All of those are explicitly said to have the talent IIRC. If anyone can use magic, why doesn't Murphy ever learn a tracking spell for example?

One must have the talent before they can do anything with magic. A lot of minor talents exist though, people who can use magic but aren't powerful enough to qualify as wizards, and that's who you're talking about with those examples.

 

I actually read this in the Word of God thread. Jim has stated that everyone has the ability to do magic in his universe. But in most people, it's so perishingly small as to be nonexistent.

Best analogy I can think of: Everyone can change the volume of their voice and alter the pitch. But only a very few rare individuals are going to be good enough at it to be rock stars. Now imagine the "rock stars" are the trifling minor talents. Full on wizards are more like professional operatic masters.

 

The laws keep wizards from being monsters, they do let them be bastards to anyone they like.
I was wondering does that whole transform others, extend to magical cosmetic surgery. Could you make someone bald/hairy? give a woman a boob job? would that mean certain forms of magical healing could be seen as dark magic?

 

I seem to remember that the problem (according to Bob atleast) with transforming others was that it is basically a violation of the first law, that has been made its own law for clarity.

That is to say, if you take a human, and transform them into a frog, then the body/brain of the frog cannot contain the human intellect/memories and as a result they are lost. The end result of transforming someone into a frog then, is that for all intents and purposes the person that was transformed is dead and gone, and magic was used to kill them. No different than burning someone alive with magic, as far as the magical rules are concerned.

If you shapeshift yourself (the alphas), this problem does not exist. Presumably if you shapeshift yourself, you instinctively modify the new body in such a way that they can contain your mind, and you retain your human mind even in the body of say a wolf.

So based on that interpretation, body modification that does not touch the head&brain would presumably not be dark magic. Ofcourse we don't know if it is even possible to partially transform a specific body part like this. If it was, you would think Harry would have transformed his burned hand into a healthy hand for example.

 

I don't think that's the case, otherwise Lea turning a bunch of people into dogs in Changes would have prevented them from thinking like humans.

My take on the transformation one is that the other person has no power to return back to human form and, if turned into a frog, does not know how to live like a frog. They will essentially die because they're frogs who think like humans.

 

Well that was with faerie magic, which IIRC works differently than mortal magic. Different rules may apply there. Not to mention she's who knows how old and has experience to go with it -- more than a mortal, even a wizard who lives for only a handful of centuries as opposed to millennia like the Fae, could hope for. To say the least she's probably an exception to the rule.

 

I'd believe that if it wasn't for the fact that Changes says the magic they're using isn't any different. They're better at using what they've got, sure, but it's not fundamentally different to what humans can sling about.

 

That's comparing amateur hour shape-shifting to something with several thousand years of experience though.

And even then, we still aren't sure if anything was lost in the transition. Mouse got pretty damn scary about that shift, after all. I don't think he'd get that pissed off if it was only a body change.

 

As others have said, its probably Lea being able to use magic in ways that mortals cannot. Whether its by experience or just Fae being able to do stuff humans cannot. Even if the magical energy is the same, there are obviously differences. For example, its been established that only mortal magic can summon outsiders, no matter how much more skilled the Fae might be.

It should also be mentioned that Bob said that the the loss of personality is not instant, and that infact a strong mind/will could withstand the transformation and maintain its humanity for years. Presumably even weaker minds could maintain their personality for hours/days before being lost. The transformation into hounds was so brief, that even a weak mind would likely have lost little, and the people present likely all had very strong wills.

So someone with a really strong will could be transformed by a hostile wizard and so long as it was reversed before years passed, they would (mostly) recover.

Someone weak willed however might permanently lose his mind to the transformation within hours, and probably start losing pieces of his/her mind and personality within moments.

One interesting thing was that Harry specifically mentions transforming someone into an animal being murder. I wonder if a skilled enough wizard could transform another into a different human. A perfect disguise that.

 

Harry has once been turned to a hound by Lea, and the other time a hexan beast, so I was wondering, will he ever attempt to learn to shapeshift for himself.

 

Don´t think so. The whole shape shifting is mostly something for people with lower power levels. For a wizard of his power it offers nearly no benefits and should the need arise he could always construct something like the belts or simply ask a Fae.
It is also something that requires a sensitivity for magic that he doesn´t have.

 

Well, depends on the scale. People with lower power-levels can "focus" all their power into being able to take one form, but Listens to Wind is rather more capable (and offered to teach Harry).

 

Pretty sure that's been explicitly said to be anger management classes and not shapeshifting.

I could be wrong, but I remember being all excited about that actually being the case and then someone being a buzzkill with WoJ about it or somesuch.

 

Nah, it's said in the book. Harry and Ebenezar have a talk on Demonreach after the dust has settled, and Ebenezar mentions that LTW offered to teach Harry about controlling his anger, given that he has more experience with it than anyone else on the Council.

 

Which I think would be interesting as all hell to read. I mean, anyone over the age of... Say 140 at max would have a perspective that is literally impossible for ordinary humans, since we haven't ever lived that long. How would your opinion on rage and hate change when you're 300 or more?

 

I feel so dumb right now that I missed a very important clue. Too lazy to read through the whole thread to see if anybody else has picked it up, but: Is Mac a former winter knight?

Let me explain: He has a bar that's accorded Neutral Territory under the Unseelie Accords. As I recall, these are Winter Laws, basically made by Mab herself. So it stands to reason that Mac got the pub for services rendered to the Queen of Air and Darkness. The Neutral Territory might be an added bonus to protect Mac from enemies he made in his service.

Point two: Mac seems to have a superhuman healing factor, seen as he's healed a gutshot within minutes of the bullet being removed (by Mab, of all people) (see page 507-508). My theory is that, one: There's some residual Winter in him that grants the ability to heal himself, and two: The metal from the bullet blocked it.

But how could he just have quit the whole winter-business, you might ask.

Spoiler

"Many, many mantles are worn - or discarded - on Halloween night, wizard." (Kringle, page 506)

Together with Macs repeated statements of "Can't. I'm out." and his vast knowledge of pretty much everything concerning the supernatural (hell, he knew about Outsiders, and even knew how many there would be!) implies quite a high ranking background.

Man, I'm rambling. I don't even know if my theory is correct, but if it was, I'd be blown away.

 

Either that or Heimdal.

 

Mmm. Heimdal was known for brewing, too, if memory serves. As for Ex winter knights, I'm betting Rashid.