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I have this vague unease when I hear people talk about the “consistency” of fictional worlds. Along this line, Lord of the Rings is king, but Harry Potter, and The Chronicles of Narnia leave nerds wanting. I personally resent this, as I have loved the latter two, and never been into the former. I was obsessed with Harry Potter as a child, picking up book one immediacy after rereading book seven, to the annoyance to my family and teachers. And I’ve read Narnia over two or three times now. I’ve tried reading Fellowship twice, and got bored halfway thru both times. (But I do like The Hobbit).

I find myself straightening my back when I hear someone talk about the consistency of a fantasy world. Why do I have that reaction? Perhaps it’s laziness on my part. In my own writing, I don’t give much thought to the magic system, the political intrigue, the technological limitations, or whatever. I tend to envision individual scenes, and reverse engineer the story to arrive at that point. Akin to if you redid all the plumbing in our house to accommodate a solid gold toilet in your hall closet. Or something like that.

Maybe it comes from studying contemporary classical music in college. Listening to shitty music, and pretending that it was interesting. I, and other students would try to say that the shitty music was shitty, but our composition professor would shift into a Great Value version of Socrates, and rationalize away the fact that the music sounded bad. This instilled some reflexive resent in me, every time someone tries to take an intellectual angle to enjoying a work of art. More so from people defending artworks that lack obvious value. I’m thinking of the works of Mark Rothko, Pierre Boulez, and James Joyce.

But that’s someone trying to prop up something that I don’t like, which is easy for me to dismiss. I’m more concerned about someone taking a shot at a work of art that I like. Maybe I’m being petulant, and getting annoyed when someone criticizes my favorite pieces of books and shows. And maybe this is the anxiety that comes from listening to someone I respect, criticize something that I like. The anxiety that they know something that I don’t.

This might all come down to my childish belief that artwork should be enjoyed on an emotional level, rather than a rational one. And if you want consistency in your artworks, then you’d be best off getting into baking.