Why Harry Potter "cannot" be set in 1991-?

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 79446

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Odile Falaise
<odilefalaise at y...> wrote:
> 
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Catlady (Rita
> Prince Winston)" <catlady at w...> and others wrote
> about: 
> 
> <previous notes snipped>
> 
> <<<Dudley chucked his Playstation out the window, thus was no longer
able to play Mega-Mutilation III, in GOBLET OF FIRE, set in 1994, when
... Playstations were not yet available in UK or US, but had been
test-marketted in Japan. ...>>>

> 
> Odile chiming in:
> 
> ... re... Playstations, and setting them in the HP timeline? 
> ... I have no idea what the difference is between a Playstation, an
> X-Box, a Gameboy, etc. etc. ....  ... it is not really important to 
> me - I do know, however, that a spoiled couch potato boy like Dudley
> Dursley is likely to have way too many videogames and other gadgets. 
> I wonder if JKR is so schooled in the history ... of ... videogame 
> systems that she would know ... the correct versions into her 
> stories, ... set in the ... '90s, ...written later?
> 
> Odile

bboy_mn:
I think you are closer to seeing this issue clearly than most. I see
the Playstation as a sort of familiar icon. One of the reasons both
the muggle and wizard worlds are so comfortable, familiar, and
immediately accepted by us, is that JKR builds both worlds around
familiar icons, images, and stereotypes. We readily accept these
unlikely worlds because they are so familiar to us. 

Wizards and witches are just the way we always imagined wizards and
witches would be with promenent noses, pointed hats, and flowing
robes, and broomsticks, and while familiar, JKR manages to add her own
personal twist to it. The same with the muggle world; muggle are
exactly as normal, bland, hopelessly conformist, oblivious, and
lacking in imagination as we would expect muggles to be (...any
muggles living in your neighorhood? ..lurking around the place where
you work? ...I thought so.), and yet, are slightly twisted in a way
that is most delicious to read.

I think the Playstation was simply one of those familiar things that
made the Dursley's life, which you must admit is a bit odd, seem
common, normal, typical, and most of all familiar and comfortable to
us. Also, it, amoung other things, helps establish that Dudley is
hopelessly spoiled and Harry is hopelessly deprived.

It's entirely possible when JKR decided to put a video game in the
story, she used the only video game she could think of. Or to her,
perhaps, Playstation is the generic name for all video game machines.

Now we come to the true and only test of effective story writing. I
doesn't matter if JKR's story stands up to intense timeline analysis;
the only thing that matters is, did you believe it when you read it?
If you were so captivated by the story that the Playstation release
date was the farthest thing from your mind, and what happens next in
the story was the most important thing on your mind, then JKR
succeeded totally as a writer. 

The fact that the timeline doesn't add up is nothing more than a bit
of side trivia of obssessed HP nuts like us.

Just a thought.

bboy_mn