Archie, you're very confused about a lot of things.

Firstly, you seem confused as to what we're discussing. I'm saying Voldemort had Dumbledore beat and that only Fawkes' intervention saved the day. You responded by saying that Dumbledore was in fact holding back because he wasn't using dark magic. I said that dark magic is no more able to defeat someone than general magic. And now you're agreeing with me by saying that general magic is just as capable of beating someone as dark magic is. How exactly is that supposed to defend your point that Dumbledore was holding back?

Secondly, you're rather confused about what I believe. You attribute to me an idea that I believe that magical power plays a role. For members of this forum that is likely hilarious, as I'm somewhat infamous for years of pushing the idea that there is so such thing as magical power, only skill. You're the only one in this thread talking about the innate magical strength of a wizard.

Thirdly, you seem to be confusing fanon and canon a lot. Voldemort in canon is highly skilled and deeply knowledgeable about all areas of magic. To deny that is to make yourself look absurd.

Let's go back to the original example: Dumbledore vs. Voldemort.

Dumbledore conjures a flaming whip and encircles Voldemort with it. Voldemort turns it into a snake and apparates away to attack from a different direction, casting a killing curse. Dumbledore dispels the snake, but isn't fast enough to deal with two attacks at once, and the killing curse is about to hit him before Fawkes appears and takes the hit.

If Voldemort were trying to disable rather than kill Dumbledore, what would be different? Not much. He'd just cast a stunning spell instead of a killing curse at the end. All the rest of the fight is the same, and requires the same amount of effort and skill. And the stunning spell and the killing curse are completely interchangeable in terms of their likelihood of success. If Dumbledore is fast enough to react, he can block either of the two. If he isn't fast enough to react, then either way Voldemort has won the fight.

 

One would think that sending a curse that will cause your fingers to fall of, like they might with a leper, would require more of an effort, if only in will and intent alone, than a stunning spell might.

Provided that Fawkes appeared to intercept it. Unlikely as it might be that Voldemort would use a stunning spell in such a duel, maybe (and this is just pure speculation on my part) Fawkes only appears because there is direct mortal danger to Dumbledore.

 

Why would one think that? There's very little evidence that spells, except for rare exceptions, require any kind of special mental gymnastics on the part of the user. We know of three, to be precise: the patronus, the summoning charm and (maybe) the killing curse.

Yes, learning spells is difficult. It takes a lot of study and practice (relative to your intelligence). But using spells, once they've been learnt, doesn't seem to involve any real effort at all.

 

I'd like to disagree with that, but I probably can't and reading too much fanfiction has muddled my recollection on how things go about in canon!HP.

Just seems a bit... dry, I suppose.

 

I rather like it as a system. It means a person's martial ability is a function of their intelligence, academic study, and the accumulated result of years of hard practice. Three things that I value highly, personally.

Other series (and lots of fanfiction) places value instead on the ability to want things really hard, the ability to imagine detailed images in your head, and the ability to be born with scads of power. I don't really value any of them.

HP is basically a beautiful example of a world ruled by Plato's philosopher kings.

 

Not all of those are inherently bad, except for the randomness of power levels which usually follow the author's arbitrary rules, often for no real purpose other than to elevate one character above the other.

It might be that with practice, this recollection and summoning up details in the back of your head becomes common, that practice truly makes you perfect.

It might be that I simply want magic in magic and not merely the incantation, the wand movement and the effect. That's all.

I'll bugger off from this thread now since I got nothing more to contribute.

 

I don't mean to say that magic is just a matter of incantations and wand movements. I'm just saying that at the moment of casting that is all that you're doing. But even if you get the words and the movements right, the spell will fail unless you understand it. That's where the study part comes in.

Here's a random example of the kind of stuff that wizards might have to understand in order for their spells to work. If you don't understand the theory, you don't get a spell (or you get a weak, very basic spell).

Of course, there are routes other than theory to understanding a spell, though theory seems to give the deepest level of understanding, and also gives you a foundation of general magical understanding that allows you to pick up new spells quickly (as academics like Dumbledore, Voldemort, Hermione etc. have the best ability to cast spells).

Still, one imagines that wizards could "feel out" a spell themselves by casting it a lot, by experimenting with how it can be used in different contexts, by seeing how the spell changes when you change the incantation or the wand movements a bit. Essentially they're developing their own personal theory of the spell via trial and error.

 

Taure, I don't remember suggesting use of dark magic at all. Perhaps you likewisely misattributed something?
Secondly, I was and still am opposed to idea of Voldemort's 'magical ability was probably the highest in the books'. Thus 'an idea that I believe that magical power plays a role', which it does, albeit not as directly as most would think.
Besides, wizards in the books state that "the greatest wizard in the world is Albus Dumbledore", and even most zealous death eaters are forced to admit that fact. Voldemort flees from Dumbledore, not Dumbledore from Voldemort.

