# Harry Potter's magic system?



## Dwarven Gold (Mar 16, 2011)

I was reading the discussion about magic systems on the home page, and it got me thinking.  Is there a magic system in Harry Potter?

My gut tells me that JK Rowling has a system, but I can't identify it.


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## Ophiucha (Mar 16, 2011)

Not really. There are some vague rules, some underlying logic in certain things (the wands, for instance, can be used for specific purposes - some are good at charms, others transfiguration, etc.). You need to say some words and wave a stick to get magic to happen, unless you are a very powerful wizard indeed. The words themselves are important, and intent alone does not drive magic. Wingard LeviosAH will cause an explosion, when Wingardium Leviosa will levitate a feather. But intent has some function, muttering words with no magic behind them can cause a spark of nothing (or an explosion - that seems to be the case often).

There are some rules, there are some standards, there are links between everything. But it isn't really a system. There is nothing truly comprehensible about it. The logic is hazy at best. Nearly every rule can be broken, and some things just seem to be exceptions. I suppose one could call it a system, but it isn't the sort of thing you could play a round of D&D off of. That isn't necessarily a bad thing. You focus too much on that sort of thing, and you can just have a shite story with a lot of worldbuilding.


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## Mdnight Falling (Mar 17, 2011)

good point Ophiucha... I don't think Rawling had a defined system for her magic in HP land LOL... I think she had a simple outline of how she wanted things to be done... Like your wand had to be whole or who knows what it might do.. Like Ron's broken wand was unpredictable... AND there was another interesting thing about her system.. Cause she did have one even if it was on an elementary level... You couldn't use a wand that didn't "choose" you correctly. If you remember, Harry had a phoenix hair in his wand.. He ws able to use Voldemort's wand because it too had one of Fawk's feathers. Now she did have it where other people's wands could be used.. Like when Harry used Malfoy's wand.. But it wasn't as good as using his own wand  That has to count as some form of a system doesn't it?


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## Amanita (Mar 17, 2011)

I can't really make out a real system there either. 
Usually, wizards need wands to achieve what they want. Some spells work just by saying the incantation, others such as the Patronus charm or the Unforgivable curses do not. Some magic is supposed to be "dark", some isn't but even in Harry Potter-forums there are endless discussions on how exactly the two are separated. 

Book seven destroys many of the things that might have been seen as rules in the books before. Such as the fact, that a wand suddenly serves everyone who manages to beat its owner/aquire it in a completely random way that might count as beating its owner. If the wand has to match the wizard's magic this doesn't make any sense at all. The law that magic can never bring back the dead is also not really respected anymore.

As you are maybe able to tell, I'm among the people not really happy with the seventh Harry Potter-book for various reasons. To me, it seems as if many rules suddenly changed to suit Harry so he can win, where he actually shouldn't have been able to. Unpredictable magic is fine and well, but it shouldn't only have effects that help the hero.

Some rules, such as the one that food cannot be created with magic also seem rather random to keep wizards from having too much power without adding any explanation.
In the first books I didn't mind this, because it didn't harm the plot, but in book seven I felt rather cheated by the "resolution" of the story. If Harry had won due to some skills, abilities or whatever he had and Voldemort did not, I still wouldn't mind but the ending of Harry Potter for me is an example of how magic should not be used in a good story.


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## Ophiucha (Mar 17, 2011)

@Amanita, I agree. The magic has rules, but there is no sense behind it. At least none every coherently explained. And at times it seems like there are many ways around it. You can't bring somebody back from the dead, except if there soul is on Earth, if they have two souls, or if you use this Resurrection Stone here. You can't use somebody else's wand, except you are perfectly capable of using somebody else's wand and any competent wizard seems to be able to use it just fine (Harry and Malfoy are as opposing as you can get, but he still could cast a spell with it), and there is more than one wand that works with you (Neville and Ron both got replacements, Harry presumably did after he fought Voldemort). And the whole 'you can't create food' thing seems limited by the fact that you can create unlimited and self-powering food creating materials. You can certainly create flowers. We have seen that magic used multiple times. It is hence sensible to consider that they could create an apple tree, just not an apple, or at least apple seeds that could water themselves magically. And I feel certain they could change things into animals, which are food really. They aren't vegetarians in this world.

