#inconsistent worldbuilding

[griffynbird101]

Harry Potter: The Wizarding population doesn’t make sense

At the beginning of this tumblr (a few gears ago now I posted a series of rough calculations for the populations of wizarding populations across the globe based on the number that JK Rowling gave (1.1 Million Wizards in the world, 6600:1 Muggles to Wizards). I also calculated the number of children attending the identified schools. (I am in the process of digitalizing these posts because I know they’re hard to read)

Looking back my calculations were not entirely accurate because they assumed that the ratio would apply everywhere and didn’t account for societal factors. That aside, while creating them I noticed a very big problem with the number given.

Based on what I calculated then, the UK specifically had about 10 000 people in total. Recently I discovered that I was mistaken and the problem is much worse than I thought. JK Rowling stated (casually??) that there were “about 3000” Witches and Wizards in the UK.

….This is a society that has been around for a thousand years or more. In fact; a thousand years ago the British Isles had enough children to open a gigantic castle as a school. The numbers just don’t add up. Supposedly this society that marries young, and lives longer than average humans took a THOUSAND years to reach a measly 3000? No. I don’t think so. In fact, the logical idea would be that a reproducing wizarding society should have surpassed their muggle counterparts ages ago.

By contrast; it took hundreds of years for muggles to implement mandatory education, for many years we didn’t even have understanding of germs, and by all means even today there are many ailments that wizards can heal and muggles can’t. And today population trends have people marrying older and having fewer children, whereas in Wizarding society having children is still a priority.

Evolutionary speaking, muggles probably wouldn’t even exist anymore, or be a minority. Wizards in the old days had a much higher chance of survival and living to passing on their genetic information. Plus; Muggles just randomly have magical children sometimes…

Still; there are 67 Million+ People in the UK, and “about 3000” in Magical Britain.

In order to make this make some sense at all, there has to be a high percentage of squibs. Wizards can’t be having dozens of magical children that marry and have dozens more magical children; there has to be some kind of reason why there are so few magical people when they have such a better chance of having children. And yet squibs are apparently supposed to be rare.

What I’m saying is; The Weasley’s should be “The 7 magical weasley children vs those other 7 who we had to leave at the muggle orphanage” because otherwise my brain explodes.

Alternatively; Rowling should be banned from doing math because everytime she makes a flippant comment like “about 3000” she inadvertently makes either 1. A world that just doesn’t make sense or 2. Gives me a nightmare about a literal hellscape where apparently the world is filled with abandoned squibs that no one talks about (or Harry’s too dumb to notice) and where Cygnus Black was apparently a victim of child marriage (unrelated; he was born in 1938, Bellatrix was born in ‘51 you do the math).

PS: I am well aware that thinking too deeply about a children’s series where kids do magic, fight evil wizards, and go on adventures is a very silly thing to do; but I don’t seem to have an off button and this has been floating around in my mind for a few years now it was gonna come out eventually. So you TAKE my word vomit.

[zefferooni]

Bored af so Bloom redesign let's go!!

[justarandomlambblog]

I was possessed by a thought

Modern-ish au but in a "thousands of years post-canon universe"

In which Lamb did not spare Narinder and when they saved the Bishops from Purgatory, actually put them to rest (aka sent them to the After) and oops, the Bishops + Narinder accidentally reincarnated while the Lamb wasn't watching

(Part 2 here)

In this life, the Bishops are still siblings and all were born with magic; Narinder became a priest, and though the other Bishops were raised in the temple alongside him they chose to pursue careers outside of the priesthood. Heket runs a restaurant (of course), Kallamar makes jewelry and sells crystals (he has healing magic so his crystals are literal healing crystals :) ), Leshy is a gardener and Shamura runs a bookshop (I'm sure you're noticing a theme here- their past lives are affecting their new ones). Their past lives' injuries have actually carried over, only instead of being injuries they're disabilities they were born with; Shamura their memory issues, Kallamar is deaf, Heket is mute, Leshy is blind, and Narinder has chronic pain (he WAS in chains for a thousand years, his muscles were ATROPHIED and his joints destROYED, and you cannot convince me otherwise). Not shown here; Narinder also uses a cane and on his really bad days a wheelchair.

