World Building And The Potterverse

[Ken Hutchinson]

No: HPFGUIDX 167206

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at ...> wrote:
>
> 
> Pippin:
> JKR is supposed to have spent ten years working out the story. Now some
> people would have felt that they had to use that time on the math and
> logistics of  world-building, but JKR's emphasis has always been  on 
> that character who strolled into her head one day on the  train, and 
> didn't know who or what he was. 
> 


Ken:

Being one of those people who feels that our author should have found
ten days or at least ten minutes out of those ten years to do some proper
world building, I have to comment. Surely the characters are the sparkling
gems in this story and I am perfectly fine with that. Some of that luster
is obscured by annoying incongruities that result from not paying attention
to the "maths". You don't need to master partial differential equations or
tensor calculus to build a credible world. But if you are setting your story
on planet Earth your weeks need to have seven days, your months the 
appropriate number of days, you months have to start on the days of the
week that the calandar for that year specifies, full moons should occur 
every 29.53 days, Mars can only be "bright tonight" at two year intervals,
and Orion isn't visible in June, to name but a few. Above all you should 
not write time travel into your story unless you *have* taken a course in
tensor calculus!

There are science fiction authors who are excellent world builders. Sherri
S. Tepper used to be delightful at this. David Brin has created several. 
Larry Niven's Ringworld is a created world on two levels, his universe is
fictional and the Ringworld itself is artificial in that universe, created by
intelligent creatures related to us. And then there is Tolkien who's many
layered creation is so real you are tempted to believe he was a Maia sent
from Eru to reveal the truth to us.

The "problem" with many SF stories is that the created world becomes
the story at the expense of the characters and everything else. If the 
world is good enough to carry the story the book can still be rewarding.
If not, well Ms. Tepper has been there too. I see the complimentary 
problem with the Potter stories. The rest of the story is delightful but
the Potterverse is always creaking along, ready to come apart at the 
seams. I am an admitted connoisseur of world building and it seems
best to me to pay proper attention to the art without neglecting the
rest. The Potterverse comes *so close* to being a truly wonderful 
created world that its faults are particularly maddening to me. It would
not have taken the author much more in the way of effort and resources 
to do a first class job of this.

Since everyone else is making predictions I will make this one which
conveniently may be proved in my lifetime but can never be disproved:
Someone other than JKR will write published stories in the Potterverse
whether Harry lives or dies. The reason is that Harry himself is boring
to third party authors but the apparent flaws in the Potterverse itself
are an irresistable challenge.

Ken