I don't believe there is another thread dedicated to my exact question, but if there is then I fail.

Anyways, I was wondering why the hell do you think accidental magic didn't come into use anywhere in the later books? I mean, when Neville talked about it in Sorcerer's Stone (iirc), his uncle tried to do a bunch of dangerous thing to show that he had magic. When he slipped and fell, his unused magic kicked in and saved his life by making him bounce.

Wouldn't that happen later in life? I don't think your magic gets more lazy as you get older. If it has that sort of sentience, wouldn't magic's self-preservation abilities become more prevalent as a growing wizard's powers develop?

 

I dunno how much of that explanation is fannon made up rather than taken from the books, but wasn't the idea behind schooling to learn to control your magical outbursts? Therefore, after several years at Hogwarts, accidental magic should not be happening.

But then, you most probably meant accidental magic saving the life of someone in extreme situations... well that one is just a left over from the first few books, and it would have been too convenient of an explanation to save someone's sorry ass from death.
It could be actually used as an argument that instead of being explored, someones magic is being repressed by the commonly set ideas and education for wand wielding magic users(already tried to use in in a dialog where Voldemort is brainwashing the wonder kid, though I doubt this particular thing would see daylight any time soon).

I've actually always wondered, with the presence of cannon accidental magic, which is basically wandless magic, why most authors giving our resident hero the super ability to cast stunners from his finger tips, insist on writing that wandless magic is very rare ability and practically impossible feat for those of "limited power".
And talking about shooting spells from the finger tips - why is it so that everyone uses a wand based spells to be cast wandless, instead of just having things happen?! I'd guess it is rather more dramatic to write how the protagonist extended his hands forward and then how the blinding light erupted from his whole body, including the ears, and brought death and destruction to his foes. ?!

 

Yeah I had always seen it as the more you use magic consciously the less it will happen subconsciously.

Like... the more you piss in a potty during toilet training, the less you piss yourself.

 

Hmm...what about Hagrid then? Wasn't he kicked out in his third year? If you have to spend years practicing your magic to bring it under control, shouldn't Hagrid be very prone to accidental magic?

 

Using Hagrid - the big fella who somehow miraculously survives encounters with beasts that are considered deadly for normal people, is a particularly bad example to argue that point.
I'd actually say - Hagrid is a living example for accidental magic in it's finest.

On that note - has anyone ever thought about the term "half-giant", and particularly what it implies!? Now - how has that happened, is an interesting question.

 

Co-sign

It honestly makes the most sense.
But we all know sense goes out the window when discussing Harry Potter

 

With age comes emotional maturity and, generally, a stronger control on emotional outbursts. The same thing applies to accidental magic, I think. If you draw the parallel between physical maturation and the accidental magic displayed in the books you'll notice that as a given character ages and gains wisdom on when to act on his emotions there is less and less opportunity for magic to act on the whims of feeling.

The perfect example and subversion of this is Arianna, who in my opinion was left totally afraid of her magic because of the things the muggle boys did to her. Thus when she became afraid she would start a spiral of fear wherein she became afraid, felt her magic respond, and became even more afraid because of it. Like a vicious cycle that ended up with extremely powerful magic occurring but without her being in control of it.

 

Ha. I like this analogy. Does that mean, though, that elderly wizards become prone to accidental magic again? Grandpa farts and accidentally sets the cat on fire?

That could be a real problem if we're talking about someone of Dumbledore's power. Wizarding Depends just wouldn't be able to reign him in.

 

Using Taure's example of pissing in the toilet and not on yourself, people with less emotional control would piss their selves in fear if really scared. So with that in mind, you wouldn't have that far to go to say that when wizards get scared they might blow something up subconsciously.

 

I think Rowling used accidental magic as a way to define who a wizard is, and how different they are from Squibs and Muggles. Usually wizards in RPG's have mana or magic points, which defines their status as wizards. Rowling uses accidental magic as an original way to seperate wizards from others.

 

Ninja Edit: I'm stoned, and I just repeated in more words exactly what you said.

I disagree with this. Neville did not say anything along the lines of thinking about bouncing before he did so. When he slipped and bounced it was totally subconscious. Just like Harry, who wanted to get away from Dudley and the gang, ended up on top of the school building. It wasn't what he had wished for, as he ended up wondering how in the hell he got up there, but it was what his magic did to save his life.

I guess the reason older people aren't prone to accidental magic is because magic doesn't develop in a quantitative sense. It's quality and control, more so, that matures and develops. So if you get older your rate of accidental magic should exponentially decrease. How soon do you think that would be?

 

I never pictured accidental magic as the magic itself reacting to protect the wizard. I always saw it as the wizard unconsciously using his magic to protect himself. As a wizard gets older and learns to control his magic, he starts reacting consciously to threatening situations rather than unconsciously, and then no more accidental magic.

 

I see accidental magic as a sign of someone being a wizard. It can pop up anywhere, without the child knowing what they are doing, to put it simply.

-Mary

 

I had thought of accidental magic as a mean of natural defense for children which lessens with age and training. A six year old can't defend himself as such the magic helps, a teenager can already control magic just fine and the magic does nothing as his reflexes and instinct will do the job instead.

 

But at the same time wizards, at least Harry, when they show extreme emotion their magic goes out of wack. Perhaps this just means Harry is the equivalent of a 15 year old still wearing diapers magically.
Always knew he was a bed wetter.

 

Wait, didn't Harry have a burst of accidental magic in the summer once? He was listening in on the TV and Vernon looked out of the window and tried to choke him for some reason or other...

Or was that fanfiction? Everything starts to blur when you haven't looked back to cannon for a few years...

 

I believe he means the first chapter of book five, where Harry is listening to the news under the living room windowsill, hears either a car or the crack of apparition, jumps, hits his head and yelps. This promptly brings Vernon out, who chokes him.

Still, no 'accidental magic' was involved there...

 

Yeah, that's the one, I thought it was followed up by Harry's skin becoming slippery making Vernon unable to hold him (like a forcefield around his neck). That was my impression when I read it.

That would mean that no matter the age a wizard's magic still keeps protecting him and comes out when in a pinch, even without a wand.

 

When Vernon was chocking Harry, Vernon got some sort of shock that made him let go. At the time there was speculation on whether it was Harry or the protections on the house that did it.