Not 'stupidity,' but 'ignorance'. They don't have any need to know about it.

 

Well, but their ignorance isn't very justified. Owls are nice and all, but in canon the only ways to have a long distance conversation is getting some nifty and probably expensive brother mirrors or break your back talking trough the floo.

Anyway, I hate those "everyone comes back to life!" stories. If I wanted to read DBZ, I'd search in that section!

 

That's true I mean using a telephone is a lot easier than using owls. Faster, more convient and just plain smarter.

Though I like DBZ I loathe DBZ/HP crossovers for the simple reason that all the ones I've seen have either Harry being related to Goku or slash >_<

 

My main peeve of the minute is Harry and spell dodging. In fics where Harry is trained or in training, he spends too much time dodging. It leaves the impression that he it cumbersom and lacking elegance. I would much rather see him side step confidently or adopt a side on profile to narrow the traget available to the enemy. Better still I would like to see a trained or in-training Harry deflect spells away like Snape did in the book of Gash (HBP)

 

* picturing Harry wearing Bracers of Spell Redirection *

Like Wonder Woman?

 

......*Faceplam*

 

We know what charm was used to make them though, and it's NEWT level (the Protean charm), so it wouldn't be too hard for an averagely competent wizard who has done NEWT Charms to make themselves a pair, or indeed cast it on two pieces of paper and you'd have an IM system.

Regarding dodging, it's always been a slight peeve of mine, if only because I've always imagined spells as going much faster than apparently most fanfic authors do. If you look at the films (especially the DoM fight in OotP), that's how fast I imagine spells going. In some cases, it seems that they connect from both ends at once, like lightning, in others the spell is already on its way before the incantation is even fully finished, and in others still all there is is a flash of the spell leaving the wand and a flash of it being blocked. I'm not entirely sure of dodging is possible at all, except over long distances. It seems to me that the focus is more on blocking (like Snape was doing in HBP), and the first person to get an opening and actually successfully get a spell off is practically the winner of the duel (though this seems to be different in high level duels like Dumbledore vs. Voldemort).

 

Ah, right. I'd forgotten about that. Maybe I'll have to read the last books again? God, please no.

Still, one wonders why they don't do it more often. I mean, the mirror's concept is there since the fifth book, but I don't remember them being used by the order... or maybe I just forgot again.

 

If it were a protean charm, wouldn't there be some serious feedback issues?

EDIT: Actually a protean charm makes no sense. Mirrors don't make physical changes, they just reflect light. Does it actually say anywhere that it is a protean charm?

 

Edit: Deleted double-post.

No, the books don't even mention how the mirrors work. As for the protean charm, I was under the impression that it made a link between two or more objects. When a change is made to one copy, it is made to the others. If that were the charm on the mirrors, I imagine that it would have to augmented with another charm to make it so that it doesn't copy the change to the mirror, just what was reflected. This means that if you were holding the mirror, you wouldn’t be able to see the other person while you were sending a message. Then you would need something to carry the voice over...

 

No, actually we don't. I'm going to play devils advocate here. This is just an assumption based upon the effects of both the mirrors and the galleons Hermione used for the DA. No where is it said that the protean charm was used to create the mirrors. We know the protean charm creates a magical connection between objects, but we can't know for certain whether or not it functions the same if you cast it on a galleon and if you cast on mirrors.

For all we know you can cast the protean charm on a pair of mirrors and while it creates a connection of some sort, it might not transmit sound and visuals. For all we know there are extra spells required in order for there to be audio and visual communication via the mirrors.

I say that the protean charm IS NOT the only spell on the mirrors, if indeed the protean charm is used at all in their creation. If it was that easy to make an extremely useful long distance communication item, every enterprising 5th-7th year would have one. Every child would have one for communicating with their family (assuming parents in the wizarding world are as paranoid as us muggles). They would make the flu system and owl delivery virtually obsolete if you could connect more than 2 mirrors together. Why wait days or weeks for a letter when you could talk to someone face to face? It would speed up communications considerably. If they were that common and easy to make we would probably see most ministry personnelle and aurors carrying them.

Based upon this, and the fact that the mirrors Harry and Sirius had are the only mirrors of their kind in canon, it is reasonable to conclude that those kind of mirrors are extremely rare and are probably really difficult to enchant, probably to the point of needing a specialist (such as a pensieve). For all we know the mirrors were originally heirlooms of the Black or Potter family, and Sirius or James nicked them from a family vault, or found them lying around somewhere in their homes.

