HP fanfiction as sci-fi
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:date: 2021-12-18T10:39:21
:category: literature
:tags: review, harryPotter, blogComment, sci-fi

(my comments on the Reddit thread “`What if there's no magic gene?`_” by 15_Redstones)

Concerning your thoughts about “The magic system is so whimsical,
I don’t think it should be susceptible to manipulation by
scientists.”, I am a bit torn. The one thing I really like about
the HP universe is that it is exactly like ours except for the
magic and its consequences (yes, I feel a bit of irony over the
statement by Arthur Weasley, that “Muggles are same as us, except
they lack magic.”). Yes, including the same timeline as ours.

I heard somewhere a definition of sci-fi as a thought experiment,
what would people do if this one variable changed. One variable
being the multi-generational flying to Alpha Centauri, for
example, or in the classical sci-fi something more simple (flying
in the rockets, being invisible … that goes actually all the way
to Plato_, Mesozoic animals alive, dystopian totalitarian
regime). What would people do facing such changed world? How
would it change them? Most of the good HP fanfiction literature
seems to me a variation on this theme? What would people do if
they had magic? What if they were a tiny minority of human
population so the fear of disclosure would be completely rational
and sensible? How would it change their behaviour, their society,
etc.?

For this to work, however, you have to keep changes small,
otherwise your world is just too different from ours and the
comparison is vague, or even worse, you fall into the endless
abyss of the Uncanny Valley. That's for example the problem for
me with crossovers with the superman genre stories, their world
is just too different. Or introduction of elements which are just
too weird in our world (e.g., I am never happy when vampires are
introduced, their undeadness is just a way too different from our
universe).

And no, I don't think, that using mitochondria instead of DNA for
inheritance makes such difference, just a remainder for all of us
that “magic is weird” and anything goes may be strictly speaking
true in your logic, but that this line of thinking leads to some
rather disappointing results (at least for me).

.. _`What if there's no magic gene?`:
   https://www.reddit.com/r/HPfanfiction/comments/riumm0/what_if_theres_no_magic_gene/

.. _Plato:
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Gyges