I think Avada Kedavra is unforgivable because it not only kills your body but also your soul. It erases your soul, totally fucking with it. The unforgiveable curses all screw with something; the mind (Imperious), the body (Crucio) or the spirit (Avada Kedavra).

Now that that's said, I agree with Taure that it depends on how Protego is cast. Except as Harry becomes older his Protego changes and so does his idea of a 'shield' for protection. Same goes for all other wizards and witches: their know more about their fears/enemies and their idea of Protego changes to accomodate it.

 

If that was the case, how did Harry summon his parents in DH? You know, with their souls being erased an all.

 

...alright, perhaps I didn't think that all the way through.

 

This is a matter of opinion.

I generally dislike duels with loads of new offensive spells and shields. Not only do they seem cluttered, but also rather unimaginative. All it is is a load of new spells. Where's the skill in that? I've also long disliked the idea of "Auror level spells" or any such idea. In my mind, Voldemort and Dumbledore's duel at the MoM is the ideal duel that all writers should try to emulate. Most of the magic they used was magic that could be learnt in Hogwarts, just performed to a high level of skill and deployed tactically and with good timing.

I actually find the idea of there being one shield charm with a number of manifestations far more unique and interesting than that of there being a shield spell for every occasion. It just a much more sophisticated idea.

Not that there aren't other ways of countering spells. For example, in OotP Voldemort countered Dumbledore's fire whip by transfiguring it into a snake.

So yeah, you can't make a blanket statement "churning out a load of spells that are mostly the same but for "this one's more uber and is BRONZE" is more interesting that actually coming up with a magical system with depth".

 

Ah, but it's only logical. We know for sure there are lots of spells not taught at Hogwarts, some of whose might be useful in combat. We also know that, for example, Patronus Charm is one not taught at Hogwarts and rather useful to Aurors, making it an Auror-level spell.

I dislike the idea that you can learn everything about magic in 7 years, so that all you've left after leaving the school is practice.

 

I think, Taure meant the labeling of magic. For ex. "Auror-level spell" or "Battle magic". Magic is just that effing Magic, could be used for cleaning dishes or behead somebody in quite spectacular way O_0

It irks me every time authors start talking about books on "Battle Magic"...

 

There's a difference between "not taught at Hogwarts" and "not available at Hogwarts".

An industrious student can learn almost all there is to know about practical magic at Hogwarts, IMO, with the possible exception of the Occlumency, Legilimency, some of the more obscure Dark magic (though even Horcrux creation was covered by the Hogwarts library, pre-Dumbledore), wandlore, and so called "ancient magic" such as the way in which Lily's sacrifice worked.

For example, the Patronus charm is (maybe) not taught in Charms of Defence class, but it is certainly not an "auror level spell". It is beyond doubt that it's in the library, and we've seen that 13 year old mediocre wizards and 16 year old wizards can perform it. It's just that there isn't time to teach it in Charms.

As for transfiguration, by the time you've got a NEWT in it you can pretty much do everything in the field (presuming you have mastered everything in the syllabus). Inanimate-inanimate, inanimate-animate, animate-inanimate, animate-animate, vanishing, conjuration. Only the animagus is not covered.

And even in Charms I'm not convinced that there's a lot that's left untaught. I'm not sure if you've seen my ideas about how spells work in canon, and about how there's possibly a lot less of them than we think.

And I wouldn't say it's quite "you can learn everything about magic in 7 years, so that all you've left after leaving the school is practice.".

It's more like you're equiped with the ability to learn everything about magic in seven years.

So, for example, and bringing this back to the topic of this thread: you learn the Shield Charm in school. This has equiped you to be able to cast many variations of this spell, and cast it in varying degrees of strength, all according to your skill.

As a 7th year your skill may be such that you only are able to cast it with a medium strength and limited control over its varying forms.

As you increase in skill you develop greater flexibility with your spells. But it's down to you: you've learnt all that can be taught when you were taught the Charm, now it's down to you to master it, which may take years or days, depending on if you're Harry or Dumbledore.

