Yes please, bring on the Founders Fics with Basilisk armoured knights broomstick jousting.

 

Here you go. (Joe.)

 

Completely agree. In a world where Sixth Year Harry and pink-umbrella Hagrid turn fire hose-like spells on Hagrid's burning cabin and First Year Hermione is a whiz at bluebell flames that don't seem to need oxygen, not to mention the disciplines of, oh, Transfiguration and Conjuration, controlling dirt or being some sort of 'air bender' would probably strike most magical folk as decidedly pedestrian. And I suspect any attempts to bring that up as an example of being bad-ass would probably be met with pitying looks if not outright derision.

11-y.o. Lord Potter-Black-etc: "Avast, Malfoy scion! I challenge thee to a duel of honor for thine insult to the beautiful Misses Granger, Delacour, Greengrass, Bones, and Abbott!"

Malfoy: "Wands at midnight, Potter. The trophy room, if you're not too scared. Who's your second?"

LPB...: "That's Lord Potter-Black-Gryffind.. I forget the rest. At any rate, I accept, you knave! But be warned, you cur! I am an Elemental - yes, with a capital E! - and I control the very earth upon which you tread, and beneath which you shall lie before this night is finished!"

Malfoy: "... what?"

LPB: "Art thou deaf, varlet? I saidst to thee -"

Malfoy: "I heard you, idiot. It's just that we're *all* elementals. Or Elementals, if you prefer. It's called a wand, you tool."

Now this one I can go with IF it's used sparingly. After all, wasn't the book where Hermione found the Polyjuice recipe titled "Potions Moste Potente" or something and the Horcrux book titled "Magick Moste Evile" or am I way off base here?

Again, I agree. The only exceptions are if it's a unique event, which in turn gives it that much more weight. What I mean is, say, Harry having to fight someone in a brutal, inelegant, far-from-pretty scene where both are unarmed, untrained, etc. Other times when it makes an impact are when it's unexpected, such as when Hagrid lost his temper at Karkaroff in GoF and bounced the guy off a tree. I did *not* expect that, and from then on every reader knew that anybody bad-mouthing D'dore was in serious danger of Hagrid kicking their ass.

Makes me wish for more Hagrid-centric stories. He's possibly the most loveable character in the series and at the same time one of the most dangerous in terms of carnage potential, but you never think of him in those terms.

What, are we all forgetting nmb's By the Diving Light and sequel, Conlaodh's Song, now? As much as I love The General (everything by nos tres reges, really), nmb's is the best mentor-D'dore I can think of.

Yes it is. It's kind of crazy that pretty much the only article of clothing made from a big, bad, magical creature is Bill's dragonhide boots. I seem to recall Fred or George having a garish dragonhide jacket but that may very well be from a fanfic.

And it's not as if dragons are all that scarce if roughly a third of all magical people's wands contains a heartstring from one. Maybe one dragon has dozens of heartstrings, I don't know, but if so that would certainly increase the odds of a Priori Incantatum, right? And if phoenix feathers are as rare as we're lead to believe, then either the ratio of unicorn hair wands is way, way up or there are plenty of dragon parts to go around. What, then, is happening to all the outside bits of dragon left over? We know they use the blood to clean the oven (another hint that dragons are as plentiful as pigeons) so what the hell?

At least with Basilisks there's a ready-made excuse: Guess what, Virginia? Those things are fucking dangerous. Anything that can kill you with nothing more than eye contact is too damn scary to have around, never mind that certain specimens have been known to live, say, a thousand years (on rats!), getting to about 50 feet long. Oh yeah, and they have sword-like fangs which, happily, inject a venom/poison so horrible that only the tears of an immortal firebird can counteract it.

Hmm. Why - why - aren't these things being bred by every family from the newest Mudbloods to the oldest Purebloods?!? It's a mystery! I have no idea why there hasn't been an avalanche of magical research into harvesting and utilizing the scales of these gentle, misunderstood giants.

All kidding aside, a good author could make something work but it's have to be limited. Maybe make the scales unwieldy since they're so large from that 1000-y.o. behemoth, and practically impossible to cut. Make them so magic-resistant that feather-light charms either don't work or fail soon after being cast. Maybe work it so that Harry uses a single scale to make a shield for some specific task or something, or ???

Salazar Slytherin: He wasn't trying to purge the school of Mudbloods. Hell, he loved the little tykes! He only bred those basilisks 'cause he was tired of the Bulgarian middleman jacking up the price of his jousting duds. Sure, the Bulgarian was a Mudbl- I mean, First Generation Wizard, but it was an accident, Godric! A misunderstanding, I tell you!!

 

I disagree because I don't interpret elemental abilities as being more talented with spells conjuring the 4 elementals. I see that ability as being able to harness the power of the natural elements in the world around you.

 

Right. But what's the difference between the fire from a normal spell like Incendio and fire from some "ability to harness the natural elements in the world around you"? They're both just fire, and rather tame in the scheme of things (flame freezing charm, anyone?).

 

To build on what Taure said too, normal Wizards have a wand which is an inexhaustible source of magic where most elementals in fics seems to tire as they use their powers.

People can be so taken with something that's fun in another world that they don't really think how it'd fit into their fanfics. The one problem I have with Roarian's 'Death has no dominion' is his pyromancer and he treats the subject comparatively well.

Then there's the whole kind of shoe horning of the 'elements' into a wizards way of thinking. The closest we ever hear of something similar, if I'm not grossly wrong, is a book title, something like the quest for quintessence.

We're never told the amount of knowledge that wizards have, we can assume it's a lot though. That library is huge, and Dumbledore knows a lot. Wizards have a fundamentally altered perception of the world but I don't think that they'd subscribe to an Aristotelian idea of the 'four elements' any more than we muggles do. JK liked to appropriate famous thinkers as wizards of history, I could imagine Aristotle as a wizard. I think he'd be regarded as he is now by modern wizards.

