A small question I just considered.

In Philosopher Stone, we know no one can get the Stone from the Mirror unless they want to find it, but not use it. We also know Quirrel saw himself presenting the Stone to his Master.

How is that "not use it"? Yes, Voldemort was going to use it, but we have nothing to suggest Quirrel himself had any desire to use it. So why didn't it work for him?

 

Quirrel did want to use it. Like you said to revive Voldemort. Harry never wanted to use it at all for any reason so he got the stone.

 

We could argue over Quirrell's motives, but I think this one JK actually got right.

 

Basically to get the stone you had to see the image of you receiving it, which meant that your desire to possess the stone had to be greater than what you would do with it. If your desire to use it was greater, you would see yourself using it, not receiving it.

Quirrell's desire to give the stone to Voldemort was stronger than his desire to get it from the mirror -- the former was his motivation for the latter. Only someone who had no motivation to get the stone, someone who desired possession for the sake of possession and nothing else, could see the image of receiving the stone.

Harry was able to get it because he wasn't looking to remove it. Had Harry gone into the room specifically desiring to take possession of the stone in order to keep it from Voldemort, he wouldn't have been able to retrieve the stone as he'd see the image of himself keeping the stone from Voldemort rather than the image of receiving it. But that wasn't the case. He had no desire at all to remove the stone from the mirror, which is why he got it.

 

You don't have to want the stone for no reason at all, you just have to not want to use the stone, and in a broader sense not desire the stone to be used. Desire to protect the stone or prevent other people from using it should work fine. Harry pretty clearly desired to keep the stone from Voldemort, and received it because of that. I believe if Harry had gone into the room with the sole intent of insuring the stone never is useful to anyone he still would have gotten the stone.
　　

 

Muggelborn not being able to become animagus,metamorph etc. Is it canon or fanon?

 

Fanon. Muggleborns are exactly the same as pureblood wizards in terms of magical ability. It's one of the major themes of the series.

 

Fanon.

/sniped

Edit: canon doesn't actually address the muggleborn vs. pureblood skill divide (inherent or not), but I guess it's a safe assumption what the answer would be if you asked JKR.

 

Whatever. They're all human at the end of the day and no one appears to be singled out in lessons as being unable to perform a particular bit of magic anywhere in the books. Any difference that might exist is going to be pretty minor.

I think the more interesting question would be about part-human/part-other hybrids like the Delacours, Hagrid, Flitwick, and Mme. Maxime. Fanon has obviously gone absolutely apeshit when it comes to various part-Veela hybrids but beyond that we don't know much canonically about what it means to be partly non-human. About the only things I know about are (1) prevalent discrimination in society and (2) that polyjuice potion can't be used to disguise oneself as a half-giant (though it appears that part-humans can ingest the potion as Fleur uses some).

 

Say Harry escapes the graveyard in Goblet of Fire without the effects of Priori Incantatem. Until the Resurrection Stone allows him to see the shades of his parents et al. in Book 7, does he have any evidence of the existence of an afterlife that's not limited to the existence of ghosts?

 

Wasn't the meeting with Dumbledore proof of an afterlife? Dumbledore basically said to Harry that if he boarded the train that's where he would end up.

 

Happened after Harry summoned the ghosts with the Stone, so it doesn't answer Agravaine's question.

On topic: no, I can't think of anything other than ghosts, but I haven't touched the books in a long time and don't have them with me, so my memory of canon is patchy.

 

That was after the summoning of his parents' shades, no?

Also, is that scene really proof? It could have all happened inside Harry's head after all.

Perhaps the fact that souls are separate from your body imply that there is somewhere they go after you die?

 

Question:

Do you guys think that for Voldemort, Taboo and You-Know-Who, Rowling took inspiration from the saying "Speak of the Devil and he shall appear"?

 

Lol, JKR's intention was to leave it ambiguous but really, Dumbledore revealed far too much novel information in their talk for it to be Harry's subconscious.

Plus, the only way for the scarcrux to have been destroyed is for Harry to have genuinely died, as you have to destroy the container to destroy the horcrux.

 

That phrase, it was on the back of my mind all thr time when I read about the Taboo, so to me, yeah.

 

I'm fairly but not completely certain that summoning or catching the attention of some supernatural being by saying their name predates Christianity, but it could just have been retroactively applied to mythology by Christianity-influenced scholars and writers. Regardless, that's probably where JKR got the idea, whether directly or indirectly - Hastur! Hastur! Hastur!.

 

Which works because Christians often consider pre-Christian mythology to be the work of Satan, so if it is a play on older mythological practices, it has the added bonus of equating those gods who did appear in such a way with the Devil.

 

So what do you think about the casting in the HP films? Did they live up to expectations especially when it came to the main characters?

 

They should have taken Gambon out behind the chemical sheds after GoF, but that's just my opinion.