Yeah, I take that one back.

... Just... staring...

Cedric won't know or care about stuff, and still he did it. He conjured a dog which had a lot of metal in it. If the change had been permanent, then it follows that he could've conjured permanent, currency-wise valuable gold, too. But he cannot.

What do you think magic is, the force? Magic is magic, dude. Not some kind of energy or whatever. It is spiritual, love the or hate it. What I mean by the type of magic is the category it falls in according to its effects. And if you didn't catch that, you're rather stupid.

... Where, exactly, are you going against me here?

My canon knowledge is rusty, too, but where is it said that Pettigrew's hand was silver. Looking silver and being silver are pretty different. That aside, I still don't see where it contradicts me. Did we see Pettigrew's 'silver' hand after Voldemort died? If we didn't, then where does it refute my argument about transfiguartion being a temporary identity change of an object?

... And why for the love of God are you bringing up useless examples and cluttering up the thread?

Uh. What? Why is that relevant? I thought we all agreed that making a Philosopher's Stone was a long-term project even for a genius. So was the Elder Wans, I guess. What the fuck are you trying to show?

Oh. You know? Good for you.

Yeah, except for the fact that we're talking logic here, see. And that means thinking up things that don't contradict whatever the Whorebag has said and try to make a complete picture that can explain what we've seen in canon.

As said before: by types I meant the categpry the magic falls in by its effects.

About your Sidhe Court and things: how do you know all their magics are not The Magic as well, just different in their execution according to the mind of the user that casts them? I could write a whole essay supporting that in the Dresdenverse. But I do need my sleep, so...

As I said, I assumed transfigurations would dissipate like most normal charms and curses not specifically meant to last after the caster's death. A much more reasonable assumption that thinking every transfiguration permanent, I might add. Or, as I said, the Economy would collapse.

No, they are most likely not. I mean, counter-transfiguration. Does the name you used suggest anything to you? Jesus.

Because you like to think that way, of course, even though nowhere in canon the permanence os a transfiguration is hinted at, either.

Example, again: Crouch turning Malfoy into a ferret. I personally think it seemed to be an annoyance the way McGonagall regarded it. If the trandfiguration had been permanent, a student permanently changed into a ferret without any chance of ever getting back unless somebody cast a counter-curse... hell, sounds more like an unforgivable, Nefar. Especially considering he won't keep his own mind during ferrethood. You'd think shit like that would earn normal people an Azkaban sentence.

You stupid faggot, no I didn't. I said the dog would act like a dog and bark like a dog. Heh, if you start cutting the dog into bits, he will lose control of the spell by my theory, since the magic can't simulate the innards of a dog. It'll be as much of a dog as the caster can make it to be. A caster with the exceptional knowledge you chatter about might be able to pull it off. Cedric won't.

You know where I speculated about the dog having all that elements and compunds in its body? That was called proving a point - the point that any wizard who could do that would pull off a simple metal/gold transfiguration as well. And since everybody agreed about that, we went from there to how you can't conjure or transfigure money -- because transfigured gold isn't permanent. Or, in fact, gold.

Finally, about your post:

GoF. Yule Ball. One of the older foreign students "conjures" a friend. Iirc he was talking with one of the Gryff girls. Look it up.

... You were saying?

The last lines I'm writing in this thread, I swear, unless somebody comes along with a better argument than what I've seen till now:

In my opinion: Transfiguration means temporarily changing the shape and other assorted properties of an object or being into another, without destroying the 'soul' (for a being) or the 'sense if identity' (what the object is, and without unnatural witchery should always be) of the subject, so that the new shape and other properties follow as closely to the intended properties as the caster can make it.

For example, if a caster has never seen gold, he won't be able to transfigure shit into gold. If he'd seen but not touched it, then he won't pull off the weight and feel part. If he's extremely familiar with gold, he'll be able to make a more than passable impression of it Which, although, won't survive the first counter-curse. Or the caster's death.

 

Actually, that point is completely invalid. Calling it counter-transfiguration (which I am pretty sure it is not called in the books) is just like calling apparition 'disapparition'. What is the difference between the two? Nothing, just the perspective. If you have something that you have recently transfigured and you are going to transfigure it back, you will call it 'untransfiguring' or 'counter-tranfiguring'.

 

I'm pretty sure every single argument in this thread has been raised before in this one.

Oh well.

Regarding permanence of Transfiguration:

1. JKR states Transfiguration on her site as that which changes the actual properties of objects, as opposed to overlaying/altering an effect or merely changing appearance.

2. In Fantastic Beasts, reference is given to a species that was created by a family of wizards transfiguring themselves into a creature of their own creation. Centuries later, these creatures are still roaming the island. So not only did the transfiguration last for the entirety of those wizard's lives, it also was so complete as to allow fertility.

3. We have never seen a Transfiguration reverse itself without the active participation of a wizard.

All of these point to the fact that, if transfiguration is temporary (which I find unlikely), then it still lasts long enough for the distinction between temporary and permanent to be meaningless in terms of human perspective.

Regarding the knowledge needed for Transfiguration:

I disagree with this. We've seen students and adult wizards transfigure all sorts of things, and I don't think anyone would claim that these students and wizards know absolutely everything about what they're transfiguring. Extreme case: inanimate to animate transfiguration: the transfigurer is not going to know everything about the biology and chemistry of the animal they are making.

