Our basis is the consistent parts. Rowling obviously didn't think out many concepts in the first two books, like Quirrell's wandless magic (which is never seen again), jinxes that require eye contact (and function completely differently later on), and Hagrid's strange proficiency at magic. Essentially the books are plot based - Draco could conjure a snake because Rowling wanted to have a snake in the scene, not because it's supposed to show his proficiency in Transfiguration, which is never really seen again.

 

This one I don't remember and a quick search tells me only about him using it in the movie.

We never see interfering with enchanted items later on, so how can it function differently?

How is it strange? His skill seems pretty low, considering that he fails some of the spells he tries. He might've been thrown out of Hogwarts, but he had a lot of time to study on his own. And Hagrid's use of magic comes back also in later books.

If we throw out things that were introduced as a plot convenience, we will have to throw out half of the books. If we interpret canon we have to interpret canon and not throw out "inconvenient" elements.

 

Eh, Bellatrix could still have been a bit weak from Azkaban. Also, Molly might have had an adrenaline boost from seeing her family in danger. So you could put that as a bit more even, especially since Molly has been surrounded by the Order for a long time so wouldn't have been just an ordinary housewitch. Surprisingly, I don't think Charlie needs to be all that Magically skilled to handle Dragons, I think he'd know spells to deal with them but not be as good in a fight as say Bill, so on par with Percy if at that.

 

Bella laid out three of the Order's best fighters one after the other two years earlier. Azkaban is no excuse.

---------- Post automerged 07-05-2017 at 12:03 AM ---------- Previous post was 07-04-2017 at 08:12 PM ----------

Quirrel bound Harry with ropes using only a snap of his fingers, and when Voldemort ordered him to kill Harry he "raised his hand to perform a deadly curse" before Harry stopped him. I don't think we ever saw him raise a wand.

Untrue, we see an enchanted bludger that functions without Dobby being anywhere near it, as well as the teachers taking seriously the possibility that Harry's new Firebolt has been hexed without Sirius being present. If that last bit was possible, then it would exponentially increase the number of suspects back when Harry's Nimbus tried to kill him in his first match. The basic premise of the setup there and the setup behind Harry's Firebolt being confiscated are in clear conflict.

Going by the stuff Harry and his friends are mentioned to learn in the first three books, he shouldn't have even been able to attempt human transfiguration or nonverbal spellcasting, both of which are explicitly NEWT material.

The problem with this claim is that the inconsistencies you're rationalizing away are much smaller elements of the overall Harry Potter story than the principles they're violating, which have much more impact on the series as a whole. Why should we sacrifice the big picture for the sake of minor details, rather than dismiss the minor details?

And no, before you say it, sacrificing our basic intelligence in an attempt to reconcile the minor details with the big picture isn't an appetizing option either.

 

Forgot that one, you have a point here.

Both of those cases relate to enhancement being messed up earlier, when in PS they suspect active interfering.

Why?

In what way my theories destroy the big picture?

I never meant to imply that he was some great prodigy. But, considering how older, and more learned students have problems with properly learning less advanced spells (see DA and the Disarming Charm) learning a spell like that in the second year is still pretty impressive and shows that Malfoy is talented.

 

I think the issue with Molly and Bellatrix is that we are applying anime-esque power levels to what is essentially a normal battlefield.

Certainly, when you get to the level of Dumbledore and Voldemort there is a sense of style and elegance to dueling.

At lower levels though...it seems more like regular soldiers firing guns or fighting a sword fight.

War is chaotic. A battlefield is chaos. Bellatrix might be an exceptional duelist one on one similar to how a fencer might be exceptionally skilled in a tournament...but does that skill with a wand/blade carry over to being invulnerable on a battlefield. I don't think so.

 

We have no reason to think that's a meaningful distinction, nor do the characters have any reason to assume that what happened to Harry in PS was "active interference" and not his broom being sabotaged beforehand. We never saw a pre-sabotaged broom, so maybe it not acting until later in the match was normal.

