So Curses are worse than Dark Arts? Well... she did say the definition varies from Wizard to Wizard...

 

I think she means that curses are dark magic. This is pretty much what I had assumed spellwork to be classified as, but Snape's jinxing of Harry's broom wandlessly always made me thought a jinx was something very different.

 

I think, that for the purposes of fanfiction, this needs to be entirely ignored. The fun comes when people make their own systems of magic, and with a set of rules in place, that'll just be lost.

Of course, this doesn't really change anything, it simply reinforces what we already thought. Except for hexes/jinxes being 'dark magic', this is basically what I already thought :/

 

This was pretty much what i thought anyway, but i suppose it would have to depend on when or on what the spell etc was used on, for me anyway.

 

I admit, I don't quite understand what that is suppossed to mean..

... what?

I agree with Yarrgh, this is the kind of canon that is designed to be ignored. I'm sure there are better explanations somewhere in fanon ...

 

What it means is that a charm does not change the very basic nature of what an object is (which is what a spell does), it simply superimposes an effect on the object.

To use an allegory:

Imagine you have a bed, and it is quite hard and old. You want to have a softer bed.

You could have your current bed re-stuffed or re-sprung, thus making it softer for you.

OR, you could just lie something soft, like a blanket, over the top of your bed and then lie on the blanket, making it seem to you that the bed is softer, even though the bed itself hasn't changed.

Having the bed re-stuffed and re-sprung is like a spell (or transfiguration) - you have changed the very fundamental properties and nature of the object.

Laying something soft over the bed is like a charm - you have achieved the same effect, but you have just superimposed an effect on the object, you haven't changed the very nature of the object.

Hope that helps.

As for JKR defining these things, I just wish she had gone into more detail.

 

THe idea that a hex and jinx is like dark magic is kinda odd in my opinion. I mean, does a tripping jinx remind you of an entrail extraction curse?

 

Well, the only thing that I seem to be havind a difficult time in believing is that all curses are dark magic. I mean for example, in CoS when Ron tries to curse Malfoy into spitting out slugs. He used a curse, yes, but dark magic? Come on...

 

Most of it was already obvious to people with the exception of the Curses begin dark magic bit.

I agree with Yarrgh! that its much more interesting when authors ignore cannon in these cases and come up with their of ideas about magic.

 

Yeah, those definitions are lame.

I'd be much more interested in seeing a definition for something like "dark magic". Telling us that curses are darker than hexes doesn't actually tell us what it means to be dark. A glance at fics in the DLP library indicates that fanfic authors have contemplated all kinds of definitions.

Though, it's probably better left out of canon, as mentioned above.

QR

 

Bah. I always thought of curses as a lingering effect type of spell. Sort of like the bad luck curses that abound in witch legends. Charms are actually along the lines of what I thought they would be, but hexes feel very wrong. A hex is not necessarily a dark spell, just a potentially harmful spell. Truthfully, she does not seem to follow her own logic. If I recall, isn't diffindo, a spell Harry uses, called the cutting curse?

 

Pardon me while I drone on and on and on...

Her definitions pretty much go along with my own thoughts on the matter, with a few exceptions.

Charms tweak an object without really changing what it is. Like making something float (Wingardium Leviosa), hiding an object (Fidelius), adhering two objects together (sticking charm), enlarging (Engorgio), sealing a door (Colloportus), etc. The summoning and banishing charms can certainly be used offensively and defensively but generally follow JKR's rules for charms.

Incidentally, the Severing Charm goes against this rule by physically altering an object (permanently, I might add). In my (in all likelihood never to be published) stories, the severing charm cannot be used to remove limbs and cause mortal wounds.
I mean, come on, friggin' Ron Weasley used it to remove lace from his dress robes and he has all the skill, control and finesse of a bulldozer with misaligned steering and a drunk operator. If the severing charm was asdeadly as some fanfic make it out to be, I doubt he could have done that to his clothes without slicing a gaping hole in them (and it would be considered a curse). Nope, it's a low-powered spell used much like a normal pair of scissors. Furthermore, Harry uses it to remove a book cover. With the power he usually puts into a spell, he'd probably have removed the cover, part of the floor and the head of an unlucky student on the next floor down if the spell could routinely cause serious damage. He tried to use it on one of those brain creature's tentacles at the DOM and it didn't work at all.

I digress but still, it doesn't quite fit JKR's definition of a charm, unless just taking something apart or putting something together isn't considered enough of a 'fundamental alteration'. Is the Reparo spell a charm too? Maybe not, I can't recall.