Heket: Get a whole pumpkin Narinder, who can't lift more than 20 pounds:

Why do Narinder (and the Bishops) look the same and have the same name? Well. The world may have forgotten them, but the universe hasn't.

Aym and Baal are immortals from their time in the After in this world, and though at first they were resistant to helping the Lamb, eventually they saw they needed Help™ and had no idea what they were doing, and having been witness and aid to Narinder's job for centuries they knew how to help. Over the millennia they fell into the old familiar role of being the guardians of Death (Forneus is also an immortal so don't worry they're not separated again) and are in a constant state of Done With Lamb's Shit (/affectionate).

... I actually really love how Lamb turned out here. It was fun drawing them Older. And quite a flip with making them look older than Narinder. The society that's been built up is still religious but no one recognizes Lamb because they've changed so much over the last two thousand years, and the fact they're a sheep doesn't raise any red flags as sheep have migrated to the Lands from other continents. They're rare but not unheard of.

The Crown fits in by disguising as various types of pets, though no matter its form it always has one eye. This time it's a bird, and it recognized Narinder from a mile away :) The mind forgets but the soul remembers....

[bayonettesque]

i have a really big issue with the priestess library because the idea we’re supposed to have of it vs the problems that are alarmingly obvious once you examine the concept even slightly are like… sooo different it’s scary. sjm clearly intended for it to be rhysand’s woke king abuse survivor utopia except when you think about it, it’s an isolated camp for heavily traumatised women to live with zero programs in place to overcome their trauma or work towards returning to the outside world— instead, they swear an oath to provide labor for rhys (presumably without pay, because what and where would they spend it?) and be bound to a religious order they don’t really have room to question or leave because defecting from the religion would lead to obvious social isolation and exclusion. it’s an almost cultish setup because like… imagine if a priestess wanted to leave— she has nothing, no family, money, accomodations, or familiarity with the “outside world”. leaving means departing from everything you know, likely to never return, not having learnt to defend yourself or cope with your severe trauma. 

the excuse that “things work differently for the fae” doesn’t exist here because acosf gives us a perfect case study of how these priestesses are quintessentially the same as an average real human woman, wherein yoga, meditation, doing some exercise, getting fresh air, and hanging out with your girlies is enough to apparently re-integrate you into the real world via GWYN and all the other priestesses. WHY is this apparently the first time in like 500 years the powers-that-be have considered a program to rehabilitate the priestesses and give them their own power??? (well. it was NESTA’S idea lmfao the ic would never do that on their own) if sjm wanted this priestess library to actually be the ethical feminist fantasy she thinks it is, couldn’t it have been that the library is supposed to be a transitional place where the ultimate goal is to heal and leave to live a fulfilling, independent, healthy life?? if rhys were the villain this would so easily be a “he keeps traumatised women as slaves to work in his isolated library camp” it’s not even funny holy shit

[revenantghost]

Wait

Goddammit. The twins are taller than Wolfwood. CAN WE HAVE NO HEIGHT CONSISTENCY IN THIS FANDOM???

[too-many-blorbos]

Figuring out Witcher lore is so hard. You ask a question and there will be three different contradictory answers spread over the book series, and you never know which one is actually the truth because Geralt is a freaking LIAR and cannot be trusted to give exposition.

[maxdibert]

I’ve always wondered—what the hell is this “power of love,” seriously??? What the hell! There was a war, so many people died, so many parents protected their children, but only Harry survived 😅 And according to Dumbledore, it wasn’t about the prophecy, but specifically about this “power of love” 😐… How does that even work? What made Lily so special compared to everyone else? Was she the only one who stood between a villain and her child? What nonsense, Rowling!!!

In moments when I think about plot holes like this, it starts to feel like a cheap fairy tale, even though we’re constantly told that it’s not.

