There's a terminology switch there. Lycanthropy is a bane, a burden and thus poetically, a curse. What it is from a meta-science perspective (at least as portrayed in the series and popular literature) is a Communicable Disease.

JKR didn't parse it out but you can interpolate from the forms she laid out and the effects that she used, that a Charm and Transfiguration are wholly separate concentrations. Transfiguration changes what something fundamentally Is, whereas Charms leave the base object and give it Properties. As the Defense class is more a focus on practical techniques and recognizing bad juju when it's encountered, one can assume that most Hexes, Jinxes and Curses are Charms and/or Transfiguration used against others instead of to their benefit.

Protego is the Shield Charm
Obliviate is the Memory Charm
Expelliarmus is the Disarming Charm
Accio is the Summoning Charm

The only area left somewhat grey is the arena of illusions. They don't focus a class on it so you would think it would be charm work, yet the need to well-visualise your intent seems more in line with Transfiguration. Also Conjuration and Vanishing are attributed to Transfiguration which adds mud to the mix.

As for the capabilities of the gifted to enhance the effect of their spells, it is often cited that Riddle's Crucio was a thing to truly fear and that Harry's Patronus that deflected a hundred Dementors was nearly unheard of, even by the Headmaster. I can believe Riddle has a lot of practice and no doubt considerable personal experience with pain to give his Cruciatus the Blue-Ribbon Bowel-emptier Award, but Harry (despite being a virgin the entire series) is not filled with thoughts of perfect love and protection. He had practiced the spell, sure, but it wasn't skill or visualization that caused the host of Dementors to flee- Harry's got a BIG... power.



These are my interpretations but they seem to play out pseudo-logically.

 

I follow Taure's explanation of magic so I don't really believe there is such a thing as 'more magic', thus this point is moot for me.

Agreed, the curse of the werewolf is used more in the metaphorical sense than in the case of an actual curse. Then again, maybe the first werewolf was a man who was cursed and since then the counter-curse has been lost.

Illusions aren't mentioned in canon at all, except for the ceiling in the Great Hall; which is an enchantment. Also, the summoning charm requires great visualisation to cast correctly.

Secondly, you've already mentioned that charms merely apply an additional set of properties to an already existing item, so conjuring by definition cannot come under the subject of charms. Vanishing I have already posted my theory on.

1) Riddle was a sociopath with no understanding of other peoples' feelings, so he'd be perfectly capable of causing the greatest pain with neither hesitation nor restraint.

2) Harry had the advantage of already knowing that he was going to pull it off, and that confidence has never left him since. Plus he was imagining a chance at an entirely new life away from his crappy old one. I'd imagine that's a pretty damn strong memory for an orphan.

 

I assume that it originated as a a self-perpetuating blood-born curse. No canon evidence that I'm aware of, but it fits with the historical fictional understanding of the disease.

As for wordhammers distinction of hexes, curses and jinxes, how are they differentiated? I could postulate:

Curses= Offensive spells that cause direct physical damage to the target.

Hexes=Offensive spells that alter the physical characteristics of the target without causing physical damage.

Jinxes= Offensive spells that effect the physical behavior of the target without causing direct physical damage.

Is this canon compliant? The only jinxes that directly spring to mind are the jelly legs, and the anti-apparation. Wasn't Harry's broom jinxed as well? Also, if obliviation is a charm and not a curse, then my definition would only hold up if memory charms were not physically damaging. That would imply that the memory is not permanently destroyed but only superficially obscured. Or you could argue that no physical brain damage occurred, therefore not a curse. Honestly, I think the most likely explanation of why obliviation is not a curse is that it is so useful to the government and that they don't want it said they go around cursing muggles.

 

I think JKR's system had curses/hexes/jinxes be merely a sliding scale of how damaging dark magic could be, with the overall category of dark magic being spells that cause harm. So at the top end we have spells like Avada Kedavra, whereas for jinxes we have minorly harmful spells like the Jelly Legs Jinx and Petrificus Totalus, though that last one may fall into hexes.

 

The last hypothesis is closest to the truth, IMO. The wizards can make a case that obliviation has a society-benefiting use, and therefore it's not likely to be described as a curse.

That's one way (most) magic is similar to our tools. I wouldn't be surprised if a creative wizard could manage to kill someone with a culinary spell, but that's the same thing as being able to kill someone with a butcher knife: it doesn't mean that the spell or the butcher knife is a weapon, in most cases.

 

ok, I'll take a stab at it, FWIW.

Clarifications first.
Transfiguration is the changing of the characteristics of an object or substance from it's original form to that of an other using successful incantation and wand movements in conjunction with proper mental focus to obtain the desired results.

Conjuration is the producing of an object or substance out of nothing using successful incantation and wand movements in conjunction with proper mental focus to obtain the desired results.

