Harry Potter

[aphar]

I just finished the last book. what a journey!
A few loose ends (very few, which is quite amazing!):

1. What is the economic basis of the wizard world? Their imbecilic monetary system (29 sickles per galeon, 17 knuts per sickle) is separate from the muggle system, so, apparently, they do not participate in the muggle economy. Given that the incoming class in Hogwarts is about a 100 students (give or take), the total British wizarding population is about 10,000 people (give or take). Where do they get their food? Clothing? What do they produce? Note the 8 level Ministry of Magic - all the people employed there are not doing any productive work. The same goes for the Knight Bus and other services.


2. Where did Neville Longbottom get the Gryffindor's sword to chop Nagini's head off? Did Griphook relent and lend the goblin-made treasure to a human? Note, BTW, that the goblin idea of ownership (i.e., a goblin-made object belongs to the maker and is only lent to the human who pays for it, and any further transfer of goblin-made objects between humans is merely theft) mirrors the way copyright is understood by RIAA/MPAA.


3. Harry decides to leave the Resurrection Stone - a powerful artifact, one of the 3 Deathly Hallows, capable of producing "an army of Inferi" - lying on the ground somewhere in the Forbidden Forest! And Dumbledore agrees! Isn't that at least somewhat reckless? The same goes for the Elder wand, left in the Dumbledore's tomb. Now, killing Harry (who is carrying his original, inferior wand) is all it takes to become the owner or the Deathstick!

a few literary notes:

1. Given that the book series is pretty much told in the first person (the world as seen by Harry - de facto, if not in the actual writing style), the "Nabokov principle" dictates that there must be an enormous amount of "overhearing" just to have the plot going. And indeed, the Invisibility Cloak, the Pensieve, and the Harry's connection with Voldemort provide an ample opportunity for that.


2. The last few pages of each book is devoted to explaining all the mysteries spun in the rest of the book, which makes me place the books on the "mystery/detective" bookshelf, not the "action/adventure/fantasy" one.