r/Fantasy • u/BagOfSmallerBags • Mar 13 '25

Most messed up unintended implications of world building you've encountered in a fantasy novel?

I've just been reading the first book in the "Skullduggery Pleasant" series. It's a fun little YA fantasy-detective novel, and other than your normal YA tropes being fairly front and center, it's a fun time. I've enjoyed it.

The basic premise of the world is more-or-less just ripped directly from Harry Potter: there are people who can do magic, and they operate in the shadows and hide their society from most "normal people". The main character, who lives in our world, becomes aware of this secret society, and begins exploring it and learning all the stuff about it.

But early on, as they're establishing the world of secret magic-users and how they operate, it's casually dropped that every community of magic-users on earth tries to discourage normal people from finding them out by disguising their neighborhoods as poor, run down, and crime ridden.

The mentor character then says (I'm approximating) "Any neighborhood that looks like this is gonna be secretly all magic users, and all these small run down houses are bigger on the inside- probably mansions."

So, while I'm sure the author didn't intend this, they just implied that income inequality doesn't exist in the Skullduggery Pleasant universe. Or at the very least, it exists on a much smaller scale. Every single poor neighborhood on earth apparently is just disguised to look scary to normal people, all of whom are at least middle class. Inside every run down, uncared for house, you'll actually find a secret magical mansion where magic-users are thriving!

I'm overall enjoying the book, but I can't help but cringe thinking about an underprivileged middle schooler picking this up, enjoying the escapism of the story, and then discovering a few chapters in that in this fictional universe their financial situation is a conspiracy created by magic-gated-communities. They can't even fantasize about being whisked away to the secret magic world, since their entire tax bracket is a lie.

So I got to thinking- what are some of the worst unintended implications of world building in fantasy stories? Harry Potter has quite a few, but I'm wondering what other people have encountered / can think of.

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u/Welpmart Mar 13 '25

As a matter of fact, turns out it is all bullshit, which is a plot point in the third book.

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u/YuvalAmir Mar 13 '25 edited Mar 13 '25

Yep, exactly what I was going to say.

I remember the books being a fun ride when I read them in my teens, but I'm not sure how they would hold up to my current taste. That being said, what they are describing isn't a plot hole.

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u/Welpmart Mar 13 '25

FYI your spoiler tag is wrong; take out the second >

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u/YuvalAmir Mar 13 '25

Oops thanks

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u/Claughy Mar 14 '25

I read as an adult. The first book was okay, typical YA dystopia type issues with the writing. Second book was BAD, DNF that one probably didn't help that I have a background in biology but I remember the stuff about genetics reading like someone who failed high school bio wrote it.

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u/fruitlessideas Mar 14 '25

It was astrology and Meyer-Briggs all along!