He wouldn't know any incantations or wand movements for the transfiguration, since such things wouldn't have been taught to him in class in his early years, and he also wouldn't have had any practice with nonverbal spellcasting. Is this actually confusing you? Wizards seem to need to at least have some academic foundation on particular spells before just trying them, even if it's just hearing an incantation beforehand.

Because stories are based on particular sets of premises that govern the setting, the characters, and in this case, the system of magic that's being used. In later books, we see wizards helpless without their wands - Quirrell, who everybody in later books dismissed as an incompetent, lacked that handicap. Quirrell could have used a wand for most, if not all of the spells he wound up using, it wouldn't have changed the first book at all, but the idea that wizards don't actually need wands is ruinous for, say, Deathly Hallows, where Harry's stuck without a quality wand for a good while. All that tension is gone with wandless magic. Or how about Goblet of Fire, where Barty Crouch Jr. needed to steal Harry's wand to cast the Dark Mark? Presto, the precedent of wandless magic means that wouldn't have been necessary, we'd have been spared the confusion with Harry's wand being found at the scene of the crime, that entire mystery just goes in the blender, and the reader is left with no leads as to who may have been responsible. Or maybe Voldemort could curse Harry with a wave of his hand like Quirrell wanted to, and save himself the trouble of finding a wand that wasn't brother wands with Harry's. So many scenarios from later books just make no sense thanks to this one inconsistency, this one niggling detail that never had to be there.

We don't know that this spell is more or less advanced than any other, seeing how we never see Harry try and learn it. Just because it's conjuring, does that make it any different than conjuring fire, which Hermione does in her first year? Malfoy only resorted to it after pedestrian jinxes like Tarantallegra, so maybe it's not that special. We don't know that for sure, and inferences we can make of it from offhand remarks in later books just go farther to show how muddled the worldbuilding can be.

She died to Molly one on one, with Molly having forcefully rebuffed attempts to help her. That doesn't seem to fly either.

 

A spec ops soldier can die to an average civilian in the right setting. That's more what I'm saying. Bellatrix losing to Molly is an example of this as opposed to it being a skill thing. More luck of the draw/chance imo.

Skill can only take you so far. In the case of Bellatrix, her magical power and experience hasn't put her at the level of say Dumbledore or Voldemort to whom other wizards are like flies.

I'm not saying I agree with Molly beating Bellatrix. It definitely strains my suspension of disbelief, but the vibe I get is that Rowling wanted this to be like a normal war.

Rowling isn't concerned about things like "power levels" and "skill." She cares about narrative. Not saying its right, but it is what it is.

Molly is an above average wizard at best. More likely, she just got lucky.

 

I'd accept that "getting lucky in the heat of a big battle" thing, but the problem is the same as that regarding just how skilled Molly herself is: an adequate explanation could be found there, but Rowling explicitly sealed it off. In this case, instead of the chaotic pell-mell that had been going on a few minutes earlier when all the other named Death Eaters went down, things had settled into a ritualized duel between Bella and Molly. It's all about the setup and execution, and it being done so badly that it actively corrodes the easy attempts at explaining it.

This could be an easy fix, of course: back when Moody showed Harry the picture of the Order, have him mention offhand that Molly joined the Order after it was taken, in response to her brothers dying. Skip or alter the scene with her and the Boggart, that'd give us a better sense that she knew what she was doing. And in Deathly Hallows, have "and Molly offed Bellatrix" be the last part of that section where Harry saw the good guys turn the tables, and skip to the final confrontation. Simple, but she very much didn't do that.

 

Sorry for the late reply.

Well, they assume that somebody messes with the broom at the moment, and seek the person based on an eye contact requirement. PoA implies a possibility of the broom being messed with earlier. The logical conclusion is that they have different requirements because they are different. Assuming logic hole without actual contradiction doesn't make sense.

He had fifty years to fill gaps in his magical knowledge. And with Hogwarts Library he certainly hasn't lacked for sources.

