It's been said that Science Fiction (and IMHO, the superhero genre) is uniquely American. I'd agree to the extent that American SF has a pretty distinct style, THE style IMHO , however that style was arrived at. For instance, its more likely than not that any Alien Invasion will be defeated, humans will rebuild post apocalypse, or will at least kick monster ass, human enhancement won't entail catastrophe, generation ships are not automatically a lost cause, the Galactic Federation of Planets is headquartered in San Francisco and not Planet Xybo etc . (Needless to say I don't consider Crichton to be good American SF).
From this vantage, the Harry Potter books fail miserably. For one thing the Wizading world exists alongside the Muggle World and yet the Muggle world knows nothing about it. American SF would have various governments around the Globe (USA, Russia, etc) running black ops to infiltrate the wizarding World, to study "magic"so it can be weaponized and so on. In HP world, the British PM is aware of the existence of his Wizard counterpart and generally acts like a simpering ninny around him. An American Prez in a similar position would have his own retinue of Wizard praetorians, magic immune enhanced-muggles and would be plotting to outmanouver the Wizard.
And most eggregiously, there's the he-who-must-not-be-named syndrome, everyone quails from mentioning Voldemorts name. In American SF ? Are you kidding me ? His name would be named prominently on the cover of the Weekly Standard. Bill Kristol and thomas Friedman would be writing op-ed's about "us or them" and "The Gathering Curse" and every other blog comment regarding him would be a Godwin.
Now, this is all in fun, but I believe the differences really do point to fundementally different world-views.
Re: What if an American had created Harry Potter ?
More importantly, the Harry Potter stories are basically English Boarding School Tales, of which we essentially have none (the closest you get is The Dead Poets Society). Here Harry would have never left the Dursley's, and Jack Bauer would have shot him in the knee to find out where the bomb is.
This is a personal problem. There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved through a suitable use of high explosives. This is not one of those exceptions.
Re: What if an American had created Harry Potter ?
Yeah, it certainly is true in some ways.
"How are we going to keep all this magic secret from the Muggles?"
"Don't worry, we have a government committee that goes around wiping memories and cleaning up after magic-in-the-mundane-world accidents."
Harry Potter: They do. It works. Nobody minds. Everyone is polite about it.
American Harry Potter: They do. It works ... at first. There's a leak. Two companies get into a violent bidding war over the patent to "Accio [noun]!" Somebody finds out their memories have been wiped and threatens to blow the whistle.
Heinlen Harry Potter: They do. It works ... at first. Too well. The government committee takes over more and more. Eventually all the civilian wizards are confined to Hogwarts. They manage to rebel with the use of a giant catapult. Meanwhile, Harry has sexual adventures of astonishing number and variety, thanks to the futuristic sexual openness of the wizarding community.
Re: What if an American had created Harry Potter ?
Ellie: That last line cracked me up.
SM: Yeah, I can see that Science Fiction is very American. Fantasy, on the other hand, is often very, very British—Tolkien's influence, largely, but much of it is driven by medieval-society-lust. And, as Sandy points out, we don't have the boarding school stories. But yes, if you started with the same world and American author probably would have run it in a very different direction.
Actually, maybe like the last Chrestomanci book (the only one I've ever read).
Re: What if an American had created Harry Potter ?
Geez, I think Jules Verne is spinning in his grave, probably on magnetically levitating axles. I'm not really familiar enough with non-US SF to really address it, but I think your analysis is partly true. There is a certain strain of SF that ties in very well with a kind of American industrial optimism - the Buck Rogers, Tom Corbett, Flash Gordon, Rocky Jones school. That tends to be rah-rah optimistic stuff. However, starting in the 60s, things started to change, and we got New Wave and cyberpunk and their precursors, which tend not to be so optimistic.
But I do think some of these trends have been reflected elsewhere. Think about Arthur C. Clarke (who definitely comes from the Optimistic Age time-wise, but some of his stories have a much darker stain than is typical for that era), China Mieville, or Charles Stross. Stross in particular is relevant to this discussion - in his stories, the British government maintains an anti-magic branch within MI-6, charged with making sure nobody opens gates to other dimensions and lets nameless shambling things in.
Re: What if an American had created Harry Potter ?
Ellie: And we won't talk about what happens when Harry finally meets his mom.
