A Humorous Anecdote

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

So the last time I visited TVTropes’ Harry Potter pages, I came across someone who said that in actuality, everything about the last book made sense because don’t you see, the events of the series HAD NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE and so the characters COULDN’T HAVE KNOWN HOW ANYTHING WOULD WORK and so all the supposed inconsistencies are really just addressing that point!

This of course is basically bullshit because whether intentional or not there’s only so much inconsistency that the audience can be expected to go along with, and the characters can only plead ignorance so many times before all willing suspension of disbelief is dropped.

Case in point: awhile back I stumbled upon a wacky story which made no sense whatsoever and was written by an author who’s probably no older than 15 who somehow decided that she was an expert on science and medicine. Anyway, one scene that really stood out in terms of lunacy was a scene in which a character gives birth to a baby that’s part-human and part-dragon. Now, that doesn’t make any sense in its own right, but since the author clearly expected us to go along with it, I went along with it. So the character does some research and learns that dragons in their world are ovoviviparous.

Now for those of you who aren’t well-versed in animal biology, ovoviviparous animals (which are mostly snakes, lizards, fish, etc.) give birth to live young. However, rather than set up an organ system the way mammals do it, with an organ to house the offspring and an organ to provide nutrients, these creatures produce eggs with yolk and all the features associated with any other egg, except that they never leave the mother’s body (“ovoviviparous” literally means “egg” + “live-bearing”).

So it doesn’t make any sense for a human to have a baby that way because a human’s physiology just can’t change that way, but since the author expected us to go along with the idea that it was magic, why not?

So then, in a scene that makes no sense, the character has her part-dragon, part-human baby… and it comes out with an umbilical cord! So, for those of you who missed that, an umbilical cord is used specifically to connect the developing offspring to the placenta. In other words, a truly ovoviviparous animal doesn’t need one because her offspring are nourished in a conventional egg with yolk. In the end, my suspension of disbelief was completely thrown out the window, and no attempt made by the author to argue “but really, there was NO WAY THE CHARACTER COULD HAVE KNOWN that she wouldn’t be reproducing ovoviviparously” would have made any difference.

That is what reading through JKR’s inconsistencies (and the fandom’s reaction to them) is like. Except, nowhere near as funny.

Comments

[malic-ba.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe if DD expected SS to realise what the Elder Wand was as soon as he picked it up. Maybe you can feel the power-up ... If so, he could well believe that Dark Lord VM would be easier to take out, since that's what all his plotting had been aiming for.

Otherwise, it shouldn't be to hard to come up with some pretext why the wand - or all the contents of the tomb, if he wanted, to confuse the issue - needed to be hidden or destroyed. SS apparantly thought the Elder Wand was a fairy story, like most people in the WW except the lunatic fringe of Hallows seekers - or have I got the wrong end of the stick there? Leaving it where it was, it was very simple and obvious for VM to get his hands on, and as you say DD knew that VM would be after it.

On the portrait - sure, it ordered SS around (so you're probably right) but they were topics DD probably planned to nag him about anyway :). And as for not seeming surprised by what Harry did with the wand, well, isn't seeming wise after the event his usual mode?

Finally, I could easily believe a portrait wouldn't remember events leading up to its death, since people often can't remember chunks of time before a serious accident, and being zapped to death must surely cause some brain trauma :). I'll offer the !$%^& that much of an excuse ... I wish I knew how they are supposed to be created though (does anyone?). Are they a recording or a ghost?

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Regarding portraits' agency.... I seem to recall that Jo said in an interview that portraits were an imprint and did NOT have full agency.

However, that's not what she wrote.

Violet (the Fat Lady) can get drunk and yell at students when hungover, shirk her duties to go off and play with friends, run away from danger, and lie to students. Phineas can be uncooperative to Dumbles, express admiration of someone he opposes philosophically, and react to news of his last scion's death. Sorry, Turing test here--if it acts exactly like a human (albeit in an artificially restricted environment), I have to assume it has human agency. How would you program a recording to choose to lie to a student out of annoyance?

And the portraits (and the ghosts) demonstrably learn things their living selves had never known. The originals of Sir Cadogan and the Grey Lady did not speak nor understand modern English, nor any dialect close enough to allow for comprehension of contemporary students. Nor could they have tolerated modern mores.