Inconsistencies

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 152807

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "rosie743" <rosieb.juane at ...> 
wrote:
>
> I've been reading posts here for awhile, and have noticed many 
> references to JKR's inattentiveness to the minutia of the WW, for 
> lack of a better term. I've only noticed a few myself, would 
anyone 
> like to fill me in on the rest?
> 
> "rosie743"
>

....Lupinlore cracks knuckles....

Well, that is certainly an interesting question.  I guess 
inconsistency relates to two different areas:  inconsistency of 
CHARACTER and inconsistency of WORLD.  Character inconsistency means 
that characters behave in ways at odds with the message about them 
JKR is trying to send.  World inconsistency relates to fundamental 
problems with the internal logic of the world JKR presents.  I think 
you mean the latter. 

Here are a few examples:

1) Numbers.  JKR is really, really bad at math.  For instance, no 
matter how you look at it, Hogwarts is the wrong size.  She says 
that Hogwarts has 1000 students.  Yet all the evidence we have from 
the statements of the hat and the size of Harry's Gryffindor class 
is that the school has about 280 students.  Where are the other 
700?  Hogwarts doesn't even have the teaching staff necessary to 
support 1000 students.  Snape would have to spend about 80 hours a 
week in teaching and related duties alone, not counting whatever 
else he does for DD.  No wonder the poor darling's so cranky.  Maybe 
all the teachers have time turners.

On the other hand, 1000 students is nowhere big enough for a 
wizarding world of the size and complexity that JKR presents.  True, 
there are people like Stan Shunpike, and wizarding lifespan has to 
be taken into account.  Yet the latter actually makes things worse 
if you assume a wizard male remains fertile for the same proportion 
of his life as a muggle male.  One wizard could easily outlive three 
muggle wives, having a full family with each.

2)  Secrecy.  The wizarding world is a well-kept secret, yet most 
wizards are half bloods or muggle borns with close relatives who 
would have at least some inkling of the WW.  By some estimates half 
the muggle population should have at least a suspicion concerning 
the WW.  In addition, there are embittered squibs who have no 
advantage in keeping the wizards' secrets.  Not to mention all the 
problems of parents sending kids off to a school they evidently 
aren't allowed to visit, and kids dropping off the radar screens of 
the educational and social welfare systems.

3) Acquiescance.  Most wizards are muggle born or half blood, which 
means they are used to the modern world.  Yet they acquiesce without 
demure to a world that is at the very least Victorian?  And so do 
their parents?

4) Wizarding abilities.  Wizards have all sorts of powers and 
abilities that seem to wax and wane according to the needs of the 
plot.  Veritaserum and Legilemency mean that what happened to Sirius 
should have been impossible.  The ability to apparate means that the 
Potters should have easily escaped from Voldemort.  When presented 
with these problems, JKR has tended to hem and haw and say, in 
effect, "there are things about magic I haven't told you."  Not 
good.  Not good at all.

5) Time.  Funny things happen to time in the Potterverse.  The first 
of September comes on the same day of the week every year.  What was 
Snape doing with all that missing time at the end of OOTP?  And the 
speed of owls shifts amazingly according to plot needs.  Hedwig 
takes some time to deliver messages to Lupin and Sirius from 
Hogwarts, but earlier in the same book Owls make it from London to 
Privet Drive so fast they would have to be traveling faster than the 
speed of sound.

6)  General Wizard Stupidity.  Wizards really are an amazingly 
stupid bunch.  They have magic at their fingertips, yet instead of 
making life more efficient, they make it LESS so.  OWLS are the best 
way to send messages?  Simple cell phones are easier to use and more 
efficient -- everything in OOTP could have been avoided if Sirius 
had carried one.  Harry is protected at Privet Drive so the Death 
Eaters never thought to pull a row of lockers down on his head while 
he was at school?  The DEs in the MoM forgot, when faced with a 
bunch of teenagers, both that they could apparate (i.e. place 
themselves behind their opponents once the kids moved away from the 
shelves) and that they could use unforgivables?  Voldemort needs the 
prophecy, and forgets he can apparate into the ministry and take it 
down himself at any time?  Voldy wants to kidnap Harry, so he 
arranges for Harry to be the very CENTER of attention in GoF?


These are some beginning points.


Lupinlore