World Building And The Potterverse

[Ken Hutchinson]

No: HPFGUIDX 167235

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Zara" <zgirnius at ...> wrote:
>
> > Ken:
> > 
> > But if you are setting your story
> > on planet Earth your weeks need to have seven days, your months the 
> > appropriate number of days, 
> 
> zgirnius:
> I think this is too high a standard to hold an author to. When you 
> pick up a mystery, a spy novel, a romance, a western, or 'literature' 
> (assuming you read any of the above, naturally...)--do you run a 
> mental calendar and make sure that weekends are indeed a multiple of 
> seven days apart? 

Ken:

In every case? Surely not. For the record I do read "literature" but
rarely mysteries, spy novels, romances, or westerns. The thing is that
when something is critical to the story like full moons to a werewolf,
then yes, I do demand that the author get it right. When something is
obvious like the number of days in a week or the fact that months do
not start on the same day of the week from year to year, then yes, I
do demand that the author get it right. There are many cheats a lazy
author can use to avoid these problems like being vague about time
intervals, months and days. Fictional works don't have to be set in
any specific year and stories that don't span more than a year can't
have some of these issues. But when an author does take the time to
mention these details I expect her or him to get them right.


> 
> > Ken:
> > Above all you should 
> > not write time travel into your story unless you *have* taken a 
> course in
> > tensor calculus!
> 
> zgirnius:
> As one who has done that and more, I wonder. What did she get wrong?
> 

Ken:

I suppose I should admit that I just hate time travel stories in
general. It is patently obvious to me that it is impossible. Human
nature being what it is our "descendents" would be constantly strip
mining earlier time periods and generally making human life as we know
it impossible if time travel really existed. I am confident that it
will never be invented for this reason alone.

But this is fiction and I will tolerate time travel stories if they
are amusing enough. What did she get wrong? Well the Earth moves for
one thing. Time travel machines must be able to account for this. You
could argue that a time turner can magically account for this and I
*would* buy that if the argument had been made but it wasn't. And if
you do make that argument then you cannot simultaneously have a world
in which many witches and wizards struggle to master the very
difficult art of apparation and some fail. The reason is that you
could simply manufacture "time turners" that include the ability to
move through space but not time. Then only those with a nostalgia for
the old fashioned ways would have to learn to apparate. If you are not
going to do even *that* then you owe me a reason why not.

Then there is the problem I have with a Harry Potter who is de-souled
in a dementor attack coming back from the future to save himself. How
is that possible? Something similar happens in the concluding episode
of "Red Dwarf" but I accept that in a comedy series. They also had an
earlier time travel frolic that was wickedly funny, perhaps the only
time travel story I have *truly* enjoyed.

Finally there is the energy problem. In order to transport yourself
back in time you have to somehow create a copy of the mass contained
in your body because during the period you are time traveling there
are either two copies of your self, or the matter that your body will
eventually be made of. This either requires enormous amounts of energy
to create a "new you" out of nothing or else you have to create a copy
of yourself from matter existing in your world. If the former, where
does this energy come from and what an awesome weapon it would make
when used in reverse. If the latter, my what a fascinating technology
you have there. Time travel has been done to death why not write a
story about that instead? Of course that would more or less be the
basis of David Brin's "Kiln People" sans any notion of time travel.

So unless it is being played for laughs, I could do without time
travel. On a less SF nerdy level I also think that time travel would
profoundly change us and our society and I don't think any time travel
author has ever even begun to explore this. I'm not even sure it is
possible to imagine what time travel would do to use. 

> 
> --zgirnius, noting with amusement that what *she* finds most 
> intriguing is the other characters of the Potterverse, not its 
> logistics.
>

Ken:

I would say the same thing and in fact I believe that I have already.
Those (others) who have reacted so strongly to that post should keep
in mind that I do enjoy these books quite a bit after all. I'd enjoy
them more without the flaws I see in the structure of the Potterverse.

Ken