For the love of god, it's 'canon' when referring to books and the information shown therein. 'Cannon' is, always has been and always will be something that goes 'boom' and hurls cannonballs.

Jesus fucking Christ, people.

 

Wikipedia cracks me up:

 

Yes, please stop saying "cannon" when you mean "canon," because it's really really really confusing for me when I'm trying to read whatever point you're making, to the extent that I have absolutely no clue what the fuck you meant and can only focus on your gross typographical error.

 

Why? What makes it feasible?

I don't think "logical" means what you think it means.

Your post is just you throwing around ideas. Do you have any actual reasons why other people should think those ideas are so?

 

Hold up.

I always forget how the arguments for 'wizards are more resistant physically than muggles' ended up, but remember points about bludgers, in real-life, causing serious injury and death on the impact of normal people, whereas school-aged wizards - bar the odd broken bone - seem to be able to shrug it off... and something about wizards living longer than muggles.

Anyway, if you think about certain spells and what they're designed to do - stunners which render people unconscious, banishers which hurl people across the room, the self-explanatory blasting curse, the body-bind which suddenly and forcefully locks joints in place, jelly legs hexes, leg lockers, that densaugeo spell that caused Hermione's teeth to expand, hurling hexes, horn-tongue hex, short-bursts of the cruciatus, etc, etc - and the effects these would have on the average human body, it isn't such a dramatic leap of faith to imagine that wizards might be more resistant to the effects of magic - or at least the physical effects of magic - than your average muggle. We see examples of very young wizards and witches literally walk away from these spells. I'm not sure when you were last hurled across the room (though I'll presume it wasn't recently enough), but that sort of thing isn't necessarily something people just get up and forget about.

While I'm no biologist, a functional pig tail attached to the base of a human spine must qualify as some sort of physical effect.

 

There are several issues here and they're getting quite mixed up.

(1) There's the difference between a physical and magical effect.

(2) There's the issue of whether the effects of spells wear off.

(3) There's the issue of the cause of spells wearing off.

(4) There's the issue of whether wizards are more physically hardy than Muggles.

Each in turn...

1 is the difference, essentially, between Transfiguration and a Charm. Both are magic, of course, but Transfiguration is magic which changes something's physical make-up, whereas a Charm overlays a magical effect.

2. I would venture that Charms wear off but Transfigurations don't. The reason why I shouted "Hairy McBoons" earlier was because they are an example of a transfiguration that not only lasted the length of a family of wizards' lives, but also was passed down to their offspring. We know that some charms wear off, however, such as the Stunning charm. Dark Arts appear to need to be fixed.

3 is up in the air. The suggestion at hand, that "internal magic" undoes spells, is groundless. Certainly it doesn't seem to undo Transfigurations. There's nothing to say that it's something to do with the wizard, and not the spell, that dictates when a spell wears off.

4 is debatable. In day to day activities wizards don't seem to display extraordinary physical abilities. Higher age is of course obvious, reflex speed may be higher, and resistance to injuries may exist, or may just be a result of superior healing abilities. Now, I'm quite amenable to the idea that wizards are physically superior to Muggles, just because I like anything that makes wizards superior to Muggles. But A It's not definitive that wizards have superior physical abilities and B If they do, it's not clear if the superiority stems from physiology or magic.

 

Actually, guys, I just remembered in HBP, Harry is petrified, and he says that the only way to be released from it is if the wizard releases the petrification, or he dies. Ergo, this could apply to some magical things, but other things don't. On a side note, if we really want to talk about how long transfiguration and such like lasts, then maybe a new thread should be created?

 

That's such an annoying example. Not because I think you're annoying, but because of the circumstances surrounding that particular instance of spellcasting.

Anyone can release another wizard from a petrification spell - just like any wizard can use Ennervate on a wizard that they themselves didn't stun. THAT SAID, Dumbledore's spell on Harry was cast by the Elder Wand; we have no clue about the duration or intensity of spells cast by that wand, nor can I recall an instance where someone had to dismantle a spell cast by Dumbledore. It's also been established that the wand has a degree of potency that makes the impossible, possible (e.g. repairing another wand with Reparo, which was supposed to be impossible).

So yeah: really really annoying example.

 

Harry isn't exactly a Charms master, in fact, he's of decidedly average intelligence. His word on the matter has to be taken with a pinch of salt. Also, the person who cast the spell is not the only person who can undo its effects. This is proven countless times throughout the books (see Harry's petrification of Dolohov in Chapter 35 of OotP.)

tl;dr = You're incorrect.

