Economist writes against economy of magic in Harry Potter

[Sirotnikov]

could you fix the bold tag?

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Blake
Ultimately I think that any fantasy is weak, if there is ever a situation where a character could just magic a problem away (based on past uses of magic in the fiction), and yet doesn't. It generally results in characters which look like total idiots with very little awareness (of course stupidity could be the price for magical powers ).

The same could be said for most science fiction. Nanobots to the rescue!

[rah]

Or any of the star treks where having a working transporter would blow away the whole plot, so there has to be another contrived transporter malfunction. Considering what it does, it was sure broke a lot. I would never have trusted it.

[Patroklos]

Your right, look at the wank (as the SF community calls it) in SW. Every rebel talks about the Empire with dread and fear, then wipes out a legion of storm troopers while shooting over their shoulder during morning tea.

"Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise." Whatever Obi Wan, I haven't seen a stormstooper hit **** after three movies.

And the Force is basically the same thing as magic, and suffers the same problems as HP magic. And it is with the villains that things are really bad, because a lot of times authors justify heroes holding back out of some moral code. Villains don't have that.

Someone tell me again why Darth Vader didn't just ripe the eyes out of people's heads, or rotate their brains inside their skulls, or just rip the location of the rebel base out of Leia's brain?

Harry Potter does the same thing, Lord Valdimolt (sp?) is a ****ing ***** from what I can tell, I don't see why anyone would be scared of him.

[Proteus_MST]

If I could get an house elf I would order him to constantly produce things I can sell on eBay.

So I agree with the argument about the poverty of the Weasleys

As for the magic,
I agree with Blake, as I, too, like magic systems that come with a cost for casting spells. Maybe has to do something with the long years of playing Pen&Paper RPGs

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Patroklos
"Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise." Whatever Obi Wan, I haven't seen a stormstooper hit **** after three movies.

Yes, it is always amazing to watch Luke, Han and/or Leia moving in front of several stormtroopers with laserbolts everywhere, but them not getting hit a single time

[Patroklos]

I also liked how blaster bolts burn straight throgh stormtrooper armor for fatal blows, yet can't shoot through Lukes unarmored hand or Leia's unarmored shoulder.

But I digress, don't want to thread jack.

[Colon™]

Nobody noticed how you could have major settlements in LotR without the least bit of agriculture going on, except in the lands of the hobbits? I suppose it's possible the hobbits exported their agricultural surplus but weren't they supposed to be isolated and little known?

The combat sequences are doubly irritating in this genre of movies. Consider the battle of Minas Tirith in The Return of the King. Mordor's troops are in the midst of storming the city when Theoden's cavalry arrives. Since they had been totally unnoticed and unexpected there obviously was great factor of surprise. With some proper intelligence they shouldn't have been unnoticed but anyhow. You'd expect Theoden to capitalise on the surprise factor and instantly assault the undefended rear, especially because he was outnumbered. Instead, he had to hold a minutes-long speech and allow Mordor's troops to reorganise themselves to build a defensive line. This could and should have shrunk Theoden's chances of success to 0%.

[Jon Miller]

books != movies

JM

[Adrian Hon]

Colon: Certainly in the book of LoTR the plains surrounding Minas Tirith are supposed to be filled with farms. Not sure whether that was shown in the movie though.

[ZargonX]

Or food. Remember its one of the five things that can't be magically created (I wonder what that other four are... perhaps clothing is one of them).

That actually made me think about it, and I'm pretty sure that there is never a time clothing is ever created out of thin air, even when needed. I guess she was subtly consistent in that regard.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I'm thinking Gamp's Law consists of:

1) Food
2) Clothing
3) Metals (ie, why money can be coined in wizarding world)
4) ??
5) ???

[Colon™]

That doesn't make any sense. So you can magically create a live bunny and cooking equipment, but not a prepared bunny?

[Will9]

The Weasley arguement is the best mentioned, but with seventh book the arguement becomes useless now that there is proof that there are certian things that can't be created through magic (as Imran has said). I thought it is quite useless before the seventh book because it seemed clear that there were limitations to magic in Harry Potter.

Imran, I think one of the other laws has to do with things belonging to someone else.

Colon, I think anything edible can be classified as food.

[Sandman]

Yeah, Hermione conjured some canaries into existence in HBP. Couldn't you eat them? Unless conjured creatures are like Leprechaun gold and disappear after a while.