So, we know that, whatever Gamp's Law of Elementary Transfiguration is, there are 5 exceptions to it. One of them is food. Given that this means that food cannot be conjured/transfigured (though, ironically, animals can, so you can just transfigure one of them then kill it etc.), Gamp's Law probably says something like "Everything can be transfigured".

Anyway, we have one of the four exceptions. What do you think are the other 4?

My ideas:

Life
Gold
Magic
Love

 

Love cannot be transfigured, but it can be synthesized. So dunno if it still counts. You cannot transfigure anything that is... incorporeal, ideas must stay in the realm of physical existence i'd say.

 

Eh, Slughorn said that it would be impossible to create love.

I guess I was treating it as a "5 things that magic can't create" rather than "5 things transfiguration can't create".

As for love being incorporeal: I'd say not necessarily in the magical world. Luck is also incorporeal (and doesn't really exist, but never mind that) yet it can be created with magic and distilled in liquid form.

Life is a bit dodgy, because we know you can create animals which are alive. I guess "human life" or "souls" would be more applicable.

Either way, both life and gold are broken by the Philosopher's stone.

 

Would that not depend on how the stone was made, I doubt that the stone was made via Transfiguration but then how was it made, potions perhaps?.

 

Even if the stone wasn't made via the process of transfiguration, the stone itself is still performing an act of transfiguration.

I suppose related to this discussion is whether or not transfiguration is a natural class. I usually take it not to be: magic is magic, and the division of it into separate fields are for convenience, not reflecting any actual separation (similar to Physics, Chemistry, Biology etc. In the end it's all the physical world).

Accordingly, any magic that changes the physical composition of things I consider transfiguration. For example, I would consider the Polyjuice potion a transfiguration achieved with a potion.

 

Regarding life, I have a non-supported speculation. It may be possible that one of the Five Exceptions is self-sustaining life. So in other words, it's possible to transfigure inanimate objects into animals, but those animals might not be permanent, or alternately might not be capable of reproduction of either the sexual or asexual type.

Also, I have a question for those who remember canon better than I do: did we ever see anything solid transfigured into a gas? I think I've seen that in fanfic, but I'm not sure about the original books.

 

I looked into this a while back, when a plot bunny attacked and I couldn't get rid of it. I don't remember where I found this, since I didn't hold onto the link, but here are the actual 5 principal exceptions:


The Five Principal Exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration
1. Food - Water can be conjoured, but food can only be summoned, increased, or charmed. Conjured food is insubstantial.
2. Love - Cannot be reproduced, but can be somewhat replicated artificially. (love potions, compulsions, etc.)
3. Life - You cannot completely bring back the dead or create new life using only magic.
4. Information/Knowledge - Cannot be acquired artificially by any means using Transfiguration.
5. Money - Cannot be conjoured, transfigured, or increased with magic, and there are limits on the kinds of charms that work on it

 

Every one of those has been done or should be able to be done, considering what we have seen wizards do. As Taure mentioned, conjuring or transfiguring animals is creating life (souls would be a better word, in this case). Animals are food, so that's a bust. Knowledge and love are not things. They are ideas. You can't transfigure an idea any more than you could hold it in your hands. And I see no reason in the world why you couldn't transfigure money. Even if there is something magical about gold to stop someone from making it, is the same true for silver? Diamonds? Rubies? Everything has some intrinsic value, where's the line?

 

Starting with Magic/Love/Life
Incorporeal things like this, as I think 99% of people will agree, can't be transfigured or artificially created. And if you could create some synthetic counterpart, it'd fall more in the realms of charms and potions, more than likely.

Its flat out said in canon, anyway, you cannot create love. Obsession, no doubt, but not love. Grand deal of difference.

As for life, its be said and show on more than one occasion... You can't create life with magic. And you can't perform true resurrection. All of the animated objects we see are simple trinkets with one or two bits of movement and realism, but beyond that are incredibly simple.

Gold, on the other hand, we know can't be transfigured without the aid of the stone... But its possible.

Food, Love, Life, and Knowledge I could agree with, but Money... Not really. If you're talking about wizarding currency, which is gold/bronze/silver, absolutely. But muggle? How would they know the difference?

