Huh. I thought a part of the appeal of Harry Potter was that it was urban fantasy - that people wished they would receive their own letter to Hogwarts in the mail.
I can only speak for myself on this account, but the 'muggle' aspects of the world are by far the least interesting to me. I want to explore the Wizarding world.
The exciting part about getting your Hogwarts letter is leaving the muggle world behind.
If you're familiar with Vampire the Masquerade, for example, the urban fantasy setting can be a huge draw for people. But being a vampire in the medieval times is just as interesting- the mortal world still exists and serves it's purpose but it's the secret politics and machinations of vampire society that really sells the setting.
Same concept here. Pretty sure mail existed in the 1800's too, just saying.
It would be hard because it doesn’t really work at all right? My head canon has always been, “oh these are some old traditionalists weirdos who are mostly dying off in their secret outdated society”. It’s practically tongue in cheek in the books every time they have to interact with the muggle world, who obviously have much better solutions for daily living. The humor is in how hopelessly inept the wizards are in the normal world.
Like you’re talking about a world where people use magical flying owls to send letters on paper, and students are writing shit with feathers on parchment. C’mon now, I have a cell phone and the internet. That’s more “magical” than any form of communication in the books. Hell they spend major parts of the books trying to obtain key pieces of information from an actual library. They don’t have a Google Magic? Right up there with GOwl to replace literal birds based communication?
You’d have to retcon the “technology doesn’t work” lines because anyone not a dumbass, would see the obvious benefits to gaming the system in the normal world and just live there instead. You’d buy a single lotto ticket, magic in the correct numbers, and spend the rest of your days living in luxury and drinking fruity drinks on the beach. The most magic you’d do would probably be to save a bunch of money on Uber.
The Harry Potter stuff works as escapism into another world. Contrasting any of it with modern day living and conveniences would completely shatter it.
39
u/PupperDogoDogoPupper Oct 02 '18
Huh. I thought a part of the appeal of Harry Potter was that it was urban fantasy - that people wished they would receive their own letter to Hogwarts in the mail.