You had far more logical reasons for it, I just assumed that JKR assumed that her readers were competent enough to understand it and didn't feel the need to interject the words every few seconds.

As far as I remember, Voldemort only vocalises three spells in all seven books— the unforgivables. Maybe I'm wrong, but that says something to me about those spells.

 

But this is makes a mockery of the curse. It's meant to be the big daddy of Dark Arts and as enembee pointed out it is pretty simple to move something in the way of a curse (with practice at least). This use of AK makes the spell no more of a hastle than any other of the dark arts.

Actually, if someone were to have fiendfyre cast at them I would say they were in the shitter more than if they had an AK bearing down on them. Should it really be that way?

I just want to be clear I am not commenting on wat is, but what I think should be.

 

With Voldemort being the exception, the Killing curse won't try and kill you like fiendfyre would.

 

I always believed that the Unforgivables were easy to learn; that is why the laws are so harshly enforced.

If I was threatened of going to jail for the rest of my life, I would never even get close to learning the Unforgivables.

All you need is anger and hate (and a disregard for life) to power most of these curses. It is really not that hard to bring up anger but fear can make most people stop in their tracks from doing something that could get them in a lot of trouble.

Harry managed the Cruciatus Curse twice (the second time succeeding), and the Imperius Curse without even trying. Auror's are allowed to use the curses in the second war. Obviously, these curses are not that hard to get down, just no one wants to go to jail forever.

Example: Japan. Very few people smoke weed in Japan because, if caught, you can go to jail for over 3 years. Therefore... No one smokes pot or they are extremely good at sneaking around.

 

Thats why. But I'll restate it in simple terms for you.

It is very hard to block the spell with a physical object, you would have to get it in just the right position at just the right moment. Thats why its so difficult to defend against. You can't cast a shield, so your options are to try and get a piece of something solid in front of it, or to throw yourself out of the way. In a fight being reduced to only two options is a very bad place to be...

 

This is all complete nonsense. The only magic that is objectively "difficult" is magic that requires an emotional component to cast - as far as we know, every single other spell is a matter of wand movement and incantation, plus PRACTICE. Thus Conjuration is not any more "difficult" than any other magic - seriously, what does that even mean? The only thing I can think of is that it requires more practice due to a more difficult wand movement and/or incantation! There is no reason why any seasoned duelist should not be completely proficient at conjuring relatively large objects given the utility this provides in a duel, even completely ignoring it being the best active defense against a Killing Curse.

The fact that this is not the situation in canon is simply an indication of poorly thought-out worldbuilding and nothing else.

 

I'm sorry but have we been reading the same books?

Compare Harry using sectumsempra perfectly first time to the constant practising of the summoning charm. Clearly some spells are far easier to use.

 

Ok, yes, but why? Is it something that the caster can control in learning the spell? Because there's no indication of this in canon. That only shows that some spells require more practice than others to get right, and there's no excuse for not practicing a fool-proof defense against the Killing Curse.

"More difficult" is a very nebulous concept that I don't really give any credence to barring direct canon evidence (that doesn't say "oh this spell is more difficult" but doesn't give any substantial reason for).

I'm having some trouble articulating my point... what I'm trying to say is that there is nothing in canon that directly correlates to the difficulty of a spell beyond its individual components. The fact that Harry couldn't learn the Summoning charm very fast doesn't mean that it's inherently harder to cast, barring the wand motion and incantation (Accio, really?).

 

Bollocks. Obviously some spells are more difficult to cast, other wise there would be no differentiation between first year spells and NEWT spells. Similarly there would be no reason for the majority of the population to be unable to cast such a generically useful spell as the protego charm? If everything is easy to cast, then every useful spell would be known by every person.

 

Thus I have to assume that Rowling has fucked up one of the following:

- Her system of magic, in that she has failed to adequately describe why some spells are more difficult than others.

Or

- Her worldbuilding, in that she has ascribed terribly unrealistic talent/skill/performance to most of the wizarding world.

I choose the second, because it makes debating points on magic actually possible. Also, supported by the rest of her plot holes/contradictions/missing common sense.

 

Of the two, this is the logical conclusion. But I don't see it as an error.

JKR writes about wizards. Her readers are not wizards. Thus the reader trying to imagine how it would feel to cast magic is a bit like trying to imagine how it would be to hold a banana with your tail.

 

I'm with NMB on this. There is no way for us to imagine or understand something that is totally outwith our reality. Accept that some spells are easy, some are hard. These spells might vary from person to person, or they might not. We have no way of knowing.

 

I accept that as a legitimate viewpoint, but the idea that something you are supposed to learn in your seventh year of schooling, should you choose to go on with the subject, is so difficult to learn as to be impossible for certain people is rather hard to believe. I know that in canon wizards are generally incompetent tools, but I don't accept that it is "correct" that they are incapable of certain feats of magic with enough practice.