This is one of the deus ex machina moments I was talking about. To justify that not all sacrifices are valid, Rowling pulls out of thin air the idea that to protect a loved one, it’s not enough to simply sacrifice yourself; you also have to have the option to run away. The person threatening their life must give you the option to leave, but you choose not to, and then that triggers the ancient magic. Honestly, it’s an idea that falls apart on its own because WE ALL have the option to run. Okay, Voldemort didn’t verbally offer James the chance to leave, but he could have left, right? He could have run instead of staying. Isn’t that also a sacrifice for the love of his family? Many characters could have simply left instead of staying to fight for their loved ones. It’s an idea that doesn’t hold up, but ultimately, it all comes down to the fact that for Rowling, it’s not the power of love itself that’s the most powerful, but the power of a mother’s love. If you’re a self-sacrificing mother, you can defeat any kind of magic just by sacrificing yourself—so it doesn’t count unless you’ve been through childbirth. Anyway, I could write a whole feminist critique about how problematic this idea is, but today I’m a bit hungover and I don’t feel like it. Still, I think we can all get an idea of why I find this very problematic and questionable.

My basic idea is that Rowling originally planned the story for maybe two or three books aimed at children, and she didn’t really think through certain things that, outside of children’s literature, are important, but within that genre, aren’t. Because in a children's book, not everything has to make sense or have a convincing explanation. What happened, though, is that her story became a huge success, and suddenly she found herself with a set of worldbuilding foundations that started to fall apart when the series expanded to novels with a more adolescent or young adult tone. So, she tried to patch it up as best as she could, but instead of really thinking it through and developing coherent explanations, she put in band-aids that, when you dig a bit deeper into the logic or narrative coherence of a long-running saga, fall apart under their own weight. But well, there’s not much more we can do about that.

[nomsfaultau]

I recently got a comment about the use of the term Bird Pope within my charity one-shot Worth far more than your weight in gold, specifically about the world building implied there considering [Kristin] and [Philza] are notably very inhuman bird monsters (Ravengences). Specifically, the question was if there was Bird Catholicism and Bird Jesus died on the Bird Cross of Lorraine. (I think it would have to be a more complex shape given the extra wing limbs! Or perhaps an Orthodox Cross to pin the tail too?)

Anyway, let's examine the text between [Kristin] and [Philza] and the translator's note:

[Kristin's] expression changed utterly to one of delight, kneeling to affectionately bump her forehead against [Philza's]. “Praise be to the gods, I thought I was going to have to [bird divorce] you,” [Kristin] said with a relieved sigh, nuzzling into the crook of his neck.  (*While Bird Divorce is not forbidden, it is strongly discouraged by the Bird Pope.)

To explore Weight in Gold's species’ religious stance, I examined what terms they use:

Techno uses Gods (capital, plural). Ravengences refer to the seven winds (non capital, plural), gods (non capital, plural), and the Bird Pope (Capital, singular (*according to the translator)). Given Catholicism really emphasizes the singular God bit, I deduce Catholicism did not come from Piglins and Ravengences. Thus I am sadly assuming Worth in gold!Jesus was neither bird nor pig (which is good since pork is not kosher!).

As for humans, they are not worshiping Prime (as in, a god named Prime). Church Prime is the first church in the area. Akin to the format of First [Denomination] Church of [Town]. They worship the Catholic God, and centuries ago were very heavy into evangelizing. Has to be a very long time ago since Ravengences are mostly considered legends in the current time period, and aren’t particularly assumed to be sapient beings. So for the Ravengences it’s more of a legacy of cultural exchange than anything that’s happened of late.

Techno makes a lot of snide comments about the human church, and mentions not doing his sacrifices. But he does bite his tongue because the Church holds a LOT of power in human settlements. From this I gather Piglins on the whole are not Catholic, though as minorities have to navigate the sociopolitical power of the religion they don’t practice. Specifically, I note the way Techno uses the term Gods (capital, plural) which feels to me like a linguistic quirk picked up after the emphasis Catholics put on a capital G God, but in strict defiance of Catholicism by making it plural to reflect Piglins’ own pantheon before the humans started evangelizing. Along the line of 'Nyeh! Our Gods are just as important as yours!' Since we don’t see anyone trying to convert Techno, I reckon it’s something lots of wars were fought about way back when, humans eventually giving up (and probably writing Piglins off as demons in the process). Piglins rejected churches, partially rooted in the fact a central part is in money and donating it, and 1. Piglins do NOT give their gold away except in very intricate and personal situations and 2. Piglins think money is stupid. Using gold for fancy banners and clothing and murals (which Catholicism is very fond of) also didn’t fly with the Piglins. So a major part of human worship involves the (perceived!) frivolous use of gold, which is a big rift between human and Piglin culture.

