After years of reading Hp fanfiction, I've noticed that very few people actually use the more basic spells to their full potential.

Honestly, the majority of people just want to rush Harry towards the point where He can transfigure pebbles into Lions and cast spells the likes of Fiendfyre.

Now, I'll admit Fiendfyre is my favorite Hp spell - I mean hello? Giant reptiles made out of fire - but, why do people seem to just rule out the 'weaker' spells?

I was reading across the Harry Potter wiki, when I came across the book where Hermione learned most of the spells she taught Harry for the Goblet of Fire tasks.

I'll post a list of the spells in said book here;

Levitation Charm (Wingardium Leviosa)
Water-Making Spell (Aguamenti)
Wand-Lighting Charm (Lumos)
Unlocking Charm (Alohomora)
Fire-Making Spell (Incendio)
Bird-Conjuring Charm (Avis)
Revealing Charm (Aparecium)
Engorgement Charm (Engorgio)
Shrinking Charm (Reducio)
Gouging Spell (Defodio)
Mending Charm (Reparo)
Scouring Charm (Scourgify)
Shield Charm (Protego)
Summoning Charm (Accio)
Severing Charm (Diffindo)
Impediment Jinx (Impedimenta)
Hardening Charm (Duro)
Disarming Charm (Expelliarmus)
Reductor Curse (Reducto)
Stunning Spell (Stupefy)
Patronus Charm (Expecto Patronum)

And also, the Banishing Charm (Depulso) which is taught hand in hand with Accio.

Honestly? That is one nice, long decent amount of spells. Knowing them, along with having a decent amount of skill in transfiguration could make anyone a force to be reckoned with if they used those spells right.

For example, Avis in tandem with Engorgio could create a swarm of large birds under the control of the caster. Where they could attack the opponent, or shield the caster from other spells. The Killing curse for example, this could be a decent defense against it.

The Patronus is so bright, that it could be used to distract the opponent and allowing for a follow up of Defodio the gouging charm or Reducto.

Impedimenta to slow the opponent down, and then follow up with a hard attack aswell would be a decent method.

Duro, it could be used on debris and the like lying around and then used in tandem with accio to bring the now stone solid debris towards the caster, and then hit with a banishing charm towards the opponent. If used properly, it could increase the velocity of the debris to a speed that normal human eyes couldn't hope to track.

Those are just basic methods off the top of my head. I'm sure you guys could think up a ton more aswell.

Canon really left us wanting on the combat aspect of magic, imo. It was always 'Stupefy', 'Expelliarmus' and the like. And, to be honest it got kind of repetitive after a while.

 

I agree with Incendio definitely. An average Death Eater used that to blow up Hagrid's cabin in one go.

EDIT: Which implies a level of versatility that vastly improves HP spells and magic in general, IMO.

 

I think each year you learn how to use all the basic spells but better each time.

Deffindo

Years:
1: Cut paper
2: Learn to control, size, depth, different materials.
3: Can carve shapes with it
4: Basics of using it on flesh
5: FOunding off knowlegde in all aspects of the spell to a good level for OWL
6-7: Mastering it to a hgih level of precision on various materials.


Knowing it in year 1 would not let you but someones neck open because your funamental knowledge of the spell isnt good enough, or in the right aspect to know how to cleave flesh with it.

 

Isn't a big plot point that most wizards don't have much logic and are set in traditions and patterns? I mean, maybe you could use 2nd year spells to utterly demolish an opponent, but most wizards wouldn't think of it, and would just keep blasting away with stupefy until you dropped.

 

That sounds like a fun thread, posting your own 'attacks' (or defenses) based on variants of combining those exact spells.

 

The slug-vomiting charm. How many people can honestly say they would be able to focus on anything, nevermind vocalazing or concentrating on nonverbal spells with slugs coming out of your mouth?

Edit: This thread makes me wonder when we will get an open-world-harry-potter-based rpg game. Done right with a decent replay option(mass effect) people would be playing the hell out of it, even if it was restricted to the school years. Modding it would become the new fanfiction.

 

This also amuses me because it points out one of my favorite things about Harry, our dear protagonist: as far as all evidence we have points, in his first year at Hogwarts, Harry did not learn or cast successfully... a single spell. Ever. Once.

 

The combat aspect of the Harry Potter canon is pretty dumb since school kids with pathetic DADA instruction are able to blast away and take down DE's with decades of experience in dueling and killing aurors.

And yes. The combinations you mentioned are pretty neat. However in case you increase the standard of the level of dueling in HP, your opponents know these tricks as well and they would be ridiculously easy to counter and attack you back, hence the need for flashy spells that do a lot of damage or transfigurations difficult to counter and curses hard to reverse.

