7/2/2023 0 Comments Pratchett unseen academicals![]() ![]() When Dr Hix, head of the university's Department of Post-Mortem Communications, explains to the good-hearted but unintellectual Glenda that there is a way for the skilled magician to look into the distant past, he offers to explain the magical science behind the feat. In Pratchett, this is parodied, naturally. We know that moment in Dr Who when the Doctor hurriedly explains the pseudo-scientific logic by which some minatory alien operates (and by which it can be defeated). The Harry Potter books are dedicated to discovering the laws that govern the behaviour of Death Eaters or the exact location of Horcruxes. Novels with magic in them give over an inordinate amount of time to such explanation. Once a novelist has freed him or herself from life's physical laws, once a novel is no longer bound by what the 18th-century pioneers of the genre called "the probable", you need to know the rules by which characters operate. ![]() ![]() From Dracula to The Lord of the Rings, fantasy heroes triumph by understanding the strict laws that govern the supernatural. Fantasy fiction is pedantically attentive to the rules governing its characters' powers, and the dangers that test them. ![]()
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