What I'm saying is that there really is no evidence that the protean charm is all it takes to make a pair of communication mirrors besides the comparable effects of the mirrors and the DA galleons.


Then again I haven't read canon in ages, so if there's a specific passage in canon which contradicts my post and proves you right, then let us know.

 

No, it's never explicitly stated in canon, but it's obvious to the point of undenyability.

We know what the protean charm does - make it so what happens to one object is reflected in other objects.

We know what the mirrors do.

They do the same thing.

Thus the mirrors are made with the protean charm.

As for who made the mirrors, IIRC, James and Sirius made them themselves.

 

This doesn't explain why no one else has a pair of mirrors or other objects that function like Harry and Sirius' pair. If it was that easy to make, they would be commonplace and owl and flu would be obsolete. Owl moreso than flu because you can travel via flu, which is probably used by people incapable of apparating.

This is a pretty big hurdle to overcome if you want to claim the Protean charm is the (only) charm on the mirrors.

We know the Protean charm is a NEWT spell, and is either in the Standard Book of Spells Grade 7, or the NEWT charms book, either which are owned by hundreds of wizards and witches. So why aren't instant communication mirrors/objects commonplace?

 

The protean charm mimics physical changes to an object. Light reflected from a mirror is not a physical change. What's more, the only sound you'd get would be the tiny vibrations of the speaker's sound waves bouncing off the mirror.

Not a protean charm :/

 

You're thinking too scientifically about it. A mirror has an image, this image is whatever is in front of it. Cast a protean charm on other mirrors and these mirrors will also show that image. Cast the charm twice so that it goes in both directions and you get a two-way mirror.

I'll admit there may be another charm for sound though.

This isn't really a problem at all: JKR's world is full of examples of wizards not using magic to its full potential.

 

Erm... are we even sure James and Sirius *made* these? I know they said they used them in detention, and their visual effect sounds an awful lot like a protean charm, but according to the lexicon Dung thought the one he found was worth selling and Aberforth bought it.

And I can't see them replacing the floo system or owl post. This is closer to a push-to-talk cell phone that can only call one other phone in the world (unless the "protean charm" was somehow applied to more than two mirrors, with all of them capable of broadcasting and receiving).

The fact that Dung thought it was worth selling tells me these probably aren't a schoolkids project. And yeah, there's got to be more to it than a simple protean charm. But for all we know it could just be a more complex protean charm.

 

Or it could be another one-of-a-kind marauder's invention. They already made the map, which even Dumbledore was impressed with. It doesn't even have to have been a group effort. Sirius and James were much closer to one another than the group as a whole, and they were very skilled. It isn't too far fetched that they would either make something like the mirrors to constantly keep in touch.

They don't even have to be invented by those two, in fact it makes more sense that they're simply very difficult to make rarities.

 

More peeves of HP fanfic:

The need for every female to be interested in Harry, Hermione and or Ron - This annoys the heck out of me. HP is not a harem manga!

The need for Luna to become a Dumbledore replacement - I notice this in fics were Dumbledore's dead. Luna all of a sudden knows everything and becomes like freaking Gandalf from LotR.

Dumbeldore being shipped with anyone from Harry's year - Where are you people getting this from

Time Travel fics - Which are usually an excuse for romance ugh. Either make it Cross-gen or don't do it at all. Time travel fics also don't tend to make any sense in the content of the whole fic!

Having characters come back from the dead or simply "never" have died but the story's not an AU - Give.me.a.break. You bring a character back from the dead that becomes a AU there's no way around it dumbass!

Rape fics - Simply from the fact that 98% of Rape fic never actually deal with the reality of rape. Its usually just an excuse to get characters together, is completely unrealistic and just plain damn annoying.

 

This can all go under the catagory of 'Drama written by 13 year olds'

 

I'm not sure I blame the Dumbledore/student on them. Maybe the Time Travel and it's not really AU but honestly D/student takes years to cultivate. I mean honestly ew uke:

Fics that insist the interviews are canon - Ugh...okay Interviews are not canon so you don't have to change background ships everytime Rowling gives an interview so you can be "canon-complacent!"