World Building & The Potterverse -When it Rains, it Rain

[jmwcfo]

No: HPFGUIDX 167364

> Shelley:
> But this sort of analysis is rather pointless, isn't it? I mean, in
most
> stories we read, we don't care to go reread it a million times,
plot out
> calendars and dates and triple check to see if the author got
everything
> exactly correct. <SNIP>
> Personally, none of the mistakes you talk about make any difference
to the
> plot. Plus, the year 1993 isn't in canon anyway, so I feel the fans
are
> being a bit misleading by trying to match Harry up with actual
years to
> determine how old he would be for this year, 2007, or to line
Harry's first
> years in the books up with our calendar years to see just which
days that
> Halloween or Christmas would fall on. I agree with Steve- as I read
this
> series, I am not rushing to any calendar to see if the day she says
> something falls on lines up.
>

JW:

With all respect, Shelley, HP's age and the years he attends Hogwarts
ARE INDEED canon!.  In CoS, there is a chapter devoted to Nick's
deathday party.  On Holloween of HP's second year, he attends the
party that comemmorates the 500th anniversary of Nick's execution.
The year of the execution is explicitly given as 1492.  Therefore,
the party takes place October 31, 1992.  Go to the Lexicon website,
and you will see that all dates flow from that "fact" (and a few
other hints thrown in by JKR here and there).

Further, in one of the HP computer games, an official timeline is
included - which is a duplicate of the Lexicon timeline.  JKR herself
has said that PS/SS takes place in 1991-92, even though it was not
published until several years later.  It would appear that 1991-92
correlates (roughly) to the time during which JKR started writing the
book.

I agree that the myriad mathematical and chronological inaccuracies
do little to spoil the characters and plot of the book.  I also agree
with you that many of these inconsistencies should have been caught
by the editors (we can not know how many they DID catch).  However,
many readers of SF and mature fantasy (as opposed to childen's
fantasy and fairy tale) place a great amount of thought and concern
on the credibility and internal consistency of the world created by
the serious author.  It is NOT the popularity of the HP series, but
rather the nature of inventing alternate universes that requires us
to hold JKR up to the high standard set by her most talented and
successful predecessors. IMO, her results are good, but certainly not
great.

Please note that I am not at all bothered by the nature of JKR's
magic, and the freedom it gives JKR.  She frequently uses what I
call "shesezso" to define the capabilities and limitations of magic.
I spend a great deal of energy and time analyzing radical new
technologies in the Real World.  I fully appreciate what Buckminster
Fuller meant when he said "any sufficiently advanced technology can
be mistaken for magic."  I can treat JKR's magic as such a
sufficiently advanced technology.  However, I do have a problem with
her society - a tiny minority diffused throughout, yet isolated from,
a hugh mainstream - that lacks a valid economic and political model.
It has a government that doesn't work, a banking system that doesn't
work, a sociological model that doesn't work, and a technology that
today is quite stagnant despite its historically spectacular
achievements.

Quite simply, the only thing holding this society together is its
strong historical and cultural tradition.  What happens to the WW if
those cultural ties are destroyed by the war?