And I agree, the seventh book was anticlimactic. It should have had more training, but that was essentially never touched on. They had plenty of time to do it, too, but they just... didn't seem to, really.


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## Kelise (Mar 17, 2011)

Was so disappointed by the seventh book.

While I agree that there's no sense behind it, I quite like that as a fact. There's often not much sense in a lot of things, and it gives it more a magic feel, rather than scientific.

I think a lot of the basis behind it was inner strength, how far you're willing to go, lending your own life-force to your cause, that kind of thing. I think the magic represented the characters wielding it, in a way. Ron wasn't that good because he lacked confidence. Harry was good, but often did 'bad' things - parseltongue, sectumsempra - because of all his angst and anger. Voldemort basically twisted all the rules because he was twisting life - doing things no one else dared to try... and so on. 

That's about as far as I figured it. The magic had limits when the person had limits, and it stretched and made no sense depending on the will of the person.


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## Amanita (Mar 17, 2011)

> I think the magic represented the characters wielding it, in a way.


Yes, I thought along those lines as well. Neville also has trouble with his magic due to his traumatic experiences and this changes when he grows more confidence while other characters like Tonks lose their powers while troubled. (Don't get me started on the reason.) Stuff such as the Elder Wand didn't really fit with this however, at least in my opinion.
I think one of the main problems JKR had with her seventh book was that belief of hers that killing is always absolutely evil based in her metaphysics (splitting the soul.) Therefore she wanted to avoid having her main characters do that. This is good and fine but just doesn't work anymore if the author also wants war and great battles in her story. In a war, enemy soldiers get killed. That's what war is about. Tolkien and many others avoid this problem with Orcs, Undead and so on but Rowling had already created human enemies. The readers know about many Death Eaters' children, siblings and so on and they also know that some aren't in because they want to anymore. Having Harry and the others actually kill any of them would have driven the books into much darker, "not for children"-territory.
That's why I think it would have been better to keep the "imperfect state against terrorist organisation"-setting from the previous books where the normal cause of action is arresting the enemies alive and eveything else can be rightly critisized. The off-screen terror regime didn't add much to the plot anyway. 
Sorry for the off-topic but having spend lot's of time on Harry Potter I'm always interested in new opinions on it.


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## Meg the Healer (Mar 20, 2011)

Just some minor points....Harry could use Malfoy's wand just fine because he "took" it from Draco, the had trouble using the wand that Ron lent him that Ron took off the Scavangers, which is why Hermione had trouble using Bellatrix's wand. She wasn't the one to win the wand. But Ron, Harry, and Hermione all used each other's wands throughout the series, but it was also more conducive to the type of magic they were using. I also don't think JK had issues with killing being inherently evil, just murder being inherently evil which is what split the soul - an inherent act of evil which was murder. Just because the Trio didn't use the killing curse, they stupified the hell out of DE flying on broomsticks and letting them plummet to their deaths. 

Moving on off that.

There was a slight system to the magic. Wands had to be used. Wizards weren't even able to disapparate without their wands. The magic of the House Elves was different from the Wizards so I think the HP world used a loose system for the races. But, for the most part, you had to use a wand and "most" spells could be used without saying the words. You just needed the movements except when it came to some of the darker/more powerful magic when infliction and inflection were necessary for the spell to works.

I think it should have been stated - as power is given to words that are spoken and not to words that are thought. (in my opinion)


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## Ulutar (Apr 16, 2011)

Spells...

