Worldbuilding -- the good, the bad, and the ugly

[hildea]

Originally Posted by gmw

To understand Dumbledore's actions you have to understand that the boy who lived was, effectively, already dead. It was the potential religious interpretation for the sacrifice that I found most disturbing. But only later, and then I started to feel a bit like I'd just read a C.S. Lewis story. Saying more is probably not appropriate to this part of the forum.

That reminds me of this Pratchett quote, I think it's Granny Weatherwax who says it:

‘There’s no greys, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.’
‘It’s a lot more complicated than that -’
‘No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.’

[gmw]

Originally Posted by hildea

That reminds me of this Pratchett quote, I think it's Granny Weatherwax who says it:

Yep. It's the same book (Carpe Jugulum) where Granny says:

‘Don’t go spilling allegory all down your shirt.’

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.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by gmw

To understand Dumbledore's actions you have to understand that the boy who lived was, effectively, already dead. It was the potential religious interpretation for the sacrifice that I found most disturbing. But only later, and then I started to feel a bit like I'd just read a C.S. Lewis story. Saying more is probably not appropriate to this part of the forum.

I enjoyed the books regardless, and enjoy revisiting them from time to time.

I enjoyed HP too, but I felt there was zero attention to World-building or INTERNAL magical logic. Like most of Enid Blyton (actually did), J. Rowling seems to make it up as she writes and invents magic on the fly to fill plot holes. Ironically Enid Blyton did plan and use notes for her two School Series (St Clare's and Malory Towers), but not for anything else. St. Clare's copies earlier school stories plots and structures. J. Rowling copies Worst Witch (Jill Murphy), Midnight Folk (John Masefield, the sequel Box of Delights is more famous), English School Stories (Sharp, Brazil, Brent-Dyer, Forrest, Blyton), The Secret of Platform 13 (Eva Ibbotson and most copied by Rowling) and others in HP.
I have and enjoyed all of those. The Chalet School series by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer (died 1969) was written 1923 to 1969 (last book published in 1970) and contemporaneously with almost real settings. Enid Blyton died 1968 and wrote her two school series in early 1940s and 1950s. Very many English school books start term with the school train.

People can be rubbish at dialog tags (J Rowling), poor at world-building, inconsistent, users of Deux et Machina, shallow characters etc and still manage to write entertaining books.