If it is agreed that conjuring is a subset of transfiguration, the 5 exceptions would be:
1: Food-the base substance or object matters. Conjure (from nothing) would give you no nutritional value, or if you slaughtered the pig that McGonagall transfigured from her desk, wood has no nutritional value for humans.

2: Magical Money( ie galleons, or anything else of value in the magical world)- Albus Dumbledore "Magic always leaves traces...sometimes distinctive traces..." You can fool some people with a successful tranfiguration/conjuration of a valuable substance, BUT it won't fool people that are looking for Magic-ed money, so why bother. The Magical pawn broker would be looking for the gold goblet that you transfigured from a mouse. "Hey, so why don't I conjure Dollars or Pounds, or sell my goblet to a muggle pawnbroker?" Statute of Secrecy and a long pull in Azkaban with "bubba" the dementor.

3. Other Magical substances/objects- A wizard can't make a time turner out of a rock, or a flying broomstick out of an apple. A wizard can't transfigure a snail into a unicorn.

4. Knowledge- Even if someone says they can conjure the "So you need to know all about Horcruxes" book, they can't.

5. Soul- The spell "Avis" conjures birds out of thin air, but these "birds" to the bidding of the caster, the same with "Serpensortia" the snake does the bidding of the master. Nor can a wizard stroll up to the recently dementor kissed, and waving the wand in a half circle with a counter clock wise twist at the end, saying the incantation "restituo anima", there is no restoring the soul. It can be removed, destroyed, split and stored, but it cannot be conjured or transfigured into something else and restored.

NOW, with all that said....
It's funny that water can be conjured, as can alcohol (Aragog's wake). Which leads to why there are Pubs or Bars in the Wizarding world.

from the wiki:
"The limits of magic

Before publishing the first Harry Potter novel, Rowling spent five years establishing the limitations of magic; determining what it could and could not do. "The most important thing to decide when you're creating a fantasy world," she said in 2000, "is what the characters CAN'T do." For instance, while it is possible to conjure things out of thin air, it is far more tricky to create something that fits an exact specification rather than a general one; moreover, any objects so conjured tend not to last.[5]"

Then this little gem:
"Rowling also makes it clear in The Tales of Beedle the Bard that an animagus is not the same as a wizard simply transfiguring themselves into an animal. The former ability, as mentioned above, allows the witch or wizard to maintain their own mind and human powers of reasoning and memory. The latter however would cause the person to gain the brain of the animal they have transfigured into. This would lead to the obvious problem that they would forget that they were a wizard and be trapped, unknowing,in this form for the rest of that creature's life-span unless transformed back by another wizard."
SOOOOooooo, Victor was able to save Hermione with the mind of a shark, or was the impartial transfiguration limited to his brain along with his lower body. Also, Slughorn had the mind of a sofa?

 

The human-animal stuff is tricky. I think the best dodge is to say that, while the wizard has an animal's brain, he still has his own soul (a soul is immaterial, and so cannot be transfigured). Thus his continuity of perception, sense of self, and "essential character" carry over to the animal, but cognitive processing does not. So it would be like being suddenly very stupid.

 

First, the obvious dig: "I guess for Krum that wasn't much of a change!"

But I like the idea- Krum set himself a basic purpose- 'find the girl, bring her to the surface, transform back'. Following this as what the judges expected of his strategy, criticism of his incomplete transfiguration into a shark is valid; he would have moved faster through the water if he had done it right.

 

This explains rather a lot when it comes to the PoA as well. I haven't read the book in quite a while but I remember wondering why the Marauders simply didn't engage in some human to animal transfiguration to keep Lupin company rather than go through the lengthy and presumably much more difficult process of becoming Animagi.

It particularly fits in because I seem to remember it being explained by Sirius (or possibly Lupin) that when they became Animagi it helped control and calm Lupin when he is transformed. This makes a lot more sense if you say that if they were transfigured as animals then they wouldn't retain the thinking and cognitive processes to calm and guide Lupin. Thus it was necessary to become Animagi, because what makes an Animagi special is not that they are transfigured into an animal (which presumably lots of reasonably strong and skilled wizard could do) but rather that they maintain their full mental faculties as well as just their soul.

 

This is just my opinion on the Exceptions of GLET, plus a theory I tossed somewhere in there.


* Subject is the object that exists before the spell takes hold and object is the object product of the transfiguration or conjuration.
​

Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration – Exceptions
​

1. A subject cannot be transfigured into gold/silver, unless the subject is already made of gold/silver, in which case only the shape can be changed.

2. A subject cannot be transfigured into a precious crystal or gem, unless the subject is already a precious crystal or gem, in which case only the shape can be changed.

3. Gold, silver, precious and semiprecious crystals and gems cannot be conjured.

4. Magical subjects and objects cannot be transfigured or conjured. This includes magical animals (excluding humans), magical plants, enchanted objects, potions and other magical fluids.

