My first instinct would be to say that it involves the emotional component of the spell rather than some sort of magical energy; having to keep thinking happy thoughts when you're under a dementor's influence is a very difficult thing to do.

 

Or that increased power comes with magical 'practice', which would of course increase skill as a side effect.

 

Say you see 2 guys on a street. You easily, and subconsciously, make distinctions. You might notice that Jake is taller than Peter, or that Peter is heavier than Jake. However, it is just about impossible to say that Jake is 5.7 inches taller than Peter or that Peter is 47 lbs heavier than Jake, without equipment. It is easy to make general comparisons between two objects without needing numbers.

Perhaps Voldemort's enchantment works in a similar fashion. It doesn't generate numbers or values for magical power, but it might notice that Dumbledore is more powerful than Harry. Perhaps Dumbledor's soul is brighter, or that he has a very long beard (and we all know magic is contained in the beard, amirite?). The point is, whatever kind of spell Voldemort used, it's very possible that it just makes general comparisons and notices the stronger wizard. Numerical power levels are not necessary.

When interpreting canon, I would say that very little is 'obvious'. And magic itself is the height of convenience. What's wrong with convenience?

I didn't respond to it because I already partially addressed it. I then later stated that Taure's reasoning is sound, and that his theory has merit, based on the evidence provided.

 

Right. So your argument is that every wizard would have a definite power level (which they would, of course) but that it sounds better if numerical values don't exist, and therefore the spell that gives numerical values doesn't exist.

Not only is that in direct contradiction with this:

- since, if it exists, of course you can give a numerical value to each wizard - but there's also no reason to think that measuring magical power would be less precise than any other measurement.

 

You can't give a wizard a numerical value of magic.

Making magic quantifiable creates one big problem. That is the unit. To measure anything, you would need a unit, and if such a thing existed it would have been mentioned in canon.

Regardless, it is possible for magical power to vary without there being a quantifiable unit of measurement.

If we take, two different persons, X and Y. X being stronger than Y, physically. Now, reasons for X's strength may depend on a lot of things: race, genetics, diet, exercise, etc.. So, X is stronger than Y. Yet, we cannot say that X is 100 times stronger than Y, because no such measurement exits or that X is 100 units strong and Y is 10 units strong, because the unit to measure physical strength does not exist.

This analogy can be used to explain, varying levels of magical power without it being a measurable quantity.

 

Wrong.
You can let both of them cast, for example, the lumos charm, measure the lux, and then set them in relation to each other.
With this, you can say that wizard 1's lumos charm is x-times as powerful as wizard 2's.

You do this with a lot of spells, get the average and can say that wizard 1 is y-times as powerful as wizard 2.
Sure, wizard two may be more talented with... piercing spells, so in this field he would be more "powerful" than the other one, but it would probably even out.


In the HP-verse, we don't have only two wizards, but a lot. You can measure them all with the described method, take the weakest wizard and define his average power as unit, let's say it's called AWP.

Then, when you have a wizard whose average power is twice as big as the power of your weakest wizard, his average power is two AWP and so on.


Keep in mind, this is all theoretical, without taking into account emotions influencing your spells and so on. And it assumes that different wizards have a different power, which I don't believe. I think, with enough study and practicing(which would never happen, but that's not the point), Colin Creevey could cast a lumos charm as light as Dumbledore.

 

Sesc: something interesting with this is that often spells appear to be "all or nothing" deals until they encounter other magic.

A correctly-cast stunning spell either stuns you or not. There doesn't appear to be degrees of success once you've got the basics of the charm down to pat. You can't really make a person "more unconscious". But when you introduce a shield charm into the mix, resisting the stunning charm, then you have an instance of spells having variable power, the one with the greater power winning out.

 

@Atyan: Interesting idea, however, there are fundamental problems with it.

I drew the physical strength co-relation with the magical power. By your own idea, do you mean to say that we can measure people's strength by counting how many push up's or sit up's a man can do.

Let's disregard my analogy; let us discuss your idea to measure magical power. We can use lux unit to measure the glow of lumos. So far its alright.

My counter would be how would you take into factor that different wizards are differently able with different spells. You say that we will use various spells, I would argue that there are too many spells for it to be possible to measure them all. And not all spells can be compared. How do you compare someone's Killing Curse, after all, a person cannot be more dead than another?

Also, how would you even out as you mention? If two wizard's skill varies in specific charms, how would you measure their average, you do not mention this.

We cannot exactly find out the weaket wizard alive. Even, if we do, what will happen, if there comes a new wizard who is even weaker than him, will his power be in negative. That's ridiculous.

I'm not really advocating that magical power exists. While I believe that it exists, other believe that it doesn't. All I was mentioning was that just because something varies, doesn't mean that it can be measured. e.g you believe that magical skill varies, I will ask, can that be quantified?

