And watch him start a thread in WbA.

Seriously though, I'd love to see TOHF finished, then the LotR crossover.

 

I must admit I got strong Emmanuel Goldstein vibes from that, except Voldemort doesn't seem the type. Then again after 10,000 years I suppose he could have had a few false starts and opted for creating a rebel (named after the only wizard fate deemed Voldemort's equal) to serve as a beacon for hope for the disaffected, only for their destruction to be all the more complete when it is revealed that he is a lie.

Y'know, just in case that bunny wasn't bleak enough for you.

 

At first I would be extremely excited. But then...

Yeah, TOHF is one of my favorites at the moment. It definitely needs to be finished.

 

Shhhh he'll catch onto the reverse phycology

 

I am so ready for that. I'd suggest you put Harry in the Dresden World. Some elements could be borrowed, but in my opinion the DF world is more interesting.

 

I’ve been kicking around this idea for the better part of a month. The premise is twofold. 1) The variation in regional magical power across the globe, and how it affects cultural variation in each region. 2) An in depth look at a unique magical theory system. As you might imagine the biggest hurdle to turning this idea into an actual story is preventing it from becoming mind-numbingly boring. Anyway, without further ado:

Everybody in canon seems to believe that Hogwarts is the best wizarding school in the world. What if this were true, but not because of the level of education provided. Instead, Hogwarts produces the “best” witches and wizards because they have the most magical power of any modernized magical civilization.

The British Isles are among the most magical places in the world, and certainly the most magical place of its size. All other wizarding cultures fall into two categories.
The first category consists of large countries whose magical population is weaker, though only marginally, than Britain’s in terms of magical power. Examples of this are the magical communities made up of people who attended Beauxbatons and Durmstrang.

The second category includes small oases of magic, no larger than the size of a city. As a rule, communities that live in such places are usually very primitive and insular. The magic in these places is so strong that they have no need to advance as a society or technologically.

Rule 1: A magical society’s technological advancement is inversely proportional to the amount of magic in that region. This explains why places like magical Britain and even the cultures on the continent seem to be stuck in the 18th century (17th?).

Rule 2: In layman’s terms, for each region there is an average magical power for those in the magical population where deviations from this average become increasingly unlikely, AKA a bell curve. Britain has a high average value, the EU mainland has a slightly lower average. In technical terms (please only read this next part if you care about statistics), the distribution of magical power within a population is best described by a Gaussian function where the y axis denotes percentage of the population who exhibit a magical power equal to the x axis (which is denoted by some as yet undetermined scale).

This brings me to one of the more important aspects of this bunny. Compared to Europe, the USA it is a magical wasteland. Most of its magical inhabitants would be considered squibs in the British Isles, with so little magic that few can even use the wands that are wielded by European witches and wizards. As such they’ve had to use muggle technology to supplement their magic. They’ve invented ingenious ways to bolster magical power of people within the region.

One such technology is the advancement of magical foci. Instead of wands, many witches and wizards use staves or other similar items that combine magical objects such as phoenix feathers, unicorn hair or dragon heartstrings with muggle technology to focus even tiny amounts of magical into such a condensed beam that their wielders can perform spells with similar affect to wizards in Europe.

Rule 3: There exists a magical membrane that surrounds a witch or wizards magical core (soul?) that prevents magic from flowing in or out of the core. Witches and Wizards perform magic by either overloading ones magical core to temporarily pierce the membrane, or opening a channel for which magic to flow into or out of the membrane without resistance.

Another method magical people in The New World increase magical power is by learning a technique called magical channeling. European witches and wizards are taught to use magic by overloading their magical core. This wastes a great deal of magic, but can be done easily by those with sufficient magic power to waste. This is what prevents most European squibs from performing magic. In The New World, most magical people do not have the power necessary to overload the membrane. Instead they are taught at a young age to learn how to channel their magic through the membrane. This requires intense mental focus, but saves precious magic power.