Wand in hand + words from mouth + moving of arm (optional) = *MAGIC*
                       ^ [odd words, a hodgepodge of various languages]

I love Harry Potter but the magical system is just so flawed. I don't like that the use of magic has no cost, nothing is lost for the gain. Harry could run around all day long, firing avada kadavras and sectumsempras at passing strangers and feel just dandy. It just doesn't sit well with me. 

Also, the spells are based off of so many different languages, some individual spells even containing a blend of more than one source. Alohomora for example is derived from the Hawaiian "Aloha" meaning "goodbye," and the Latin word "mora," meaning "obstacle." It just seems silly, almost as if at some point someone decided that these words were magic, and opened doors!

It could be argued that magic and language are interwoven and no one created alohamora or that many different languages were born of magic spells, that would be fine if it were not for the fact that new spells can be created. Sectumsempra for example was a spell that Snape created while he studied at Hogwarts. It just doesn't add up, the system isn't final, it's far too open.

Another issue is that the words mean nothing unless the speaker has a wand in their hand and is of course a witch or wizard. So which has the magic? The language, the person, the wand? Does the wand 'know' all of the spells? How does spoken word turn a cup into a mouse? If a tree is transfigured into a flock of pelicans do they just pop into conscienceness?

Tree... Tree... Tree... BIRD! 

Sorry JK, just think about it next time


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## Amanita (Apr 17, 2011)

> almost as if at some point someone decided that these words were magic, and opened doors!


That's how I imagine the Harry Potter-spell creating process to work. People choosing the spell words and using Latin most of the time, because that is rather well-known but not used everyday.  But I'm not sure if this is correct of course, it was just my interpreation. 
I'm not a huge fan of magic systems where the users have to sacrifice parts of their bodies, life time or whatever, though. I don't know why, but somehow I prefer magic to work similiar to other human abilities, only making the user tired or something of the sort. 
It is true, that there could have been more along those directions in HP however, the spells seem to be a bit too simple. I especially didn't like the fact that spells could be used without any intention or even knowledge of what the spell would do as with Sectumsempra.


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## Ophiucha (Apr 17, 2011)

I don't know, Ulutur. I think we're so conditioned to seeing magic as this thing that requires a system, as something that should have rules and should be subject to limitations and sacrifices. But, personally, I hear the word magic, and I think of fairy tales. The only rules there seemed to be trades. "I'll weave all this hay into gold if you give me your kid." "What if I don't want to give you my kid?" "Then guess my name." And presumably the child is just going to be eaten - _maybe_ we can postulate that eating babies gives Rumpelstiltskin the ability to weave hay into gold, but that does seem a stretch. Magic was always something abstract and with rules dictated only by the user. Harry Potter's system is certainly more coherent than that, but it does have that sense of magic that the old stories have and that I find to be a bit... lacking these days. There's certainly some fun in the "magic is science" department, and I love some magic systems that take that to a bloody T, but some stories just benefit greatly from having a sense of mysticism to their magic.


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## Ulutar (Apr 17, 2011)

> I'm not a huge fan of magic systems where the users have to sacrifice parts of their bodies, life time or whatever, though. I don't know why, but somehow I prefer magic to work similiar to other human abilities, only making the user tired or something of the sort.



I agree, some systems do this well but I'm mostly up for just tiredness like you said. What I meant was that there is no limit, Harry could use the killing curse limitlessly because the magic in the books is infinite. It just seems silly, it doesn't even make the characters tired.

And Ophiucha, I do love a good fairytale  I guess I look at magic as an extension of our current understanding of physics.


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## Digital_Fey (Apr 17, 2011)

The magic system in HP does falter a bit between trying to be logical and using the 'anything goes' approach. The fact that most of the spells were derived from Latin seemed a bit fake at first - I'm not a big fan of books that try to make up their own language/words for spells, because it always ends up sounding silly - but after a while it felt natural. In fact, JKR got away with an awful lot of wishy-washy 'rules' because the overall story was good enough to keep readers interested, instead of making them bored enough to nitpick.