5. Nutritive substances (food) cannot be conjured.


"Magic leaves traces..." ~ Dumbledore.

This is perhaps the most important lesson on magic a wizard could learn. It is a thread that stitches up so many plot holes it's simply amazing. This very sentence has tremendous potential.

Magic leaves traces...

^ We can expand this sentence (even if only through leaps of logic).

Where? Since it's magic, the answer would be everywhere (or all around).

The object upon which magic is done will hold the spell, and even when the spell is lifted, the traces would remain (that's why counter jinxes work, because the object "remembers" what the subject was, or rather the traces on the object "remember" what the subject was).

The place where a spell took place will be marred with magic, according to Dumbledore's "This place has seen magic" (or some such).

It will be on the caster too, evident from Voldemort's appearance, since we all know that the "bad juju" made him look that way.

So, "Magic leaves traces on the caster, the object upon which magic was cast, and the immediate surroundings".

Thus, the ferret is a ferret (not Malfoy), but the traces on it remember that it was once Malfoy, and Malfoy is Malfoy (not a ferret), but the traces on him will forever remember that he was once a ferret for a little while (and, undoubtedly, he will remember as well ). The difference between that particular ferret and any other ferret would be that it bears the "Malfoy traces".

Also, Dumbledore's "... your power wouldn't register compared to mine..." can be explained. Let's assume that a wizard casts 3000 spells per year. If traces exist, that would mean ~3000 traces on a wizard, for every year of being "magically active". Thus, on the boat, Harry would have ~19,500 traces, and Dumbledore would have either ~312000 or ~417000 (depending whether Dumbledore is 115 or 150 years old). The difference is obvious even without taking the power and complexity of the cast spells into account. It has been discussed before how the spells on the boat could measure the power of a wizard. Perhaps this is the way the spell(s) on the boat could measure a wizard's experience with magic, which, according to a pre-existing theory is one aspect of a wizard's power (along with talent, knowledge, intelligence, etc.)

Finally, there is Hogwarts, which I think was once called "The most magical place in Britain". I think it was also mentioned that it was called that because of the countless number(~84*10^8 ) of spells cast there by students and teachers alike over the thousand years of its existence.


I have more theories on the subject of gold/food and why they can't be transfigured/conjured, but I can't be bothered to type them just now.

Animagi don't contain their full mental faculties. Sirius said that the Dementors' influence on him when he was in his dog form was dulled, because his thoughts were primitive. Perhaps what you should have used there is "maintain their memories, a sense of self and a purpose".

:cheers:

 

So I couldn't be arsed reading all of this thread, but just thought I'd contribute an idea that may or may not have been raised before:

Perhaps it is less that Gold and the like cannot be transfigured because they're valuable, and more that they are valuable because they cannot be (or it is very difficult for them to be) transfigured.

For the record, part of me very likes Tere's traces theory.

 

Here's an idea.

Who says the exception is even true? Hermione's been wrong before and she trusts authority figures too much.

It is entirely plausible that Gringotts or the Ministry just made it up so that nobody gets more money than purebloods or the Ministry.

Or the pureblood families know how to magic themselves some food or money and keep it to themselves so that they can continue to be superior to muggle-borns, magical creatures etc.

Just an idea. You may now proceed to poke holes and make Swiss cheese out of it.

 

I had always understood from the "conjured things don't last" and "you cannot transfigure food" that you could transfigure food, but after it got broken down into it'd base nutrients, and then integrated into the body, it'd eventually disappear, which would probably have consequences.

 

Of the many possible conspiracies, this seems a bit far-fetched.

Given that the concept is meaningfully taught by McGonagall (a curmudgeon and not a great leader, but an able instructor in all other assessments) and I'd push that notion out into the Black Lake for the merfolk to choke on.

Edit: ...which makes it a great cover story for the Quibbler. Mind if I use it?

I do like the idea that gold can't be created or made constant, and that's why it's considered valuable- Enembee's idea is attractive for the elegance of it. From a 'rules of the universe' perspective, that makes bucketloads of sense. Why else would the goblins choose gold for a standard- certainly not simply because the muggle humans find it attractive and hard to find...

 

Is gold valuable because it cannot be transfigured, or can it not be transfigured because it is valuable? I've always wondered how much of the 'rules' of magic is actually imposed by preconceptions. There's no physical reason why gold should be more difficult to make than any other metal (unless you want to say conductivity affects ease of transfiguration), but perhaps wizards find it more difficult to transfigure gold because they're conditioned to think of it as valuable - and therefore assume that it is more difficult to transfigure.

Just a thought.

