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Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 25, 2022

Merry Christmas, everyone!

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world-building are top-tier.

Her world-building is in an interesting place to me. It's evocative, creative, interesting... but then falls apart the deeper you delve into it. I think she makes an understandable mistake of trying to go into more detail later (its what everyone wants to know!), and it just doesnt seem to work.

Kind of like Narnia, I suppose, except that C.S. Lewis doesn't feel the need to try to explain where Mr. Tumnus was doing his shopping, for the better.

It's clear from the start that the world building is non committal, she starts off with a lot of stuff she hadn't thought about following through on. Starting from the sorting hat and the houses, which are naturally one of the coolest parts of the world, but Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff are basically pointless from the beginning.

Hermione obviously should have been a Ravenclaw and Ron and Neville obviously should have been Hufflepuff. Making Gryffindor basically the "you have the guts to matter" house is silly. Making the smartest and most loyal characters avoid the houses for smart and loyal people makes those houses obvious downgrades.