			
				Opiucha said:
			
		

> There's certainly some fun in the "magic is science" department, and I love some magic systems that take that to a bloody T, but some stories just benefit greatly from having a sense of mysticism to their magic.



Agreed. The whole point of magic - as I see it - is that it is *not* science. It has rules, it needs rules, but only up to a point. Beyond that point, a lot of readers will simply accept things _because this is magic_. And skillful writing, hopefully.

But I digress^^;


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## Sheilawisz (Nov 8, 2011)

Hello, I am new here in Mythic Scribes and this is the first time that I take part in a discussion thread =)

I have read the seven books of the Harry Potter series, and even though I like it (I am particularly an obsessed fan of Fleur!!) I am not one of those that really love the series and re-read it many times.. and I think that the magic system -yes, it has a system!!- has considerable flaws, like these:

That thing mentioned in the seventh book about the wizards and witches not being able to magically have food lacks of sense completely: In the fourth book Goblet of Fire, Cedric Diggory was said to have transfigured a rock into a dog so this dog would distract the dragon... then, turning a rock into a dog would be a form of getting food quickly even if you have only rocks around you

Harry and his friends were camping for weeks suffering starvation in the seventh book even though they could have transfigured rocks into dogs or even rabbits or chickens!!

Then, why do the wizards and witches need that Polyjuice potion when they have transfiguration???

I also think that they would never get old like Dumbledore, they would not need money, I mean... that sort of things do not really make sense in the Harry Potter world... what do you think??

Sheila


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## myrddin173 (Nov 8, 2011)

Well as for the gold we know it is impossible to transfigure stuff into gold, unless you have the philosopher's stone.  So the money makes sense.  The food problem (and now reading the linked link) the money problem have to do with Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration well its exceptions and it does mention the turning stuff into animals.


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## Sheilawisz (Nov 9, 2011)

It has been said in the series that anything that is conjured "from thin air" cannot last for long, but the same has never been shown to apply when they simply transfigure something into something else completely different... like a rock into a dog, or maybe a cloak into a pizza, why not??

That thing about the HP wizards and witches not being able to magically get food is pointless, at least from my point of view =)

They can turn a human into a ferret just like that, which means that a little change in the genetics could easily stop the aging process and they would never get to be as old as Dumbledore or McGonagall- also the Polyjuice potion is pointless for the same reason, why create a potion to turn into a replica of someone else when they can transfigure??

I like the mystical, fairytale-like magic of the Harry Potter world (and I hate the idea of magic as science, like it happens in other systems) but the flaws that it has are too clear for me =P

Sheila


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## Phoenix (Nov 23, 2011)

What if someone had a speech impairment? Could they not use magic? I think the wand idea is cool (they have different powers, strengths) but I hate the idea that the magic has no consequence for the user. Well not that I know of...


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Nov 24, 2011)

Some wizards in HP can apparently use silent magic, wherein they can cast spells without vocalizing. It's implied to be a highly advanced technique.

The magic system in HP isn't internally consistent and does not withstand scrutiny. Don't try to explain it, you'll just get a headache.


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## Elder the Dwarf (Nov 24, 2011)

Benjamin Clayborne said:


> Some wizards in HP can apparently use silent magic, wherein they can cast spells without vocalizing. It's implied to be a highly advanced technique.



There is no apparently or implied about it .  This is a lesson that is featured heavily in the sixth book, and the kids are never able to learn it.


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## Phoenix (Nov 24, 2011)

Yeah it just kinda of saddens me though. I mean people say this is one of the greatest Fantasy series (not mine). I guess this happens after you read something like The Name of The Wind. They explain it. I never paid much attention to this fact in Harry Potter, thanks for giving me thought.


