And for all the advanced magic shit that's supposedly out there, I'm surprised a lot of the wizards are just plain dumb. I mean, there's usually over-achievers in every class and more so in prestigious (?) schools like Hogwarts. Moreover, magic is a hell of a lot more interesting than say...math so where are the brilliant young minds of Harry's age? And no Hermione isn't brilliant. Meh, it's like JKR dumbed the rest of the world down so the few of Harry's unusual feats seem greater than they are.

 

True on the Stone. But, remember that Dumbledore had a hard-on for the Hallows. Heh, maybe that makes your point. He coveted the power, but he might have shared it if it wasn't one of Voldemort's horcruxes. The wand was just plain dangerous. Plus, its advantages would be sorely limited if it became public knowledge. Dumbledore would have had to face down every two-bit thug/assassin in the world if it was commonly known.

This.

For all the references to Hogwart's prestige, it is clearly a elementary education. There are no classes on enchantment, rituals, alchemy or other advanced arts. Clearly there must be other educational methods available to graduates who want to attain their mastery.

Somewhat like real life then? Really, most folks couldn't care less for unravelling the scientific or technical mysteries of the universe. Most folks just aspire to make a decent living at a career they don't hate, raise their kids in peace and afford a decent vacation every now and then.

Plus, enough with the Hermione hate She might not have been a budding Dumbledore, but she certainly could pull off some decent magic (the enchanted bag). Especially considering the many substandard teachers they had at Hogwarts. Flitwick, McGonagall, Sinistra being possible exceptions. One could also imagine that there are others at Hogwarts who were more adept and simply not mentioned in canon. It's a narrow cast of characters in the novels, after all.

However, I think it's quite possible that many magical folk would horde their knowledge, especially in the pureblood families, as it would give them unknown advantages. They wouldn't necessarily be scientifically minded. Warders would keep their innovations secret, broom charmers, etc..would also. Just makes sense.

 

All right yeah I was thinking more in terms of higher education. But I do feel wizards should have more focus at 18 because that's usually the entirety of their education right there. The rest is probably some job training.

 

Fixed. I was agreeing with you that it was a POV bias, as Harry is clearly not academically inclined. Then, I was extrapolating the rest. Using Hermione as a baseline for the academically gifted, especially considering her use of a time-turner to become exposed to presumably, every class Hogwarts had to offer, we can deduce that Hogwarts does not delve much into advanced arts.

 

The hallows were a can of worms. If I were Dumbledore, I probably wouldn't have said shit either. I mean, you can go all Minority Report with the stone, but in HP they respect the dead, since apparently they have a legit religious system when magical law proves the existence of a soul. They could do those things, but it would be like torturing the souls who have to wake up from what may or may not be a peaceful death.

It's academic potential is indeed quite ridiculous, but supposedly the stone also has a strange, dangerous effect on people, makes them want to see dead loved ones. Maybe the wizards studying it would lose their focus? The thing about the hallows was that they all had a very, very sinister downside. The wand's was just the most obvious, but the stone makes people yearn for the dead and the cloak, the most benign of them, is for hiding like a bitch.

But that was a very good point with the thestrals. If nothing else, you've got a flock of the most powerful wand animals in existence a tail's-hair away, and they're just chillin' with Hagrid. Maybe Harry could have used a nice shiny death-wand from the start.

 

Harry's not academically-inclined because the professors are predisposed to hold back. Case-in-point: Snape's potions textbook. As soon as the information is produced in an easy-to-understand manner, Harry ate that shit up - reading the book even on his downtime. I think it's more that Harry isn't academically stimulated; it's canon-proven that he didn't need some fanon-born growth/mental development potion to stimulate him.

Hogwarts must have, at some point or another, delved into the advanced arts, by virtue of the fact that their library's restricted section even exists.

Okay - so summon up whoever's brain you want to pick at for a week, record it, and make sure no one tries to retrieve them again. And if you tried to do something stupid like bawl over your dead relatives, you can get your ass stunned, dragged away, and restricted from handling the Stone again. I won't deny that potential for abuse is pretty high, obviously. That said, there's also nothing really stopping your average wizard from apparating into a muggle bank and exchanging it for Galleons lol; there's gotta be a level of trust somewhere. Sharing it, and letting people understand its capabilities is far better than letting legends float around and have people come to their own conclusions.

