[ SECRET POST #5990 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5990 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 12 secrets from Secret Submission Post #856.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: Fictional universes

[(Anonymous)]

Basic answer is basic, but the Harry Potter universe will always be magnificently captivating and magical to me. None of the many inconsistencies matter to me, because the wizarding world as a whole just feels real in my mind in a way that is pretty much unique for me. It almost feels like a place I've been; a place I grew up, maybe; a place I know in my bones.

I think the main reason the HP universe feels as real as it does, for me, is because it uses so many extremely well-established tropes (and rough-cut historical elements) as building blocks. So much of the stuff that shows up in the books is stuff I've already had introduced into my mind, quite thoroughly, via other sources, so when it shows up in the wizarding world, I already feel like it's well-established, like its' existence is almost a matter of course, because in a sense, most of it is well-established already.

So many elements in the wizarding world are so overtly based on pre-established tropes and concepts I've already integrated into my mental database, that when reading HP (or the associated fanfic) I very rarely find myself going, "Okay, I will go along with this idea the author has made up for the sake of the story; let's see where the story goes with it." There isn't that sense of abstraction for me, because I have a pre-existing sense of the element that's being introduced. I already know it, and the feeling of already knowing it exists, experientially, very close to the feeling of reading about something real.

This is neither definitive praise not definitive criticism of JKR's storytelling. The criticism here is pretty obvious--i.e. standing on the shoulders of giants doesn't inherently make you a giant. But OTOH, HP is far from the first story to cobble together a world out of pre-established pieces and there are plenty of cases when that kind of approach fell flat, or was only carried off with moderate success--whereas in my opinion, HP did it with fantastical, once-in-a-lifetime gusto and flair.