Parallels in other's fiction to that of JKR.

[John]

No: HPFGUIDX 192434






--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Geoff" <geoffbannister123 at ...> wrote:
>
> 
> Geoff:
> Getting ourselves back on track by considering HP canon with writers, 
> I want to give some consideration to magic. I would also like to express 
> some thoughts about boarding schools, but that can be a later post.

Snipped.



Hi Geoff and All.

Thanks for getting us back into the 'meat' of this subject with your insightful and informative post Geoff.

Also thanks for mentioning the Garner books Geoff, they sound interesting and I will try and track them down. :o)

As to the inevitability of some similarities between books containing magic use, then yes, to condense what I said in a post earlier 'There's nothing new under the sun'. Humans have long told stories of magical events, objects and powers and they tend to have a great deal of commonality no matter where these stories originate, but perhaps with local cultural variations.

As an example a sorcerer or wizard from the Middle East might tend to take to the air on a magic carpet, but a European magic user, such as Jo's witches and wizards, (who's 'wizards' are actually just male witches in effect, as both sexes have the same abilities and use the same spells), might instead more commonly use a broomstick to fly.

Nevertheless at a basic level be it flight by carpet or broomstick both types of magical levitation are basically very similar, using everyday objects imbued with magic to cause them to fly. Many other such examples of cross cultural similarity in the types and usage of magic must also exist, such as using a Staff instead of a Wand to control and direct magical power, the former probably being rooted in more Druidic magical practices, the later in European witchcraft and perhaps Ceremonial Magic. In any case regarding differing magical flying techniques I must add that given my 'druthers I'll take the carpet anyday, I'm sure it's more comfortable and there's less chance of developing hemeroids. :o)

But to come back to being serious again regarding 'magical realms' such as Middle Earth, Narnia etc and how they differ from JKR's Wizarding World. I agree it is a clever idea to make the 'Muggle' world we live in and the Wizarding World exist side by side, with matching time rates and the two so close together that they coexist in the same continuum, so closely linked that one only need to step through the front door of a particular London pub, for instance, to go from one 'realm' to the other.

I know of one other contemporary author who uses a variant of this idea to create her 'magical realm' but one very different in it's conception. The author is a Brit writer called Kit Berry and her magical realm, or more accurately magical enclave is called Stonewylde.

The idea of this series of books is that in the West Country of England there is a very large and walled-in private estate which hides a population of people who, for the most part, live apart from the outside world. These people live by basically Wiccan principles of self governance and whilst there are magical events and practices that take place there by no means all of the population divided between the 'upper class' Hall Folk and the more low status Villagers are in possession of magical knowledge.

This idea seems to me to be a combination of two previous stories, both of which originated in movies. The first being the very strange British classic film The Wicker Man, in which the isolated Scottish island populace of a place called Summerisle have rejected Christianity and live a Pagan lifestyle, up to and including sacrificing an unfortunate younger Edward Woodward who plays a police officer visiting the island to investigate the disappearance of a young girl which had been reported. This report turns out to be a ruse to snare a sacrificial victim, needed because the islanders crops had failed. In this film there is little real magic demonstrated, other than perhaps a sex magic 'spell' in the form of a compelling song/dance enacted by the lovely young Britt Eckland which has an attraction effect that can penetrate an intervening wall, and is used to test the 'purety' of the intended sacrificial victim. But though there's little 'real'magic shown in the film quite a lot of folk beliefs and ritual are featured. Not to mention that in a weird sort of way the film is almost a 'musical' and features several good songs and tunes.

The second film was a more recent one called The Village, the strange M. Night Shyamalan film, which also features a group of isolated people living apart from the rest of the world in a walled off enclave very much as Stonewylde is supposed to be. However the 'supernatural events' in this film are faked in order to keep younger members of the group from straying and finding out the truth about the outside world.

Put the plot lines of these two films together and you have much of Stonewylde, a magical place with real magical events happening, in an isolated place 'alongside' but separate from the 'normal' world.

Despite being a bit derivative as I explained I enjoyed reading these books as the plot and characters were good, but they're not what one might call top quality literary storytelling, as they don't quite scale the heights of creativity such as can be found in the creations of JKR and others previously mentioned who write of magic. Still give the series a try, you may well enjoy it as I did.

Many Blessings All.
John, (Oriondruid).