Making firewhip into a deadly/non-bendable/too volatile substance would do the job, and it is possible to throw something nasty at Voldemort while he is mid-apparition and therefore defenceless.
I do not think that theory of yours complements canon. I like it, but while most canon spells are easy, some spellcraft could be tiresome(Fiendfyre/Patronus, large or difficult conjurations and transfigurations), and it is possible to cast spells without any precise intent, knowledge and understanding behind it, take Sectumsempra as an example. Also, where did you got idea that there is only one shielding charm, and existence of other protective charms isn't possible?

 

The idea that most spells are easy does not mesh well with the fact that the vast majority of the magical population are incompetent. Not only do we know this from facts like most Ministry wizards not being able to cast shield charms (something on the DADA OWL), it's also necessary to explain the magical economy. An economy like the one we witness can only exist in a society with scarcity, which means most wizards lack the ability to use magic to provide themselves with the necessities (and luxuries) of life.

Harry's use of Sectumsempra works well with the theory. Harry has a very good understanding of the nature of Dark magic by sixth year. Not only is he the best in the year in terms of in-class work, he also has studied the subject extensively beyond the curriculum (the book series Sirius and Remus gave him).

There is no example from canon of a wizard ever getting tired from casting a spell, or any sequence of spells. So no, your statement "some spellcraft could be tiresome" has no basis.

Hmm, what branch of magic in HP is serious, immoral, and designed to main and kill?

Regardless of if you were referring to dark magic or not, there is no evidence to support your idea that Dumbledore wasn't going full-on. As I have argued, without any counter argument, Dumbledore's lack of lethal intent had no impact on who won the fight.

Well, you're wrong. We're told that he was the most talented student to pass through Hogwarts several times by trustworthy characters. Including Dumbledore.

"Why don't you prove it."

(That is to say, prove that "magical power" is an actual quantity possessed by wizards, rather than a shorthand way of referring to a person's collective magical skills, like how we refer to a person's political power.)

1. Point to a place that Death Eaters admit that Dumbledore is superior to Voldemort in skill.

2. "Great" has moral as well as martial implications. See: Hermione, PS, "You're a great wizard, Harry."

Voldemort flees from the dozens of wizards entering the Ministry who would then be able to back Dumbledore up. By which point Dumbledore would already have been dead if not for Fawkes.

1. Fire is already deadly. Clearly Voldemort was doing something to prevent himself from being burnt by it.

2. If Dumbledore had been able to attack Voldemort while he was apparating, he would have done so. He was too busy dealing with the snake attacking him.


Edit:

Lol, nice try. The shield charm is obviously not the only protective charm out there. Protection charms are a much broader class of spells, and the shield charm is one spell in that category (other examples: impervius, age line, the various spells used when camping in DH). As for why:

1. Naming. People always refer to it as "the shield charm" not "a shield charm". That means there's only one.

2. Examples of the same spell being used for multiple purposes. We know that the shield charm (i.e. the spell with the incantation "protego") can he used to block magical attacks, and on other occasions it can be used to block physical advance. We know that the same spell can be adjusted to cover a large area ("protego totalum"), or to apparently harm those that try to cross it ("protego horribilis").

3. Similarity with other spells. Over and over again we see wizards adapt existing spells for new uses rather than make entirely new spells. The patronus charm can be used for both defence and communication. The protean charm was used to create the Dark mark and the DA coins. Aguamenti can be used to fill cups and blast burning buildings with high pressure water. Etc.

 

Most wizards had Quirrels, Umbridges and Lockharts for competent defence professors. Rowling is awful at understanding and imitating economy, let's not touch this subject.

Yet he doesn't understand what even approximately Sectumsempra spell does, thus he lacks knowledge both in dark arts and in spell creation.

Harry gets exhausted after several attempts of casting Patronus in third book. Dumbledore in a cave feels definitely worse after his fire conjuration.

You can kill a man with an auto-saw easier than with a zweihänder. Does that make an auto-saw a weapon designed to maim, kill and cause suffering?

Tom himself said so.

Who of them also taught Dumbledore or Grindelwald? Dumbledore acts humble, yet it is he, not Tom, remembered by examiners as unrivalled prodigy.
Nobody but Slughorn and Dumbledore remembers Tom Riddle, and even they remember him more of a sycophant and a vile plotter than a prodigy. Ollivander refers more to carnage inflicted by Tom than to his academical accomplishments. Who else?
I suppose this is enough to cover several of your similar points.

Film quote, eh? Lockhart will do as example of ineptitude, Tom as an example of affinity.

