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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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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