Claims of “No kids act like that!” where I’ve personally been or known kids who act exactly like that have made me very suspicious of the general pattern. Harry probably acts just like Eliezer did, or would have if he’d already known about Bayes.
Apparently the “you bite one math teacher” incident is an exaggeration of something in Eliezer’s own childhood. (At least I hope it was an exaggeration...)
That response has always annoyed me. If utter realism was a major component of what people wanted out of a story, they’d be stalking Facebook profiles instead. Or watching Pulp Fiction ad nauseam, or something.
IRL a person I’ve never heard of might survive being struck by lightning thrice and I’d say “meh”, but something like that better not happen in a story without a very good reason.
I’m puzzled by this response. If realism isn’t important, what’s the problem with having the Hogwarts kids acting more mature (or intelligent or whatever) than real kids that age typically do in the first place? It’s just a narrative trope that marks them as exceptional and therefore interesting.
Claims of “No kids act like that!” where I’ve personally been or known kids who act exactly like that have made me very suspicious of the general pattern. Harry probably acts just like Eliezer did, or would have if he’d already known about Bayes.
Apparently the “you bite one math teacher” incident is an exaggeration of something in Eliezer’s own childhood. (At least I hope it was an exaggeration...)
That response has always annoyed me. If utter realism was a major component of what people wanted out of a story, they’d be stalking Facebook profiles instead. Or watching Pulp Fiction ad nauseam, or something.
IRL a person I’ve never heard of might survive being struck by lightning thrice and I’d say “meh”, but something like that better not happen in a story without a very good reason.
I’m puzzled by this response. If realism isn’t important, what’s the problem with having the Hogwarts kids acting more mature (or intelligent or whatever) than real kids that age typically do in the first place? It’s just a narrative trope that marks them as exceptional and therefore interesting.