What if?
Dumbledore did not followed up his fire rope or glass cocoon with anything, apparently content with restraining Tom, thus allowing Voldemort perform transfiguration, apparate and perform another curse. Which was therefore enough to hit Voldemort with at least three more spells. Hesitation to act, hesitation to kill this is.

Flame-freezing charm is available to schoolchildren, plus wizards generally are more resistant to natural dangers.

Yep, about shields, Voldemort tried a distinctive corporeal magical shield in the same duel, so there's more than one shielding spell. Protego isn't only one, though likely most popular in Wizarding Britain. There are at least three different charms each for other tasks such as cleaning or levitation, after all.

 

I think you've missed the point there somewhere. Harry understands the dark arts in general. Sectumsempra is a dark arts spell. Thus Harry understands sectumsempra. He doesn't need to learn about that spell specifically, he already understands the principles by which it works.

No, Harry gets exhausted after being exposed to a dementor several times. How do we know it's the dementors and not the charm? Because he doesn't feel exhausted when he successfully casts the charm and prevents the dementors from affecting him.

Are you fucking kidding me? Dumbledore had just ingested a ton of poison. He was able to briefly pull himself together, then relapsed.

Irrelevant.

Either you're an idiot who can't read or you're being deliberately obtuse. Voldemort notes that Dumbledore is not trying to kill him, and that is all. I have already argued to the effect that you can be going full out magically while still not trying to kill someone, because the majority of a magical fight isn't the final blow, but what you do to do to get into a position where you can deliver a final blow. You haven't done anything to argue against that yet, and you're avoiding doing so because you know I'm right.

Also, cut it with the cute "call him Tom" shit. We're not in a fanfic and you don't need to pull the cliché indy!Harry bullshit where he lectures everyone about calling Voldemort "Tom".

Er, no he doesn't. Several times in the series Dumbledore states quite clearly that he's a bad ass and better than everyone else. And yet he still notes that Tom Riddle was the best student who passed through Hogwarts. Not the best student he personally taught. The best student to have ever studied there. In all of history.

Both of which are mental attributes which affect skill. Am I to take this as you rescinding your proposal that people have magical strength separate from their skill?

Dumbledore didn't hesitate to act, Dumbledore was unable to act because he was already doing something else. There was no time to follow up the fire whip because he was immediately defending the counter-attack. His water attack required constant maintenance to resist Voldemort's attempts to dispel it.

Er no. It's explicitly said to be silver, i.e. it is a conjured object. Why did he choose a conjured object? Because he thought Dumbledore was about to cast a killing curse, thus his surprise when he sees Dumbledore not trying to kill him.

Even if it was a magical shield, you'd have no evidence that it wasn't the shield charm.

Now please, stop talking. I have this compulsive need to correct your stupidity. I know, it's a character flaw, but alas, we all have our vices. Still, it's a massive waste of my time so I'd appreciate it if you could stop failing publicly, forcing me to come along and correct you.

 

I came here to contribute to the discussion and maybe increase my post count. Now I'll just go hide under my covers and wait for my butthole to unclench.

 

Oh God. It's a "Taure debates how magical theory works" thread combined with a "Taure debates how shit went down in canon" thread. The appocalypse is nigh.

 

Thats because Rowling probably came up with the Merlin stuff after she finished the books - a lot like the other nonsense on pottermore.

 

Damn, I need to have the books at hand to argue more coherently.

No, he doesn't understand the dark arts in general.
How many dark spells Harry well knows about in the books by the moment of attempting to cast Sectumsempra? Three Unforgivables. How many he can use? None.
He decent at defending himself from dark wizards and creatures, but that is all.

Just as much as your idea that any efficient battle magic supposed to be dark.

No, you are not. There is no need to restrain when you can kill - Voldemort couldn't avoid or block neither ropes nor water dome, so he's as likely to get hit with something lethal of similar delivery.
Any blow could be final, which both Sirius and Bellatrix found out. You, like most wizards, are adhering to duelling code in battle. Fencing, prancing, waiting your turn and opening most likely get 'dueller' killed.

But that is his name. Are you offended on his behalf? Are you admiring him enough to resent his given name?

No, he is not. Nobody remembers his unique academic accomplishments. Oh wait, there weren't any. He isn't even greatest Slytherin student - that would be Merlin now, most likely.

There is magic ability, and there is skill to wield it. They aren't separate, and they are rather fickle to estimate. There are certain differences between young wizards - how much accidental magic can child produce, how powerful it is, how soon accidental becomes deliberate. All could learn, but success will differ.

Voldemort was ensnared by it before freeing himself, was he not? There supposed to be at least enough time to throw a pair of spells after throwing the rope.
Dumbledore isn't slow if that's what you are implying - he killed the snake and trapped Voldemort in one moment, before Tom could send another curse.

