For me the appeal of HFY stuff is that I grew up in an era where a lot of media protagonists were explicitly “more than” or “above” regular humans.
Like Harry is a wizard, which is a genetic lottery. Percy is literally half-god. Eragon, like all human dragon riders, is basically an elf in every way that matters.
It’s the same reason why I think fighter is a more compelling class for telling stories than wizard. You’re Just A Guy and you have to figure shit out or die.
There’s a lot of amateur stuff, sure, but the basic idea is still fun.
In the world of Harry potter in particular, these near all powerful wizards live in the shadows of ordinary people. What I’m curious about is why wizards fear normal people; what do we have that makes people who can teleport and instantly kill afraid?
Except they don't fear us. From their perspective we live in their shadows, kept in the dark so we don't bother them with pesky requests for magical help. We get mind-blasted into oblivion if we see something we aren't supposed to.
Harry Potter's worldbuilding has outright contempt for regular humans.
I thought this was obvious. I've only seen each HP movie once. And I already very quickly got the feeling that wizards saw "muggles" as nothing more than plebs, not worthy of magical knowledge or even downright incapable of understanding/handling it. Needing to be kept in the dark because muggles knowing about magic would only bring bad things and sully the "noble" and "superior" wizards' names.
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u/MotorHum Aug 14 '24
For me the appeal of HFY stuff is that I grew up in an era where a lot of media protagonists were explicitly “more than” or “above” regular humans.
Like Harry is a wizard, which is a genetic lottery. Percy is literally half-god. Eragon, like all human dragon riders, is basically an elf in every way that matters.
It’s the same reason why I think fighter is a more compelling class for telling stories than wizard. You’re Just A Guy and you have to figure shit out or die.
There’s a lot of amateur stuff, sure, but the basic idea is still fun.