Same goes for the wand: if people understand what it's composed of, why fuck around trying to kill for the only one that exists, instead of trying to make your own ? I know a .50 desert eagle is more powerful than my .45 Browning, but I'm not gonna fight you for it - I'll just get my own

That's another point that pisses me off too, about Hagrid. He gets wrongfully accused and denied an education...but let's not tutor him, or anything useful like that. Let's have him raise animals and speak like a retard.

Fuck you, Dumbledore.

 

Snape's a douche, no question. It's not even an issue of preserving power or anything. I mean, what would it hurt for a potions master and academic to show a better way of making the Draught of Peace? I think he's just a dick who can be bothered to help students.

But, his potion's text didn't make it any easier to understand. As I remember, it just had shortcuts and edits that made it more effective. Harry's potions came out a little better, and that, along with the forbidden fruit aspect of it, kept Harry's attention.

Dumbledore understood this about Harry. He didn't learn for learning's sake. He had to need it. And, if you tied a nifty little mystery around it, he suddenly became motivated.

 

Children mold themselves to fit their peer groups...so I blame Ron. While he may never have been a genius in canon they sporadic bursts of talent he did show is I think proof that he could have been a more capable wizard than he was...and again for that I blame Ron. Now contrary to fanon popular opinion Ron is not an idiot, he is merely average...not unlike most of the people in the world. Being Harry's first friend, I think Harry sort of lowered himself to Ron's level. It wasn't all Ron of course, he was the center of so much attention, which he was neither used to or wanted, I think he just took the opportunity that being friends with Ron presented...to be unremarkable. Ron was never going to push him to study or develop any talents he showed to better himself as a wizard...they were going to play Quidditch & complain about Malfoy.

Consider how different he would have been as a student if the first people he met were Neville & Hermione...there's a strong chance he could have become a bookworm or developed a liking for Herbology. He altched onto the first friend he made & then made sure he didn't step outside of acceptable behavior in order to keep that friend.

 

I enjoyed the last update.

I may be entering the debate around Harry’s discovery a little late, but... anyway.

At first, I shared the same position than most people: the discovery should have been made sooner. After all, if the discovery is that “living organisms can somehow maintain a connection with their body parts even after a switching spell is used”, it is inconceivable that no one figure it out sooner.

The use of a transfigurated pillow instead of a normal living organism should not have influenced the existence of such link even if it is not at the same degree of obviousness.

Without changing the scene too much, you could change the discovery: instead of discovering that the living organism maintains a connection with their switched body parts, it could be how that connection influence the behaviour of inanimate object transfigured into living beings.

This discovery may not be as fundamental or impressive or useful as the original, but I think it’s a little more credible on a “scientific” point of view. It is reasonable to think that such an experiment wasn’t done before, because even if the experiment seem simple, obvious and easy from our perspective, it is not.

Harry, after all, had to think about switching body part of real living organism to an inanimate object transfigured into a living organism. Personally, I would not have thought of doing this experimentation or see the pertinence of doing it (living to living, yes; living to non-living, yes; living to non-living object transfigured into a living organism, no or I may just be stupid).

About Hogwart’s prestige, I think that it work in the same way than in real life. Why school like Eton (England) or Brebeuf (Quebec) have some prestige? It is not because of the school (building) itself, it is the realisations of its graduate, teachers, headmasters and founders who build the reputation of a school.

Think about it: the four Founders were the greatest wizards of their time, Dilys Derwent, who was supposed to be a great healer, Phineas Negelius Black came from a very respectable pureblood family (at the time), Albus Dumbledore, the greatest wizard of his time if you believe most people, became headmaster of Hogwart; Voldemort who, as Ollivander said, did great, but terrible things graduated from Hogwart, and many others.

If you forget theacher’s position of defense against the dark art teacher while Voldemort’s curse was in place and Hagrid, most teacher at Hogwarts seem to be master or genius in their chosen fields: even if he was a bad teacher, no one can say that Snape was a “dimwit” in potion or dark art.