Thus it is reasonable to assume that the spell being used fills in the gaps in the caster's knowledge. You specify "rabbit", and the transfiguration spell - when cast correctly - makes a rabbit, regardless of what the wizard knows about rabbits.

If this wasn't the case, a wizard would have to know pretty much everything about physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, neurology, locomotion, and a whole lot of other things, just to transfigure a single animal. We've seen wizards transfigure animals, and it's also fair to assume that they don't know the above things, thus knowledge (of the desired object) isn't a requirement of transfiguration.

 

It is possible to conjure pure metals. Go back and read the end of the 4th book where Voldemort conjures PP a silver hand.

If you can conjure silver, I don't see why you couldn't conjure gold.

The only way that we can explain why everyone doesn't do it is that it must be extremely difficult, and there are probably laws against it. Remember, the average witch/wizard sucks at magic. I'm thinking you would have to be an extremely talented and knowledgeable wizard to conjure metals. Voldemort can get away with it because he's untouchable.

As for rules, conjuration of gold or other precious metals probably carries a very heavy Azkaban sentence. Even if we agree that conjuring metals is extremely difficult, one ambitious and talented wizard could just conjure a shitload of gold, flood the market, and throw the economy out of wack. That's why there must be other forces at play (ie goblins).

We know the goblins have a monopoly on banking in the wizarding world. They undoubtedly have controls in place to prevent counterfeit coins from getting into circulation, and can probably spot a counterfeit easily via some strange goblin magic or identification system. If we accept this as true, it would be an extremely dangerous endeavor if you tried to move a large amount of (un)coined metal, and would not be worth it when you consider a 15+ year stay in Azkaban, with its horrendous conditions and dementors.

 

Yeah, transfiguration being permanent is charity book canon.

Although the origin of the Quintapeds is unconfirmed, the fact that the wizarding governmnet tried to untransfigure the beasts means that transfigurations are something that needs to be reversed not something that reverts by itself.

 

No. When you're transfigured, your mind becomes that of the animal you've been changed into. I'm not sure how exactly this works with inanimate objects, but with animal to animal the minds change. This is why they have animagus. Why not just transfigure yourself into a bird? Because then you have the mind of a bird and don't know what you were trying to fly to.

I'm pretty sure this was stated by JKR somewhere, but I can't remember where off the top of my head. I'll look for it later and see if she said anything about inanimate objects.

Having said that, I suppose Malfoy was basically and fundamentally human, but his body and mind were not.

 

The existence of the soul in HP allows for body and mind to have changed but for something to have been unchanged. I would say that when a person is transfigured into an animal both their body and mind becomes animalistic, but their character, in so far as an animal can have one, remains the same, due to their soul (I maintain that you can't transfigure souls, as A they're non-physical and B if you could then you could create fully functioning humans via transfiguring a rock into a person).

 

Why couldn't you transfigure something into a human? We are animals after all, and not particularly big ones at that. IIRC we see someone in the OWL test transfigure a flock of flamingos. Why would it be harder to transfigure one human than a whole flock of flamingos?

We've already established that you don't need to know every little detail of the anatomy of whatever you're trying to transfigure. If that was the case, transfiguration of animals would be virtually impossible. You don't need to know what the brain looks like, how the stomach and digestive system is structured, etc, etc.

It seems like all you need to have is a good image of the outside of the body, and the magic will do the rest.

Personally, I think it would be funny if someone put a scene in a fic where someone transfigures, say, a rock into a human, and it flips out due to suddenly existing, where it did not exist before. And hijinks ensue.

 

Well, we know that wizards and witches believe they have souls, as the Dementor's Kiss sucks their soul out. I wonder if transfiguring someone who was Kissed would be any different from someone that hadn't.

 

Just to throw the idea out there regarding permanent (not requiring some form of continuous energy/will from the caster of the transfiguration) / non-permanent (transfigurations that "run out" or otherwise revert on their own, either after a set period of time, or after a wizard's death) do we have any example of permanent transfiguration other than these Quintapeds? And if so, did one person transfigure them all, or did each wizard/witch transfigure his or her self?

If it was the latter, it might be possible to argue that the non-permanent interpretation might still be normally valid, for a wizard (presumably remaining magical) might still be fueling the magic to hold himself transfigured into the other form. In other words, self-transfigurations might be sustained by the magic of the witch or wizard themselves, while other-transfiguration would revert.

Not saying that's what happens, (I tend, in fact, to lean toward the theory that transfigurations are whole, self-contained, permanents spells) just wondering if there's other evidence on the issue aside from this (singular?) incident of the Quintapeds.

Also, if you do transfigure something non-magical (a rock) into something magical (crushed bicorn horn, or whatnot) I'd tend to assume that the transfiguration would not be able to convey the magical properties the natural product would have. In other words, no making veritaserum from a pile of hay.

Opinions?

And trying to make magic make sense might be an exercise in futility but it sure is fun. ^_^

 

Other evidence is a bit of a problem, in that you can never prove that something is permanent - only that it has lasted a very long time. But we have never seen a transfiguration revert, indicating (to me) that all transfiguration is permanent.

Edit: I'm majorly cut off from the 'net at the moment, which is the reason for my lack of posting. Hopefully my new router will arrive soon.