Corollary to 3: Each spell leaves the magical core with a unique direction, rotation and magnitude. The combination of these attributes is called a magical vector and it determines what a spell does. In the Hogwarts system, all of these things are conveyed through the intention, incantation and wand movements. In The New World system, the wizard channels their magic, then directs the spell out of their focus (or body if using wandless magic) with a specific vector.

The specific mechanics of how magic works may or may not be detailed in the story. Hogwarts teaches students to perform spells intuitively where they “feel” the spell going through them and out their wands. In The New World they take a more methodical approach. This will certainly be mentioned, but I’m still unsure how I could go into detail about the mechanics without the reader falling asleep. I may include this information as interludes or perhaps outtakes.

The story revolves around an OC from The New World that meets Harry Potter and Co.. In general the European wizarding world looks down on The New World considering them to be squibs and muggles, who couldn’t cast Wingardium Leviosa to save their lives. After a brief discussion, the OC is astonished to discover that Europeans don’t learn magical channeling from a young age. Through some turn of events this OC begins teaching the crew how to channel magic. The more they learn about the way magic is taught and learned in The New World, the more they realize that Hogwarts employs archaic practices that are sometimes inferior to The New World.

That’s about as far as I’ve gotten. I’m not sure whether I want Harry and Co. to meet this OC in The New World or at Hogwarts, but I’m certain they’ll visit The New World at some point. I'd also like to flesh out some ideas for other wizarding cultures. I've briefly though it would be cool for them to spend some time in Viking Canada. It turns out Leif Erikson was a wizard and he founded a magical community in modern day Newfoundland. They've flourished ever since.

The main landmines I’d want to avoid are pretty obvious. It would be difficult to flesh out the technical aspects of magic theory or the history of global magic culture without it reading like a textbook. I can see how this would put people to sleep if not executed with extreme caution. In addition, I don’t want to turn this into a ‘MURICA! type of story that bashes on European culture. I’d have to take care to ensure that there’s always tradeoffs to the new technologies and techniques.

I hope that wasn’t too boring, but I’ve been working this out for a few weeks now, and this is the first time I’ve written anything down.

 

Wizards are not stuck in the 16/17th century. They have the Hogwarts Express, modern toilets and showers and radios (Wireless). 19th century, maybe, but no earlier than that.

And even while making Americans practically squibs, you still managed to include backwater!Britain, where US has wondrous magitek that allows squibs to match the average non-squib wizard or witch in spellcasting proficiency, which sort of means that everyone in America has their own Elder Wand. For all we know, Britain is one of the most advanced magical communities in the world.

Yeah, I think this needs more work.

edit: OC as (it seems) main pov char will inevitably turn off some people.

How are staves better than wands? They're big, tough to conceal and a bother to carry around. Their only advantage over wands is as a melee weapon, but bringing a melee weapon against HP magic is stupid. I'm not bashing on physical fitness, I'm bashing on the stupidity of bringing a knife to a gunfight when the other guy drives up in a tank, just to be on the safe side.

 

The books are too Britain-centric to say either way.

 

Hogwarts being one of the Triwizard competitors indicates that Britain is among the best.

 

Or at least each of these 3 schools think, that the other 2 are "worthy" to take part in a competition with them.

 

You're reading stuff into this that isn't there. The books straight up tell you that Hogwarts, Durmstrang and Beauxbatons are some of the best schools of magic in the world.

This isn't a discussion. The above is JKR's worldbuilding.

 

You're right, late 19th, early 20th century.

Good points. Backwater in some ways yes, that's kind of the point. I guess the main difference I want to point out is the mindset. European wizards are content in using magic to replace technology to better their lives, where the Americans are forced to use some muggle technology. I guess that last statement wouldn't be true of Americans could use magic at the same proficiency as British wizards.

I definitely take your point. I need to work out some boundaries between what an American "Squib" can do versus a British wizard. There needs to be some dividing line that clearly marks the American wizards as inferior, but crafty, even with their new technologies. Almost a Squib by BajaB comes to mind.

As far as the Elder wand is concerned I fully intend on ignoring the existence of the Deathly Hallows.

