The Harry Potter Alliance

Meet the Bloggers: Weird Question Weekly

In the spirit of getting to know your bloggers better, we will be answering a string of sometimes serious, sometimes silly questions in the coming weeks. Please feel free to ask us something in the comments. We want to tell you what you’d like to know!

Question of the week (from Greg Kerestan): Barring Hogwarts, which fictional world would you most like to live in?

Anna:My choice? The world of Firefly, hands-down. I first was introduced to the series in a backwards way, through the movie Serenity, because my uncle was a part of the group of voice actors who did the “voices” of the Reavers. When I realized that there was a show that preceded it, I immediately rented them on Netflix and watched obsessively. I was hooked, and still am. I’ve played two semester-long campaigns of the Serenity RPG, cosplayed as River from the episode Safe and Zoe in her standard outfit (sans sawed-off Mare’s Leg shotgun). I own all of the comics, as well as collector’s editions of the first comic and of the movie Serenity. I love this world that Joss Whedon created, and wish that we could have had more. The man is a genius.

Erin:I think I would have to pick Oz. Wicked has been one of my favorite novels, and my favorite musical, for several years. Wizard of Oz has been my favorite movie for longer than that. Oz has been a place that has interested me ever since those stories came into my life. It’s not necessarily a happy place, definitely not perfect. Just like our world, it has its problems and its dangers and its politics and prejudices. But at the same time it’s a very full world with magic and intrigue and myths and histories. And, I mean, there are talking animals. I think it would be all kinds of epic to live in a world with talking animals! Oz is a world that I’ve allowed myself to get lost in more times than I can count, so seeing as how I’ve spent so much time there mentally, it would be nice to actually live there as well.

Emily:I would live in Faerie. While this land has taken on many shapes and forms – from King Arthur to Peter Pan and in most modern “fairy” tales- it has a timeless, modern and ancient feeling that seems to beckon me home. With strong women characters like Rhiannon and Sookie (True Blood, shout out), Faerie contains both the saucy and mystical edges to which I tend to lean. Portals within green hills, Queen-Mabbing lovers by starlight, and engaging battles all sound like a good day’s work to me! That is of course because I haven’t gotten my Hogwart’s letter yet… not bitter or anything…

Quinn:If I were to live in any world other than my own, without question, it would be the world of Connie Willis’ To Say Nothing of the Dog. In this future universe, historians are sent back in time, not to change it, but to understand it. For months and years at a time, historians live in the past, studying it in a way that people just can’t without time travel. Many different disciplines come together to make this possible, from costumers to various kinds of scientists. I would absolutely love to devote my life to a study of the past, not from people’s letters, not through modern prejudices, but through the actual history itself. Sure, there are a few problems, but as the characters in the book find out, it’s pretty hard to actually change the course of history. Bits here and there, yes, but in the end, history does what it wants to no matter what people try to do to stop it.

Kara: Oh….that’s a hard one. My first question would be, a) does the TARDIS count as a world? and b) can the TARDIS travel through books as well as time…because then you could go visit all of them! However, if i have to pick one single world to live in, it would probably be Pern. Anne McCaffery’s sci-fi/fantasy world of Pern is chiefly awesome for its huge flying dragons that “impress” on lucky people when they are hatched, thereby creating a life-long telepathic bond. Not only can these genetically-altered beasties fly and breathe fire, they can also teleport instantly–through time and space! (so, basically, a TARDIS in the form of a giant badass dragon. Yep) Oh, and they also come in miniature size as well. So yeah, this is me checking out of here and heading for Pern.

So, tell us, where would you pick to live?

Finally, a huge thanks to Greg Kerestan for our question this week! Got a question for the bloggers? We’d love to hear it! Leave it in the comments below, and we’ll answer it next week.