@Randal'Thor JKR's authorship aside, I lately find that the magic rules in most good fanfics are far superior than in the actual JKR books. She may be good at building high levels of her world but intricate logical demands of rule-building are not JKR's forte.

@DVK-in-exile There's also a great many things which are introduced in book X and used to resolve some plot element in book X, but beg the question of why they couldn't have been used as a deus ex machina to resolve the entire story.

Hence all the "why didn't they use a Time-Turner to ...?" and "why didn't they use Felix Felicis to ...?" questions on the site.

@Randal'Thor Well, THAT is a trope common to everyone (I'm looking at you, Paramount, and your Wagon Train to the Stars, specifically)

I'd link to TVTropes, but that would violate "be nice" rules, or at least "no Dark Magic" :)

@DVK-in-exile There must be some authors who take more care than that. Tolkien springs to mind.

There is the "why didn't they just use the Eagles to fly the Ring to Mount Doom?", but IIRC that has a sensible answer which doesn't just smell like wriggling out of a plot hole?

The whole "canon" issue is a more often than not annoying by-taste of the attitude of placing worldbuilding above story-telling.

So kudos to JKR for writing compelling stories and not giving much about a coherent world built upon complicated rules rather than just "lettin' it flow".

@Randal'Thor Insert obligatory link to one of the various incarnations of the good old Eagles question. ;-)

@NapoleonWilson Your ability to suspend disbelief must be higher than mine then.

@Randal'Thor My ability to not need a completely fleshed out world specificied in a D&D rule book at least. ;-)

I like stories and their rules to make sense, and it irritates me when they don't.

@NapoleonWilson Well, I know literally nothing about D&D, so that reference goes way over my head, I'm afraid.

@Randal'Thor Me neither, other than that it is a role-playing game footed on an extensive rule-set. Which might be required for a role-playing game but less so for a book telling a story.

I mean, the appendices to The Lord of the Rings were nice info and I sure indulged in writing stuff in Tengwar runes, but it's not like the story would have been lost without 'em.

@NapoleonWilson Sure. I read LotR several times before I ever managed to get through the appendices (which I've only properly read once, plus referring back to them for SE answers).

And as you know, I haven't even read the Silmarillion ;-)

Backstory and mythology isn't always necessary to appreciate a good story, sure. But coherence and consistency within the story itself should be one of the main aims, IMO.

@Randal'Thor Which is unfortunate, as it's amazing.

@Randal'Thor Sure. But for that you don't necessarily need a fully fleshed-out world, let alone worry about what it means to be "canon".

@Randal'Thor The only book I ever read twice (ok, other than Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus).

@NapoleonWilson Wow.

Now I need to find a film which I've seen and you haven't, to make up for that ;-)

@NapoleonWilson I can't see how canonicity considerations connect to the concepts of coherence and consistency? (yay, so many C-words)

@Randal'Thor Me neither.

@NapoleonWilson But you were the one who connected the two!

@Randal'Thor Uh, by saying that there shouldn't be a connection, yeah.

@NapoleonWilson The fact that you felt it necessary to say that means that the two must be seen as connected by some people, maybe even most people. That's what I'm not getting.

@Randal'Thor Indeed.

Dammit, you're impossible to talk to! :-P

@NapoleonWilson "need" is perhaps a bit too strong a term. But ceterus parabus, a work with a compelling story AND well-built world is far better than one with ONLY one of the two ingredients.

@Randal'Thor Amazing, astounding and astonishing alliteration approach. Ahem.

Look at the whole "Rule of Two" thing. It's the same issue, people construing some actual rule out of a simple throwaway line. Just don't worry about if there is some rule like that and if that is "canon" or not, concentrate on the story. But I also agree that I'm on the wrong site for an opinion like that. So to each his own.

@NapoleonWilson You're not "on the wrong site", but you are perhaps preaching to the wrong audience. Some people intrinsically value world-building and rules, outside of storytelling. Like, y'know, reading a arythmancy maths textbook for a bit of light nighttime reading type people. It doesn't mean they don't value storytelling, it just means they value both.

@DVK-in-exile Which is the same, though. ;-)

@Randal'Thor I don't know why you make it to be so, though.

@NapoleonWilson - One big problem with storytelling is that it's inherently subjective, so it's far harder to fit into SE Q&A format. A chatroom is definitely far more suitable for that :)

@NapoleonWilson You refer to some connection, and I'm trying to work out what that connection is and where it comes from, but then you keep saying there isn't one. Argh!