Ravengences however do have a culture around donating gold, so it wasn’t as much as a massive conflict with human doctrine. In fact it helped facilitate the transfers in a way they liked. I imagine early evangelism with them was a desperate attempt to stop temple raids and was shockingly successful all things considered. To Ravengences, Catholic God is yet another god, added into the pantheon for flavor. I imagine they refer to God as god, since as tricky as crossing that language barrier is that particulars of capitalizing god names probably didn’t make it across. (Ravengences are seen only capitalizing names and the term Ravengence). Ravengences didn’t really agree with the whole abandoning their original gods things (what? You want me to STOP worshiping the seven winds? AND NEVER BE ABLE TO SAFELY FLY AGAIN? Are you MAD?!) and tended to eat conversionists who insisted on that point a little too firmly. The humans likely decided to shrug and declare that the Ravengence gods were really just saints if you think about it, so it’s probably okay please stop eating us now. And as the cultures lost contact, likely a lot of changes piled up in the centuries to follow. Ravengences probably lost the Catholic God (because of said lack of capital differentiation, and the lack of a name is tricky to keep track of when you have a lot of gods). But, positions like Bird Pope, which have lots of practical use regarding the distribution of donation gold so that families can have children, are likely vital to Ravengence society, and so remained, albeit looking very different to human popes. And the Bird Pope hates divorces, because Ravengences tend to want to take all of the gold for their new family, and the ex spouses probably tend to kill each other over it. Since, again, Ravengences are fond of the death penalty.

Alternatively: notably [bird divorce] [bird husband/wife] are within the translator's personal choices to explain concepts to a human audience, the mention of Bird Pope being within a translator's addendum. Even to the extent that within [Kristin’s] dialogue [bird divorce] is lower case, but the translator uses uppercase, further cementing the linguistic differences between Humans and Ravengences. So Bird Pope (capitalized) is how a human explains Ravengence culture to other humans, and may not reflect the capitalization Ravengences use (as they tend towards none) or even really the actual Ravengence cultural role being described. So all of what I just world builded could also be scratched out and explained with 'human translator trying to simplify for a human audience'. but one of those answers is a lot more fun!

[die-droste]

kill the part of your brain that‘s cinema sins

[melloniee]

One thing I find absolutely hilarious is that there's so many different sources of the fairies magic and it's incredibly busted. Like that's one thing that has NEVER been consistent. First there's the big wand, but then there's the royal jewel from Shadow Showdown, and that's not even getting into the literal power of belief from that one Crocker episode, Crocker Shocker. The stone called Abracadabrium from the Live action films, and then there's finally the magic microchip from a New Wish.

[alicentsaegon]

Modern fantasy writers are like

"I want to tackle themes such as misogyny or clssism or racism or homophobia in my work!🤗🤗🤗 No there's none of that present in my book, this society that mimics 1300s central Europe suffers from none of these issues because thats not progressive and if we have DRAGONS and MAGIC why do we need this ahaha am I right? 😅🙂‍↕️Except for this individual conflict in this novel the characters have to overcome but that's an isolated case. Oh look there's a Queen!"

[hellsuwus]

I did this at 3 am, threw it in my drafts, and it’s just been sitting there so here we go lmao. Inspired by @ceo-of-sloppy-men tiefling tail headcanons

Exposing myself as that insane anon who said they were drawing zevlor tail charms and also omega fic fanart teehee. Now! Hcs under the cut

Okay so anyway I know nothing about biology BUT I love worldbuilding

I imagine that when tieflings weigh their tails down there's two different types of weights.