There is a lot about magic, in my opinion, that cannot be taught, but rather developed personally. This is why all the greatest wizards in the series are creative people.

Hogwarts teaches, or provides the opportunity to learn, pretty much everything about magic, as I see it. I don't see Lord Voldemort at 60 years knowing all that much more about magic than Tom Riddle at age 18, really, proportional to his total knowledge. Maybe he's created the odd spell here and there, learnt some new secret of the Dark arts every so often, but I generally see his progression during those years as not so much knowing new things so much as knowing the things he already knows better.

 

That's completely unrealistic

Do you honestly think that an organization like an Auror force won't compile a list of spells that every active auror should know ? And do you not think if, say, a retired auror wants to sell what amounts to a book of spells that they've found useful through their career, they won't give it a fairly catchy title - such as, I dunno, battle magic?

Do you also think that, considering how hard it is to become an auror, that part of that hardship of joining the force won't involve mastery of a certain caliber of spells (for the sake of argument, we'll call them 'auror-level spells')?

And in an institution such as Hogwarts, do you think that they organize their books solely by title and author? Don't you think they'll have sections and subsections for those looking to focus on a specific purpose?

Fanon abuse of an idea doesn't make it any less reasonable.

 

We've already been told such a list. It is composed thus: NEWT Transfiguration, Charms, DADA, Potions.

Pre-empting the response "but don't you think Aurors would learn new spells?": no, I do not. Not a great many at least. Probably varies from trainee to trainee.

There is a difference between being able to cast a great Stunning spell and being able to duel well. There is a difference between being able to change the colour of your hair and being able to infiltrate somewhere. There's a difference between knowing what an entrail-expelling curse does and being able to discern that it has been used from a body.

This is what I think Auror training teaches people. They know the magic from Hogwarts. Now they just have to know how to use it.

 

I agree with Taure.

I dislike the idea that magic is just rote memorisation of a massive list of spells, followed by practice to get better at them. The idea being that aurors simply 'learn moar' vs. learning how to specifically apply what they know towards the skills an auror needs to have refined.

Taking transfiguration as an example. Do we really believe that there is a separate incantation to turn every possible x into every possibly y? I certainly hope not. I find it much more reasonable that there are a few of these, designed primarily to instruct young students on how transfiguration works, without going into the nitty gritty quite yet. After which a more general transfiguration spell is used, combined with the caster learning to channel their will with the detail and focus needed to make transfiguration work. Aurors would be refining this to a greater degree - not learning uber spellz that let you turn rocks into chainsaws or obsidian sheilds.

 

No one's saying it's just a matter of memorizing spells, but it's probably a large part of it.

I'd argue that they have to be familiar with a ton of NEWT level spells, which involves deeper study of those they surveyed in school, and an introduction to new spells. In terms of becoming an Auror, they probably will have winnowed it down to a few spells that they perform extremely well, or are extremely versatile for them. That doesn't change that they still had to learn about a large body of spells while training.

So yes, I do think that aurors would learn about uber spellz taht let one turn rocks into chainsaws, and how to cast obsidian shields. Whether or not they decide to add it to their body of spells used in the field, or to pass their final examination, is up to them.

Aren't you guys in college? I thought you'd be familiar with the idea of learning/being introduced to a shit-ton of information that you won't use...

 

This is all a matter of opinion, as Taure said, but I would disagree with most of the above statements.

LV at 60 not knowing much more magic than 18-year-old Tom Riddle just strikes me as implausible. Conceiving of Hogwarts as primary school and college rolled into one is an elegant solution for what's missing from canon (i.e, the so-called 'auror-level spells'), but surely there's much more to learn than what's available to 11-year-olds.

I agree with Vlad with respect to transfiguration--Hogwarts teaches you the principles and thereafter it's a matter of practice and mastery. But surely there are charms and spells that are only available to older and more powerful wizards.

With respect to shields, I don't see any reason why there couldn't be two or three advanced shields that can be learned after 'protego.' We even see Voldemort cast a special shield in the DoM fight. I too get irritated by totally new magic with gibberish latin names, but the idea that protego stops everything short of the unforgivables is just as odd to me.

