EC: Consider physical fights. A true, no-holds-barred brawl rarely lasts for very long. Magic is a force-amplifier; its presence in combat will only reduce the time it takes for one person to win.

 

The battle in the Department of Mysteries after the OOTP arrived seemed to last a couple of minutes at most, then Dumbledore laid the smack down on everyone in 3.12 seconds.

 

Of course, there's the balance of realism versus entertainment value to be considered, as well. :facepalm

Ask anyone who's ever paid five prices to see a pay-per-view boxing match, only for it to end in a knockout, five seconds into the first round.

While I, myself, have never been in this boat, I'm sure you could find someone willing to describe their satisfaction (or lack thereof) at the experience.

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In a formal duel, or with any skilled opponent, they're likely to be expecting a spell like the stunner, and are prepared to deal with it. This means you either abandon that spell entirely, or employ other (possibly more advanced or esoteric) spells to create an opening through which you can slip a stunner.

If it were the perfect combat spell, there wouldn't be others.

 

Yes and no.

Yes, everything the human body does takes energy to perform. It takes energy for my heart to beat, for my lungs to breathe, for my brain to be able to think thoughts.

No, not every action takes so much effort that you can't keep it up indefinitely. See the above mentioned actions. My heart beating is not so exhausting that I have to take a rest from pumping blood, for example. And crucially, thinking doesn't tire my brain out to the point where I have to stop thinking, with the possible exception of sleep. Once you have put in the work of mastering a spell, using it appears to be a mostly mental affair -- basically casting a spell is the same as thinking a thought. (And if you haven't mastered non-verbal casting, saying a word.)

So casting a spell takes an effort, but no more effort than it takes to say "I wonder what's for dinner?". That is, so little effort that it might as well be zero from the perspective of any duel.

On top of that, note that while everything the human body does requires energy, this is not true of the universe in general. The sun does not expend energy to exert a gravitational force.

 

Leading to the interesting question of how much energy the human body requires to exert a gravitational force.

 

Well, true, the human body also exerts a gravitational force without expending energy. But the force is much smaller And unrelated to biological function.

 

For most of the duels we see in fanon, Harry or whoever would need to have reflexes bordering on supernatural and have an almost computer-like thought process to determine what spell he/she needs in the limited amount of time they have before the opponent smacks them down.

Giving Harry good reflexes cuz' he's a seeker solves a little bit of it. But I'm just not sure how they could be enhanced even further to reach the average fanon level. Maybe a ritual of some kind? Or the instincts of his animagus form if given one with good combat instincts themselves.

Other than that. Most duels should be blink n' you'll miss it fights. Realistically atleast.

 

Well, you certainly need to move quickly to counter attacks, but I'm not sure if it's reflexes that are needed. Reflexes are used to react quickly, but I think that if you're reacting to an attack that's already on its way then it's too late, unless there's a very great distance between duellers. To counter a spell or to get out of its way, I think you really need to begin doing so simultaneously with that spell's casting. To "preact", if you will.

Thus one of the main advantages of non-verbal magic: it makes spells very hard to block. And an advantage of legilimency, in that it gives you advance warning. That said, I imagine someone like Dumbledore, who can sense magic, would be able to intuit what spell is about to be sent towards him while it's still in the process of forming.

 

Mostly yes, the combatants are can essentially use a stungun with no ammunition problems.
One hit, one down, duel over and there's no reason to use anything less.

However, as we saw in the Dumbledore vs Voldemort duel, transfiguration or exotic magic really throws all that out the window. I assume stunners or killing curses or whatever would just get blocked or dodged while transfiguration was harder to protect against and could protect you at the same time.

In actual many vs many battles, stunners don't sound so cool. They hit one person max, they don't protect you, the're hard to hit and the moral effect is close to zero. If the guy around you is hit by a reducto, you're going to be much more scared then if he's simply stunned, even if the effect on his combat performance is not as great.

Most importantly, stunned combatants can be revived and be right back. So that would make them useless anytime the one you're fighting has a friend who can shut "Enervate".