@Randal'Thor I don't get you. I said there shouldn't be a connection. Then you say exatly what I'm saying too, so I agree with you by saying "Indeed" and you say it doesn't work. What's the deal?

@NapoleonWilson Because you've evidently seen people making a connection, and perhaps explaining why they do so, whereas the whole idea of a connection is new to me and I'm curious where it comes from.

Ah, never mind.

@NapoleonWilson Not really same. (1) Plenty of people on SFF share your opinion, actually, and this site is definitely NOT about "story doesn't matter". So you're not in the wrong place as long as you can respect that people are interested in non-story stuff as well and let them be interested.

(2) However, you are preaching to the wrong audience, meaning, the people who don't share your opinion, wouldn't really be open to changing their approach no matter what you say, because in essence it would mean stopping caring about things they do care about. I find it extremely unlikely that something as fundamental as that would be swayed by any arguments you can present. Mind you, you're absolutely welcome to present them, I just suspect it isn't gonna change anyone's approach.

Personally, I'd love to have more storytelling content on this chat, as it's much harder to find on Q&A side.

Personally I think (and @DVK may disagree here) that some people put way too much of themselves into certain franchises which are very popular but not really very well thought out, like HP and SW.

(again, not because of people disliking it but because it's inherently harder to fit into objective Q&As)

You can argue until the cows come home about why they didn't use Felix Felicis for this, that, or the other, when the answer is basically "because JKR didn't think of it".

@Randal'Thor guilty look

@DVK-in-exile I didn't intend for them to change their approach at all. I wasn't prosetyltizing nor engaging a professional debate, I was talking about my very own thoughts.

Or argue this, that, or the other about the Rule of Two, when really it was just a throwaway line and not meant to have all that much meaning. (At least, from what I gather - but bear in mind my donkey, of course :-) )

In short, if you're putting more thought into something than the author themselves did, you're probably putting too much into it.

YMMV :-)

@Randal'Thor But you are not using the same utility function. People don't argue about Felix because somehow, it will magically improve JKR's world. They do because they enjoy that activity. As I told someone else on Meta before, i am certain that everyone who posts on the main site is intelligent enough to know that "because JKR didn't think of it" is the correct answer. They just ignore that in favour of enjoying digging into worldbuilding.

Indeed. I think sometimes just saying "it's not explained" is worth more than fan-fiction, especially on questions that are largely just plot-holes to begin with.

@NapoleonWilson "worth more" is inherently subjective, which is what my main point is. What's worth what to anyone is incredibly varied and personal.

@DVK-in-exile But my point is, if you want to enjoy digging into worldbuilding, why not do so in a franchise where there's more worldbuilding to be dug into? If you ask questions about LotR, say, it'll take far longer to hit a "because the author didn't think of it" wall where there's no other way out than it will for HP.

@DVK-in-exile And it was me saying this, so I have no doubt it's inherently subjective. I wasn't stating the truth of the universe, but saying something from my very own mind.

Again, YMMV. It just seems to me that people who enjoy digging into worldbuilding would enjoy it more if the author had put more effort into their worldbuilding in the first place, so that there's more to dig into.

I don't like to prepend all my sentences with "according to my own subjective opinion and without any bearing on the larger matter of things...", though.

@Randal'Thor Oh, THAT, I can explain easily, I think. In a way, a less well thought out world is more fun to try to explain, precisely because finding even remotely plausible explanation is harder, if you try to constrain yourself to being in-universe.

@NapoleonWilson Hahaha... I just go for "imho" out of sheer laziness

Going along with this digging analogy, HP is a thick layer of turf over solid concrete, but LotR is pretty much turtles earth all the way down.

@DVK-in-exile And I go for nothing of the sort, out of the simple implication of it in the frist place. But maybe that's expecting too much.

@Randal'Thor Were there any turtles in Middle-Earth? :)

@NapoleonWilson Perhaps i'm over-parsing, but stating that something is "worth", absent prepending imho, has a connotation that the other thing is non-subjectively worthless, regardless of whether you intended to imply so or not.

Ok, fixed then. (Now to the next batch of movable chat messages, maybe this time really pick Trash over Meta.)

@Randal'Thor But... THAT's HALF THE FUN! :)

Anyway, I'm off for a bit. Don't fight, boys ;-)

@Randal'Thor I gotta be running too, but I think we are having a civilized discourse here, not a fight :)

I can definitely see @NapoleonWilson's point of view, actually. I do like good storytelling.

I'm tempted to quote from Orson Scott Card on storytelling vs. world-building (spoiler: he agrees with Napoleon's views) but it's way too voluminous for chat. I think I put some of it in quotes in my answer on main site.