of the steps that he took enabled him to survive. You should be wondering what he did to make sure that he did not die — I will put it that way. I don't think that it is guessable. It may be — someone could guess it — but you should be asking yourself that question, particularly now that you know about the prophesy. [Read the exact quote from Edinburgh Book Festival, 2004]
• The second question we should be asking is "why Dumbledore did not kill or try to kill Voldemort in the scene in the ministry." Dumbledore did not give the real reason. [Read the exact quote from Edinburgh Book Festival, 2004]
• Rowling has never posted comments on a fan site; her website is the only place she will post. [Read the exact quote from Jo's website]
• JK won't answer if Snape is evil or not because it will have such a huge impact on what will happen when Harry and Snape meet again: "I love the theories." [Read the whole quote from the Leaky Cauldron, 2005]
• JK uses her website to answer questions that she doesn't have room for in the novels; she thinks it will continue after Book 7 comes out. [Read the whole quote from the Leaky Cauldron, 2005]
• For her website FAQs, JK goes "looking to see what people want answered." [Read the whole quote from the Leaky Cauldron, 2005]
• JK posted once on Mugglenet, but she does not ever post in comments. [Read the whole quote from the Leaky Cauldron, 2005]
• Jo loves fan-theories. People have been very close to figuring out things. [Read the whole quote from Owen Jones interview, 2005]
• JKR: "Bits of the final book have been guessed." [Read the whole quote from Owen Jones interview, 2005]
• Jo gets "cold shivers when someone guesses at something that's very close" but enough ideas are "off the wall" that she doesn't really worry; the ending is "clearly not that obvious." [Read the whole quote from BBC-Radio4, 2005]
• Jo found the shipping wars upsetting and likened it to cyber gang warfare. [Read the whole quote from RCMH1, 2006]
• JKR: "Overall, I think [fandom is] an interesting and exciting thing -- if used wisely!" [Read the whole quote from RCMH1, 2006]