 

As discussed before, this could just as easily have been conjuration.

 

While Hogwarts probably teaches majority of the spells that Auror's need, it's ridiculous to claim that it teaches them all. Hogwarts is a school; it's not even supposed to teach advanced combat magic, only enough for self-defence (and the Ministry didn't like even that level of proficiency). For example, Hogwarts doesn't seem to teach any spells that can affect multiple opponents simultaneously. Hell, apparently majority of wizards cannot even cast a passable Protego.

 

The reason that it strikes you as implausible is because you're still thinking in terms of magical repertoire = spells. The more spells you know, the more magic you know.

But if you think as I do, then it's more like magic repertoire = what you can do. In which case we can say that Voldemort at 60 knows a lot more magic than Voldemort at 18, but not that many more spells. Because of his greater skill at that age, he can do a lot more with magic. Thus we can say he knows more magic. But he's doing this with the same spells: just advanced usage of them.

As I note earlier in the thread, the text says that he conjures a silver shield. I.e. a physical block, not a magical one.

Only Killing Curse is unblockable.

See my earlier post:

I admit that there are spells out there not available at Hogwarts. However, if we consider the amount of these spells as a proportion of the total number of spells known, I'd argue that this proportion is small.

 

It's a tidy, and, like I said, elegant explanation for how education works in the wizarding world. The trouble is that Hogwarts seems to teach so little. Think of the offensive and defensive spells that Harry learns at Hogwarts (most of which he has to learn himself): stupefy, protego, confringo, reducto, etc. That's a tiny list, even if it's not exhaustive. Moreover, we know that Snape invented a new offensive spell--sectumsempra--as a teenager. Surely there are similar inventions all over the wizarding world.

Potatoe, potato. The block may be a physical one, but the conjuration is still magic. And I have no problem saying that advanced shields require conjuration skills.

 

Harry is hardly the prime student to use as an example. Moreover, we never know how many spells he knows of that we don't. In DH he uses new offensive spells that we had previously not heard of him learning.

And again, you're still thinking in your old mindset. That list only looks small to you because you're thinking one spell = one effect.

That list looks long to me, because I can think of a number of ways that they could manifest.

For example, and this is a bit extreme for most people to accept readily, but I feel it illustrates my point, I consider Dumbledore's mysterious spell that raised Harry's hair on end nothing but an extremely well cast Stupefy.

Edit: I'll also point out that this discussion has been had a few times before: http://forums.darklordpotter.net/showthread.php?t=9652

 

lol, well, I guess I'll just have to continue in my state of benighted simple-mindedness. We need not open the floodgates to thousands of pig latin gibberish spells, but the existence of advanced spells doesn't make any less sense to me than saying there's only one spell (e.g., stupefy) with dozens of different applications.

 

Hogwarts is a school for magic – it's not Sandhurst for Wizards. There is a very good reason that the spells Harry teaches himself aren't taught to first years. Even in a more traditional, patriarchal society, I doubt you want to give an eleven year old the power to render an adult unconscious, or give them the magical equivalent of a shotgun.


And again, Hogwarts teaches most of what you need to know. Like Taure pointed out, transfiguration covers everything but animagi. Sure, they won't specifically transform rocks into swords or... a hamster into a pickup truck, but the ability to do so is there.


Same with potions. Hogwarts does not teach one how to brew every potion, ever. It gives you enough knowledge to competently achieve anything you need in every day life, as well as enough fundamentals that you ought to be able to brew anything on your own. Just because Hogwarts doesn't go around making love potions or poisons does not mean that they don't know how.


So yes, there are lots of spells that aren't specifically covered at Hogwarts. But what Taure and I are arguing is that by the nature of magic in the HP verse, it isn't necessary to have that many actual spells out there. Much more important is a fundamental understanding of how magic works, and after that, doing any one thing with it is fairly easy.


I suppose by nature we have no way to prove that magic works one way or another in HP world. However, I like it to be elegant and interesting. A magical system that requires every possible outcome to have a unique spell associated with it is neither.