Limitations to the Shield Charm:

1. Cannot block the Killing Curse.
2. Needs to be cast in the first place, so is useless if taken by surprise (whether by a curse, a Muggle with a gun or a nuclear bomb).
3. Magic is cast through a wand, so you can't do anything else while casting a Shield.
4. How do you rate against your opponent? Are they more skilled, more powerful? The Shield Charm can in theory protect against anything, but in practice appears to be quite difficult to use beyond the most basic level.

Just off the top of my head.

 

One of the things that came up (during a PM conversation with Scott over enchanted guns vs Protego) is that the whole Wizarding universe is weakly acasual; by Wizard Logic cause and effect are only weakly linked.

This is why Harry Potter crossovers that have a mechanical focus tend to be bad; HP magic is not at all like DnD magic. It is not a science with another name.

That being said, there have been great AU reimaginings of HP with a more mechanical system, with stuff like "Channeling a fireball delivers 90 kilowatts" and "The impervious spell increases an objects hardness by x on the Mohs scale and the tensile strength by Y" but at that point the writer should have wrote a book and made money off of it rather than writing an HP fanfic.

 

So then why is Voldemort's defence against Dumbledore not just to shield charm everything?

In terms of plausibility, I feel that it would make more logical sense to have some limits. Yes, it can protect against a lot of stuff, but for two equally skilled powerful wizards, having it be effective against most everything seems counterintuitive.

Though I guess you could look at time it takes to cast and duration as significant limitations.

 

I think the reason Voldemort used the silver shield was because he expected the one known thing he couldn't have used the Shield Charm for - the Killing Curse.

Hence his surprise that Dumbledore was not attempting to kill him. Dumbledore then takes advantage of that by wrapping him in flame. Voldemort chooses to transfigure these, but I wouldn't take that as an indictment of the Shield Charm so much as a more effective way of turning defense into offense, as the snake then becomes quite useful, IIRC.

TWT: I will try to find specific instances of recoil when I can, just haven't had the time.

 

It seems to me, that the only way the aforementioned would be possible is for spells to rely on the will and "knowledge" of the caster.

For example, "No muggle means could harm me through the protego." vs "The Killing Curse is too strong for the protego to hold."

Sort of like that cliche about Harry being able to do things that a learned wizard/witch can't due to ignorance about what it can't do.

 

If Harry didn't understand the Charm, and what it could and couldn't do, he wouldn't be capable of casting it properly.

Fuck yo wish magic.

 

There seem to be two different arguments here:

1. Shield charm vs. Non-magical things

2. Shield charm vs. Magic


On the first point, preparation seems to be the limitation, while the second point adds in a second element of Wizard vs. Wizard skill, knowledge etc.

Those who are arguing a shield charm protects you against (almost) all magic by saying it is the concept of magical protection seem to forget curses are the concept of magical harm. To me it seems there is no reason why one should supercede the other.

 

Sectumsempra?

 

Harry understood sectumsempra enough. It said, "For enemies."

I think it would be less of an understanding of the core mechanics of the spell, (there are no core mechanics, they aren't lasers) and more of an understanding of the intent behind it.

 

Assuming you mean knowledge of the underlying physics and not knowledge of magic, I'd disagree. This has been explained enough times before, but let me explain it another way.

When Neville was dropped from a window when he was a kid, he bounced off the ground unhurt not because he had the knowledge of his momentum and acceleration, but because it was accidental magic protecting him. No shields, nothing.

That was accidental magic. Imagine what a deliberately cast shield with the necessary knowledge of underlying magic could do. There are no physical limits to magic. The only limit to magic is magic itself.

 

I'm not quite sure you read the part here I said I was answering the question posed in the thread. Yes, a nuke shouldn't appear in a Harry Potter story (I'll expand on crossovers in a minute) but since the thread itself is asking about such a situation, you can't just wav it off as "Tone".

I'm not quite sure you understand what tone is. You're saying that you can change the writing to be more gritty or dark but still maintain the tone. That's like saying you can change a square into a circle but still keep it as a square.

As for the whole crossover thing. Yes, its not strictly out of the question for Harry to be shot at with nukes (Or nuke-like deivces) in certain crossovers. Marvel and DC comics comes to mind (Cadmus having a tendency to shoot missiles at their superheros).

But that's going off topic.

Have I done something to offend you? I'm honestly confused with this hostility you're showing.

As for your previous comments: You say you're perfectly happy for the Shield Charm to have no limits. Well, I'm perfectly happy for the Shield Charm to have limits.

And that's okay; you have your opinions and I have mine.

This is one of the reasons why I was asking the thread to be locked. Until a nuke or soemthing more powerful hits a shield charm, I can't prove that the Shield Charm has limits while you can't prove that it doesn't have limits. It's a bit reminiscent to Schrodinger's cat come to think of it.

Or, in Harry Potter terms, it's basically the argument that Hermione and Xenophilius had in regards to the Resurrection Stone.

 

It's probably because you keep saying stuff like this:

without really explaining exactly why it is the way you say it is. Kinda just sounds insulting.

Just my two cents.

 

Except for the fact that what he said was a contradictory statement. He said that you could have a story be gritty but still maintain the same tone from the source material. Gritty is a type of tone. In comparison to other books/shows/movies, the Harry Potter series wasn't all that gritty.

But the main reason I felt the need to point that out was becuase apoc was making the point that a nuke in a Harry Potter fix is drastically un-Harry Potter. And that's okay, fair point to him. The problem is, the whole point of this thread is to answer that particular question so I don't get why he's getting on my case about it.

To apoc, if anything I said did come off as insulting, I do apologise. It wasn't my intention. It's just how I talk.

 

Will the shield charm protect against a flash-bomb? I don't think so, it seems contrary to the properties of shield charms as given in books and as shown in the movies.

I always felt that Protego creates a transparent barrier around the caster, so that he/she can see the opponent properly. The spell is intentionally designed not to obstruct the casters's view. So it means that the shield will not stop electromagnetic radiation. Which means it will not protect you against the gamma burst from a nuclear weapon.

However it will save one from shock-wave and the heat blast. But even with that, the radiation will burn one's skin and retina.

All of this is based on the assumption that the shield can't distinguish between harmful radiation and normal light of typical brightness.

 

Why would you assume that?

 

Qgqqqqq, because alternative to that is the idea that all you have to do to protect yourself from anything is to throw a shield. The spell will do the thinking on your part. How will the spell distinguish between the brightness of a candle, a CFL and bright spotlight.

Where do you draw the line between not causing me any issue and it will permanently blind me.

 

Sunglasses are translucent/transparent, and they protect you from bright light. Why can't a conceptual shield reduce glare too?

 

I don't understand why you think a spell of protection wouldn't distinguish between the two on its own. It's magic!