this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2024
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I always say - to defend the series (which doesn't need too much defending, it's the most successful book series after the old testament > new testament > Quran trilogy). The magic of Harry Potter is that all of the fantasy magic works exactly as well as it needs to right at the moment that it's directly in front of the readers eyes. As you mention, as soon as it leaves the view of the characters in the story, it literally blows up into nonsense. However, as the story is being told the magic used is awesome and just what the plot needs at that exact moment to move along.
To be fair, Harry Potter is probably more logically consistent than the Bible is.
That's like saying that an arthritic dog probably walks faster than one without legs.
That's bad writing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina
Michael Bay movies aren't fun to watch because they have airtight plots and intelligent writing. They're fun to watch because there are sparkly things going boom and it looks pretty.
The Harry Potter series is effectively the same thing. A spectacular story that's fun to experience the first time through.
In both cases, if you think too hard about it, the thin veneer giving the appearance of coherence disappears and you're left with a logically inconsistent mess.
It's not going to stop me from watching Independence Day or reading Prisoner of Azkaban again though.
As the person before me mentioned, scrutinizing the magic expecting it to be high literature is self-defeating. I never said I would defend the story on the merits of its writing, it's a book series written for young adults.
Deus ex machina is egregious when a story that has otherwise been consistent pulls the rug out from under you with a twist that makes no sense. The magic in Harry Potter is consistently inconsistent, as I mentioned it only makes sense when it's directly in front of the readers eyes. It doesn't just show up as deus ex machina that saves the characters life at the end of the book and leaves the reader feeling betrayed, the reader expects magic to save the day because since page 1 magic has been doing whatever has been conveniently cool to move the plot along in the main character's favor.
It's not less egregious because they do it in every chapter. It's just a bad story. No one is attacking you or your favorite books; but the fact is they're not that good.
You said you wanted to "defend the series" (the books). With books, what else is there to defend except the writing? As other people have mentioned, there are good consistent stories for children and fantasy authors who know what consistency means. It won't affect your life in any way to admit that JK Rowling is not good at writing.
"But she always does this." Lol.
As I mentioned before, I don't really have to work too hard to defend one of the most sold non-religious books of all time.
I suppose, yes, pedantically there's nothing in a book but writing. But that's an issue of semantics, in my view writing can be bad and there's still things like characterization, plot, world building, and character conflict, writing is how you put it together. I can see that that can all be classified as writing, but again, semantics, often people separate writing from those aspects, often they don't. If the word writing bothers you, please, when you read it replace it with the word you think I mean I don't mind.
As I said in the post you responded to, I don't defend her writing, nor did I say it was my favorite book, makes sense that you have to strawman me to try and attack me.
Eddie Valiant: You mean you could've taken your hand out of that [hand]cuff at any time?
Roger Rabbit: No, not at any time! Only when it was funny!
Kind of a terrible example. WFRR has good world building that holds up. Roger is a toon, and therefore must obey Toon Law. He literally, physically, could not remove the cuffs unless it would be (objectively) funny to do so. Eddie being humorless us why he's an effective foil and investigator; the toons have trouble working him because he doesn't find them funny.
Toons also aren't supposed to be able to kill or die, which is why they need a detective in the first place: the world has well-defined rules which have apparently been violated.
The HP world has flimsy rules that depend on the character and the story. The rules of magic are only enforced until an exception is needed, when one is justified to let a character do what the plot demands.
Great point about Toon Law. I guess the HP is more about the Plot Demands This tropes. tbh I don't know HP that well, I found the movies to be kind of boring and I never got past a couple chapters of the first book.
I was about to comment- Harry Potter and the Deus Ex Machina thanks for beating me to it.
I might add Harry Potter and the Order of the Pipe Layers