Let me expand a bit on staves. Consider a telescope. A small telescope can see a massive portion of the night sky, but it has very little magnification. The larger the telescope, the more focused the light becomes. You see a smaller portion of the sky, but it has much greater magnification. A staff works in a similar way. It focuses the users magic much better, wasting much less magic. Yes they are big and bulky, and pretty much worse in every practical way, but they allow the user to actually use magic where a wand doesn't focus their magic enough for them to even produce sparks.

That being said, I want American wizards to look upon an Ollivander wand with some amount of amazement. I need to construct some mechanic by which a wand is better for a wizard with ample magic, but doesn't focus their magic as well as a staff.

Also, I should have been more clear about this, but it will probably be Harry centric. That's what I'd envisioned anyway. I definitely want the reader to learn about The New World from Harry's perspective though, so they can learn about it as he does.

Yes the European schools would be considered the best from a European's perspective. One major aspect of the fic is the main characters (HP and Co.) learning that maybe their culture is a bit closed minded.

 

Eurocentrism.

 

These 3 schools think of themselves as the best (we don't see anyone else's opinion about that) and including them in the GoF adds to the Britain-centrism a tiny little bit of Eurocentrism (just tiny, all the stuff happens in Britain, anyway).

 

Yes exactly. I recently started traveling, and I found that there's upsides and downsides to every culture. I think that the young HP characters could do with a dose of worldly knowledge and culture shock. A fresh perspective would definitely do them good in their fight against Voldemort, and I see him as being too proud to adopt other cultures.

 

Blandge: you're using a muggle tech analogy to explain magic, which is flawed reasoning. The small/big telescope thing is true for muggle telescopes, which must rely on muggle tech and application of muggle physics. Wizards have spells that affect senses that can be applied to object (Cushioning Charm) I imagine that a magic telescope works in a similar way to the Wireless: it's a muggle device adapted to magic. I don't think that Wireless relies on actual radio waves, just as I think telescopes probably use something like a Magnification Charm or whatever.

I.E. size has much less significance when magic is at play (see magical tents, Hermione's bag), which is why your telescope analogy for wands vs staves doesn't hold water.

Download: Eurocentrism in the same way that Percy Jackson, Dresen Files and Hunger Games are Americentric. It's not that JKR (or myself, for that matter) is saying "fuck you guys, Europe rulez". HP is set in Europe, just as DF are set in America and simply neither seems to consider all the rest of the world. Again, it's not pro-Europe, anti-rest-of-the-world bias, it's quite simply worldbuilding being based on what you're most familiar with.

edit: Holy double post. Fucking shit mobile browsers. Fuckity fuck.

That's just brainlessly stupid. I think you might have a case of Starfox-golan Syndrome.

EDIT2: so far, the best takes on a truly "worldly" perspective I've seen in HP fanfiction have been PotDK, Wastelands and Circular Reasoning (disclaimer, I haven't read everything, so think before you jump out at me with "but what about xyz" posts).

 

Not bad, I have a "syndrome" named after me. Now how did I deserve that (going against the party line on some topic here)?

 

Knoq has a clone!

Well fuck me running.

 

I can see where you're coming from, but there's clearly restrictions on what magical objects can or cannot be shrunk or manipulated. If I really wanted to use staves in my story, I'd have to come up with some explanation for why they must be constructed in such a matter. That being said, I'm not married to the idea of staves. They could be wielding gigantic magical dildos for all I care, but something other than wands.

You do raise a good point though about tying muggle restrictions to magical objects. That's something I'll have to keep in mind.

I fail to see why it's brainless and stupid. What is "Starfox-golan Syndrome"?

 

It's not particularly brainless. However, gaining a new perspective on life, or yourself, even, does not really help you against problems occurring outside your own psyche. No matter how many times I visit China or Japan or Mongolia or Belgium, it's not gonna help me understand how to defeat the physics quiz waiting for me back home. These treatments work if you're struggling with yourself. Which Harry isn't.

The starfox-golan syndrome is simply the level of discourse they try to promote.