With regard to curses/hexes: my personal fanon (as JKR never really lays the theory of magic) is that curses work by altering the target's magic. That is, the cutting curse latches onto you and alters your magic so that your body thinks it is supposed to have a cut (influenced by Pratchett's idea of a morphic field). A curse is more difficult to remove because it's your own magic perpetuating the effect, so you have to stop the curse from 'tricking' your morphic field.

Hexes, on the other hand, are packets of magical energy that release a certain effect when disrupted. Thus, the blasting hex is a semi-solid packet of magic that releases a blast when it strikes something. Many curses are delivered by means of a hex, but not all.

Jinxes, I would assume, are irritating but harmless curses.

All of this is no more canon than anyone else's fanon, but it's how I think about magic when writing fight scenes.

 

^ I like this theory.

But how does a curse that effects the mind, like Obliviate or the Imperius, work? Does it use the magic of the victim to effect the brain or the mind?

If it does not effect the brain but just the mind does that mean that the mind is independent from the body and perhaps relies on something else, like the soul? Or is the mind completely independent from body, magic and soul?

 

Then how can a curse lay hold on something that has no magic? Say, you curse a fox (Bellatrix, DH)? Or something that isn't even physical, but a concept, like the DADA position (Voldemort, pre PS)?

As far as I know, foxes and abstract concepts like teaching positions have no magic.

The mind is tied to the soul (think Kissed wizards drooling), and it is tied to the body, the brain to be exact (entering someone's mind with Legilimency just by looking at their eyes, which are connected to the brain by optical nerves). The soul is tied to the body, that one is obvious.

 

Of course a fox has magic, being a living creature; there's magic in blood, after all (several different kinds of myth agree on this). And I would say that a teaching position does have some kind of magic, or at least a something to put a curse on - when people think of 'DADA Professor at Hogwarts', there is a concept there, a defined thing that exists without being physical. You may (legitimately) disagree, but I think that's something real enough to be cursed (although as it doesn't have much magic in it, you'd probably need to be pretty skilled to make the curse stick).

Sofa: I dunno about mind/body separation. But I've always thought that magic (or rather, the ability to access and manipulate magic) is integral to a wizard, and just as important as their flesh/spirit. There is a very thin line between a wizard's magic and their mind (hence legilimency).

I mean, this is all made-up fanon, but it makes sense inside my head.

 

Okay then. How about doorknobs and teacups (being cursed magical items handled by Arthur Weasly)? Do they have magic too? A diary bought by Tom Riddle, later turned into a horcrux, having pensive-like abilities? Did it have magic before Tom cast his spells on it as well? Are you going to convince me that a brick has magic next?

On the topic of blood having magic... It would if it comes from a magical creature. And I don't mean a fox. A unicorn, sure, but a fox? If foxes had magic then they would have magical abilities and be covered in Care of Magical Creatures, don't you think? If all blood had magic, then muggles would have found a way to exploit that magic for sure.

And if an abstract concept like a position has magic, then where would that magic be? It has no physical representation to hold the magic. Even the most powerful pieces of magic in the series (like the Philosopher Stone, the Deathly Hallows, horcruxes, even the patronus), and the most insignificant of magical things (flobberworms and bowtruckles), have some sort of physical representation. Even spells have lights. A position has nothing. So, how can it be magical?

Lets say I agree with you. Lets say that everything has magic. Even concepts. Then why wouldn't Voldemort take the concept of "Light Wizard" or "Auror", and curse that instead? Where the teaching position would have weaker magic, only having one wizard at a time occupying it, there are thousand of people that are considered and consider themselves "Light Wizards" and "Aurors". Wouldn't it be easier for Voldemort to just curse those concepts and watch as the forces opposing him die in a year's time?

If a curse truly alters a wizard's magic, then in the end it would be impossible for the cursed wizard to use his own magic to counter the curse.

I curse you, your magic is altered, making your body think there should be a cut on your hand. You use a counter curse, but since your magic is already altered, all you can do is cut yourself some more.

^Even if it's a leap of logic, this would be far more rational, since there is nothing in cannon contradicting it.

 

There's a difference (in my mind) between having innate magic, and being able to use magic. You can use Muggles for blood sacrifices, because they do have magic - everything does, to some degree. They just can't use it.

With regard to nonphysical things being cursed - well, since there's almost nothing there (as you said, nothing to hold the magic) then it would be very, very difficult to put a curse on it. But then, Voldemort is extraordinarily powerful - he puts a curse (or at least a charm of some kind) on his name. I was always curious what would happen if there was another person called Voldemort - was the Taboo linked to the sounds that make up his name, or to someone referring to Voldemort nee Riddle only?

I would also note that prohecies (and the power of prophecy in general) is nothing more than a series of words spoken by a batty old woman, but despite its lack of physical substance, it appears to be highly magical.

(But, you know, this isn't exactly canon. You can construct HP-magic however you like in your head.)