[HPforGrownups] Re: Integrated worlds, separate, or co-existing?

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 155080

> Betsy Hp:
> Too bad it's so ugly.  I'm rather uncomfortable with the WW.  I used
> to think it was where creativity and imagination lived, but now it
> seems to be the place where pettiness, fear, and mob-think get their
> strength.  Though, that might be the Voldemort influence Harry is
> there to purge?

Magpie:
The books sometimes seem conflicted on this as well.  In the beginning it 
seems like it's being set up as the defintinition between imagination or 
not, with the Dursleys hating anything not "normal."  But ultimately the WW 
isn't like that at all. That seems like kind of a throwaway (a lot of the 
stuff the Dursley chapters mock turn up polished in a glow of nostalgia in 
the Wizarding sections.)  Sure it's got stuff that to us is fantastical, but 
to them it's not.  There's nothing inherently more exciting about flying 
brooms than flying airplanes, it's just we know one of them.  As people 
they're not more imaginative or open-minded than Muggles all around.  The 
Twins are creative, Luna's into believing things without proof, but 
otherwise they're no strangers to groupthink or kneejerk prejudice or 
closed-mindedness.  The Twins' make practical jokes and Luna believes in the 
Wizarding equivalent of the US' Weekly World News and conspiracy stuff.

Also magic itself is never presented as anything wondrous--not that this is 
a bad thing, but AJByatt was correct in pointing out that the books aren't 
really concerned with the numinous.  Magic is like electricity in their 
world.  Harry is sometimes bowled over by some new, amazing thing he's never 
seen, but it's usually just something practical.  So yeah, I can't really 
see that the WW is the place of creativity.  As a metaphor that's just not 
what it is, it seems to me.

-m