Understanding Goat's Law

[pippin_999]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "davewitley"
<dfrankiswork at n...> wrote:
> Pippin:
> 
> > Voldemort is depicted as part of primary reality, and we're told
his actions are going to have effect in the Muggle world, so I 
suspect the key to defeating him will be depicted as part of primary 
reality also. Does that make sense?

David:
> Not really, because I don't understand the distinction between
primary and secondary reality.  Are we talking universals and
accidentals, or spiritual and physical, or what?
> 

Pippin:

The distinction, as Tolkien made it, has to do with belief.  A
secondary reality is an imaginary world which,  through art, 
becomes real to us while we inhabit it; a condition Tolkien 
called 'enchantment' or 'secondary belief.'  

Secondary reality is the home of beings such as
dragons and fairies which we believe can never exist in the  primary
reality--  the one we all see and experience.  The artist creates
a secondary reality through 'sub-creation' and while we inhabit
this sub-creation, it is as real to us as real life. This is a
different mental state than 'willing suspension of disbelief'. It is
not willed. It takes hold of us and transports us.

To use an example Tolkien gave, he said the witches in Macbeth were
too poor a thing of their sort to be frightening. He had to suspend 
disbelief to find them scary. But he wouldn't have had to do that 
if he had the mind of the period and thought that
witches really existed, that is, if he could give them primary belief.

A similar criticism is made of Voldemort -- that as evil overlords go
he doesn't amount to much. But if you give him primary belief and
think of an actual real life psychopath with ambitions of world 
domination and a magic wand -- well, that's a different kettle of
potion, no?

Of course Rowling's world has dragons and fairies in it, but they
inhabit the same world as Vernon Dursley and hose pipe bans,
which is a very different order from Narnia or Middle Earth.

Pippin