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## Sheilawisz (Nov 24, 2011)

Phoenix, they can use non-verbal magic by just thinking the words, but when they learn that skill it's very difficult and frustrating until they finally master the trick =) It's a really good series, we just have to read and enjoy it for what it is or else we get a headache trying to explain the magic system like Benjamin says!!


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## Erica (Nov 25, 2011)

I'd say her magic system was pretty omnipotent, except for the limitation of having to use a wand and a few restrictions. The basic thing seems to be that magic is innate (you can either do it or not), and raw ability trumps hard work (I mean, Harry was a pretty awful student and he never bothered to design his own spells as a student like Hermione, Snape, or even his dad and Sirius did), but he was still the chosen one. I never understood the part about magic not being able to bring you back to life in HP but then it could be used to create life. For instance, transfiguring  teacup into a genuine hamster that went on to live a normal hamster life with normal hamster experiences (such that they are). I mean, is an actual critter conjured up from random molecules? Seems like if you could do that and actually create a living, breathing, thinking creature, then bringing someone back to life is a snap. I still liked the books, but that part always bugged me a bit.


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## Phoenix (Nov 25, 2011)

Now that seems pretty cool (the thinking the magic in the head thing). But do you not see that they could stand in a court yard and blast spells with no consequence? I mean it irks me. Most magic has consequences. How about the life thing stated above? They can create life out of a cup, why not just bring life back?


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## Sheilawisz (Nov 25, 2011)

Erica said:


> I'd say her magic system was pretty omnipotent, except for the limitation of having to use a wand and a few restrictions. The basic thing seems to be that magic is innate (you can either do it or not), and raw ability trumps hard work (I mean, Harry was a pretty awful student and he never bothered to design his own spells as a student like Hermione, Snape, or even his dad and Sirius did), but he was still the chosen one. I never understood the part about magic not being able to bring you back to life in HP but then it could be used to create life. For instance, transfiguring  teacup into a genuine hamster that went on to live a normal hamster life with normal hamster experiences (such that they are). I mean, is an actual critter conjured up from random molecules? Seems like if you could do that and actually create a living, breathing, thinking creature, then bringing someone back to life is a snap. I still liked the books, but that part always bugged me a bit.


Erica, you have a very interesting point here =) I have also considered that with the powers that HP wizards and witches have, death should not really be a problem for them and they should be capable of bringing the dead back to life!! They cannot simply because Rowling decided to put some unexplained limitations to her magic, just like that pointless thing about the wizards not being able to magically produce any kind of food...

I still think that transfiguring a rock into a dog like Cedric did in the Triwizard Tournament is the solution to that =)

In my stories, my mages can easily take things out of nowhere, I mean, anything they want just appears (not from "thin air" I mean from nowhere) and that can include living creatures if they want... they can just make dragons appear and attack, and those dragons would instantly have a consciousness and souls of their own

My mages can actually give life back to dead bodies, that's very easy- the little problem here is that they cannot guarantee that the souls of dead people will return to those bodies, so this is one of the few limitations that I have given to my magic system in my stories!!

Phoenix, in my magic system there are no serious consequences unless they go rampage with their awful reality-shattering weapons!! Apart from that, my mages do anything they want consequence-free and I love them =)


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## Phoenix (Nov 25, 2011)

I didn't say it was bad, just irks me. If you feel that way go ahead, as long as you got a well crafted story I'll read. As for your creatures are they summoned from some other world? Like a time or something? Do they just will them and craft them out of magic. I do love your bringing back the dead, that was pretty cool.


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## Sheilawisz (Nov 26, 2011)

Phoenix said:


> I didn't say it was bad, just irks me. If you feel that way go ahead, as long as you got a well crafted story I'll read. As for your creatures are they summoned from some other world? Like a time or something? Do they just will them and craft them out of magic. I do love your bringing back the dead, that was pretty cool.