 

I think the exact opposite is true with the first post. The students petty much use nothing but the most basic spells. Personally, I rather see Harry learn or use more powerful spells, rather than just rehashing stupefy or banishing charms for the 800th time. I thought it was awesome when harry smashed draco with sectumsempra. I want more of that, not using a leglocking curse while a dude is walking down the stairs. boring, though stealth/assassin!harry (in a non japanese way) could be neato.

I guess it's actually just a pet peeve of mine when people get defeated by a second year spell. Any spell can be used in a billion different ways, if you have enough innovation, and going down that route usually means the author is pidgeonholing the story into an anti-magic type story with how logic and innovation can defeat anyone, and I find that boring - i mean, using diffindo to kill someone used to be the hot thing when authors lacked originallity and just stuck with the tried and true method of rehashing and exrapolating canon to no different end. And the stuff your talking about in the post has been done a hundred times already, since you know, it is the year 2013 and there's 600,000 stories on ffn

 

I never understood why Harry was punished so harshly for the Sectumsempra thing. I mean, he could have just said, "Draco was going to use the Cruciatus curse on me. I panicked at hearing the first few syllables of it and used a spell I wasn't entirely sure on. I'm sorry it was so dangerous, but dammit he tried to use an Unforgivable."

 

This is Snape we are talking about. Even if Harry goes to Dumbledore, nothing really is gonna happen since Dumbledore was hell bent on saving Malfoy in book 6.

Unless Harry grows a spin overnight like in most stories, I can't see him take his complaint any further. If Draco already cast the 'Crucio', now that would be an entirely different matter.

 

Well, I think generally speaking, people always want to show off their ability to affect really broken, shitty latin, and try and come up with a spell that does something spectacular, instead of having the caster DO something spectacular through skill. It's the microwave of spellcasting. I mean, it's great if you cast a spell that opens up the clouds and brings down a meteor. Because that's easy. A lot harder to have the character do that through use of a compliment of spells that have to be cast in succession and with precision. It's easier to write 'hurr durr kaboomus' and have it happen. But theoretically, there's nothing in HP's magic system that says you couldn't make a flaming meteor. In fact, it wouldn't even be hard to do. It would just take a few casts and hitting a moving target, but it can literally be done with spells listed in the OP.

Ultimately, I kinda think it's laziness on the author's part. Also, people seem to think Harry is making 'progress' if he goes KNOW ALL THE SPELLS and then goes forward and does that.

I mean, that's been expressed in this thread already.

But here's how I see it: The more you know, the more you need to process. The less it becomes instinctual without a metric fuckton of training. Anarchy says he thinks it's embarrassing when someone gets beat by a second year spell. Well... um. To that I say this. "I learned how to make a fist when I was a baby. It's a skill I still use on occasion to this day. Something that works doesn't need to be a reinvention of the wheel or some advanced application of something ubercomplex to work." In fighting, it's the puncher's chance. And I subscribe wholeheartedly to that being put into more stories with magic. Because ultimately, on any given day, there is a chance of anyone knocking anyone out in a fight just through fluke luck. I love the idea of that being in a magic system. Because no matter how good someone is, there's a slim chance it just isn't there day. Or, no matter how bad someone is, if its just their day, and they fuck around and roll a storyline!natural-20, well... you have the chance of some crazy shit happening.

But to each their own. I always kinda try and boil my characters down to the bare essentials and make them devise ways of getting by with what they have. For all the shit the 'when all you have is a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail' approach gets where you think you can solve every problem with the same tool... sometimes you can. And when you can't, it's a fucking lot better for character development to trip and fall and have them fail and have to come back from being kinda one-dimensional, than to just be the god-caster who has something in their spellbag for every situation.

There's a lot that can be done with the basics if people put the effort in. A wizard shouldn't need every spell ever, in my mind. They just need a goddamned imagination.

But that's the problem, isn't it? Because wizards aren't exactly known for those in HP.

And in a lot of ways, neither are a lot of writers in the fandom.

Just my two cents.

Indeed. I tried doing things like this in Ambient, which, I'll admit was largely due to the inherent issues with magic in that story, but it's not hard to do. The issue is, people see no point in doing that when they can just make a spell that fires big blocks of stone at people. Streamline it through making up new shit so you don't have to call back the old shit and do a few casts to get one effect.

...Well that was odd. Those that know me know I don't tend to post much in here, especially about HP stuff, but I guess this is something near and dear to my heart in how I see magic just in general across the board and how best to use it as opposed to making a system where there's a new spell for every slight variation of something. It keeps the readers from remembering what something is.

I always said if I was going to go back to HP fic writing, it'd be to overhaul The Point and have it be about Flitwick teaching Harry about dueling and magic in general, and Harry learning the value of the simple charms they learn through the early years after Filius kicks Harry's ass in a duel using only first-third year charms. I think that's something that needs to be done more, so people stop turning Harry into Hermione in fics.