 

If we assume that there is a spell that can compare power levels and that these power levels exist, then these power levels also have relative values and a unit (be it an arbitrary one). The concept of x<y implies that it's a measurable, defined quantity. The idea that the spell could compare power levels but not measure them is astonishingly convenient, and stupid.

As for Atyan's weird methodology, it's not very good, but the inherent problem I see is still the fact that it assumes there's some sort of power level to measure. It's precisely the fact that a wizard's talent with each spell would have so much influence on the measurement that the concept of skill makes more sense than power levels.

 

That would be if such a spell exists. And for such a spell to exist it would need to measure power against something that it takes as a base. What would that be? And you cannot take people as examples.

Regardless, my post was about the fact that you said, that if power varies, then it can be measured. Or in general, if something varies then it can be measured. I disagreed. I've already given my counters on IRC. If you don't agree with me, then we can just agree to disagree. But I'll ask the same question, I asked atyan. You believe, that skill varies. Some people are more skilled than others, this is true. Yet we cannot measure it.

Is there a spell that measures magical skill level, oephyx?

 

If the soul doesn't come in to it at all then yes, there could be a spell that measures how proficient you are at magic, because in that case everything about you is quantifiable. Everything except the soul.

 

Don't really see, where soul came from? But even if there is a spell, that measures, how proficient you're at magic, what would that measurement be against? Would it be that between two wizards one is more powerful than other? Or would it be so that the measurement holds against every wizard?

Saying something like that a wizards power level is 5000 is pointless unless that measurement is against some unit. And that unit doesn't exist.

I actually meant magical skill, Oz. Edited.

I guess, at the end, my point is that if something varies, is it always measurable? It is in general true. We can measure length, weight, temperature, etc.. But does it always hold for more relative things, things which are not absolute. Things which cannot exactly be defined in the physical world; skill, talent, physical strength, you get my idea. People's skill and talent at different things vary but it cannot be measured.

 

Well, I concede that my theory wasn't really thought out.

@Oephyx:To write a theory about something, you have to assume it exists, right?
I was just trying to explain how you could actually have a unit, but apparently I failed pretty hard.

Now, different theory:
I think that you can compare different wizards trying their best on the same spell, which isn't "all-or-nothing" (e.g.: how far does a piercing spell go into a... rock), but you can't say that one wizard is inherently more powerful than another, because they are just talented in different parts of magic. So, while someone may be more skillful/powerful/talented in one spell (and those are interchangeable in this case, because it wouldn't influence other spells), this won't affect other magic they cast..

To use Johnny's example of physical strength: You can't measure how strong someone is, but you can say how strongly he can push something away from his with his arms, which doesn't say anything about how strongly you can stomp your feet.

 

Guess I didn't explain it well enough.

If you exclude the soul from this discussion, every other part of a human being can be quantified. That's simple physics at work.With the exclusion of the one thing that is unquantifiable about a person you gain the ability to measure everything about them.

For instance, the greatest wizard in the world would be so because of a combination of his genes, his intelligence, his determination, his emotions, and so on and so forth. If you can create a method of measuring how each of those things affects the quality of his spellwork (such as by measuring how accurately he can cast a pinpoint lumos spell at a dot on the wall with varying stimuli effecting him), which is theoretically possible under the god-like magic system in the Harry Potter books, you can then set the measuring stick for a power level system.

 

...

Well, I suppose how a layman can accept this, but me? No. Just no. Physics plays a part in my explanation of HP magic, and I don't think I can disagree with this any more strenuously. If it's okay for you, fine, but don't think that everyone feels the same way about magic and physics.

 

Not necessarily. We've seen that spells can be cast with varying levels of mastery. A scale of mastery, as it were. At lower ends of the scale the spell will fail to perform it's purpose (in varying degrees, for example nothing at all could happen, it could just produce sparks, or it could produce a partial effect, such as a person dazed instead of stunned, or a transfigured object retaining properties of its previous state); there will be some point on the scale where the spell performs its purpose.

However, there is still room for greater mastery beyond this. Greater finesse (for example, the ability to select specific memories to Obliviate, rather than the person's entire memory) , greater shield-piercing ability, more resistance to being undone, in some cases the effect may be greater (e.g. a stronger shield charm, more bat-bogeys), increased speed, going further into realms of changing the effect almost completely (e.g. the shield charm producing a sheild over multiple persons, or being a physical shield).

That something like the stunning charm, after you can cast it well enough to stun someone, has no apparent effect corresponding to greater mastery does not mean that you are not casting the spell better: just that there's no visible effects of said increase in skill (at least until it meets a shield charm).

And that's assuming that it doesn't have any visible effects of greater mastery. I've always liked the idea that Dumbledore's mysterious spell in the Atrium fight was simply a stunning charm cast with a shocking level of skill.