Same could be said for a cow's internal structure though, or a mouse's.

 

Perhaps conventional logic does. However, I fail to see how that matters, as HP magic doesn't seem to care about conventional logic. In addition, you can expect me to believe that a bunch of kids knew the biology of a number of animals and insects well enough to conjure or transfigure them. And even if you did convince me of that, you can't expect me to believe that they could also visualize that biology so well as to use Transfiguration frequently.

 

I'm in support of the idea that biological knowledge isn't needed for Transfiguration - there's no way 14 year olds (which was how old they are when they're turning things into animals) know the totality of knowledge about the internal biology of these animals. Even if the wizards have the knowledge (which they might - I should imagine magic is very useful for investigating Biology), most 14 year olds simply aren't smart enough to handle information that advanced.

I do think that more complex bodies are harder to Transfigure (there is clearly a progression of difficulty in the subject from simple objects to more complex ones), but that the way you succeed in overcoming this difficulty is not biological knowledge, but rather superior knowledge of Transfiguration theory.

 

That's what I meant. I imagine Dumbledore would be the only person to pull it off. There's no internal structure to a bean bag chair, but no one else is pulling them out of the void like tissue papers. Perhaps it simply takes a superior grasp of magic, the prodigious kind of talent that only someone like Dumbledore would have.

EDIT: Although, the reverse side seems easy enough. I know of at least one definite case of transfiguring a corpse into something else to conceal it (GoF).

 

Um... Can anyone here even name all organelles and tell their internal structures? What about the molecules that make up these organs? What about the atoms in the molecules, and their component quarks? Do you think eleven years old kids can remember the whole DNA sequence of a mouse?

It's clear that no biological, physical or chemical knowledge is required.

 

You clearly need to know how a mouse looks like in order to transfigure one.

 

What I meant was that you have to know nothing of the animal's internal workings.

 

I don't believe that. If you transfigure something into a jellyfish, you should know that it doesn't have bones... I agree that you don't need to study animals in order to do transfiguration, though.

 

Why? (Visualisation in Transfiguration is fanon). It seems to me that it's all about the spell. You do the spell and somehow everything about a rabbit (or whatever) is packed into the spell. The magic supplies the details.

 

You can't transfigure something to be in a specific color?

 

JKR has said that magic is all about will. You just have to want the rock to become a mouse and green (or any other colour).

I'm not sure if you even have to know what a mouse is to transfigure one. Harry cast Sectumsempra without knowing what the spell does...and he did it silently, to boot.

 

I thought he shouted it when he didn't know what it was. He performed Levicorpus silently.

 

There is a color changing spell. Harry didn't cast it right accident in his Charms OWL. Instead, he caste a Growth Charm.

 

A certain amount of skill would be required to cast the spell in the first place. If not the shape of the animal, what would this skill be geared towards? It's highly unlikely that there would be a different spell for every small tweak in your desired transfiguration outcome. As that would entail a guy who mastered transfiguration would know a seemingly infinite number of spells.
It therefore seems likely that the shape of the desired outcome is required to help shape the spell, which would then supply the details of the internal structure and whatnot.

 

As an on topic aside, I've handled any major magical conflicts in my fic as largely gigantic clusterfucks of 1v1 duels, with the occasional fall backs and regrouping to launch forward again into the enemy.

There are no wizarding soldiers, which makes any concept of warfare like we know it difficult to comprehend. Remember even "the final battle" is just the wizarding law enforcement with some teachers and members of the public trying to subdue a powerful terrorist group

 

For one, terrorist aren't soldiers to began with, nor would I say that being a terrorist means you know how to fight like a soldier.

There's a reason why Terrorist lost to trained soldiers even when the soldiers are not using heavy equipments and calling in air strikes.

 

*Cough*Vietnam*Cough*Afghanistan*Cough*

(For the sake of this discussion the Vietnamese can be called terrorists, in so much as they used the same style of warfare as Voldemort).

 

And for the longest time Pakistan (though with the conquest of Swat - though again, air strikes were essential here, this might - stress on the might - be changing). South Waziristan is still completely in the hands of a terrorist (Mehsud) btw.