Understanding Goat's Law

[nkafkafi]

> > 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.'
> 
> Thank you (and Sean), that's a lot clearer.  The fact that we were 
> talking about religion led me to think of the distinction many 
> religions make between a 'primary' world inhabited by God or by those 
> who have attained enlightenment or whatever, and a 'secondary' world 
> of sin or illusion.  Your post read like so much 1s and 0s on a tape 
> when approached from that angle.
> 
> In effect, I think you are saying that JKR will be not true to her own 
> rules - or the conventions of fantasy writing - if she just has Harry 
> vanquish Voldemort with a zippedidoodah spell or a batshit potion.  
> There has to be something that makes Muggle sense, such as a 
> sacrifice, or love, or poetic justice ('the room contains what you 
> bring into it'), as well.  Certainly such an outcome would be deeply 
> disappointing - the equivalent of rerouting the thrust modulator past 
> the warp coils to avoid dilithium meltdown and escape the Romulan 
> threat.


Neri:
Sorry, but I still don't get it. Are you saying that if Voldy *was* a
convincing magical overlord, clearly belonging to the secondary
realty, then it *would* have been OK to vanquish him with merely a
zippedidoodah spell? I don't think it would.

I mean, vanquishing Sauron clearly took more than just throwing a ring
 into a vulcano.

Neri