The world of Harry Potter ignores means of production and and their ownership in shaping the world so you get this broken depiction because of that.
I think this, subconsciously, is part of its appeal. The Weasleys using hand-me-down gear and having a penny-pinching aesthetic is allowed to be ‘quaint’ and ‘charming,’ whereas when I’ve spent time with real friends who have to live like that it gets me angry thinking about why it’s like that. But for characters in Hogwarts, the positives are material and the negatives are harmless aesthetics, and there’s no ‘why’.
All of the negative aspects are taken care of by magic (except and only where the narrative requires struggle), leaving just the positives (e.g. a tightly-knit, supportive family). So on the one hand you’ve got an extremely relatable world because of all the superficial similarities, and on the other hand you don’t even notice the absence of the bad parts because in Harry Potter’s unreality they weren’t removed or solved; rather they were never there to begin with.
Yeah, it’s just the way HP completely omits the world building.
It’s like you got Tolkein world building where he builds the whole iceberg, Sanderson world building where he builds the tip of the iceberg but the huge bit below the surface is hollow, and Rowling world building where it’s literally just the tip but nobody looks down because they don’t want to know (until the author wades into politics and makes an ass of herself).
It’s not exclusive to HP but in it not describing the epistemology leaves a hole noticeably larger than other franchises.
In Witcher 3 for example there is magic but its much more limited in scope. There are kings and queens with armies so you can guess the class structure of the society.
In HP the reaches of magic are like Calvinball where it doesn’t follow any rules and just does whatever the author felt like. A young girl has access to a handy widget that can turn back time with no side effects at all. HP is extremely poorly thought out.
I think this, subconsciously, is part of its appeal. The Weasleys using hand-me-down gear and having a penny-pinching aesthetic is allowed to be ‘quaint’ and ‘charming,’ whereas when I’ve spent time with real friends who have to live like that it gets me angry thinking about why it’s like that. But for characters in Hogwarts, the positives are material and the negatives are harmless aesthetics, and there’s no ‘why’.
All of the negative aspects are taken care of by magic (except and only where the narrative requires struggle), leaving just the positives (e.g. a tightly-knit, supportive family). So on the one hand you’ve got an extremely relatable world because of all the superficial similarities, and on the other hand you don’t even notice the absence of the bad parts because in Harry Potter’s unreality they weren’t removed or solved; rather they were never there to begin with.
Arguably that’s not exclusive to HP, but is in fact a feature of many western entertainments
Yeah, it’s just the way HP completely omits the world building.
It’s like you got Tolkein world building where he builds the whole iceberg, Sanderson world building where he builds the tip of the iceberg but the huge bit below the surface is hollow, and Rowling world building where it’s literally just the tip but nobody looks down because they don’t want to know (until the author wades into politics and makes an ass of herself).
It’s not exclusive to HP but in it not describing the epistemology leaves a hole noticeably larger than other franchises.
In Witcher 3 for example there is magic but its much more limited in scope. There are kings and queens with armies so you can guess the class structure of the society.
In HP the reaches of magic are like Calvinball where it doesn’t follow any rules and just does whatever the author felt like. A young girl has access to a handy widget that can turn back time with no side effects at all. HP is extremely poorly thought out.