Thanks, Phoenix!! You are the first person here in Mythic Scribes that thinks that my mages are cool =) When they create anything (from a glass of plum juice to an entire castle) you only see violet sparks or a flash of white light and there it is, it comes out of nowhere and it's not really summoned from anywhere... The mages themselves do come from other realities and are not native of the endless sea universe where most of my stories take place =)


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## Phoenix (Nov 26, 2011)

Are they rare or common? Do regular humans or other beings despise them of their powers, or are they praised for it? I would love to understand your story.


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## myrddin173 (Nov 26, 2011)

Perhaps we can move the discussion of Sheilawisz' mages elsewhere.  It would be best to keep this thread to its original purpose.  A thread in the Brainstorming forum would be best, I think.

As for the whole bringing people back from the dead in Harry Potter.  I agree with how she did it.  Animals are not self-aware in the way humans are, they act mostly on instinct.  Therefore it would be fairly easy to replicate them.  People, however are not that simple.  Bringing someone back form the dead would take knowing that person in every fiber of their being, something even the person themselves wouldn't know, or perhaps even want to.


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## Sheilawisz (Nov 27, 2011)

myrddin173 said:


> As for the whole bringing people back from the dead in Harry Potter. I agree with how she did it.  Animals are not self-aware in the way humans are, they act mostly on instinct. Therefore it would be fairly easy to replicate them.  People, however are not that simple.  Bringing someone back form the dead would take knowing that person in every fiber of their being, something even the person themselves wouldn't know, or perhaps even want to.


In my opinion, doing what you have described would actually create a replica of that person instead of bringing someone back to life... it would not be the same person at all, just a copy... The real trick to bring the dead back to life would be to bring their souls back, the body is just a carrier =)

Phoenix: There are around fifty five thousand of them in my main world when my first novel starts, two mage cities with society and government of their own =) Common people are sometimes curious about the mages, and sometimes terrified instead... Anyway, Myrddin here is right and we should not hijack the thread!! I'll send a message to you


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## Devor (Nov 27, 2011)

Sheilawisz said:


> In my opinion, doing what you have described would actually create a replica of that person instead of bringing someone back to life... it would not be the same person at all, just a copy... The real trick to bring the dead back to life would be to bring their souls back, the body is just a carrier =)



In the world of Harry Potter, you can create an imprint of a person and place it in magical items, such as the portraits in the Headmaster's Office.  Following this, it would be easy enough to say that transfiguration only creates an imprint of an animal's personality without copying the soul, explaining why you could transfigure animals without making it possible to resurrect the dead.  Also, there's no reason to assume that transfigured animals are in any way edible; they may retain the taste and nutrition of their original form, kind of like the pincushions that squirm like the rodents they used to be.

Not to say there's no problems with HP's system.  In my opinion the biggest problem is simply that no system is properly presented.  We're never given a list of what magic can and cannot do.  We have nothing to evaluate the system by except for what we're shown.

Based on what is shown, the most bizarre elements, I think, are the Tabboo placed on Voldemort's name, or the "trace" placed on underage magic.  Compared to most spells they are particularly far-reaching.


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## Sheilawisz (Nov 28, 2011)

Devor said:


> In the world of Harry Potter, you can create an imprint of a person and place it in magical items, such as the portraits in the Headmaster's Office.  Following this, it would be easy enough to say that transfiguration only creates an imprint of an animal's personality without copying the soul, explaining why you could transfigure animals without making it possible to resurrect the dead.  Also, there's no reason to assume that transfigured animals are in any way edible; they may retain the taste and nutrition of their original form, kind of like the pincushions that squirm like the rodents they used to be.


You have a very interesting point here, Devor =) That could explain why the wizards in HP cannot get food by magical means, which is for me the most disappointing part of the magic in that world.


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## arbiter117 (Dec 8, 2011)

I think Rowling has something figured out, but I never understood it. I had a discussion with some friends about HP vs Voldemort, and we all come to the same conclusion: did nobody think to say "accio Voldemort's (insert vital organ)"? It seems to be a simpler and messier solution than anything else.