I guess I'll just have to live with my frustration. That said, Conjuration is not the only defense against the Killing curse, simply the best one. Moving objects into its path is also one, and Molly Weasely is (not) a talented battlemage but can nonverbally animate several objects at once, as is shown in her kitchen.

 

There are certain subjects that are taken at A-Level (the 'muggle' equivalent of NEWTS, so to speak) that are beyond the abilities of some (most) people. Walk up to the average person on the street and ask them if they'd even heard of compound angle formulae and I imagine they would give you an extraordinarily gormless expression. Doubly so if you presented them with a copy of A Street Car Named Desire and asked them how the theme of dreams and reality contribute to the play.

Even if you sat down and explained it to them, they'd probably still be completely lost.

Likewise, I suck balls at trying to paint anything and Steven Hawking can't sing worth a damn.

The point I'm trying to make is that no person is good at all things and most people are hopeless at most things. I imagine the same is true of wizards.

 

Making the analogy of comparing skill sets to different classes of magic works, I guess. But isn't NEWT Transfiguration a requirement for being an Auror (and probably most non-menial professions)?

Bleh. Whatever.

 

And Aurors are few and far between...very few and very far as far as I can tell from canon. So you can't expect them to be a rule of thumb as to how most folk will act in a magical fight.

 

There's actually nothing in the books that says NEWT Transfiguration (and Potions, Herbology, Charms and DADA) are required to be an Auror. McGonagall only says he needs five NEWTS and goes on the suggest those, because they're useful for an Auror. It should, however, be possible to pick one or two other subjects and become an Auror, as long as you pass the necessary tests.

That does raise the question, why Harry didn't just pick Care of Magical Creatures when he assumed Potions was out. Maybe he simply misunderstood what McGonagall was telling him. There was a bit of a.. distracting presence after all.

To come back to blocking the Killing Curse with Conjuration and Summoning, ect. While it definitely is possible for skilled wizards to summon or conjure things big enough to block that curse, doing it in the middle of a fight is a whole other story. To be able to think of the right object and conjure it in mid-air, right in front of the curse, or to find and summon/banish something around you in it's path will be a lot more difficult when the Green Light of Death is coming right at you. Most spells can be blocked by a normal Shield Charm, so when someone uses a spell that can't be blocked normally, most people won't think 'I have to conjure a chicken' or 'I have to banish that piece of wall over here'. They'll simply think 'MOVE'. Especially, but not solely, when it comes down to wizards unused to combat.

Moving out of the way of the curse will also feel a lot safer for most wizards, whose conjurations of summonings might not be timed right or simply fail. There's, like I said, a big difference between doing something right in your kitchen and doing it in the middle of a high stress battle. Which kind of sucks in one of those 'do-or-die' situations. Only highly experienced and skilled wizards will be able to use such a method of blocking spells reliably in a fight.

 

Heh.

Given the often staggering differences between learning spells and applying in real-time situations, I don't think putting something in the way of a Killing Curse is all that simple. Dumbledore is probably one or the very few who would (1) react in time, and (2) do something other than scream/dodge. Those are at both ends of the spectrum; there doesn't seem to be a mid-level response to defense against the Killing curse - unless there's a way to conjure up solid metal or stone objects set to orbit around one's self in order to intercept unblockable *curses.

@ViolentRed: Really? I never realized that about NEWTs, but I think certain courses are unavoidable. History of Magic, Divination, CoMC, Muggle Studies, and Arithmancy wouldn't be terribly useful by comparison, don't you think?

Here's hoping the Auror curriculum is outlined in Pottermore.



*/starts writing a shamelessly cliched action scene

 

So, what the OP is saying is that the AK should not be blockable by physical objects?
Ok man, how does that make sense to you? What if the victim summons a wall of bricks, or a tree trunk in between? Will the AK just pass through?
For that matter, in your perfect idea of the fearsome and unstoppable AK, why didn't Voldemort just cast the AK from his hideout and, since physical objects can't stop teh forz of puer evalz, kill all his enemies? The AK should go through walls, hills, mountains, not to mention the Hogwarts protective wards. If there is no magical or physical way to stop the curse, then there would be no conflict, no story, no nothing. And theoretically, so long as one is staying still, he can be killed by someone at the other side of the world.
No, that is not how the AK should work. That is a retarded way for the AK to work.

 

Seems to me that there's a very simple way to restore the scariness of the Killing Curse without any complex theories: just stop thinking of spells as extremely slow moving things. Personally, I've always visualised spells as very fast: too fast to dodge or block at close range unless you start your dodge or block before the spell has left your opponent's wand.