This is has actually given me an idea, if they did have elemental magic, why not have it be about things that they now call elements, like we've done with the periodic table? Things like the patronus charm. It's probably a shit idea but I could see it being fun to play with the cliché.

Edit: Thank you Warlocke for catching that abortion of a sentence. I'm gonna' have to be a good workman and blame it on my tools, and a lack of sleep and a lot of other lies.

 

Because there is more energy in the nature around you.

 

Than a wizard with a wand? Where you can spell cast all day and all night and never get tired?

 

Even if you don't believe into getting tired of using too much magic or loosing the concentration it still takes *time* while the nature around you is full of stored energy in a far bigger scope. A wizard needs to use indirect measures to play with elementals. At least my understanding about conjuring water would involve accio H2O from the air, compress and charm it to move in the way you want. All that work is done in that spell. An elemental has a mental control over the elementals around him and it's an additional pool of stored energy.

For instance the story of Moses and the dividing of the sea would show an Elemental's work while a wizard wouldn't be able to do that in *my* view of the magic world as he couldn't generate the necessary energy (in time).

 

"Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?"

 

I think that this just comes down to a fundamentally different interpretation of the HP system of magic. I can respect that, so fair enough.

I could totally see Dumbledore or Harry parting the ocean though if Joe got involved

 

Though it's kind of a silly thing to do. Why part the ocean when you could just walk across it?

This "more energy" point confuses me slightly, as does the "more time" issue. It takes all of four syllables to summon up fire - less if you do it non-verbally - and once summoned the fire is identical to natural fire. Not sure where this mysterious energy is coming from, or how it's making itself known. It's not like Incendio is limited to small fires - it was used in HBP to send Hagrid's entire hut on fire in less than a second.

And of course, this completely ignores the fact that regular magic has a lot of varieties of magical fire which are much more potent than natural fire.

 

Maybe those who are wanking over elementalists think that regular magic Incendio is based on elemental magic and is a clumsy half-arsed way of affecting it, whereas an actual elementalist can change Water in the air to Fire and can directly play around with Platonic Fire rather than one step removed via wands.

I've seen a couple of authors (for example Melethril's Building Bridges) who make all Harry Potter magic based on the 4.5 elements (often having Spirit as one), and having Earth based elemental wizards just better at some spells and worse at others.

 

Canonically, because you might have a tribe of escaping slaves to escort with you, not to mention their former owners that need drowning. Don't limit you choices.

 

The way I see "elementals" is that the difference is in scale. So yes, any wizard can use incendio (or similar) as a decent flamethrower, but a fire elemental could create something akin to a solar flare. Of course, the usefulness of solar flares in relatively close combat situations are debatable...

The battle between Harry and Dumbledore in the Harry/Bellatrix story "Only Enemies" could be something that might happen between elementals.

Of course, an elemental could be just a regular someone who has gained supreme knowledge about some type of spells, and is extremely good with them. Like Harry and his summoning/banishing charms in nonjon's "A Black Comedy".

 

This would destroy the planet, you realise? lol

 

Of course. That's why it's debatable if it would be useful in close combat.

 

Okay, in all seriousness: Fuck anyone who refers to a human spell-caster as an elemental.

Group A: Fire Elementals

Fire Elemental - Fire Elemental - A Trio of Fire Elementals - Fire Elemental - Fire Elemental

Group B: People Casting Fire Spells

Effete Bishōnen Twat Casting Fire Spell - Bipolar Lesbian Casting Fire Spell - Plasticine Bimbo Casting Fire Spell - Orihime Clone Casting Fire Spell - Stock Image of Some Insane Bitch in a Snood Casting a Blue Fire Spell - Some Whack-Job Cunt Who Likes To Play With Fire - Gee, I wonder...

Group C: A Book Titled Fire Spell

What Are You, Stupid? It's dat Book What I Done Told You About Right Up Dere^

Group D: Someone Eating a Fireball

The Right Way - The Wrong Way

Those things in category A are not the same as those in category B; and, anyone who can't tell the difference is mentally impaired in a very fundamental fashion.

A Fire elemental is a creature OF fire. Everything else is just some douchenozzle casting a spell. Maybe they specialize in fire spells; guess what that makes them?

A regular ol' douchenozzle who specializes in fire spells.

Or, an "elementalist", if you will; note the IST at the end.

The first time I ever read HP fanfic where some witch or wizard was described as a fire elemental, it instantly made me grit my teeth, while I fantasized about knocking the author's out.

Could Harry be a fire elemental? Sure, if his parents were both creatures made of living flame, yeah... Or maybe if he were subjected to some strange ritual, or if he happened to board a space shuttle with Sue Storm at the wrong time - then he maybe sorta kinda could pass himself off as an elemental... Whatever. :|

Or, he could even be one quarter elemental, if Grandma Evans was a cheatin' ho who made it with some suave devil who left her with a legitimate burning sensation, making Lily's red hair the victim of yet another cliché. I'm not sure Calcifer would approve.

Otherwise, Harry's just good with burninating things with magic, as is any other git who labels himself 'elemental' for the piddling little act of casting a fiery bit of magic. :facepalm

To anyone who abuses these terms as such: You're making yourself sound like a moron. Stop this shit. :fire

Yes, this goes for the other elements as well. Monkey.

The closest Harry's ever gotten to being a fire elemental is slash fic where he acts like a flaming queen with his nose buried in Ron's fiery red crotch pelt. Get over it.



Oh, hey, look who can cast horrifically massive fire spells without being special snowflakes who resort to calling themselves elementals in order to feel better about their short wands...
BAD ASS

 

Some of those girls you linked look hot.