Quote:
Originally Posted by hildea
That reminds me of this Pratchett quote, I think it's Granny Weatherwax who says it:
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Yep. It's the same book (
Carpe Jugulum) where Granny says:
Quote:
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‘Don’t go spilling allegory all down your shirt.’
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So maybe I shouldn't worry about the religious overtones I see in the dénouement of Harry Potter.
Mostly I admire the way Rowling grew Dumbledore from the caricature of the early book to the flawed and ambiguous character he becomes at the end - and the effect this has on the main protagonists, not to mention the readers who continue to talk about him years after reading the books.
Another link back to the OP is the use of newspapers/journals to make the world seem real. In Harry Potter this sometimes becomes a way to info-dump, but it also becomes a way to link the world of Harry Potter to the world the reader knows - tabloid journalism and so on. These deliberate touches are often more visible to the reader than logic errors (that may only become apparent well after you've finished the story). And when the touches become an integral part of the story (as we see with Rita Skeeter), it no longer looks like "world-building" at all.
Much speculative fiction builds large pieces of the world not because it matters to the story but because the author wants to construct an image or an atmosphere. (Less charitably we might say, because the author wants to show you how clever they are.) That Rowling managed to make so much of her world, and so many of her characters, integral to the unfolding story is what (for me) made these books stand out: it wasn't just a world for the story to take place in, it was part of the story.