We have so many Democrats vying for their party’s presidential nomination, but one candidate has yet another way to stand out from the rest of the pack: an unlikely Harry Potter connection.
That (totally coincidental) connection arrives courtesy of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), whose name is part of a character we only knew by her first name. According to J.K. Rowling, the full name of Moaning Myrtle—the ghost of the young Hogwarts student who died the first time Tom Riddle opened the Chamber of Secrets—is Myrtle Elizabeth Warren. (Yes, really.)
.@HotmHayles @lankytwat Moaning Myrtle’s full name was Myrtle Elizabeth Warren.
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 11, 2015
Twitter shared that particular tidbit around Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, and while some saw the timestamp on Rowling’s original tweet, others initially thought that Rowling had just tweeted that out. Either way, there was an almost collective groan both because of Rowling’s increasingly scrutinized habit of revealing too much information about the world she created. But, per the timestamp on Rowling’s tweet, her reveal about Moaning Myrtle’s name was posted in 2015. And Rowling’s reveals were received much differently as a whole back then—the internet mostly dug them.
It arrived courtesy of a fan who asked Rowling what Moaning Myrtle’s full name was, which never appears in the Harry Potter books. Myrtle is often referred to by her cruel nickname, and nobody in the books ever bothered to ask. So, Rowling provided Myrtle’s full name on Twitter.
But Warren was a Massachusetts senator back in 2015, so fans already made the connection between Moaning Myrtle and Warren, not to mention Rowling being known for getting political on Twitter. But according to Rowling, who debunked the connection back in 2015, the “Elizabeth Warren” connection was entirely coincidental and she was already set on Warren.
“’Elizabeth’ is just one of those classic British middle names,” she added. (It’s a very common middle name in the U.S., too.)
Nothing to do with the United States Elizabeth Warren I hasten to add! ‘Elizabeth’ is just one of those classic British middle names.
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 11, 2015
Rowling distancing Myrtle from Warren might deter some who made that connection, but no matter what she intended, it probably won’t stop any kind of initial gut reactions to seeing it.
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