Paul Briggs's Blog - Posts Tagged "harry-potter"
Conservation of Weirdness
"Generally in science fiction, you have one impossible thing, and then you surround it with believability in the hopes that it will allow the audience to accept the impossible thing too."
--Chuck Sonnenberg, reviewing “Torchwood: Miracle Day”
One character I’ve written a number of stories about is Irene J. Harris, a.k.a. “Big Reenie” or “Reenie the Giant.”
Reenie is an intelligent, good-natured and athletic woman — and she needs to be athletic just to stand and walk. She makes her own clothes — and, again, she needs to. Because Reenie is 7’9,” and while she doesn’t talk about her weight, she never lets it get above 400 pounds and it’s usually a little less. If she actually existed, she’d be one of the tallest women in the world. Possibly the tallest — I’ve tried looking it up and gotten some inconsistent reports.
These stories have been very popular in writing groups I’ve shared them with, but I have to admit that in most of them, she isn’t doing anything particularly remarkable. The stories are mostly about her adventures in navigating the built environment (which was not built with her in mind) and coping with the reactions of others (admiration, pity, resentment, mortal terror, etc.), which she does with good humor. People seem to like Reenie. I think she hits the right balance — normal enough to relate to, strange enough to be interesting.
So… why am I not giving Reenie the Giant an appearance in the Locksmith Trilogy? Or in Altered Seasons?
For one thing, I’m not sure what she’d do there that my other characters couldn’t. Lachlan Smith and Isabel Bradshaw are like Reenie — not in stature or sociability, but in being practical and level-headed people of above-average intelligence who don’t panic in a crisis. You can only put so many people like that in a story before problems start solving themselves.
More importantly, I think that in both these stories there’s a central weirdness from which all other weirdness flows. The weirdness of the Locksmith Trilogy is that there exists a portal from the present to the future — oh, and at some point between now and then the human race goes extinct. The weirdness of Altered Seasons is that the loss of Arctic Ocean sea ice for a few weeks in September triggers a chain reaction which throws the climate of the Northern Hemisphere into chaos over the course of several years. Neither of these things is connected to whatever genetic or developmental mishap turned Reenie into the human equivalent of a St. Bernard. If I put her in the story, it would seem like I was piling more and more random weirdness on the reader’s head that had nothing to do with the plot just to prove how imaginative I was.
I think this is why Harry Potter is such a normal guy, in spite of having been raised in an abusive household with an violent cousin and guardians who are neurotically obsessed with keeping up appearances. He’s normal because readers need him to be normal. When you’re exploring a strange new world, you want to see it through as clear a glass as possible.
Tell Your Mama, Tell Your Pa, I’m Gonna Send You Back to Ravenclaw
In honor of the Harry Potter festival in Chestertown, I’m going to use this post to speculate on which Houses my characters might be sorted into. (This is the part where somebody screams “READ ANOTHER BOOK!” If you only knew how many books I’m reading right now…)
In the Locksmith books… Lock himself would be in Gryffindor. This would be a great surprise to him, and to no one else.
Gary, most obviously, would be in Ravenclaw. Tara would probably go to Gryffindor just for showing up, given the nature of her problem. Although Brandon’s instinct is to side with whoever is strongest, which is a Slytherin trait, he would most likely Sorted into Hufflepuff — he doesn’t have much of a mean streak and is of somewhat malleable character, so the best thing to do would be to put him with kids who are nice and have a good work ethic.
In the Altered Seasons books… I think the Bradshaws would end up being one of those families where everyone ends up in the same house. Like the Weasleys, they’d be in Gryffindor. All of them are not so much brave as fearless — Chelsey takes stupid risks because she has no sense of self-preservation, Isabel just doesn’t have time to be scared and Kristen is on a first-name basis with Jesus. As for Scott… well, I’ll get to him in the next book. Isabel’s boyfriend Hunter would be a Hufflepuff, and would be convinced he'd brought shame on his family because of it, but again, that House would probably be better for him.