 

This is a point repeated in fanfic, but I don't think it has much traction. If duels are rapidfire affairs, then the moment it takes to turn away from defending yourself to revive your partner is the time it takes to get knocked out of the fight. And now you have two stunned enemies.

The Dumbledore vs. Voldemort duel is mostly this:

Note that when they do see an opening, they do use direct attacks. Voldemort uses the Killing Curse, and Dumbledore uses that unknown spell (which I've always suspected to be what the stunning charm looks like when Dumbledore casts it).

 

You can never really tell with Dumbledore. He's probably so damn skilled with magic he could make a Killing Curse look like a Stunning Charm if he wanted.

...That's pretty awesome sounding actually. like a combination of the color changing charm and the spell used - a scarlet red which usually means a stunner but is infact a disguised Killing Curse. Most wouldn't even bother dodging because a simple Protego would be enough for a stunner.

Somebody should write something like that. I don't think I've ever saw that before.

 

From this (and your follow-up), there seems to be a deeper question, then. Is magic biological, or is it a force derived from something else. It seems that only biological entities have magic, and mostly when they're alive. But wands still retain a magic to themselves (DH--Harry's wand swinging to fire at Voldemort), and other non-biologicals can hold a magic spell.

But, even if the answer is that magic is a separate force and non-biological (such as gravity), then there is still the question of controlling or using it. To use your idea of gravity, you're right, our body exerts little if no energy to produce gravity. But, to work in conjunction with gravity on earth, we use quite a bit of energy. So funneling magic can still be seen in the same way, where it takes strength and energy to funnel and shape magic into whatever spell is being used.

I would also quibble with your comparing using magic to thinking, or your heart beating. A person with a racing heartbeat gets tired much faster, sometimes the heartbeat itself wears them out. I know when I study, I have to stop after so many hours because I'm physically exhausted. When I teach (especially when it's a three-hour lecture format), I'm worn out by the end, even if I'm sitting down.

So all of those things you mentioned, when taken to a higher level, does exert enough energy that the person can feel it and has to make adjustments. I'd argue that normal use of magic is like normal talking, heart beating, dealing with gravity. It's not noticed. But in a fight, when everything is amped to eleven, it becomes much, much more noticeable. And if more powerful spells means manipulating magic that much more, then it follows that it'd take that much more energy out of a person making them tired.

And that's the reason for casting spells other than the Killing Curse all the time. That, and some spells come so easily, that they can be "filler" spells, keeping an enemy off balance while having to revamp strategy.

 

I have this one pet peeve that really bugs me. I just looked through Review Board and guess what I found? HP/Naruto crossover. I don't know what Naruto is and I don't want to know, but it is everywhere! Even when I am feeling brave and I browse through ffn.net, I always accidentally stumble upon at least one Naruto fic. This Naruto nonsense (and anything Japanese in general) is starting to really annoy me.

 

Look on the bright side, at least it seems to have a lower slash ratio than Supernatural crossovers.

I've never watched Supernatural, and I certainly don't have any desire to read about how much Harry likes having the cast's assorted phalli in his brown eye.

If I'm going to read about Harry taking a long, hard, Winchester in an orifice, it should be a gun barrel in his mouth, because he realized that anyone who would name their child Albus Severus shouldn't exist.

 

I think this is something I saw posted in that funny pictures thread, but I feel like it ought to be reposted here as well:

 

A large portion of the Supernatural fandom fandom is really fucked up. As in 'Jared Padalecki is actually gay but married a chick because he's trying to cover it up, the marriage is fake' fucked up :facepalm

Oh, and let's not forget the Wincest. Gotta have a shitload of that.

Percentage wise, they've probably got more wackos than the HP fandom.

 

Veela Draco begs to differ. http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs12/i/2006/271/5/4/Veela_Fanfiction_by_Ryu_Hikari.jpg

 

Forget that! No way, no how, not in a million years will you get me to click on that link.

 

That link is not dangerous at all, really...

 

Actually, it essentially describes how DLP feels about it. And I'm not being sarcastic or trolly or anything, it genuinely does. Feel free to never believe me again if I'm lying.