In HBP (ugh) a spell is mentioned that can change vinegar into wine and it is referred to as a charm. That sounds like a fundamental alteration to me, as well as being an obvious example of Transfiguration.

Jinxes are 'malicious', cast with ill-intent but without necessarily being harmful or causing lasting damage and, by my personal definition, are more easily reversed and blocked than Hexes.
For example, the Tripping Jinx; it's mean, it can distract someone or hurt them (depending on the circumstances) but it has no lasting effects and doesn't even need to be reversed or canceled (unless you just keep tripping every time you get up, which is friggin' amusing).
The ubiquitous Jelly Legs jinx is easily reversed since your mouth and wand arm are unaffected; there's not even any pain to make saying a simple 'Finite Incantatum' difficult to cast. It would seem that all jinxes can be blocked with a run-of-the-mill shield charm.

Hexes are more harmful than curses, have longer-lasting effects and are harder to block and reverse (maybe impossible without help from someone else). Gluing someone's tongue to the roof of their mouth (Langlock), for instance, would be hard to reverse without someone else's assistance unless you are skilled/powerful enough to counter the spell silently and could lead to starvation if left alone but it isn't immediately life-threatening (unless you're currently dueling death eaters). Furnunculus, the boil hex, is certainly nasty and the effects don't go away on their own, same with the knee-reversing hex, but it's nowhere near in the same league as a Sectumsempra, to be certain.

Curses... They do life-threatening damage, often permanently affect the victim, are harder to counter and even more difficult to reverse, if you can at all. Some require their own specific counter-curse to stop them and obscure magics to reverse the effects if the victim has already been cursed. Not all curses, the Unforgivables in particular, can be blocked by the Protego shield charm or any other, for that matter.
Avada Kedavra, for instance, can't be countered or reversed and has permanent results. All you can do is block it with a physical obstacle.
Prolonged infliction of the Cruciatus Curse can cause real damage, insanity and death.
The Imperious is considered a curse simply by virtue of the sheer amount of potential havoc the caster can incur by using it, not to mention the fact that you are dominating another's will. The only real way to avoid it is to have a stronger force of will than the caster and, frankly, we've seen time and again that the majority of the wizarding world is full of mindless sheep.

The Memory charm, Obliviate, doesn't fit her definition of a charm, to me, as much as a curse but I guess if the memories can be recovered using the proper spells there could be some wiggle room. The tickling charm seems more like a jinx.
Spells that conjure something out of 'nothing' would seem to be a cross between charms and transfiguration but Augamenti, which creates water, and the refilling charm, which pretty much does what the name says, are both charms.

Her definitions work, to a certain extent, but there are still plenty of exceptions. Still, you'd expect something like magic to defy categorization and, indeed, many canon spells aren't given a category and are left in that gray area simply referred to as 'spells'.
What the hell? Damn but I sure can ramble on... Having just turned thirty, you'd think I'd have something better to do but nope.
Hopefully this BS will provoke some conversation though.

She doesn't actually say that hexes are dark, just that they have the connotation of dark magic. Hexes are, generally speaking, solely meant to cause harm, discomfort and trouble. Still, they're small potatoes compared to actual curses and fall more into the realm of very mean-spirited and potentially harmful. Jinxes being at the bottom of the scale, harm-wise, hexes are closer to the middle with curses being at the top.

Diffindo is actually the Severing Charm. I'm pretty sure the phrase 'cutting curse' is a fanfic invention and never appears in the books. Someone said Cutting Curse first and everyone else read it and used it in their own stories. The closest thing to it in canon is Sectumsempra.
Yes! The, supposed, Cutting Curse is the largest cliche in Harry Potter fanfic. You heard it here first!
Hehe. That one threw me for a while, I'll admit, then I started writing my own stuff and looked it up. I'm fairly certain the only cutting curse typically involves a razor and an angsty teen's forearms.

 

Both of these examples are not 'fundamental alterations', turning a broken chair back into a whole chair is not changing the fact that it is a chair. It was always a chair, you've just changed its shape. If you threw a glass bottle and a piece broke off, is it no longer a bottle?

Vinegar and Wine are both derived from grapes, the vinegar has just been allowed to ferment until the Alcohol has oxidised into Acetic acid. So basically, it's just reversing that fermentation process. Either that, or the flavour is masked to taste like wine.

 

How about the theory that the darker the spell, the more violent light shows when cast?
Like: Charms=>no light .. Jinxes ... Hexes .. Curses=>strong light show.