As concerning places other than Hogwarts that may have high levels of magic, I feel that the Black ancestral manor could be a good place to look.

Apparently, a former Black patriarch 'frittered' away most of the family fortune on protective spells on the place, it has ostenisibly had magic cast in it for hundreds of years, and it is topped off by a Fidelus cast by Dumbledore himself.

It's probably safe to say that it is pretty damn magical, and yet IIRC, when Harry arrived in OotP, there were muggles not only living on either side, but using electronics to listen to music! Surely, if anything were to stop technology from working, living next door to 12 Grimmauld Place would.

On an aside: wasn't this thread about magical population size? When did it turn into an argument about technology versus magic?

 

Gah. You know what? I'm tired of this debate, and I'm annoyed enough to rant and intoxicated enough to not care whom I offend. Haven't we had this debate a dozen fucking times? And haven't we all, by reading and writing Harry Potter fanfiction, come to the decision that we don't want to deal with the implications of tech within the universe we're discussing?

Here's my theory, and it's quite simple, and somewhat analogous to Taure's, so let me give you the rundown: magic and technology do not mix - period. You use magic on a computer, the computer breaks. You can't use magic to channel electricity within circuits or change the channel without a remote or speed up your porn torrents. Similarly, you can't 'generate magic' using a technological generator that summons the ethers of magical power from the abscess of fate and the asscrack of destiny.

Want to make things simpler? Electricity and circuits and all that shit don't work at Hogwarts, because it is a magical place. The sheer irrationality and continuous breaking of the laws of physics prevent something so physically defined as modern technology from working in magical places. No, I'm not going to explain the 'principles' or 'science' behind the thing, because there isn't any. Even simpler? You can't get a fucking cell phone signal at Hogwarts. Hell, I reckon you can't get one in Diagon Alley or the Ministry of Magic either (and it's not just because the latter is underground).

Also, while I'm making blanket statements, magic overrules technology. That means if I'm in the most non-magical of environments - let's say on the set of Two and a Half Men - if I pull out a wand and cast a spell to make the camera work not look like ass, the camera won't work - period. On the set of Community, maybe, but the point is that technology operates on the principles of science - very firmly grounded, well-documented laws. If magic works on any fucking principles at all, it works on the level of its own warped logic, human thought, and broad stretches of symbolism. There's no 'magical cores' or 'magical energy' or a fucking mana bar - it's based upon the knowledge and intelligence and finesse and wisdom of the caster. That's it. And since we can't quantify human thought, no, it's not going to be explained either. Of course, good enough authors know you don't need to waste time with that sort of textbook explanation, and that's probably one of the reasons Rowling never gave us one.

So you want me to put an fucking end to this debate once and for all to deal with the main argument: wizard vs. Muggle with the gun? Here's how it goes: if the Muggle shoots and the wizard's not thinking right or can't cast the spell in time, he gets hit. Odds are it won't kill because wizards are tougher than the average Muggle. If the wizard gets a thought off and that thought is a spell and that spell is cast properly, that bullet's probably not hitting the wizard or much of anything.

There, solved. Debate over, we can all convene for waffles and orange juice in the morning. But you want to know something, something that Taure and Sesc have emphasized time and fucking time again when it comes to this shit? When we're reading Harry Potter fanfic in that universe, we don't want to read about Harry being a 'Muggle' hero. We don't want to read about him using hand-to-hand combat or a gun or a fucking katana - we want to read about him using fucking magic, being a wizard. You want to know why? Because the broader symbolic elements of magic and spellcasting can lend to a more impacting narrative because each spell and its casting is an extension of Harry's intent and thought. Muggle weapons are tools, and while they might say something about the person using them, they lack a more overt symbolic potency than casting a spell would.

A determined dung beetle can pull a trigger, but it sure as hell can't cast a spell to Disarm, Stun, torture, or kill. Rowling was working in broader symbolic terms when she wrote the damn series, and even though she tried to make magic more dry and routine, I'd argue that's even a segment of the broader symbolic narrative: namely that even the driest, most convenient of things can make us special.

tl,dr - Magic, even the simplest, has meaning, and should mean more in your fanfic than simply a tool. If it's become a tool or a science, you're ignoring a ton of the potential Rowling provided in the world, and that's just fucking wasteful.

 

What are your thoughts on the proportion of the magical population of other countries? Are wizards simply a fixed proportion of the muggle population in a country, or are there other factors i.e. the age of the country in terms of its settlement - this could provide justification if an author wanted to explain why Britain has a similar number (or at least order of magnitude) of wizards as say, America.

I remember JKR mentioning that muggle borns are descendants of Squibs. This made me sad because I had this whole genetics project in which I wanted to map out magic as a dominant, sex linked, or recessive gene...so perhaps two muggles with recessive magical genes could give birth to a muggleborn. But it seems as though the genes (or whatever gives rise to magic) are fixed within the magical population since muggleborns just get their magic from squib ancestors.

