Economist writes against economy of magic in Harry Potter

[Imran Siddiqui]

Narnia > LOTR

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Arrian
The Balrogs weren't "created" by Morgoth, I suppose, but rather altered by him. Balrogs were once Maiar, the same group of beings as Sauron, Gandalf, Saruman... the angelic order. Balrogs were Maiar who turned to evil, and then Morgoth took them and made them into Balrogs.

He didn't "create" orcs or trolls either, though, if you look at it that way.

Elf ---> Orc/Goblin
Ent ---> Troll

Dragons he may have actually created, but I'd imagine he had something to work on...

-Arrian

He doesn't create anything. That is one of the points of the books (Even LOTR, but definitely also Simillarion).

JM

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by binTravkin
For example?

I'm not saying LOTR or any other book is better, but tying real world with some kind of fantasy world requires less fantasy on the authors' part and drops the 'feasibility' of that fantasy.

There are tons.

- A lot of classic fantasy tales (Hoffmann)

- Ghost stories and horror tales (like Dracula)

- The Cthulhu Mythos

- The Wizard of Oz

- A lot of contemporary fantasy novels, like 'The War Hound and the World's Pain' (Moorcock)

- Buffy, Highlander, the Others, the Sixth sense, Ghostbusters, X-files...

I'm not sure what you mean by 'feasibility'. Maybe you mean believabilty. It may not work for you, but for a lot a people, if an author blends fantasy and reality, blends fact and fiction, the story becomes more believable, it seems more "real". Well, it seems more real than a totally fake world. Not many people can pull a Tolkien, you know

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Jon Miller


He doesn't create anything. That is one of the points of the books (Even LOTR, but definitely also Simillarion).

JM

He "sub-creates" if I recall Tolkien's explanation properly.

He can't make something from nothing, but he can alter things.

Maiar -> Balrogs
Elves -> Orcs
Ents -> Trolls

and so on and so forth. Dragons are the ones I can't remember the origins of properly w/o having a look at the Simarillion.

Of course, one of the other Valar *does* create something, violating the rules. He gets caught and is contrite, so much so that his creation - the Dwarves - are not destroyed. IIRC it's because he made them in an attempt to make the world even better - unselfishly - and for his love of them. Quite unlike Melkor/Morgoth's "creations."

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Narnia > LOTR

Oh, Imran. You disappoint me so.

-Arrian

[Victor Galis]

Sweet. This just saved me countless hours of finally figuring out what the whole HP mania was about.

As an economist, I sort of get the points. The points make much more sense as a player of RPGs. If my characters become too powerful, then the games are no fun anymore. (Also true of arbitrary rules etc.) I can see how having an ill-defined system takes away from the idea of a plot.

[Nostromo]

I disagree with the lady. Michael Moorcock wrote a series of books called 'Dancers at the End of Time'. Like the title suggests, the story takes place at the end of time, where humans have become so advanced that they are almost omnipotent. What would happen if human became omnipotent? How would we spend our time? Even though they can do almost anything they want, there's still a story to be told.

The Harry Potter books are good and entertaining, but they have a couple of important flaws, IMO. And I don't think it has much to do with magic. I mentionned some in the other Potter thread: the abuse of deus ex machinas, a convoluted plot (I sometimes had the impression of reading a Robert Ludlum novel, which is not a good thing), some weak characters like Voldemort. So they are mainly narrative problems.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Arrian
Oh, Imran. You disappoint me so.

-Arrian

Considering I think that LOTR is entirely overrated and not all that impressive, that's fine by me .

[Rufus T. Firefly]

My daughter and I finished the 7th book last night. I just ran the OP past her, and she had some interesting observations; to wit:

The human activity that magic most resembles is neither academics nor athletics (per the OP) but music. As such, it can be taught, and one can become very proficient at it through hard work (a la Hermione). But however diligent you are, you can't learn to be a Hendrix, or a Coltrane, or a Glenn Gould; true musical genius is more mysterious, and beyond the teachable. So too with magic. That, in the end, is why Harry (and Ginny) are more powerful than Hermione.

The other thing that seems to be true -- though its never explicitly stated, AFAIK -- is that the ability to cast spells well is directly connected to one's own self confidence and belief in one's own abilities. Great wizards -- Dumbledore, Voldemort, Harry, most of the Hogwarts teachers -- are confident, even arrogant. Hermione, for all her knowledge, trusts books more than she trusts herself, which is why she isn't as powerful as she could be (her patronus, for example, isn't really much). Ron -- picked on his whole life by his many older brothers, yet denied the compensatory attention given to the baby in the family -- is a self-esteem train wreck, and it shows in his magical ability. Ditto Neville, whereas Luna, who never questioins herself even when everyone else does, is a pretty good witch from the get-go.