Harry Potter should work, in magic, like that asshole you never want to play old-school fighting games with. (me. I do this.) Basically, he gets you in a corner, and keeps fucking leg-sweeping you until you fucking die. He isn't throwing fireballs and Shoryukens or 80-hit combos because that's a lot of work for the same result and it is a lot more dangerous. Harry should know there's 1 of him and a bunch of Death Eaters + Voldemort. Simplicity is your fucking friend because it becomes instinct.

Um... tl;dr I know, and I went on a tangent but meh. Long story short: People, please stop making Harry into Hermione. If you must, then at least have the good grace to do what people always do to Hermione in fics, and have the catalog of spells lead to freezing as they try and decide which of 50 spells they know for something to use.

Also: I might write someone in HP fucking around and casting Meteor thanks for some quick transfiguration, a couple charms, a good viewpoint and some damn good timing. Maybe a team. Teamwork, yo.

 

I'm not sure if wizards lack of logic is something JKR wanted. It probably came into fanfiction to explain the inconsistencies found in the books. It was an easy excuse to use to make Harry appear much smarter than he actually is. If there was such a lack of basic reasoning, I'm sure the muggleborns would have found multiple ways to circumvent the restrictions placed on them by the purebloods and would probably be ruling by now.

As to the the minimalistic use of spells in a story, its quite difficult to make up lots of spells and have them around because then fights would be quite boring. Like you said, it would be very easy for someone using interesting spells to disarm or defeat someone who uses a few spells. Unless you plan to write stories such as the Sacrifice arc, it makes sense to keep a few spells and concentrate on the plot.

 

You should fucking post more.

Bravo.

 

There is that. On the other hand, there are very, very many specialized spells in Harry Potter.

One spell to create a charmed bird.
Another to create orchids.
Another to make dishes clean themselves.
Another to turn a matchstick into a needle.
Another to:...

While some of these might be from the same incantation, that still means ton of very specific incantations and memorized wand movements.

For me the best writers portray magic as understanding, and convincingly depict that understanding. In these stories brilliant wizards don't just use a handful of spells in imaginative ways, they understand the connections between the incantations and why when you cast one spell one way and another spell another way--not just memorizing a bunch of spells.

 

If she didn't want it, it was strange of her to give so much time to saying exactly that. Remember Snape's challenge in PS? Afterwards, I seem to recall Dumbledore saying that many wizards "don't have a speck of logic".

 

The way I see it, the best fight on the series was Dumbledore vs Lord Voldemort, and the only vocalized spell was the killing curse. When I wrote some HP shit long ago, I only focalized in the effect, not the words used. Because like Calz said, when an author uses crap Latin to make meteors appear I run the hell out from that fic, I didn't want the readers to do the same.

 

I figure this is probably the biggest difference between somebody like Dumbledore or Voldemort and random person with a wand.

Super wizards can do really anything they can think of with magic as they have a deep understanding of magic and how to use it. Regular wizards recite spells because that's what they learned to do in school.

It doesn't take a brilliant wizard like Riddle or Dumbledore to become a super wizard and being a brilliant wizard doesn't make you a super wizard, like Hermione.

 

If the actual magic is a focus of the story most authors go down the wrong path of thinking that they must invent a million spells. It's a better idea to focus on highlighting a system that has building blocks and incorporates them into each other.
Lets take the basics in defense easiest to most difficult.

Blocking- Personal understanding- motion to "charge" your wand and then literally placing it in the path of the spell
Countering- "finite" Undoing a spell effect after exposure. takes knowledge of the actual spell.
Shielding- "protego" a bit of a magical arm wrestle but related to blocking.
Deflecting-"pushing" a spell away from yourself. A more advanced extension of blocking. mixed with a little banishing.
Parrying/ Nullifying- the most advanced form of countering. Timing and mastery of a spell means you can figuratively smack another person out of casting it (Snape vs Harry HBP).
------
So instead of having a million different shield charms. I would rather have the one basic one with variations introducing other schools of defense.
Example, someone casts basic protego and if they recognise the incoming spell a slight twist or motion of countering means the shield handles the spell better, probable still standing after. (people like flitwick would be a nightmare)
Perhaps they choose to reflect the spell back at you. So a shield with elements of deflection.

Basic casting- just the spell
Advanced casting- building simpler elements together
Master casting- building the hardest elements together - maybe even different schools."conjuring and shielding"

P.S. That is the way I view fiendfyre, fire that is simultaneous "cursed" you have to control both the flame and the curse.

 

Making magical ability about simply knowing the most powerful spells (Anarchy's vision) turns a duel into a spelling bee. Whoever has memorised the dictionary of spells best wins.

I prefer magical conflict to be decided by a character's general magical skill and ability to apply their knowledge in interesting, creative ways. Not by them knowing a particular spell.

Someone who understands magic like Dumbledore should be able to use 2nd year spells to turn an average Auror inside out.