anyway, since I was babbling about world building.

world building is important in fiction, but there aren't necessarily very many rules about *how* it's important.

that is, "good" world building isn't necessarily world building that makes sense or is consistent. it depends!

Tolkien's obsessive world building where he's actually creating entire languages is fun and great! but I'd still say kafka is a greater writer, and his world's are all about dream logic not really making sense.

or more recently Whitehead's Underground Railroad; it's fantastic in part because it dispensese with a history of trying to create authentic slave narratives, and instead has a world that's as violent and nonsensical as American history.

then there's something like the Hunger Games, which more or less holds together as much as it needs to in order to keep the plot zipping along.

in short, it all depends!

but the issue is generally more whether your thematic logic holds together, rather than whether your world does, which hopefully makes sense.

like, PKD is all about how reality melts, so the fact that his worlds are constantly melting fits perfectly (in a sort of big blob on the floor, but nonetheless!)

but, like, Harry Potter sort of staggers back and forth between children's lit wonder where anything goes and trying to be more serious with verisimilitude, and it's kind of a mess in a not great way.

the best thing in harry potter is that early scene with the owls burying the house in letters, and everything else is trying to explain that inadequately when it never needed to be explained.