This is why the transformation of certain characters, most notably Neville, takes place when they join Dumbledore's Army. Harry's teaching them the one thing no teacher is: he's teaching them to believe in themselves. Why the teachers aren't teaching that is an interesting question -- but then coaches, music instructors, and brilliant professors are all notorious for grinding down, rather than building up, their charges. But Harry gives them the one thing they're getting from nowhere else, and that's what makes the difference.

So sayeth Little Miss Firefly, anyway, and I confess with paternal pride that it's a pretty convincing analysis.

Now, that doesn't explain the Weasleys, but here I think the author just has it wrong. It's not clear that the Weasley's are poor -- there's every possibility, given the values they display throughout the books, that they've chosen to live humbly. I know wealthy humans who do that (Warren Buffett is the obvious example, but closer to home I have quite wealth friends who won't buy their kids ipods and make them share the violin they both play, just to promote anti-materialist values); why not wizards?

[Kuciwalker]

The human activity that magic most resembles is neither academics nor athletics (per the OP) but music. As such, it can be taught, and one can become very proficient at it through hard work (a la Hermione). But however diligent you are, you can't learn to be a Hendrix, or a Coltrane, or a Glenn Gould; true musical genius is more mysterious, and beyond the teachable. So too with magic. That, in the end, is why Harry (and Ginny) are more powerful than Hermione.

So magic is like math?

The other thing that seems to be true -- though its never explicitly stated, AFAIK -- is that the ability to cast spells well is directly connected to one's own self confidence and belief in one's own abilities. Great wizards -- Dumbledore, Voldemort, Harry, most of the Hogwarts teachers -- are confident, even arrogant. Hermione, for all her knowledge, trusts books more than she trusts herself, which is why she isn't as powerful as she could be (her patronus, for example, isn't really much). Ron -- picked on his whole life by his many older brothers, yet denied the compensatory attention given to the baby in the family -- is a self-esteem train wreck, and it shows in his magical ability. Ditto Neville, whereas Luna, who never questioins herself even when everyone else does, is a pretty good witch from the get-go.

I think that's probably true of things in general, not magic specifically. Confidant people just do better.

Now, that doesn't explain the Weasleys, but here I think the author just has it wrong. It's not clear that the Weasley's are poor -- there's every possibility, given the values they display throughout the books, that they've chosen to live humbly. I know wealthy humans who do that (Warren Buffett is the obvious example, but closer to home I have quite wealth friends who won't buy their kids ipods and make them share the violin they both play, just to promote anti-materialist values); why not wizards?

Well, apart from the fact that Ron calls them poor in book 4, there's also the many times when the Weasley's have complained about not being able to get things because they're expensive. Not deciding not to get things, but simply being unable to.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

The human activity that magic most resembles is neither academics nor athletics (per the OP) but music. As such, it can be taught, and one can become very proficient at it through hard work (a la Hermione). But however diligent you are, you can't learn to be a Hendrix, or a Coltrane, or a Glenn Gould; true musical genius is more mysterious, and beyond the teachable. So too with magic. That, in the end, is why Harry (and Ginny) are more powerful than Hermione.

So magic is like math?

If you where to take the metaphore to it's conclusion, I suppose you could say that a mathematical and technical aproach could be taken to magic, or for that matter, a more artistic, chaotic, intuitive, or spontaneous aproaches aswell. But a really powerful wizard would probably employ them all.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
So magic is like math?

Sure, why not? We're more conversant with music than with math in our family, so we went with the metaphor we understood best.

I think that's probably true of things in general, not magic specifically. Confidant people just do better.

True. But a belief in one's self seems to be a baseline requirement of doing magic properly at all, not just doing it well, which is a little different from most activities. Still, it's a factor that the writer quoted in the OP doesn't even consider, and it explains a lot of what she's griping about.

Well, apart from the fact that Ron calls them poor in book 4, there's also the many times when the Weasley's have complained about not being able to get things because they're expensive. Not deciding not to get things, but simply being unable to.

Well, I took a stab (that one was my idea, not my kid's) -- but you're right about that. So that aspect of the wizarding economy does remain a mystery.

[Jon Miller]

It's seems like for nobility, great success in wizardome comes from being a great bastard. Maybe the Weasley's don't have any great bastards in their past, and so haven't accumulated the wealth that other families have.

JM

[GePap]

I could not read LoTR. I found it tedious. The Silmarillion on the other hand I liked.

[Bkeela]

Rufus T. Firefly almost makes Harry Potter sound interesting.