Its basically a question against the honor system and the competence of the Ministry to find people who would/have done something like that.

 

The exception of food refers only for conjuration. As for the other laws, I believe that transfiguring/conjuring gold, love and 'soul' (as in the human life and assuming that animals don't have it) are good opitions. Perhaps some law speaks against permanently conjuring something, but that could be included on the first.

 

Since conjuration is learned in transfiguration class, we can assume that is a branch of it and it can be included in transfiguration laws. And as Hermione's explication pointed, the law says that its impossible to make good food out of nothing, that is, conjuring.

And I didn't said that transfigured stuff isn't permanent, I actualy agree with that notion. Once something is transformed, won't expontaneously return to its original form unless another spell unmake it. Dudley's tail that had to be removed cirurgicaly serves as exemple. My only doubt is about the lasting of conjurations, that are made from nothing.

 

I don't think things such as 'Love' would count towards Transfiguration, as that's not a physical thing, it's a feeling, an emotion. Transfiguration is changing one physical object into another physical object.

Charms or Potions can be used to synthesize feelings and emotions and the like, but they are not Transfiguration.

As for what I think the five are.

1. - Food - My thoughts, you can transfigure a loaf of bread just like anything else, but it will have absolutely no value whatsoever and you'd be just as well off eating air. In fact, if you transfigure food from some other object, it could in fact be very bad for you.

2. - Metals - Again, you can transfigure things to appear to be metal or made out of metal, but they are only synthetic. If you conjured a chunk of gold, at first glance it may appear to be gold. However it may not have all of the physical properties of gold and it would not stand up to any sort of scientific scrutiny. The Philospher's Stone is an exception to this, as it can transmute lead into gold. That it is the pinnacle of the Art of Alchemy, and why it is so immensely difficult to achieve.

Note: I suppose precious gems and the like would fall under this too.

3. - Life - Yes, you can conjure an animal and it can be animated (like statues can be) but, at the end of the day, it's not "alive". It's actions are either governed directly by you or by your 'impressions' of how it should act. It would not be able to reproduce or live as a normal animal would, it may not even be anatomically correct if you were to dissect it. But most of all, it's just not alive, it has no soul or free will.

Note: If you conjure a cow and kill it, you're still right back to Rule #1.

4. - Magic - Magic itself cannot be transfigured. That is not to say that magical items or creatures (including witches/wizards) cannot be transfigured, because they can. But magic it's self cannot be altered in such a way.

Example One: You have, say, a Unicorn tail hair but you want to make a wand with a phoenix feather core. You cannot change the unicorn tail hair at it's core level. You can change it to look like a phoenix tail feather, but magically it will STILL be a unicorn tail hair.

Example Two: A spell or an enchantment can't be transfigured into something else. A curse is coming at you then it can be blocked, it can be deflected, it can be countered or it can be dodged, but it cannot be transfigured in it's 'pure' form.

Example Three: You can't simply conjure or transfigure a potion into existence, as it would not have the actual properties of the potion in question, even if it did look like the potion.

5. - Something - Something else that I can't think of at this moment.

 

Regarding metals, didn't Voldemort conjure a pure silver hand for Pettigrew?

 

It was a silver looking hand, but that doesn't mean that it was 100% pure silver.

 

Considering that the only thing we actualy know about the law comes from Hermione's explanation at DH (that I posted here). And that it mentions that making good food out thin air as an exemption to said law. I believe that it have everything to do with food. Notice though that "You can summon it if you know where it is, you can transform it, you can increase the quantity if you’ve already got some..." The restriction is solely on conjuring.

Which leads me to believe that there must be a funtional diference between conjured elements and transfigured ones. If you can't conjure good food but can transfigure it, I asume that there must be a problem on the conjured one. My best assumption is that the conjured one will vanish, leaving eating conjured food, while possible, pointless.

I also believe that the meaning of elemental is more about the same lines as fundamental than refering to chemical or magical elements that never where mentioned on canon.

 

I think it was mentioned somewhere, not in canon but in one of JKR's interviews that anything Conjured will simply vanish after some time, that is, it's not permanent.