Physical, yes. But it is magical shield nonetheless. A good one, judging by the fact that it stopped Dumbledore's spell.

We feel about the same then. Please do go back to whatever you were doing.

Edit:
Before I forget, Ariana Dumbledore proves the point that magic is more than a mere skill, and that it could be detrimental to wizard health even without miscasting accidents.

 

I'd actually say he can use both Crucio and Imperio at that time. He hasn't succesfully cast them yet, but he managed on his first try afterwards.

There is also no need to kill if you can restrain. Also, it wouldn't make a difference if DD used the Killing Curse or a Stunning Spell. They both need to hit to have any effect, something which LV stopped from happening.

He goes by Voldemort in the series, so that's what people refer to him as.

You know why nobody remembers Tom Riddle? Because LV made quite sure of that. Iirc he disposed of anybody who actually knew who Tom Riddle was.

Fanon, all of it.

 

What are you even talking about? The magical shield is Protego, which has its variants. A conjured object cannot be magical at the same time, in fact, I cannot think of even one instance in the books where someone conjured an enchanted/magical object/being. I'm pretty sure that violates some law of magic, somewhere. People would be conjuring philosopher's stones and phoenixes for themselves otherwise.

Ariana's ability to perform magic - after she was assaulted at the age of six, I might add - was limited only to causing explosions when she lost control of her emotions. Rowling has indicated no other use of magic on her part, and so we can't really apply the idea of magical skill and knowledge to her case.

That's from the Deathly Hallows. It's quite possible that her psyche degraded because of the harmful effects it would have on her when she performed, what is for all intents and purposes, accidental magic. Nowhere in the book does it state that her magical core awesome) fractured and drove her around the bend. Or maybe the explosions themselves were of a magical kind that affected her mentally?

 

Voldemort escapes most restraints in but a few seconds, but cannot avoid getting ensnared. There's difference.

Harry and Dumbledore, though Dumbledore refers to him as Tom half of the time, Peeves refers to him as Voldy. Everyone else refers to him as You-Know-Who or He-Whats-His-Name.

Did he? Slughorn is alive and well, as many of Voldemort's other peers and examiners. Few make connection between polite parentless prefect and barmy dark heir of Slytherin, though. I think he killed mostly leaders of political opposition and proficient fighters.

That's what could be gathered from reading the books. Fanon is 'magic cores', 'magic is skill', 'mana points' 'soulmating' and other good theories and massive bullshit.

 

He didn't exactly ask for people to give him those nicknames. He styled himself Lord Voldemort, and is always referred to as such in course of the omniscient narration. You don't call Harry 'Potty' or Ron 'Wheezy' because Malfoy and Dobby refer to them as such, do you?

 

Definitely on the Killing Curse. We were flat-out told that it takes a powerful force of will to manage it, and Crouch doubted he'd get so much as a nosebleed even if everyone in the class pulled out their wands and said the words at him.

He was lying about his identity, but we have no reason to believe his actual teaching was suspect, and there's nothing that contradicts his statement about it. So it's canon unless proven otherwise.

There does seem to be a clear division where some spells require actual effort in the part of the caster, while others are as simple as saying the correct words and moving your wand in the correct manner, but given the sample we have, the former seems to be the rare exception to the rule of the latter.

In regard to magical exhaustion, or anything like it, there exists no evidence whatsoever. Harry Potter is not Dungeons & Dragons or Final Fantasy, nor is it The Dresden Files. Wizards do not have mana bars, nor do they cast magic from physique or possess anything approximating magical stamina. They also do not have differing 'power levels.'

You wave a wand, say a few words, and you create an effect. This effect would be the same regardless of whether Hannah Abbot or Voldemort cast it, so long as it was cast correctly. Any 'exhaustion' or loss of stamina is no greater than what a normal person would get waving a stick and babbling nonsense, and the only spells we have EVER witnessed that possessed any degree of variability when cast correctly were all spells that required an additional component to them (i.e. a Patronus is the spell done correctly plus a happy memory, a Cruciatus is the spell done correctly plus an intense desire to enjoy the other person's pain), so the additional component is the obvious culprit (i.e. there is no variability in the Patronus itself, merely the strength of the happiness within the memory used).

Harry Potter is not Dragon Ball Z, you do not get better effects by screaming harder and clenching your asscheeks together. Believing in something even if it's total bullshit doesn't grant it a form of higher power, or anything similar.

Wave wand, say words, get a result. It's always the same. Dumbledore isn't an impressive wizard because his magical core can bench press the castle. He's no more "magically powerful" than a First Year. Power levels don't exist in Harry Potter. He's an impressive wizard because he's a genius academic. His knowledge is directly transcribed into power.

To be fair, they started it by bringing fanon into this. I'd have done it instead of Taure if I hadn't been at work.