Talk:Magic (Harry Potter)

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This article combines the Muggle and Magical Schools (Harry Potter) pages.
The article Spells and spell-like magic in the world of Harry Potter, formerly List of spells in Harry Potter that ended up losing the list, has been merged here.It had a talk page, with no open discussions, viewable here.

Contents

[edit] Durmstrang and Location

We can't use Krum's nationality as a "hint" about Durmstrang's location -- the British Draco Malfoy after all could also have gone there, we are told. Not to mention that it's explicitely hypothesized that it's somewhere in the North instead and Bulgaria *isn't* a Northern country, it's a southern one.

We should stick to the hypothesis which is actually *in* the books -- and that's northern Europe, the educated guess that Hermione makes.

[edit] Dumbledore performing magic without incantations

"Albus Dumbledore has been known to do good-sized feats of magic without the use of a single spell, and is known to only have used an actual spell once - and when he did, it smashed effortlessly through a sturdy door."

What about Ennervate (in this same scene) or Portus (in the fifth book)? Should the second half of this sentence should be removed? neatnate 17:59, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Removed it. Aris Katsaris 04:02, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[[parselmouth)): who is 'herpo the foul'?

gandalf 10:35, 10-21-04

Mentioned in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them. Aris Katsaris 12:56, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)


in half blood prince the students get taught non-verbal magic, dumbledore is powerful and maybe saying a spell makes it more powerful (the door in and Ennervate) and the portkey had to be powerful to get through hogwarts wards

[edit] Blood purity

"Harry Potter is often thought to be a Half-blood. But he is in fact not. A person's blood is determined only by their parents, not their grand parents, great grandparents and so on. And since Lily Evens, and James Potter were both wizards/witches, that would make Harry Potter a pure blood."

Uh, what? The books make it pretty clear that blood purity fanatics do not distinguish between Muggle-born wizards and Muggles. A half-blood may be a child of a wizard and a Muggle; or may have Muggle grandparents. Harry is repeatedly called a half-blood, once by no less an authority than Dumbledore (in OOP). Cite: HP Lexicon Nightsky 20:18, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)

I updated the "Unnamed Status" section, hope that clears it up. To Nightsky: I get a rude, superiority vibe from you're post, and I would imagine the original poster would appreciate that, just because s/he asked a question you and i know the answer to. Incidentally, I would consider JKR a more cite-able authority than the Lexicon, but to each his own, I suppose.
Cite: JKR's FAQ
Cheers,
Daniel
7-17, 4:35 PM Mountain Time


JK Clearly states in the FAQ on here website: "As far as somebody like Lucius Malfoy is concerned, for instance, a Muggle-born is as 'bad' as a Muggle. Therefore Harry would be considered only 'half' wizard, because of his mother's grandparents."

[edit] Impending Article Split

Now that I have your attention, I'm working on an article on the Wizarding World, where I'm planning to describe the setting in detail, and once done I'd quite like to move the descriptions of wizard society in this article there. Objections? Please voice them. -- Kizor 09:24, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Tiiiime's up! -- Kizor 23:42, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Okay, so this has been somewhat delayed. -- Kizor 07:57, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Population" section reads like an essay

It also seems to be original research. It should be removed or heavily edited. MosheZadka 1 July 2005 10:51 (UTC)

In the Emerson/Melissa interview, Rowling states that the British wizarding population might be around 3000 (plus magical creatures). 66.140.75.102

moved it here in the meanwhile. MosheZadka 1 July 2005 10:55 (UTC)

While J. K. Rowling has never been very consistent regarding maths and dates in her works, it is interesting to estimate the population of wizards in her world; such gives an idea of how easy it is for a wizarding world to exist alongside our own.

The equation for approximate population is: Population = Birth Rate * Average Life Span. This is close to accurate under the assumption that these values remain relatively constant for a duration greater than the average life span, which is usually a bad assumption but is good enough for the moment.

According to J.K. Rowling, all people with the potential for wizardry that are born in Britain are invited to Hogwarts. Assume the numbers of students at Hogwarts has been consistent for the last century or so. We can estimate that about 40 students are in Harry's class (about 10 per house), and by our assumptions that would mean about 40 students per year. Assuming an average wizard life-span of, say, a century (which isn't too far off based on lists of known wizard life-spans, although they can live to over 150 if they don't blow themselves up or otherwise get killed), that places P = 40 * 100, or 4000 wizards and witches, with rather conservative estimates.

More optimistic estimates could easily double or even triple that number. One could assume, for example, that many wizards or witches are home-tutored, take a correspondence course by owl, learn in alternative learning environments (covens, etc.), or simply learn on their own by reading esoteric books. One could also say that the average number of wizards attending Hogwarts over the last century is higher (Voldemort's reign may have had an impact on birthrate). One might also add those that have the ability, but choose not to educate themselves. In any case, it would be difficult to justify a population of much more than twelve thousand wizards in Britain.

So... pick a reasonable and convenient range of, say 5500 to 11000 potential wizards in Britain in 1991, the official WB date for Sorcerer's Stone. The population in Britain of 55 million would indicate that about one person in ten-thousand to one person in five-thousand has magical ability. Assuming the same average ratio worldwide would mean that there are between 1/2 million and 1 million wizards and witches in the world.

Considering that, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, over one-hundred thousand witches and wizards watched the Quidditch World Cup (Bulgaria vs. Ireland), one must assume that a fairly significant portion of witches and wizards around the world are interested in it, and that inter-continental travel is very cheap for wizards.