Please point me, where I defended Quirrel's use of wandless magic? I explicitly mention that I couldn't remember or find, and then when you showed me where it happened I admitted that you have a point.

We know few things about complexity of transfiguration because we have some insight into its teaching programme. We only see students transfiguring something into a living being in the third year, and conjurations are specifically mentioned to be learned on the NEWT level. As I said earlier, I don't imply that Malfoy is some great prodigy, but it certainly took an effort to learn something so far ahead.

Also, I've always assumed (and are still of this opinion), that the Bluebell Flame spell Hermione uses is a charm. It has special magical properties (like not burning living things), and basically all the other cases where we see some special properties for transfigured stuff those are related to animating it. Meanwhile, we know about at least two other charms that create fire - Fire-making charm and Fiendfyre, and the second one got special magical properties.

 

"I know a jinx when I see one, Hagrid, I've read all about them! You've got to keep eye contact-"

Question here: Why does Hermione assert that eye contact is necessary if, in POA, we learn that "keeping" eye contact is not? You can't just say, "They're different", because then we have two sets of jinxes to contend with, and if it's the POA one, then Snape isn't the only suspect in PS. Besides, to assert that there's another category of jinxes that don't work the way she describes is to say this bit of world-building is simply wrong, which is exactly what you're trying not to do.

But he's not supposed to do any magic after getting expelled - that's the reason you get your wand snapped if you're expelled, to make sure you can't do any additional magic. It follows that you're also not allowed to continue your studies, which he either would have done independently, compounding his own flagrant rule-breaking, or with the supervision of the teachers. If the latter, then they're also complicit in Hagrid's breaking the law. If that's the explanation you're going with, then take your pick of how much illegal shit went on for fifty years to get to that point.

Your position, as I understand it, is that we can't simply dismiss any portion of canon as inconsistent plot holes, or we have no basis for interpreting the stories at all. You may have conceded the point about Quirrel, but, well, you can't just do that, you need to take stock of what that means for your position. Wands are actually really, really important through all seven books, so it's just plain weird that Rowling would let us think even for a chapter that they're not necessary. In order to defend your argument, you need to find a way to make wandlessness fit into a series where wizards and wands are married at the hip. If you can't, then you have to admit that some inconsistencies in Rowling's writing are too large to be rationalized away.

What's the difference between a conjuration and a charm? From Rowling's own description, a charm alters an existing object, and a curse is more severe than that. Incendio takes something flammable and makes it burst into flames, a charm. Hermione's spell makes a blue flame appear where there was none, one that seems to stick around and isn't apparently tied to an existing object. How is that not conjuration?

 

I know that it may something seems otherwise with her role as an infodump machine, but Hermione isn't all-knowing, neither we are presented with her reasoning. I will repeat: there is no actual contradiction here. It might've been slip on Rowling part (she has a lot of those), it might've been a bit of worldbuilding that was never included in the books (and many of those). We don't know, but the default assumption shouldn't be that this is a mistake, only because we don't have a full information.

Dumbledore is already complicit in Hagrid's breaking of the law because he either knows about Hagrid using his broken wand or has actually fixed it. Hagrid's use of his wand is also already rule breaking, there was also the dragon, and I suspect that he doesn't have all the necessary permissions for his experimental breeding.

My position is that we shouldn't dismiss things as contradiction unless they actually contradict. If they contradict then the later info retcons earlier info. In this case, if Quirrel were able to use wandless conjuring and like, then Voldemort would be able to use them too. He never uses them, despite being in situations where he should use them and doesn't give any indication of knowing them. Neither does any other talented wizard like Snape, McGonagall or Dumbledore - all incredibly proficient with transfiguration. To this there join aforementioned balancing issues, so the matter is different there.

That's an interesting question. Curses, jinxes and hexes are described as "dark charms", yet some of them seems to be more transfigurationy (lengthening teeths), there is Water-Making Spell, which is a charm but creates water. So I don't have a good answer here. I just assume based on similarities and differences based on other spells we know categorisation of.