Sandra Symcox — obvious Ravenclaw.
Holbrooke Morgan — obvious Slytherin, and the kind who gives the House its reputation.
Carrie Camberg — tough call, but probably Slytherin. (All politicians are Slytherin until proven otherwise.) She is highly ambitious, and at least on her mother’s side comes of an old family. (An old Jewish family, but that wouldn’t be a problem for wizards.) She has a basic decency to her, but so did Harry Potter himself and that didn’t stop the Hat from wanting to Sort him into Slytherin. She is also highly… conscious of her own self-interest. Her right-hand dude Jerome Ross would also be a Slytherin.
Her husband Roger, on the other hand, would be a Gryffindor. He’s a glaciologist, which seems like a Ravenclaw sort of occupation, but it involves a lot of him traveling by himself into dangerous parts of the world, and he isn’t happy when Carrie makes him stop. Their daughter Thel is also very much a Gryffindor. If you’re guessing that this leads to conflict, you’re right.
Henry Pratt is particularly hard to place. He’s smart, and has a knack for lateral thinking, but he also has his blind spots. He’s ambitious and aristocratic, but strongly principled and doesn’t reflexively seek power or advantage. There’s at least one crisis that he handles like a Gryffindor. But I’m going to say Ravenclaw, for the same reason I’d say Walter Yuschak goes into Ravenclaw — they’re both men of ideas. They both fall in love with their ideas, and are too slow to realize when their ideas are letting them down.
In the Locksmith books… Lock himself would be in Gryffindor. This would be a great surprise to him, and to no one else.
Gary, most obviously, would be in Ravenclaw. Tara would probably go to Gryffindor just for showing up, given the nature of her problem. Although Brandon’s instinct is to side with whoever is strongest, which is a Slytherin trait, he would most likely Sorted into Hufflepuff — he doesn’t have much of a mean streak and is of somewhat malleable character, so the best thing to do would be to put him with kids who are nice and have a good work ethic.
In the Altered Seasons books… I think the Bradshaws would end up being one of those families where everyone ends up in the same house. Like the Weasleys, they’d be in Gryffindor. All of them are not so much brave as fearless — Chelsey takes stupid risks because she has no sense of self-preservation, Isabel just doesn’t have time to be scared and Kristen is on a first-name basis with Jesus. As for Scott… well, I’ll get to him in the next book. Isabel’s boyfriend Hunter would be a Hufflepuff, and would be convinced he'd brought shame on his family because of it, but again, that House would probably be better for him.
Sandra Symcox — obvious Ravenclaw.
Holbrooke Morgan — obvious Slytherin, and the kind who gives the House its reputation.
Carrie Camberg — tough call, but probably Slytherin. (All politicians are Slytherin until proven otherwise.) She is highly ambitious, and at least on her mother’s side comes of an old family. (An old Jewish family, but that wouldn’t be a problem for wizards.) She has a basic decency to her, but so did Harry Potter himself and that didn’t stop the Hat from wanting to Sort him into Slytherin. She is also highly… conscious of her own self-interest. Her right-hand dude Jerome Ross would also be a Slytherin.
Her husband Roger, on the other hand, would be a Gryffindor. He’s a glaciologist, which seems like a Ravenclaw sort of occupation, but it involves a lot of him traveling by himself into dangerous parts of the world, and he isn’t happy when Carrie makes him stop. Their daughter Thel is also very much a Gryffindor. If you’re guessing that this leads to conflict, you’re right.
Henry Pratt is particularly hard to place. He’s smart, and has a knack for lateral thinking, but he also has his blind spots. He’s ambitious and aristocratic, but strongly principled and doesn’t reflexively seek power or advantage. There’s at least one crisis that he handles like a Gryffindor. But I’m going to say Ravenclaw, for the same reason I’d say Walter Yuschak goes into Ravenclaw — they’re both men of ideas. They both fall in love with their ideas, and are too slow to realize when their ideas are letting them down.
