I'd say the twins were a part of Harry's generation too, and they were considerable in the way of magical innovation.

 

I'd say it's a plot hole.

Harry Potter as a series relies very heavily in surprising turns of events (Oh, it was the harmless stuttering coward! Oh, it was the harmless little girl! Oh, the villain was in fact a good guy and the real baddie had been the rat all the time! Oh, the baddie was in fact the trusted friend who has been helping us along! Oh, Snape killed Dumbledore! Oh, Snape was in fact the good guy and Dumbledore was instead committing an elaborate suicide!) that are great as a way to create tension, but suck balls if you try to look any of the actions taken by any of the supporting characters with any kind of objective criticism. Which is not a problem, since the series is a story, not a study in military strategy if you don't need to worry about the logistics of ammunition supply or moving troops around, or in hypothetical economics in post-scarcity world.

The older generations look amazing because Rowling wants us to see the wondrous things magic can do. It's a fairytale. Everyone is holding the idiot ball (i.e. not using magic where they "should") because Rowling wants to show us the society she wants, not the society that would logically rise from the kind of magic we are shown. Harry and friends look pathetic because if they had the same abilities, the conflict would be very different and Rowling couldn't tell the story she wanted to.

 

I honestly think Rowling got a little more interested in her back story than the main story. But I think a lot of us fall into that trap.

 

Just writing a quick 5k word one shot and want and opinion on something.

Wands inside things, what do you think?

In the books the only exapmple we see is Hagrids broken wand inside the umbrella which still seems to work okay, better than Rons broken wand in CoS.

In the movies Malfor Sr has his wand in a cane.

What do you think of a wand in other things? Such as wands kept in the hilt of swords back when Wizards and Muggles were living together? A way to keep your wand handy but not obvious.

How much would this affect the magic?

 

I'd think it would affect the aim and ability to swish and flick, but it's probably do-able, even implicitly encouraged by the Statutes of Secrecy.

If I were to apply rules to it;

The handle of the wand has to be in touch with the wizard's skin

To fire spells without 'unsheathing', the tip would have to be hollow

Since the wand is wood or bone (please don't add in crystals or magic metals), one has to take torque into account. Your average sword has a tang extending past the guard of the same piece of metal. The wand can't replace this, though it could be strapped alongside. Again this may be too detrimental to the ability to wave the wand to make it useful, but spies are often forced to compromise when hiding their weapons and tools.

 

Of the younger generation, we only know of Fred and George as having attempted to innovate while still being teenagers (in the same way that the Marauders made their map, and Snape made a few spells). We can only speculate about how their creativity compares to those older guys; given a lack of technical magical canon, it depends on your opinion of how magic works.

That said, I have never liked the idea of comparing teenagers to experienced adults in the Potter universe. If you presuppose that a wizard's peak magical skill is attained immediately after the end of their education, then sure, Harry's generation seems sorely lacking in comparison. But I believe that motivated wizards continue to improve long after their schooling comes to an end, at least in areas of magic that interest them or are relevant to their work.

At Pottermore (admittedly not on the level of canon), there is indirect evidence of the waxing and waning of skill in adult wizards. Rowling describes how wizards who don't practice their skills become rusty. Lockhart, according to her, went from "rather good" to "rusty almost beyond repair," and Remus Lupin's dueling skills declined after mere months of inactivity while caring for his pregnant wife.

So it seems like magic is not like riding a bicycle; if your skills decline through lack of use, it seems logical that excess practice may improve them beyond the Hogwarts baseline. For instance, I feel that Harry would have been motivated to improve his dueling skills as an adult, while working with the Aurors.

 

Well, it would make complex wand movements pretty hard. It would be good for point and shoot spells but make the ones requiring wand movements more difficult. It really depends on how the metals conduct magic though.

 

Sword may be enchanted to the point that it is not affected by piece of wood inside (it is also makes wand more properly hidden).

Depending on what exactly is necessary for spell to work - wand in sword or other object may result in unexpected spells (for example: it turns out that this combination of movement that was used to operate container of wand is also triggering spell X). But this would be extremely rare, especially as wand movement is not the only necessary thing to use magic.

 

Or you could use magic to take care of all the problems take come from the weight of the container by making it feather-weight but that might reveal its magical nature if one were to hold it. And it doesn't necessarily has to be something as cumbersome as a sword. He said wands hidden on things so it could be taken out of the hilt. It could also be something like the handle of a bucket that can be released from its straps, a shovel, pipe or those cigarette holders or a fan.

 

Would you guys be willing to create a joint fictional universe? Where people would pitching in with ideas about the world, its history, people, rule system, you know fictional world stuff and then after that you are free to write stories in that setting, have the writing competitions set in the world with the best stories becoming official canon.

 

YES! I fucking love worldbuilding.

 

I suspect that a wiki might be a better format for such a project than a forum. Not that you couldn't do it just that the wiki makes more sense. It would be interesting.

 

A forum does work, but the project would have to be spread across several threads.

 

A social group would work perfectly for this.

 

I think some kind of intergalactic (or perhaps simply galactic) science fiction might work. I myself (presumably among others) might find myself too attached to any Fantasy or High Fantasy ideas I'd want to share.

 

Why not have both? Star Wars somehow managed it.

 

I was thinking much the same and then I started having weird Flash Gordon and Silverhawks cravings...

 

Simple concepts work best. For example: "Addams Family in Space".

You can get away with everything, even alien vampires and demons of the intergalactic variety.

 

Awesome ideia. I like Sci-Fi a lot, but it's just not what I really love, but afrojack hitted the mark too. Well, I would propose something like Thor, Sci-Fi Mithology! Gilgamesh in space, so much win.

 

Mythology, eh?

I can get behind that. But the Norse gods are already used by Marvel and Egyptians are all Stargate now. Greeks are overplayed as well.

The only logical answer is of course THE MOTHERFUCKING AWESOME SLAVIC GODS!