 

I'm confused... if you're talking complete dominance (in which a dominant trait always covers a recessive trait in the phenotype), then two muggles who descended from squibs who were both Mm (M=muggle, m=magic) would be exactly how you'd get a muggleborn. I don't understand why being a descendent of squibs means your genetic idea doesn't work.

Now, this isn't to say that complete dominance really makes that much sense in the books. Well, it does, but it also puts every blood purist out there completely in the right. I mean, marrying a muggleborn is perfectly fine, as they would have to be mm (heterozygous recessive). Thus, all kids would have to be mm assuming the other parent is mm. But marrying a muggle? There would be NO chance of having a magical child unless they were carriers of the magical gene (i.e. of squib descent).

It's far more likely that magic is either multi-alleled or co/incompletely dominant. That would make it so squibs and muggle-borns could come out of seemingly nowhere.

 

Or magic has as much to do with genetics as it does the Laws of Physics.

(That is to say nothing at all.)

Dear god, what is it with people and trying to quantify these things. The "genetics of magic", so to speak, are only seen in terrible stories written by terrible authors who are trying to "fix" the Harry Potter universe.

 

JKR has trouble with simple maths, people. I imagine that genetics makes as much sense to her as Latin does to a dyslexic.

But that's perfectly alright, because fantasy doesn't need to make sense.

 

:facepalm

Yes, do over react. I was responding to OneSimpleIdea, so I was going on the theoretical assumption that genetics CAN effect magical individuals just to respond to his post. Mostly, I was just confused about his understanding of genetics.

If you look back in this thread, or just about any thread discussing magical theory within the 3 years or so, you will find that I consider magic to be quite esoteric. I don't believe in 'magical cores.' Nor do I truly think that genetics works to describe magical inheritance...

But, if it DID work through genetic links, do look up at my last post and read it for what it was. That's how I think genetics and the Harry Potter universe could theoretically coincide. Yay.

 

I didn't mean to imply that genetics is exactly how magical children are produced in canon, or that magical genetics is exactly how canon works. I just thought it'd be an interesting idea - and I disagree with your assessment that it's only done in poorly written fics. I think the concept was discussed in MoR somewhat. Any idea can be done well if it is written well and plausibly. However, if it's overdone, and overdone poorly and that, I can see why it gets quickly tiresome.

Also, The Heir, I agree that the facts from canon make it difficult to support a completely recessive/dominant gene for magic. An interesting possibility would be incomplete dominance - it would mean that muggle-wizard couples produced wizards - just weaker ones (and thus could be used as a means for backing the pureblood supremacists). Furthermore, since most wizard-muggle couples produce magical children, does this mean that the more muggles wizards marry, the further magic spreads throughout the population? In that case, I could see the eventual need for a school other than Hogwarts.

I understand that JKR didn't think of half of these things when she was writing the books. However, it doesn't make discussing these things any less interesting (at least for me, since I am new here and haven't been exposed as much). Also, I feel that it's less trying to come up with rules for canon, and more for coming up with plausible ways to explain things for authors planning on writing new fics.

 

Wait... I thought America was a place where everyone coexists peacefully. No one uses the term muggle, all magical creatures are loved and accepted, and there are no socio-economic differences between individuals in either wealth or status! You know: how America is in real life. them -> :awesome <- me

 

Well I suppose I'll just have to accept it's simply magic and can't be explained through conventional means

 

I don't know. Personally, while I do believe magic isn't something easily explained or reasoned, I also believe that magic is traceable through genetics somehow. If magic were completely random (as it seems some would like to claim), then there would be no 'old pureblood families', because magic wouldn't be an inherited trait. The magic would jump around and leave the family, leaving a wizard and witch's child a 'squib' more often times than not. There also would be a whole hell of a lot more muggleborns. That is how randomness works. It's like a strike of lightening; it rarely ever touches down in the same place twice.

Therefore, I do reason that genetics do play a factor in the way magic is inherited. I like the idea that muggleborns do come from squibs, as it gives plausible reason to why magic would suddenly appear in a non-magical family and why a child of a magical family might suddenly become a squib.

The magical trait wouldn't necessarily have to be dominant, either. We don't know how many children born from a magical/muggle relationship actually end up being magical. Out of the whole series, Severus Snape and Tom Riddle are the only two that we know of who were born from a magical/muggle relationship (correct me if I am wrong). So, realistically, the percentage of children born with magic from magical/muggle relationships may actually be very low.

To me, this would suggest that the Purebloods might have had a point about intermixing with muggles and muggles 'stealing' magic. They may not have understood genetics, but they did understand that when they intermixed with muggles; their children were rarely born with magic and then, in turn, there were muggles who suddenly had magical children. I could see how it would seem to them that muggles were somehow stealing their magic. .