The first ones are practical ones. Not every tiefling can just give into their heat. They got jobs to do! Bills to pay! So these ones are more simple and are purely for purpose of weighing down tails. Most of the time it's like, a heavy sleeve and the inside is often filled with heavy beads or rice or pebbles or something ((kind of like a weighted blanket where its inside)) and in the case of stronger tiefs ((like zev 🤭)) they often have heavy metal bracers or cuffs around them as well just to weigh em down a bit more. Some wear em only at the ends of their tails, and some wear em up all the way.

The second one are the decorative ones. Sometimes they start off with the weighted sleeve, like stated above, as a base and then they'll wrap decorations around it. Or sometimes, the decorations are heavy enough that they'll just use those. (( In my brain zev always wears that little sleeve tho, he’s an old man who values comfort over style lol))

And if course the decorations and any meanings vary from tief to tief. Some tiefs wear basic metal charms with some chains and stuff to look cute, others are dramatic as hell and will wrap gold and jewels over their tail.

I dont think there'd really be any specific way to signify being in a relationship or not. A color system wouldn't work since tieflings come in so many colors that they could just be matching their partner. And I love the chains idea but chains are so hot i think everyone deserves them. Maybe they wear a padlock on their tail to symbolize they're taken??

I LOVE the thought of there being a symbol for free use tieflings in heat though. In my mind it would be any sort of bells. Some are more subtle and wear smaller ones on the ends of their tails, others are loud and proud and desperate and will wear large ones and it's a symbol for any other tiefling around to come use em.

I also think it would be really funny if the other races aren't aware that the bells mean free to use and they just think that tieflings are attention seekers lol

[duckiemimi]

apparently the jjk we know now was not the jjk gege had in mind before chapter 1, and this...this makes a lot of sense actually (context: here, and also this is one of the first drafts).

[gendrie]

"Then what good is it?" "As well ask what good is life, what good is death? If the day comes when you would find me again, give that coin to any man from Braavos, and say these words to him—valar morghulis." "Valar morghulis," Arya repeated. It wasn't hard. Her fingers closed tight over the coin. (Arya, ACOK) She fled from him, but only as far as the next open door. I know this room, she thought. She remembered those great wooden beams and the carved animal faces that adorned them. And there outside the window, a lemon tree! The sight of it made her heart ache with longing. It is the house with the red door, the house in Braavos. [...] Faster and faster the visions came, one after the other, until it seemed as if the very air had come alive. Shadows whirled and danced inside a tent, boneless and terrible. A little girl ran barefoot toward a big house with a red door. (Dany, ACOK)

these being in consecutive chapters does not feel coincidental. im not necessarily arguing arya is the girl in dany's vision. i think that could be a fun twist! as arya is associated with barefeet in clash in particular (barefoot surefoot lightfoot) and if the house with the red door is in braavos she will likely see it in twow. that being said its probably just representative of dany's inner child searching for home.

but it seems like grrm is drawing a connection between the two. he puts arya on a course for braavos which, as far as we know, is the same location as dany's house with the red door. the placement of these moments suggests, to me, that braavos is its true location despite a lot of theories to the contrary.

[saltysplayt00ns]

Page 849 Reworked

I've been waiting a long time to show this one, and had to adjust some stuff cause the author thought rushing to place an out of place fog would make things better, but just adds on the confusion of a fog only showing around their and not around the area. Also would've had a scene of them going through the fog and we seen the Two tribes coming in through the fog. This would've been a better battle and advantage CAUSE LET ME REMIND YA. There are two tribes band together to take down Meteor tribe and a few of Whispervale members. THIS IS A NO WIN BATTLE, Meteor has to be strategic and improvise from a no win scenario. Ronja and other would've taken advantage of the fog and fought them there and not up the freaking mountains. taken advantage when the elements plus the rain coming down would make it more thick in mist. THE BATTLE SPEAKS FOR ITSELF!!!.

Close-up shots;

I did adjustment of the whole scene cause this is an action scene;

Panel adjustments and add-ons

Added lighting and shadows

Added SFX

Reworked the BG

Added armor

Added tribal paint

Worked Dialogue bubble cause yikes Ronja.

KARGO HAS PAINT ON BOTH SIDES!!!

He also has the other half of his body.

Adjust to make the dogs more like fur.

Diarko had him more primitive and connect the dark markings.

