The Statute of Secrecy

[Ken Hutchinson]

No: HPFGUIDX 158921

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "JD" <treason_iscaria at ...> wrote:
>
> >Carol (158864): she has to create a means of enabling those readers
> >to believe that the WW exists unseen right in London itself (among
> >other places).
> 
> JD: Not necessarily. There are plenty of juvenile fantasy stories that
> don't offer any "ordinary person access" to the magical world they
> describe: The Hobbit; Star Wars; Eragon; Deltora Quest. 

Ken:

I am not familiar with the last two but the first two do not deny ordinary
persons access at all. Humans were well aware of elves, orcs, hobbits,
and Jedi knights. Perhaps not many had met any but ordinary humans
*who lived in the time and place of the story* were aware that these
other beings existed and could easily find means to interact with them
if they chose. This is different from the HP books where ordinary humans
do not know that the alternate society exists, and whose minds are 
forcibly violated if they do learn about it. I just happened to see a 
clip of the movie "Men In Black" yesterday at work (long story) and 
that movie does depict a comparable situation. The story is about a 
human police force that keeps a secret resident population of space 
aliens on Earth in line. They too have a memory modification device that
is used when ordinary folk have an encounter of the third kind.

I think that the HP books could just as well have been written on the 
premise that magic was a normal and known feature of a modern
world that was otherwise just like ours. It would work and it would 
not change the basic story all that much. I think it is just a bit more
fun to imagine that this world really does, or could, exist right under 
our noses and I imagine that this is the reason JKR decided to write it
that way. Separation in time and distance from the modern reader is 
not the same as the separation depicted in the HP books.

Ken