"But if it makes you feel better, I would also enjoy a world in which there are men, women, transsexuals, genderqueer folk, etc. who all enjoy pelican role-play." - JD
"Extraordinary conditions do not create or enlarge constitutional powers."
Re: What if an American had created Harry Potter ?
Lunchstealer: nobadwrong!!!!!!
Seriously, I really liked that book...but I did not need that image in my head when I read Harry Potter.
Re: What if an American had created Harry Potter ?
Well, let's see how Americans have made Harry Potter-like things.
Kids growing up in a secret school, hidden from normal people, where they learn to use their special abilities, all the while menaced by a sinister figure or three? The early run of The Uncanny X-Men.
Not magical enough?
Kids growing up in a school dipped in a multifaceted supernatural world that normal folks are amazingly unaware of (except when they just faintly are)? The first three seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. :)
Re: What if an American had created Harry Potter ?
So...Harry would sleep with Cho Chang, whose gypsy curse would turn her into a Death Eater, only to run her through with a sword and be unable to date Ginny because she came back, hiding in Hogwarts' basement, all the while Bellatrix LeStrange would keep saying to Ginny, "Silly bitch, you cannot harm me! Don't you know who ah AM??? I'm Bellatrix, bitch!"
This is a personal problem. There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved through a suitable use of high explosives. This is not one of those exceptions.
Re: What if an American had created Harry Potter ?
Yes. :)
Re: What if an American had created Harry Potter ?
You've also got to look at the target audience. HP may be popular amongst our types, but it's squarely aimed at the young readers. We can't exactly comb through Greg Bear, Stephen King, and Neal Stephenson for American analogs. Probably the closest American offering would be some of the Pern books, although most of those are still aimed a bit higher up the age range.
"But if it makes you feel better, I would also enjoy a world in which there are men, women, transsexuals, genderqueer folk, etc. who all enjoy pelican role-play." - JD
"Extraordinary conditions do not create or enlarge constitutional powers."
Re: What if an American had created Harry Potter ?
JD : I'm not suggesting that American SF is all Flash Gordon all the time, but there definitely is more of a guilt-free sense of progress & frontiers being challenged here than elsewhere. It's a broadly libertarian optimism about the results of endeavour. Also, I think Jules Verne probably grasped this, too many of his protagonists belong to Amercian Gun Clubs & things like that for it to be a coincidence.
Eric : The X-Men Comics are good examples of what I was trying to get at. Their existence is not entirley secret, nobody trusts them, the Government keeps tabs on them, has a "Sentinel" program to counter them, runs its own organization of heroes and so on.
Re: What if an American had created Harry Potter ?
From what I've read, both firsthand and through the views of critics and people like Scottish SF writer Ken MacLeod, is that American SF traditionally tends to be exploration-minded, expansionist (fairly often in a militaristic way), and imbued with a sense of wonder at how big and cool and exciting the universe is ... whereas SF from the UK (at least in the past 50 years or so, but maybe going all the way back to H.G. Welles) has tended to be more anxiety-ridden, New Wavey, gloomy, introspective. A lot of people would also say that American SF traditionally tends to be more adventure-oriented whereas British SF tends to be more literary. That's my own general impression. MacLeod once wrote that this was originally his impression too, but he later recanted -- said he hadn't paying attention to the right things.
"My intellect is gigantic, monstrous, terrifying."
Re: What if an American had created Harry Potter ?
Oh, not disagreeing, SM.
Re: What if an American had created Harry Potter ?
Outlook-wise, American SF largely started out as the writing of engineers and scientifically-minded folks. European SF has to a strong extent been dominated by the writing of left-leaning political folks and social critics since H. G. Wells.
Of course, Europe has always had adventure SF, pulps, and such, and America had its own New Wave writers (and lots of philosophical and political stories going back to the 30s). To make too big a distinction here is kinda like going on about how American books and movies are all about the Happy Endings and European ones are all about the Deep Meaning - a grain of truth surrounded in a pearl of pretension. ;)
Re: What if an American had created Harry Potter ?
I don't think it's that the Potter books are un-American, I just think they suck.
seriously though, i think you're crazy on this. and you think i'm crazy. everybody wins! - dhex
Re: What if an American had created Harry Potter ?
Way to add to the discussion there , Warren! Is anything else you dislike that you want to tell us about?