Secondary World or Satire? was RE: Inconsistencies

[Bruce Alan Wilson]

No: HPFGUIDX 152823

"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?

> ....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. <snip examples> <<


BAW:
I've been playing with the idea that JKR is not so much a 
worldbuilder after the manner of e.g. JRRT or CSL or whoever wrote 
the Islandia books (the name escapes me), but more a satirist after 
the manner of Swift in "Gulliver's Travels."  Lilliput, Brobidnag, 
the Flying Island of Lapatua, and the Land of the Huynahims (sp?  
The country ruled by intelligent horses who kept savage, feral 
humans called 'yahoos'.) were not so much intended as internally 
consistent imagined realities inspiring secondary belief, but rather 
were intended to give Swift a chance to deliver well-deserved and 
well-targeted kicks to certain aspects of his society. (For example, 
the countries of Lilliput and Blifescu being embroiled in a religious 
war and the chief doctrinal difference between the two sects was
as which end was it proper to break a hard-boiled egg.  In Swift's 
time, Catholic and Protestant countries were regularly fighting wars 
over differences in doctrine and praxis that were almost as 
insignificant; Swift was a clergyman, you will remember, Dean of St. 
Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin.)


Do we not see more than a bit of this in JKR?


BAW