No. Even if I accept this point and ignoring all of the other guff, you still haven't addressed my original point:

How it is any more likely that they were created by the personification of Death than the ghoul that lives in the attic above Ron's room?

This is an anomalous concept in the world of Harry Potter as far as has been observed and the only evidence that supports the hypothesis that Death created them is a demonstrably unreliable source on several counts.

At the very least the ghoul is actually known to exist.

 

It's a damn lot easier to re-invent something than to invent it in the first place. The mere fact that you know that what you are trying to do is possible will make a huge difference, even if you have no possibility of actually observing the existing stuff you are re-inventing.

It took USA billions of dollars, millions of man-hours and the best scientific minds on the planet to come up with the first nuclear weapons. Today any average first world country could make nukes if they wanted and were willing to endure the political shit-storm, and their product would make the "Little Boy" look like something belonging to the prehistory.

Sure magic (probably) involves more intuitive leaps than engineering, but still on average the knowledge base is only getting larger, making it possible to make better and better stuff. And there has to be some kind of theoretical framework involved: no one could come up with something like the Wolfsbane Potion with only a random trial and error approach.

 

I think this question deserved its own thread.

 

What in the flying fuck drove Pettigrew to help bring back Voldermort? I was confused about this after book three when I was re-reading the series recently. What drove him to seek out, find, and help Voldemort return to power? According to the conversation in the Shrieking Shack in book three, the only reason he sold out Lily and James is because the death eaters would have killed him instead, so what was his motivation?

 

Maybe he hoped that Voldemort would reward him?

 

I think it was that the Death Eaters blamed him for Voldemort's failure to kill Harry, and would kill him if they ever found him. He thought that the only way to avoid Death Eaters killing him was to revive Voldemort and have his protection.

 

What Death Eaters? And how the heck would they know he was alive? Sirius, Remus, Harry, Hermione, and Snape sure aren't gonna tell them. He's a fucking wizard, if a terrible one, he could have just left Britain and gone elsewhere. And why did he figure Voldemort would be any better about the blame than Death Eaters?

 

He's a dude that spent over a decade living as a pet rat. I think it's safe to say that for whatever reason, he did not think that just leaving Britain was an option.

 

I guess if the personification of Death were somehow reduced to being a ghoul...

This is simple: There is no claim or reference in canon from any source, reliable or otherwise, that a ghoul made the items. There's no myth, speculation, story, guess, observation, hint, or clue. So, while canon doesn't absolutely exclude the possibility, canon offers no reason for a person to surmise this at all.

Canon presents two possible origins for the hallows. One is more likely than the other according to what is presented, but canon does not give enough detail to be conclusive by any reasonable standard. That there is a real personification of Death is less likely, but it is suggested from canon.

If this were a non-fiction story that didn't include magic and wizards in which the 3 objects were just everyday household objects, but there was a legend that they were actually created by Death, then you would be right to be so incredulous that it was even a possibility. But HP is a fantasy setting that includes unicorns, the undead, magic, werewolves, and prophesy. Considering all that, Death as a personified power is a lot more acceptable.

I agree with you that JKR left clues and messages, the strongest being Dumbledore's author-insert "opinion" that the hallows were really made by the brothers. The best interpretation is that Death didn't really have a hand in it. But it's not the only interpretation, nor is it the only interpretation provided by what is in cannon.

---------- Post automerged at 08:46 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:40 AM ----------

Best answer.

I think JKR's justification would be that Pettigrew was so afraid of Voldemort's power that he was certain The Dark Lord would rise from the grave and hunt him down if he didn't prove himself loyal. He did have a Dark Mark, so that might not have been so farfetched.

