Is there any mention in canon of how people come up with new spells? I've seen some interesting systems in fics, but I don't think they're based on anything from the books.

 

i doupt it. there must be very vauge if the canon books did talk about it, because i can't remember them.

 

isnt arithmacy part of it?

 

im not sure precisely what arithmancy would be, apart from magic involving numbers. It could easily be the designing of spells, or it could be what I have seen done in several fics and be a method of fortelling the future.

 

it could be to study how the spells work. maby...i think

 

one would have to wonder whether that is not the samea s spell development?

 

What would make sense to me is if arithmancy is to spell development as mathematics is to (say) explosives development. I'm thinking of writing a fic with this issue as a major subplot, but I was curious about whether there were any hints in canon as to how spells are created (or even about what arithmancy is).

 

*edit* found another one: Arithmancy

 

what the hell. even this doesn't explain what the damn subject does. what the fuck. all her books are vauge or unanswered questions.

 

Wow, that's depressing. I had hoped that Hogwarts had at least one 'technical' subject, just one that Our Hero had declined to pursue. If these sources are right, then basically all of Wizarding Britain has (at best) an 11 year old muggle's grasp of mathematics? Yikes.

I'm not quite sure how one can reconcile Hermione's love for numerology and her complete disdain for divination.

Thanks for the information Silke.

 

The myth of the seventh son of the seventh son being demonic or some such shit would be something they study in Arithmancy, as well as wand movements for increase of effect and efficiancy. The subject is more then likely to be a stage in several of the creation of spells...?

 

Anything with -mancy as a suffix is to do with divination. Necromancy is the art of using the dead to tell the future Pyromancy is using fire to look into the future etc. It seems that Artihmancy is simply using numbers... And it is explained in the link from Silke..

Surely that is a more imprecise branch of divination than Divination itself. I mean with Divination, you have methods of seeing. Crystal ball etc... images appear.

With Arithmancy, numbers are randomly assigned to letters. I mean if there were 25 or 27 letters in the alphabet, the whole system would fail.


Arithmancy is supposed to be difficult, but all they do is add a few numbers up... seems easy enough to me.

 

I just read that article by "Hermione", and also found it strange that she of all people would believe in what amounts to little more than Numerology, especially considering her feelings about Divination...