Year to Year: A Journal Through Time #14 – Quantifiable Magic (22/4/19)

Recent headlines

World: Extinction Rebellion: Climate change protesters at Natural History Museum

Gaming: Steam Users Flood Assassin’s Creed Unity With Positive Reviews Following Ubisoft’s Notre-Dame Efforts

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We’re two episodes into the last season of Game of Thrones from my perspective, and I think I’ve decided that it’s my favourite fantasy universe. This sounds like an easy opinion due to its overwhelming popularity, but remember that I’m a fantasy enthusiast who has sunk literally thousands of hours into World of Warcraft over the years. I always thought Warcraft was my favourite fantasy, but the more I experience the World of Ice and Fire, the more I come to respect how little magic is used. It’s never used overtly in the show, barring the existence of dragons and the undead, and that allows power struggles and grand battles to be more relatable, whereas magic in Warcraft is less quantifiable and therefore harder to measure in a fight. The latest expansion’s war campaign sees players enacting magical strategies and countermeasures to turn the tide of battle, and I can’t help but feel that the ability to fling goblin shredders into void elf black holes is nonsensical in a story which emphasises a need for a naval advantage. If I ever do write a fantasy novel, I’ll try to bear this in mind.

I’ve just had a week off, so I don’t have all that much to discuss, bar the works of fiction I’ve been absorbed in. As an introvert, I typically don’t go out much, even when I’ve booked time off, and sometimes I get a little self conscious about that. The truth is, though, that I’m perfectly happy sat at my PC, maybe gaming with friends, maybe binging a series. This week I caught up on World of Warcraft while listening to podcasts. I also had a friend over so I could show them Labo VR, and went to my sister’s for Easter. It was pretty chill! It’s just not the kind of thing you can stretch out for 600 words. Let’s meet back here next week, okay?

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Further reading:

The Weekly Deathmatch #52 – Overwatch – A Year of WDM in Hindsight

Revisiting Harry Potter

Kindle Unlimited is a service that’s been interesting me for some time now, and as my reading habits have been slipping more and more, I decided to claim my free month trial. Rather than using this trial to read new and interesting books, as was the plan, I was instead distracted by the fact that the Harry Potter books were on there, and thus set about re-reading Rowling’s famous series.

Now, whilst I’m comfortably familiar with the series thanks to the movies (which I’ve seen on multiple occasions), I’ve only read the actually book series once, and that was when I was around fourteen. Whilst it was enjoyable, I don’t remember being particularly blown away by the novels, and apart from filling in some of the gaps from the movies, they soon fell into obscurity. However, reading through the series a second time round has proven to be a splendid idea. I’m now positively entranced by the wizarding world that Rowling has created, and rather than taking the story at face value, my mind now reels with the possibilities of further stories told within that some world (perpetuated, of course, by the recent release of Magical Beasts and Where to Find Them, which I have yet to see). I’m enthralled by the idea of apparition; intrigued by the consequences of living in a world where things such as the polyjuice potion, the pensieve and invisibility cloaks exist; excited at the prospect of what other Dark wizards get up to and the potential narratives behind that; curious as to the magical governing of other countries; and, of course, tickled by the idea of the wizarding world existing alongside a 2016 world, where there are smartphones (and therefore cameras) everywhere.

There’s also a rich vein of rediscovery to be found from having foreknowledge of the series. Knowing the perspectives and plans of certain characters can be invigorating, enticing and exciting; the ability to understand why Dumbledore’s eyes light up “triumphantly” at a particular spot of bad news at the end of Goblet of Fire, for example, allows you to see the story from a whole other angle as it unfolds. Furthermore, reading this from an adult perspective offers even further insights into the behaviours of some characters, such as why information is withheld rather than shared, and what some unheard conversations between teachers and adult characters might sound like. And finally, I found myself taken off guard by the amount of comedic moments found in the series; some of them, like Fred and George bouncing snowballs off the back of Professor Quirrel’s turban, are even funnier with foreknowledge.

Finally, as somebody who was once caught up in the popular idea that J.K Rowling’s actual writing is overrated based on her popularity, I have this to say: that is incorrect. I’ve found her writing to be easy to read, excellently descriptive, accurately characteristic through applications of free indirect style, to contain very slight and clever foreshadowing, and most impressively, to be thoroughly well-plotted and consistent throughout a myriad of fully-constructed characters, events and in an extensively designed world. There are some minor plotholes that I’d raise, such as why Harry doesn’t see Thestrals pulling the magical carriages at the end of Goblet of Fire, but none of these compromise the story when pulled up for closer inspection, which is a rare trait to find in a lot of fiction nowadays.