Also quote from the author themselves; " No paint on any of them for this, it's tedious enough to have to draw all this armor X)" SO BASICALLY YOU, an author that is drawing a Raiding battle of tribes that is between life and death, doesn't want to do paint nor any detailed important stuff, so we don't know who's fighting who. It's not even battle armor cause None of them ARE WEARING ANYTHING TO PROTECT THEMSELVESM, Meteortribe is more equipped with clothes then the tribes that are experienced not wearing any, they're the one's that say burning bodies is ' primitive '. let me tell ya after 2-3 pages its laughable on him trying to make this the final boss type BS when they. How these dogs advanced again? ya got literally spirits giving out free loot XD This is what I mean by ' changing plot to fit the story ' and ' inconsistencies ' like this an annoying blemish, instead of a competent tribes that are more experienced and trained to handle such things, you are NOT given armor nor paint nor anything of an build-up, because you was lazy and don't know how to find an easy way to do said battle armor - PLUS don't know how to have meteor tribe not lose members. Like, why the heck are the two tribes waited MONTHS to start invading them now why not then?? because kiq. doesn't know how to fix the plot holes, since basically would've been wiped out regardless of the extra protection. why meteor waited so long to fix their defenses?

why Keirr is not with them, isn't he a family oriented dog.?

Why Rhovanion and Feaf are not their isn't Rhov and family oriented dog?

Why meteor didn't leave around winter and waited many months to move at all? , this is not a vacation, its an evacuation.

why Tribes waited years to actually start something now then 30 years ago.?

Why Roamer wants to take the idea from Kargo which was meant for Kargo, roamer, Ferah to make their ' new life? ' why not just have it where its an idea you made on your own???!!!! really putting salt on that wound ain't ya?

When did Kargo know about Rogio, more then Roamer who is literally his boyfriend?

Why Rogio dumping all the chores on Roamer to do? he's been doing it a lot and somehow Roamer have to agree, cause remember those scenes when Roamer put OUT HIS OPINION??!!! and tried to help? he gotten gaslighted and a upper cut of emotional manipulations.

Why Rogio wants a Polycule now? especially after we SAW Rogio snooping AGAIN on other dogs conversations. and Kargo so far is focused on other things then having a threesome. and all these glaring and many more glaring questions. Again the question is why?? why, why and more WHY'S. This stuff usually is dealt with after doing drafts, concepts and revisions.

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Ps.

The quick placement of the Fog was laughable, cause think about it like, why kiq. going to do a dues ex Machina on the mountains and not in the fogs. Think about it in a tactical planning for Ronja and writers. The Fog is more an advantage to hide in the thick mist in dark shades of the trees, then being exposer on plan sight on top of a mountain. Meteor ( Nordguard ) 1. does not know how to wield a sword, 2. they're outnumbered, 3. lack experiences and 4. have children. They needed to think strategically and fast. The fog would've been a perfect scene for them to hide in and cover their scents, Rain and thunder is coming, so more thick fog and cover up from the tribes, they would use that to their advantage and scatter the raid them around. It's a risky maneuver but Ronja can't be hesitant nor meek on this, is all or nothing. THIS STUFF IS GOOD TENSION AND CHARACTER BUILD-UP.

---- This creating armor and concepts is like whip cream on an ice cream cake for me. But hey it's not my Comic to stress over, be a pump and dump for all I bloody know . .....

Side Goodies:

Quick Armored concept for Dragonsfall

Dragonsfall Paint marks

The Dragonsfall tribe is a group of Canines who have forged a strong alliance with Fire-breathing lizards, believing themselves to be descendants of these majestic creatures. They are known for crafting a unique bronze metal, believed to be hardened and melted with metal from the scales of dragons. This bronze shines like fire, is harder than regular metal, and exhibits weird translucent colors like the scales. The tribe also molds bits of leather to create softer but sturdier materials. While they may have lost some of the fierce traits associated with dragons over time, certain traits like their scales, reproduction and facials still show hints of their connection to these mythical beings.

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HAPPY EATING YA BLOGGERS ♥

[allgremlinyaps]

Erté.... Erté is so Vulcan....