World Building And The Potterverse

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 167254

> Ken:
> 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.
> 

zgirnius:
So Rowling should not have let Nick name the year of his death, in 
your view. Fair enough. I do think she included it not in order to 
establish the correct modern day time reference for her readers 
(which I believe was already wrong, 1992 Halloween fell on the wrong 
day of the week), but because, for whatever reason, she likes the 
year, and she did want to place him in a particular historical era. 

> 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.

zgirnius:
Unless you can't really change time. This approach has been used 
elsewhere. The Dragonriders of Pern series comes to mind. In one book 
the heroine deduces that a certain group of people who disappeared 
mysteriously in the past wihtout leaving traces must have travelled 
into the future, and travels back into their time to issue the 
appropriate invitation. So nothing in her past changes, since it 
turns out that she was right. (The importance of her action to the 
plot is that this greatly improves the *future* prospects of her 
world).

Ken:
> 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? 

zgirnius:
It is my opinion that Harry was always saved at the nick of time by 
his future self, his soul was not sucked out on the pages of the 
book. Hence, no paradox. More generally, I believe that *nothing* 
changed as a result of Harry and Hermione's trip. I interpret 
Dumbledore's hope that they might even save two innocent lives, to 
mean that he believes they will certainly save Bucky, because he 
already knows Bucky somehow escaped before his execution. What he 
hopes, is that this was part of a successful rescue of Black (the 
second innocent life).

Ken:
> 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. 

zgirnius:
You must therefore have an equally great problem with 
Transfiguration, Conjuring, Refilling Spells, and a host of other 
magic we have seen in the books, which also seem to violate the law 
of conservation of energy. But it seems to me you are judging a 
fantasy with an SF meterstick. Such impossibilities in SF are 
explained with a slew of technobabble and reference to novel 
exceptions to the laws of physics invented by future scientists and 
the like.

But not in fantasy. In Tolkien, for example, (my personal gold 
standard for fantasy worldbuilding...) there are beings of great 
magical power who can conjure flames, cause fordable rivers to turn 
into raging floods, and the like, and the only explanation we have of 
this is that they are Maiar or High Elves who once lived in the 
presence of the Valar in the Uttermost West. This is very nice and 
poetic and mythic, but seems to me, from a scientific point of view, 
to be logically equivalent to "Harry can Apparate because he is a 
wizard". 

> > --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.

zgirnius:
That last was not intended as a criticism or defense of Rowling at 
all. It was in response to the prediction you made, that someone else 
would someday publish a work of fiction about the Potterverse, 
because that fictional world's flaws just beg for correction and 
someone will be unable to resist.

I was just stating a personal preference. As a reader (and writer of 
fan fiction) I am far more tempted by works about characters in the 
Potterverse about whom we have limited information owing to the 
constraints of time and point-of-view that Rowling chose for herself. 
Stories like Dumbledore's past and how he came to be the very 
powerful and respected wizard we know in the series, or Snape's 
behind-the-scenes activities in either or both of the wars, or the 
details of the Tonks/Lupin romance, or an account of the Marauder Era 
at Hogwarts, as some examples.