Carly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
veryroundbird) wrote2011-12-30 11:01 am
veryroundbird) wrote2011-12-30 11:01 am
Entry tags:
Carly Thinks Too Much About Harry Potter Pt. 1: Spellcasting
I've been talking a bit on Plurk with people about my feeeeeeeelings about Harry Potter-related things and I sort of got the itch to codify some of my thoughts about the world.
Spellcasting is one of those strange things that's really a big part of the series and yet isn't really explored in-depth at all; it's very much a set piece to the plot of Harry vs. Voldemort, though we get little hints here and there. Luna's mother worked on experimental spells, and Snape invented sectumsempra, which implies that they're invented, not set down by Powers That Be. Also, I can't think of a reason why one of the spells that TPTB would create for wizardkind would be Make Birds Come Out Of My Wand. /kanyeshrug
Actual invention of spells is an interesting question—how does it work? My thoughts are somewhat influenced by the Mage tabletop games, which do go quite in-depth regarding this sort of thing. One can do magic without casting a specific spell, but it requires a lot of focus and will. Spells, on the other hand, seem to be codified effects. Kind of like linux packages, I don't know. They seem to be easier for the public at large to learn, even without knowing what they do. (See: Harry's use of sectumsempra in HBP.) Perhaps once you've created them they sort of enter, like, the mass spellwork-consciousness of magic-users, or something. (IDEK)
Also, my thought is that wands and dog latin aren't necessary for casting spells; certainly there must have been wizards before the advent of Latin, and there are wizards and witches in countries where Latin would not have been spoken. The words, and the wands, are convenient and traditional magical foci that aid in focusing the will toward a particular result. (A language that's not the popular vernacular might be used as speaking it doesn't have the air of doing something ordinary.) This also explains a few instances where people cast spells without verbalizing, and the way children occasionally manifest magic before they know spells or have a wand—they either had very focused mental intent or were doing something as a survival instinct.
(Aside: This makes me wonder if spells are invented separately in different countries, or if there's a way you can, like, write a language pack for a spell or something)
...I feel like someone must run an academic journal for invented spells, or something, where people publish papers, but since Wizarding Academia is weirdly nonexistent in England, perhaps it's run out of another country, or something. (Which is a topic for ~*more meta*~ perhaps.)
Spellcasting is one of those strange things that's really a big part of the series and yet isn't really explored in-depth at all; it's very much a set piece to the plot of Harry vs. Voldemort, though we get little hints here and there. Luna's mother worked on experimental spells, and Snape invented sectumsempra, which implies that they're invented, not set down by Powers That Be. Also, I can't think of a reason why one of the spells that TPTB would create for wizardkind would be Make Birds Come Out Of My Wand. /kanyeshrug
Actual invention of spells is an interesting question—how does it work? My thoughts are somewhat influenced by the Mage tabletop games, which do go quite in-depth regarding this sort of thing. One can do magic without casting a specific spell, but it requires a lot of focus and will. Spells, on the other hand, seem to be codified effects. Kind of like linux packages, I don't know. They seem to be easier for the public at large to learn, even without knowing what they do. (See: Harry's use of sectumsempra in HBP.) Perhaps once you've created them they sort of enter, like, the mass spellwork-consciousness of magic-users, or something. (IDEK)
Also, my thought is that wands and dog latin aren't necessary for casting spells; certainly there must have been wizards before the advent of Latin, and there are wizards and witches in countries where Latin would not have been spoken. The words, and the wands, are convenient and traditional magical foci that aid in focusing the will toward a particular result. (A language that's not the popular vernacular might be used as speaking it doesn't have the air of doing something ordinary.) This also explains a few instances where people cast spells without verbalizing, and the way children occasionally manifest magic before they know spells or have a wand—they either had very focused mental intent or were doing something as a survival instinct.
(Aside: This makes me wonder if spells are invented separately in different countries, or if there's a way you can, like, write a language pack for a spell or something)
...I feel like someone must run an academic journal for invented spells, or something, where people publish papers, but since Wizarding Academia is weirdly nonexistent in England, perhaps it's run out of another country, or something. (Which is a topic for ~*more meta*~ perhaps.)
