Thanks.

On your first question, I'm going to try calling my wife those names tonight and see what happens. If I don't post for a few days, assume it didn't go so well.

 

Or it went too well and so you are not available.

 

Your funeral, buddy.

 

Why do you think no one ever kind of looked for Harry to kind of figure out WHY he survived the killing curse. Its implied in canon that no one truly knows why and even Dumbledore's idea of an ancient mother's protection was speculation on his part.

So why didn't the government,unspeakables or generally anyone who wanted to know how to protect themselves from the killing curse, not perform experiments or research on Harry?

Could we assume that this is something that came up during Harry's first ten years at the Dursley's and it was resolved? After all someone had to have told them and convinced them that a baby had somehow survived the killing curse and destroyed Voldemort in the process.

 

The Doylian answer is probably that JK didn't feel like that would fit the tone of the story, but I think there are some reasonable in-story explanations as well.

The way I see it, it's something "nobody truly knows" in theory but in fact some people definitely do and it just doesn't enter popular knowledge. It happens with people in real life as well. No, I'm not getting conspiracy theorist here, hush. What I mean is that people like to throw around the term "science can't explain it" even when it totally can and it has. There's a decent chance that if you were ever in an argument with someone trying to explain how there are things science can't explain, you might have heard of Ball Lightning and how it's completely impossible to explain.

Many people go on about how it's impossible to understand, but, well, it has literally been duplicated in laboratories.

That's a random example and not that many people(I hope) still believe that Ball Lightning is a supernatural phenomenom anymore. But there are billions of things that get passed around as either true or "SOMETHING THAT SCIENCE CAN'T EXPLAIN" that are just a combination of people wanting to believe it because it sounds fucking awesome and whispers/media doing what they do. Is a cat really neither dead nor alive when locked inside a box? No, that only supposedly happens in an atomic level, but most people around the internet citing that thing seem to think that something magical happens inside the box or whatever. A river turned red? Red sediment that washed away, but some people still think(and some media still reports) that science has no clue what's going on.

My point is this:

Even if it's something that everyone liked to say nobody knew about, it's still possible that some people did and others were just misinformed. Voldemort did deduce the whole love thing and it wasn't like he had access to a ton of libraries during his Casper days, he knew it off the top of his head and just forgot about it when it happened.

The only people who would have cared enough to investigate are the ones who probably had a pretty good guess as to what happened so they just shrugged and went on about their day, while the ones who cared because they had no idea what that meant went "Dude. Fucking magnets." which sounds ridiculous but still happens today.

I'm not saying the wizard population is dumb or anything, but mysterious events and the way information is shared just has that effect on people, magical or not.

 

Question: Can I kill a Phoenix using Fiendfyre?

...

And if not, does The Forum have any good ideas as what, if anything, could be used to dispatch one?

 

Have you tried magic?

Failing that, put Fawkes in a place where he'll die again as soon as he resurrects himself. The Sun would be too Methods of Rationality for my tastes, but you get the idea, something like that.

 

I would think the Sun would be an ideal place for an immortal fire-bird to live...
I suppose it might starve/suffocate though.

 

Drown it.

/10char

 

Snort the ashes.

 

Fart in a can and give it to him as a birthday present...

What the fuck are you guys even talking about... burning a burning creature? Does. Not. Compute.

 

I believe he was thinking about the Dark aspect of Fiendfire harming a phoenix?

 

I think scattering the ashes would be a viable method, or trapping the ashes in some way so it cannot reassemble (I'm over-thinking this). I do not believe fiendfyre would work, as a phoenix is, as already stated, a creature of fire.

 

I'd say no based on what the people above said. If I were to attempt to kill a phoenix though, I'd probably try encasing the ashes in an unbreakable box filled with concrete.

 

This.

Of course, you'd have to work out whether it's actually the physical ashes the Phoenix is rising from (making use of the ashes) or whether it appears in the ashes just because that's where it last died - but has no connection to the previous body (make no use of the ashes).

 

Seeing as the Killing Curse, of all things, failed to put an end to Fawkes' rebirthing cycle, it's highly unlikely that JKR's version of the phoenix can actually be killed in the traditional sense of the word. You could probably find a way to prevent its rebirth... but I doubt it would ever truly be dead.

And now I desperately want to read a fic that features a tormented phoenix soul endlessly searching for its body's scattered ashes.

*casts hopeful sidelong glance at select DLP members with actual writing talent*

 

That sounds incredibly depressing, why would you want to read something like that?

 

Ummm... because it's a flipping awesome premise?

Why would you not want to read it? Interspersing your daily intake of kick-ass explosions with some thought-provoking melancholy is good for you.

 

I remember there was a story where Harry and Hermione managed to keep Fawkes at bay by putting his ashes into a flower pot with a stasis charm on it, or something like that. Put him on pause, indefinitely.

They may have used them in a potion or ritual later, with not entirely desirable results.

I can't remember what the story was, though, as it has been ages ago that I read it. I'm pretty sure it was never finished...