Snape was a genius in his fields (and like in most University, you can have intelligent people who are really good in their field of study, but are bad teacher), Minerva is one of the few registred animagus in existence, Flitwick was a duelling champion and even if she had a liking for exaggeration and dramatic, Trelawney do have some ability to predict the future and she is the descendant of a great seer (Cassandra Trelawney, I think, her great-grandmother).

Although Hogwart curriculum seems a little poor compared to others fanon schools, it is not. Students go to Hogwart to learn how to control and use their gift of magic and they are learning that. Enchantments, ritual, summoning, blood magic, etc. are mostly fancy things that can either be linked to a class taught at Hogwart or can be learned in a student’s own time. After all, for one Albert Einstein how many nobodies have graduate with a physic degree (no insult intended)?

Because of that and considering they are at the same level than high school students, not college or university students, I’m not surprised that Hogwart reputation is so great.

And although I agree that in a world like the Dresdenverse, wizards may be inclined to keep their works for themselves, that thinking doesn’t fit with my view of the Potterverse. After all, Dumbledore had a correspondence with the great personality and mind of his time (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollow) and I do not think that they were speaking of the weather.

However, since wizards have a long life, they may be less prone to share their knowledge, in the hope of getting full credit of theirs researchs (like the spatian in Asimov’s Robot series), than muggle.

That’s what I had to say, I just hope I did not make a fool of myself like last time.

 

Thing is, there's no point arguing about the minute academic details of the potterverse. I for one do not believe JKR had the mental capability to fully think out the academic possibilities or background behind canon especially when we start getting into topics like research. And things she did come up with like Dumbledore's research on the uses of dragon blood,etc are mostly random and there to add a little bit of back story.

As far as Santi's dilemma is concerned, he could always just make the same find more complex. I'm talking about multiple animate to inanimate spells and inanimate to animate spells with switching spells mixed in between. Maybe even something like a living thing wouldn't lose its characteristics after an infinite number of transfigurations and/or switching spells.

And finally I tire of this debate...Santi, free us all by updating!

 

Agreed.

How about the use of switching spells between magical and non-magical species leading to the transfer of magical properties to the non-magical animal that persisted even after the switch was reversed?

Say the snout of a niffler was switched with the snout of an anteater. The result could be that the anteater retained the magical abilities. Or, maybe the magical abilities ended, but the behavior of the non-magical animal was permanently affected. For instance, if the fangs of a poisonous magical snake were switched with those from a harmless mundane snake, the non-magical snake would lose its magical venom but would retain it;s agressive behavior. Just a thought.

 

I hate to do this to such a well written post and I have no qualms with you personally...

But I do take issue with the notion that anything in or from Quebec has prestige.

As for this debate, I think some level of intellectual honesty is required when translating the literal qualities of the book. Things like Ollivander only using three cores stems not from any sort of backwardness on the part of magical Britain, but because Rowling was writing a children's story and didn't want Harry's introduction to the wizarding world to read like a goddamn thesis.

Other points, such as the chap wearing the dressing gown at the World Cup, while excessive do serve to show the massive schism between the two worlds. Other points could be mentioned as well, but I think its important for us all if we're going to have these fundamentally open-ended debates to make some distinction between literary license and actual intent.

 

Well, we have Mcgill, the Cirque du Soleil, Céline Dion, Robert Lepage, etc.

I meant that in Quebec, Brebeuf is a prestigious high school/CEGEP.

Since it is not the subject of the thread, I will shut up now.

(Even if I consider myself canadian first and quebecois second, I still have some national (provincial?) pride.)

 

Imo, nothing on that list except for McGill really counts. It is prestigious because of its achievements both past and current. With the exception of McGill's medicine program, I completely agree with Vlad in that nothing about Quebec has prestige, and if there are traces left it will soon disappear. With 34% of the population of Montreal under the poverty line and more money being funnelled into welfare cheques, it is over for the city and therefore the province .

 

boo, I only meant it as a joke...

But Celine Dion, for real?

 

Santi should have a Story thread and a Comments thread... cos this shit got ridiculous.

 

I like having the story with the discussion. If you want to just read it go to ff.net