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## myrddin173 (Dec 8, 2011)

arbiter117 said:


> I think Rowling has something figured out, but I never understood it. I had a discussion with some friends about HP vs Voldemort, and we all come to the same conclusion: did nobody think to say "accio Voldemort's (insert vital organ)"? It seems to be a simpler and messier solution than anything else.



I think it is probably be that it is impossible to summon anything from within a person's body.  Like in Mistborn, it is impossible to push or pull on metals in another's body.


As for the discussion of creating food or bringing back the dead.  I think we might be over-thinking things.  It is _magic_, the limitations can be there without making sense.


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## Sheilawisz (Dec 9, 2011)

Forget about summoning internal organs, just turn the blood of your enemy into muriatic acid and that's all!! Maybe instead you could transform the air around your enemies into flammable gas and set it on fire... it would depend on their creativity, really those wizards are way more lethal than most readers realize when they read the books

I think it's rather silly that Voldemort was so obsessed with Avada Kedavra instead of so many other potential ways to kill and terrify his enemies: If I had been him, I would have cut off Harry's head and impaled it on a spear (to feel bloody sure that he was dead and to cause a psychological impact) and carried it myself instead of making Hagrid carry the "dead" Harry!! Super Evil characters always end up losing because of little mistakes like that =P

I agree that we are over-thinking things, Myrddin... but it's fun!!


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## myrddin173 (Dec 9, 2011)

Sheilawisz said:


> I agree that we are over-thinking things, Myrddin... but it's fun!!



Well of course it is, why else would we do it?

What was it Hermione said during Snape's challenge in Philosopher's Stone? Something about how most wizards, or witches don't have a lick of common sense.  They have a curse that kills people, why would they do it any other way...


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## Devor (Dec 9, 2011)

myrddin173 said:


> Well of course it is, why else would we do it?
> 
> What was it Hermione said during Snape's challenge in Philosopher's Stone? Something about how most wizards, or witches don't have a lick of common sense.  They have a curse that kills people, why would they do it any other way...



I just want to know the curse Molly used in the last chapter.


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## Sheilawisz (Dec 10, 2011)

They would want to find alternative ways to kill because Avada Kedavra is illegal while other things are not =) Personally, if I were a dark witch in the HP world I would be very fond of Fiendfyre, but Transfiguration offers the greatest potential when it comes to find creative ways to attack your enemies!!

Also, Avada Kedavra kills one target per hit so it could be considered a weak weapon: Fiendfyre seems to be capable of killing loads of people one hit, what would happen if they released that thing in a muggle city and let it go rampage??

Devor: That was the Molly Curse =) Nothing special in the book, I liked the movie version better =)


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## myrddin173 (Dec 10, 2011)

Sheilawisz said:


> They would want to find alternative ways to kill because Avada Kedavra is illegal while other things are not =) Personally, if I were a dark witch in the HP world I would be very fond of Fiendfyre, but Transfiguration offers the greatest potential when it comes to find creative ways to attack your enemies!!
> 
> Also, Avada Kedavra kills one target per hit so it could be considered a weak weapon: Fiendfyre seems to be capable of killing loads of people one hit, what would happen if they released that thing in a muggle city and let it go rampage??
> 
> Devor: That was the Molly Curse =) Nothing special in the book, I liked the movie version better =)



Well real Dark Wizards, or Witches don't care if something is illegal, they will use what ever they want.  I also think killing anyone with magic is illegal...

I thought I had read somewhere that Fiendfyre had been released in a muggle city.  I don't remember which one though.


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## Sheilawisz (Dec 12, 2011)

Well, they never say in the books that murder is illegal so we really don't know =) Anyway, what would happen if you simply transfigure your victim into an apple and then eat the apple?? How would anyone find out what happened?? About Fiendfyre, if there is a fanfiction like that I have to find it, I have been thinking about that ever since I finished reading Deathly Hallows.


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