In any case, with at most one person in five-thousand having magical ability, in combination with attempts to keep it secret, it is easy to see how magic could be kept secret from the Muggles. Especially since, if you estimate that only one in four wizards at Hogwarts is a first-generation muggle-born, that means that around one in twenty-thousand Muggle children are born as wizards (assuming that only half of them go to Hogwarts). Even if they each proved to twenty friends and family members that magic exists, that still amounts to 99.95% of the muggle population having no such proof.

i think that some people should keep in mind that when you are writing a series of books that have becomed loved by millions, you get the urge to please everyone, everywhere, all the time. harry potter is fictional and inconsistencies are a given. imagine plotting 7 stories, 40+ characters, their personalities, traits, background stories, timelines, made up creatures. keep in mind 'she' cant keep everything in order constantly. sometimes she leaves things out.

[edit] terms

moving the terms (that regard blood purity) to Blood purity (Harry Potter).--jonasaurus 22:55, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Characters of various type

I came here looking for squibs, following a link from a redirect page. I'd like to have a list of squibs, such as:

What's the best way to do this? Uncle Ed 19:09, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

You could look at Blood purity (Harry Potter)#Squib (which the squib page ought to redirect to instead...), which lists a couple squibs, which might be all that are ever mentioned in the books. That's also all that HP Lexicon mentions, and same for JKRowling's FAQ page on them --Mairi 07:17, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Snape and Occlumency

Too much speculation in the Legilimency/Occlumency section of the article. Since it is not known where Snape's loyalties lie, it is not known whether he must have used occlumency against Voldemort. Also, Dumbledore may have chosen Snape to teach Harry Occlumency because of Snape's skills at Legilimency, which he has demonstrated throughout the series (every time Harry suspects Snape is reading his mind, he is!). I'm not sure how to deal with these issues other than deleting the sentences altogether. The section seems somewhat blank without it though. What to do? --MrBawn 01:47, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Apparition

How come the house elves apparate in Hogwarts?

Aside from artistic licence on JK Rowling's part, we can only assume that what house elves do isn't apparition, but some other kind of magic which has the same effect. Note that the house elves appear to posess a great deal of inherent magical ability. "Teleportation" may be one of these inherent abilities, and don't relate to casting specific spells to apparate. (Well, it's a guess.) 88.107.112.147 15:08, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Actually, this question has been answered. It was either on her website or in her World Book Day online interview that J.K. Rowling explained that house-elves have a different sort of magic from wizards (which allows them to better serve their masters), and that they could do certain things wizard's can't, including apparition-like teleportation in places where it is normally impossible. Kajerm

[edit] Merge proposal

Agree: Seems a logical proposal. The Spells and spell-like magic in the world of Harry Potter page was a "leftover" after the huge lists of spells were split out into category pages. Makes sense to roll the information into here. - Beowulf314159 15:16, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree that disapparition should be merged here! Someone, please do it! Emily (Funtrivia Freak) 21:04, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge complete

I've finished adding content from the aforementioned article with a behemoth for a title. These two interwiki links were 'left over': could a French and a Portugese speaker check where they belong?

[[fr:Imperium (sortilège)]] [[pt:Lista de feitiços em Harry Potter]]

--Kizor 01:28, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dumbledore understanding parseltongue

Where is the proof that Dumbledore understands parseltongue? (Am I spelling that correctly? Hardest word in the Harry Potter universe, in my opinion.)Emily 03:48, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

To what are you referring? I don't believe he ever spoke parseltongue, though he could speak Mermish. Actually, after looking some more, Dumbledore's article does mention something to this effect. I'll make another comment over there. fruitofwisdom 03:39, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disapparition merge

I support the merge of the article Disapparation into this article . Lag 20:09, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I have done the meger and now propose the deletion of Disapparation. Lgriot 18:32, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Avoid weasel words link

Inadvertently provided a "bad link" to the "avoid weasel words" guidelines section in my edit summary. here it is: avoid weasel words --T-dot 09:30, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Parseltongue

Since it's listed here, I'll ask my question here: I know little is said about the phonetic properties of parseltongue in the books, but since its also used in the film, wouldn't it be possible to add some information on parseltongue as a language as apposed to only a magical ability? Redge(Talk) 16:53, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome to go ahead and note the attributes of it as a language, but make sure you note in the film and not in canon. --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 22:55, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Apparition

"As one might expect, it is considered quite rude to Apparate into a private area such as a residence. For this reason, as well as for reasons of security, many private residences also have anti-apparition spells protecting them from uninvited intrusions. Therefore the most reliable (and most polite) way to travel to most locations is to apparate somewhere unseen nearby and proceed to the final destination on foot."

Could someone explain where this comes from? Michaelsanders 18:15, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

It's simply common sense, I'd guess. Not canon. That's why it says 'as one might expect' -- it's assumed common courtesy not to apparate into any old place. However, there is some support of this in canon when Arthur Apparates home from work but instead of arriving in his house, he arrives outside and waits for Molly to open the door. --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 05:11, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
I think I'll tone it down a bit. The 'don't apparate into a person's house' probably has enough support from canon and common sense to remain, but the idea that the 'ancient and powerful magics' on Hogwarts, which are supposed to be remarkable, are employed on several hundred box-standard houses is rather pushing the limits (as you can see, I immediately altered the 'apparate somewhere public', which suggested that people preferred to apparate in the middle of a crowd). Michaelsanders 12:34, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
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