Skip to main content

What is this creature on the back of Harry Potter 2 Illustrated Edition?


I was just looking at this dust cover of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Illustrated Edition) and noticed this creature. My first guess as to what it was was a Bowtruckle but Bowtruckles aren't that big.



Maximum of eight inches in height, made of bark and twigs with two small


Bowtruckles-Pottermore



So if anyone could help me out that would be great!


Image of the dust cover showing the creature circled



Answer





In short it is a Green Man which was a reference to Jim Kay's work on A Monster Calls. See the bottom half of my answer for an email I received from him that this is the case.


The creature on the front cover of A Monster Calls does also look a lot similar to the one on the dust cover.


A Monster Calls front cover


I haven’t actually read or seen this either but Jim Kay also worked on the film and again the creature in the film is very similar.


A Monster Calls film still showing a similar creature




I emailed Jim Kay from his contact form on Creepy Scrawlers Ltd and this is the response I got.



Hello,



I've just noticed this creature on the Dust Cover of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Illustrated Edition).


https://i.stack.imgur.com/44eE6.jpg


I've also seen that apparently it was revealed at some point what it was (potentially in The Prisoner of Azkaban illustrated edition but I can't see if it is).


Have you revealed what it is and if so what is it?




It's a sort of Green Man, I illustrated A Monster Calls, which kind of changed my life really. Wouldn't be illustrating today if it wasn't for that book by Patrick Ness. I worked on the film too. It was just a little nod to that really.


There are other things people haven't noticed yet. On the Chocolate bar wrapper in the chapter opener inside Prisoner of Azkaban, there is a black dog hidden among the hares. Best Wishes


J




Screenshot of the quoted email above


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.

Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...