 

I've got a weird question about a Boggart, but can it take the power and thoughts of the thing it's replicating. Like if a Boggart takes the form of Voldemort, would it thus think like Voldemort, act like Voldemort, or even have magic like Voldemort. I think I remember somewhere that a Dementor Boggart makes you feel like a Dementor is in the room, so I wonder if the same applies to other things. And can a Boggart be forced to stay in one form either permanently or temporarily for a certain period of time and not change form when someone walks up to it. Like if Voldemort wanted a new body, would he just have to figure out how to get a Boggart to look like him, lock that form so that it doesn't change, and then possess the Boggart.

I know it sounds weird, but I've been getting that idea in my head for a while and wanted to know if it was possible within the limits of the Harry Potter World.

 

Err... no, not quite. A Boggart can simulate something no more than the person who is facing the Boggart can mentally simulate the object of their fear. A wizard-shaped Boggart can probably do nothing more than walk around and look threatening, or whatever it takes to scare its victim senseless. Then again in PoA a Boggart was capable of having a Dementor's effects on people when shaped like a Dementor...

Still, when Lupin told Harry at the end of that class in PoA that he didn't want to let him face the Boggart because he thought it was Voldemort, his fear wasn't that it would go around causing mayhem on the same level as the Dark Lord himself was capable of doing, merely that it would freak out the other students. So no.

 

I don't think there's an exact canon answer. We do know it can take on certain magical properties, such as the happiness draining of a dementor, but there is no way to know if that works for all creatures, and especially if it would have wizard magic capability.

I would assume the power of the boggart's form would not be be directly related to the power of the form they take, but rather to what the viewer imagines that that form to possess. It might also be limited by the amount of fear it had managed to absorb--so that a particularly powerful boggart might be as strong as a real dementor while a weak boggart would have but a fraction of the effect.

On the other hand, a boggart might only have those powers in the mind of the person they are affecting. Boggarts do have emotion sensing powers and feed on emotion similarly to dementors, which may be why the boggart could display a dementor's powers when otherwise it could not.

Personally, I think if you want to write a story about this concept, it would be a good one.

A related story would be That Which Holds the Image, if you have yet to read that one. A Dr. Who/HP crossover that involves a boggart transforming into something terrifying--5 star here on DLP.

 

As I recall, the Boggart turned into Snape wearing Augusta Longbottom's clothing at one point, without any cursing or talking happening. I think the Boggart is probably limited to looking menacing and maybe copying some magical effects. Hell, Voldemort wasn't even close to the worst thing the Boggart could have turned into. What if someone was afraid of basilisks?

 

That was in response to Neville's spell. But the boggart-Snape never cast a spell or spoke, although it was reaching into its cloak to get something--possibly a wand. Unfortunately, there just wasn't enough time to see if the boggart could manage magic in Snape's form as it transformed into another form too quickly.

 

Here I just thought a Boggart was basically a living mirror of your greatest fear rather than some deep psychoanalytical crap.

In fact, I still think that.

 

Probably this; when it changes to the full moon for Lupin, he doesn't transform, for instance. So limiting it to recreating a weaker version of some magical effects seems the most plausible, especially if they're mental effects like the Dementor's.

 

About the much talked about Potter/Black inheritance, was an estimated amount given in canon? or was it just referred to as piles upon piles of gold. Also, given that the Blacks were such rabid blood purists, why was their family house in such a predominantly muggle enviroment?

 

Would it make sense to have pureblood kids in wizarding Britain to have names after Greek Gods? Such as Aphrodite, Athena, Ares, Zeus etc?

 

Roman would probably be the better choice, since there are already examples of that with names like Minerva (Athena).

 

Heh, plot bunny for post-Hogwarts fic in which the magical populace is still so afraid of Voldemort that it creates a super-Boggart which takes Voldemort's form. But not Voldemort as he really was, but rather Voldemort as the magical populace most fear him - random violence against innocents before disappearing into the shadows only to strike again a few days later. Less powerful/intelligent than the real Voldemort, and with no real goals, but still very dangerous.

An interesting way to have a Voldemort antagonist post-DH without cheapening his death.