EDIT- Sniped.

 

Ah yes, didn't think of the fact that it was the elder wand. Also, it may be that Harry isn't the sharpest knife in the block, but after 6 years in schooling, one does have the annoying tendency to pick up a few things. And just because there is no reported evidence of Dumbledores crap being undone, doesn't mean that it isn't possible. But I digress...

 

Ahh I am starting to see where my argument seems illogical to others. I think it is because of how I personally imagine magical theory to work. I personally don't imagine that most transfiguration causes a "true" change in the structure of the subject. To explain it best I would ask you imagine one of those plastic ball atomic strutural representations of diamond (loads of carbon atoms). Lets say someone transfigures a match into a diamond. When I picture the structural representation of the transfigured diamond, I imagine an golden energy thread that warps some atoms simplifying them to resemble carbon. Other atoms would be made up entirely of the golden energy, which would perfectly mimick the effects of carbon.

This is my little explanation for Gamp's Law. You can't eat transfigured food because it isn't truly food. At some point that golden energy holding the transfigured object into the structure of food will break down.

With that in mind I feel that transfiguration would work on the person much llike a charm would. At some point it would wear off. Im not saying it is cannon but kindly point out how it is illogical.

 

It is not illogical. But almost everything is not illogical. All a thing needs to be logical is to be free from self-contradiction.

Merely being free from immediate absurdity is a far cry from being convincing.

This is why I said that I don't think "logical" means what you think it means.

Your argument is neither deductive nor evidence-based. It's just the presentation of a non-absurd idea. There are many such ideas. I'll repeat what I said earlier: why should we accept your version? Such an argument will need to involve more than just outlining what it is you're suggesting. You need to show either how parts of canon support it, or how it must be so.

Regardless, word of God says you're wrong. When I said that Transfiguration changes objects fundamentally whereas Charms magically overlays properties, I wasn't just pulling it out of nowhere. It's from JKR:

http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/extrastuff_view.cfm?id=24

That is, a Charm "does not fundamentally alter the properties of the subject of the spell, but adds, or changes, properties", which is contrasted to a Transfiguration.

 

Quoting JKR seems fairly redundant to me considering how much she conflicts herself. Off the top of my head, Gamp's law certainly suggests otherwise as well as some of the botched transfigurations we have seen. I'll expand a little

The fact that you can't sustain yourself on transfigured food suggests that any changes brought about by transfiguration are not "true". If the changes aren't true, either the transfigured object isn't fundementally identical to organic matter, or there is an magical overlay element to transfiguration. I choose to believe the latter. If transfigured organic matter wasn't identical to the authentic material it wouldn't be possible to transfigure living animals, considering how massively complex they are. Plus think about all the botched transfigurations- e.g. living mouse/snufflebox hybrids. To me that screams magical overlay.

Next issue can internal magic affect the success or effective duration of a magical overlay. Firstly what do I mean internal magic. Spells are cast by the hand via a wand. Legilemency through the eyes moving away from the body. In both cases the point of origin is the body. When you consider the properties of magical animal blood, I don't find it a big leap in deduction to imagine that humans magic is also contained within the body. The other possibility is that a wizard only creates magic when they are actively working with it (admittedly that is also a fair argument).



And I fully understanfd what logic means. If you go back you'll see this whole thing started with Portus' comment

I took the position that it isn't actually illogical.

 

I don't know if I've ever seen someone so adamantly not listen to single thing that they've been told.


Also - Anyone else miss the introduction forum?

 

Fix'd for chu.

 

I'm pretty sure when we all realise that there can be speculation about things like this, but no canon evidence, then we'll all shut up.

 

Actually, I'd say Gamp's Law on food suggests that you can truly transfigure one thing into another.

Just to be clear, the entire name of the food law is: The First Principal Exception to Gamp's Law of Transfiguration.

This name shows, that not being able to create food is an exception in transfiguration. That would mean, that you can truly transfigure and conjure other things.

And if the the impossibility of conjuring food wouldn't mean, that you can truly conjure other things, this exception of the law would still show your theory of transfiguration to be false.

For if you can't truly transfigure anything anyway, why would there be a need for an specific law or exception for the impossibility to create food? According to your theory, not being able to create food is already implied by the rules of transfiguration themselves, just like it would be impossible to truly transfigure a table or cat. Creating an exception for food would be redundant.

And that's all completely from canon.

 

Some of the confusion seems to be that Hw597 thinks that you can transfigure food, but that it won't sustain you. So far as we can see, this is false - you simply can't transfigure food in the first place.