I've just now remembered something from GoF. When Harry casts the reductor curse at the hedge it punches straight through. Would that not suggest that rather than the exploding type curse it is usually portrayed as it is in fact more of a piercing/penetrating curse?

And for that matter the Disarming Charm in CoS, didn't it only blast Lockhart backwards because a) he was completely incompetant and b) the spell was overpowered because of Snape's anger? Wouldn't that mean that the spell actually just pulls the item in ones hands, sort of like a specialised summoning charm?

 

I always saw it as a curse that 'dissolved' the item. IIRC it was described as turning a wooden table to ash/dust in OoTP, so I just saw it a destruction spell. No big explosions, no flashy effects, just the thing being destroyed in a quick manner. The only spell I've heard of that exploded was the Avada Kedavra when it hit an inanimate object (there may have been another one in the Death Room but I can't quite remember).

I think it's just because Snape is proficient in the spell while Lockhart is completely incompetent in everything other than memory charms. The mechanics of the spell seem to depend on how experienced the person casting it is. In some of the older wizards it seems to throw the wand towards them, like a summoning charm, while in amateurs like the DA it just sends it flying. So yeah, quite like a specialised summoning/banishing charm.

Aekiel

 

There were a couple of explosion spells in DH.

As for the Reducto, I always saw it as like a bludgeoning/banishing tpye of spell. Like a cross between a punch, push and kick with a strength equivalent to the strength needed to kick a door off its hinges. Obviously for some objects, this strength will be excessive and they're break/smash, and equally for other objects this strength won't do much.

 

I don't know, but I heard some talk of the Reductor Curse being less effective on living objects, hence it merely punched through the hedge while it completely reduced a table to dust in OOTP. Also, it did the same to the shelves holding the Prophecies. Kind of makes sense though. I highly doubt the Reductor will have the same destructiveness when used on a wizard/creature.

 

Taure I like that interpretation of the curse, more of a strike than anything else.

Lucullus, I think you're thinking of IP's fic, where the reductor curse doesn't affect humans because of safeguards built in by the Ministry. As for the hedge/table thing, perhaps its to do with striking a particular surface area, or density that takes up the force contained in the spell. In the case of the hedge the branches and leaves didn't take enough energy to deplete the curse.

 

There is however, is huge difference between reducing a simple table/shelf to dust and just punching a hole in a hedge, and you must consider that both are basically wood and are not too different in size, except one is living while the other two isn't.

 

Perhaps the fact that the hedge was grown specifically for the Third Task is a factor...

 

The hedge was made as a maze for the triwizard's tournament. I have no doubt enchanments of some sort were placed to keep a champion from just tearing it to pieces and walking staight through to the prize. If it didn't have them, I would think that the curse just might have shredded the entirety of the area he was aiming at. Also, I think it has to do with intent on what you want to do. Do you want to destroy a table of punch a hole in a massive hedge. He didn't want to completely blow it down so the spell didn't completely blow it down. That's what I got out of it, at least.

 

I think in the 5th book it said that Padma blew a table to smithereens or powder with a reductor in the RoR. It suggests that the Reductor curse is a "blasting" type curse that smashes things up. I think that the hedge wasn't shredded due to the "softness" of a hedge, which usually isn't very dense and thus the spell made contact with a limited surface area with most of the power simply travelling onwards through the gaps.

Did that make sense?

 

Yeah I'll agree to that. The hedge was just not solid enough to trigger the explosive dissipation of energy. Kindda like throwing an egg through a spiderweb and then a table. With the spiderweb the egg just rips through, but the table is hard enough that it breaks the shell and releases the insides.

 

That does make a lot of sense. In a way I guess we could think of the curse as a high frequency beam, when the beam hits a object the molecules in that object loosen and fall apart. This is shown a lot in science with how waves travel much easier throw solid objects then they do through liquids or gases.

The extra space (air) in the hedges probably nullifies the effect of the curse to a extent. While with the table, since it is solid, the curse forces the molecules in the table to break apart and turn in to dust (really saw dust if the table is made of wood.)

Or I might just be over analysing the whole thing, I do that ever once and a while.

 

What would the effects be on a human, then? Would you call them solid enough for them to be turned into fine, red mist like the table or are they more like the hedge?

 

Well humans are around 2/3 - 70% (I forget the exact percent) water, so I would imagine the Reductor Curse wouldn't turn them to dust or anything unless it was some how completely over powered when cast.

The worst I could see it doing is turning a few bones that it hit into dust, but the legiments(sp?) that connect bones together would probably prevent it from vaporizing ever bone in a person' body (once again unless it was over powered, it would be funny to see Harry do that to someone in a story.)

It would probably also be able to do at least some damage to a person's organs if they are hit. I imagine a Reductor Curse to the head would be fatal as the skull would probably turn to dust, or at least shatter, ultimately killing the person very quickly.

All in all Reductor is a painful curse and should be used to it's fullest extent in all Dark Harry stories.

 

How about we just chalk this up as another glaring plot hole by J.K.R.?