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but THE WHOLE WORLD is probably not much like wizarding britain and wandless magic is possible so it seems more like wizards in britain are taught to believe that they can't do magic any other way, which effectively becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy (they think they can't, so they don't learn how, so ... they can't, in practise, even though theoretically they should be able to)???
... words. stuff. i have a gdoc somewhere where we discussed more of these details (possibly one or two) between a group of us if you want me to fwd?
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Like, it seems like in Britain at some point there was, like Takh noted on plurk, something Cutural Revolution-like that caused them to completely hose academia and innovation and focus super-hard on Maintaining the Status Quo, etc. tl;dr I WOULD LOVE TO SEE THIS GDOC /o/
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also yeah just maybe there is something here with ambition being seen as not just a flaw but an indication of moral decay and how that limits people who are by nature ambitious - or even just intellectually thirsty, it is totally possible for a person to just slowly lose their shit if locked in a box they don't fit in, which could lead to like supervillain origin story NO ONE UNDERSTOOD!!! I'LL SHOW THEM ALL!! or even just the sad tragic waste of a life of a person who can't find a place to fit and just kind of drowns in it
... i think about things.
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i would like to see people rping slytherins who are ambitious and cunning and all that but who are decidedly not evil and play it like that -- genuinely being misunderstood and assumed to be evil just because they want more out of life than their school is offering. it confuses me that "not evil slytherin" is considered a cliche/mary sue trait in the fandom because it is impossible that there actually exists an entire house of evil 11-year-olds and they make up 1/4th of english wizarding society.
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but fandom also jerks it to the sexy bigot slytherin stereotype so i don't expect much from them.
HI THIS IS CARLY
It's just, like... I am kind of disappoint that Salazar Slytherin turned out to be an evil dude, because he could have been sort of a neat redemption for a house that has drifted far from its origins but lolnope.
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also jkr said she intended to have some slytherins fighting (for the good guys, after specifically coming back to do so) in the final battle, but since she ... spaced? i guess? instead the text basically says OH NO THEY ALL SCREWED OFF BEING EITHER COWARDS OR EVIL TRAITORS
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Alternatively, I may just like that idea.
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and, yeah, it absolutely makes no sense that magic in the canon explicitly requires a wand and latin incantations -- the canon itself contradicts that, characters use wandless magic and magic without reciting any words -- that's a very, uh, western-centric thing that's kind of uncomfortable. as if the western world, specifically europe, is the center of civilization, for wizards, and all other wizard cultures are derived from that. (unsure)
i made an american wizard character set in the world who is just completely fucking baffled by british wizarding society b/c my headcanon is that in america, they stop using wands at about the age of like... 14 and start learning magical theory. and they legit have wizard universities and shit, or at least post-high school continuing educational opportunities, because the field of magic is so vast it's inconceivable to me that you only learn it for, what, 7 years?
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I feel like in other countries they would, you know, actually standardize the damn curriculum, too, rather than have it be up to the whims of professors. Who runs a secondary school like that?
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I was thinking about that a little, actually, in terms of my own school orientations; I never appreciated them all that much, but there was always a sense of setting the tone of we're here to learn, and use what we learn to change the world and make it a better place.
And then there's "Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!"
:T
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I sort of like the dystopian implications of the worldbuilding, but it's also obvious that they weren't intentional, and that there are a lot of things that are internally inconsistent.
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also arthur weasley creeps me out. there are basically three possible explanations for him and all of them are fucked up:
a. he is sincerely into muggle culture and clinically too stupid to live
b. he is basically a condescending hipster asshole who is ~SO INTO MUGGLES BECAUSE IT'S SO WEIRD AND ALTERNATIVE~ but can't be bothered knowing what he's talking about and is just doing it to fuck with people
c. basically a weeaboo
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I sort of, like, feel that Grindelwald was played up or something to distract the wizards from the fact that O HAY THERE'S A WORLD OUT THERE and everything dear lord also the Grindelwald thing just doesn't really make a whole lot of sense in terms of—fuck, none of this history meshes together very well /faceclaw aaaa
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hahahahaha right...
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There's also definitely a Centre for Alchemical Research in Egypt, which...just proves the theory that places outside of Wizarding Britain are a bit more open to academia.