Now if we look at the actual genetics, if magic were a recessive trait, with M = muggle and m = magical, the genetics would look something like this mm + mm = 100% mm; mm + MM = 100% Mm; mm + Mm = 50% Mm, 50% mm; Mm + Mm = 25% MM, 50% Mm, 25% mm; MM + Mm = 50% MM, 50% Mm; MM + MM = 100% MM.

Just from looking at this we can already see where magic could derive from mm+mm, mm+Mm, and Mm+Mm. We can also see where Muggle carriers for the magical gene would derive from mm+MM, mm+Mm, Mm+Mm, MM+Mm.

With the way the human population reproduces and genetics are transferred, it is very likely that there are a significant number of muggle carriers for the magical gene out there. If fact, there are probably more carriers than there are wizards, just by judging on the way the recessive trait could be passed. And, as seen, just because two carriers might marry, they only have a 1 in 4 chance of having a magical child. If the average number of kids is 2.5, then it would suggest that in an Mm+Mm relationship, it is very possible that a magical child might not even be born to a carrier couple. Which I do believe coincides with canon numbers rather nicely.

As for squibs, I personally believe that squibs are a product of not only a mm+MM or a mm+Mm combination, but I also believe that the loss of magic between two purebloods could occur do to inbreeding. The genetics might become corrupt from the genes being too similar to properly mesh and work together to allow for the inheritance of magic. This would make squibs rare, when considering children from an mm+mm relationship. This number also coincides with canon numbers rather nicely.

Now, then, for where magic originated. There are so many plausible arguments. It could be that magicals and muggles were always separate. It could be that muggles are the byproduct of evolution from the very first squibs. Or, the reverse could have occurred. It might be that magicals evolved from muggles that the M gene mutated to the m gene. Really, there is no way for us to know or even begin to reason, as the split between muggles and magicals occurred thousands upon thousands of years ago.

Anyways, that is just my theory on the idea of genetics affecting magic. With placing the magical gene as a recessive one, it certainly supports why the number of witches and wizards are so low compared to the number of muggles.

 

I agree with this. However, I seem to recall an instance in one of the books (either 3rd or 4th I think) of a throwaway line, where apparently a phone got hexed to cuss out the user, or to speak in a different language or something along those lines. I can't remember exactly.

If I'm remembering correctly and that the line I referred to above exists, then that might be a canon example of magic working on technology.

 

Yes, obviously it becomes all technical and shit. And it is very possible that it isn't just one gene that contributes, but that would make it even more complicated to explain or understand. However, I'm sure genetics does factor in somehow. Though, I wouldn't waste and entire story on it . I just saying that just because it is science doesn't mean it should be outright dismissed, as even from the very simple model I presented here, we can see that the numbers for witches and wizards (in total compared to muggles), muggleborns, and squibs that we were roughly given in canon begin to align.

I'm not arguing that all science applies to magic, as obviously magic breaks the laws of physics left and right. However, I do believe that if one wanted, they could begin to connect the inheritance of magic to biology and, in specific, genetics. It isn't completely unreasonable and is, in fact, highly plausible.

As for two options of magic either being random or contributed to genetics, what other argument could be presented here that would fully explain the phenomena of magic sticking with old pureblood families, yet randomly popping up in muggleborns? What about the low number of squibs? Other than using the default answer that magic doesn't need to be explained, what would you say contributes to the inheritance of magic?

 

When magical people get together, they have magical children, unless they (or the baby) gets cursed somehow. It probably happens more often than some suspect, but it's not always a bad thing- honestly, would you have wanted Bellatrix to procreate?

Wizards who take muggle women to bed usually use magic to speed along the seduction, which consequently results in the muggle girl retaining some enchantment and occasionally birthing 'muggleborn' children. A magical who beds a muggle without using magic doesn't end up with bastards, so they never noticed. Most magicals think sleeping with muggles is only a step above bedding livestock, but in the last century there has been a sharp rise in the activities of the Love And Marry Beasts, Anthropoids, and Sentients Totally Equally club.

It's a sorry state of affairs, but some folk just can't be dissuaded from pursuing their particular perversion.

(Yes, yes- pot calling kettle thick and all that)

 

I suppose that explanation could work too. I'm just intrigued by what peoples opinions are and all the possibilities out there. Like you said, it will always end up back at magic. It just depends on how much science a person wants to insert in between.

Just a note here, though, scientist don't know what every single gene or combination of genes do yet... They're working on mapping genetic disorders and figuring it all out and whatnot, but genetics still retains some of it mysteries. For the purpose of the HP universe, the muggles may find a way of identifying magicals eventually just by taking a sample of their DNA.

All what if's and could be's... that is what is fun about fanfiction.