The first in a series of threads to discuss the results of the Canon 2023 survey.

Let's start off by examining the concepts a bit more.

Variable magical power: the idea that wizards have associated with them an attribute, "magical power", which varies in intensity between wizards, and that variation is magically real (i.e. it is not just shorthand for a collection of other attributes).

Binary magical power: the idea that wizards either have magic or they do not, as a binary on/off attribute. All wizards have the same intensity of magical power, "on", and the difference between wizards in observed magical ability is attributable to other qualities such as knowledge, intelligence, experience, etc. (collectively, let's call all those factors "personality" for convenience).

In the survey, DLPers are 60.4% in favour of variable magical power, and 39.6% in favour of binary magical power:



(In contrast, the HPFF Reddit survey is 65.6% in favour of variable magical power, and 34.4% in favour of binary magical power.)

Quality vs. quantity: If variable magical power is true, that variation might be expressed in terms of quantity ("lots of magic") or quality ("strong magic") or it could have both strength and quantity axes.

In the survey, 9.4% of DLPers support a "quantity" theory of variable magical power (i.e. magical cores), 37.5% support the "quality" approach, and 53.1% support some combination of the two:



(In contrast, the HPFF Reddit survey is 26.8% in favour of "quantity", 19.4% in favour of "quality", and 53.8% for "both". HPFF loves magical cores.)

Origin of magical power: If variable magical power is true, the attribute might be expressed as a simple attribute, with each wizard simply having a power level associated with them, or it might be expressed as a complex attribute, a function of personality.

DLP was pretty emphatic on this one: just 14.7% support a simple attribute, with 85.3% supporting a complex one:



(In contrast, HPFF has greater support for basic attribute magical power, at 31.6%, with 68.4% in favour of a complex attribute.)

It is worth pausing here to examine the difference between "complex + variable magical power" and "binary magical power". In both, personality factors are responsible for the observed differences in magical ability between wizards. But the distinction is in the precise role those personality factors play.

In "complex variable magical power", personality factors have a real output, a tangible magical power which is associated with the person. Magical power is a permanent (or at least, long term) attribute of the person which is always there, even when they are not actively casting magic. It is part of who they are. If they were to attempt a piece of magic that they are bad at, that magical power would still be evident and play a role in the outcome of the spell, even though that particular piece of magic is poorly cast.

In "binary magical power", a person is not magically strong in and of themselves. Rather, each and every time they use magic, the outcome of that magic is determined by their personality factors. Their spells are strong, but the wizard casting them is not. Their power is entirely situational. If they were to attempt a piece of magic that they are bad at, it would be meaningless to say they are powerful but unskilled in that area. The fact that they are unskilled in that area means they can't cast that magic well, which means they are not powerful in that area.

Analysis

In canon terms, you have a bit of support for both binary and variable magical power.

In favour of binary magical power, you have the fact that on her old website, JKR said this is how magic works, while addressing the nature of Squibs as people without magic:

The words "there is no question of not being ‘magical enough’; you are either magical or you are not" seem fairly emphatic that magic is binary.

If magic is binary, then the differences in observed power between wizards must be their ability (i.e. personality factors), with their magic itself being largely identical. When wizards talk about a wizard being more powerful than another, they are using "power" as shorthand to refer to the sum total of all those factors, rather than a magically real power.

The problem for this approach are sections in the book where magical power is directly observed - not as a spell, or any other kind of magic being cast, but as a direct observation of the wizard themselves:

In both of these scenes, in which Dumbledore is not casting any magic, the strength of his power can be directly felt, and it is something particularly strong - stronger than other wizards.

It is difficult to square these scenes with "binary magical power". You can just about see the shape of an explanation: that even though he is not casting magic per se, Dumbledore is subconsciously deploying magic to do something vaguely spell-like, to produce this aura effect, and the intensity of that magic is determined by his skill etc.

But this explanation feels somewhat strained. The more obvious, natural reading is simply that Dumbledore has powerful magic, and that power can be felt by other wizards in these scenes. I.e. variable magical power.

That still leaves open the other questions - quantity vs. quality, simple vs. complex. But for me at least, I back variable magical power over binary, notwithstanding JKR's comments, because I feel like it fits better with the text (which takes precedence).

As to the other questions, my answers are "quality" and "complex".

Interested to hear other thoughts.

 

I disagree with this sentiment. Magic is in the most basic explanation the ability to impose your desire upon reality. The fumbling beginnings of this can be seen in the accidental magic of children. Which goes away as they learn how to work magic intentionally. What we see from Dumbledore is things wrapping back around. No longer accidental, but an unthinking infliction of his desire. I imagine this manifests in skilled wizards in any number of ways. Such as reaching for something and it jumping into their hand, absent a spell to make it do so.

 

I'd always interpreted this as a strength of personality thing, rather than a direct 'magical presence' thing.

I'm sure many of us have done something wrong and ended up standing in front of an authority figure who is pissed off at us at one point or another. Standing in front of the headmaster after a fight at school, standing in front of your parents after being caught with booze, whatever.

In those situations, that authority figure can often feel pretty big, pretty imposing, a little scary. They're someone with authority over you, someone you respect, someone that's pissed off. Nothing magical about it, just force of personality.

I think this is quite applicable here. Dumbledore is all of those things to Harry, and more. Not only is he a respected authority figure and quite a forceful personality, he's also demonstrably powerful and therefore objectively dangerous. I think subconsciously Harry would feel a little nervous, a little awed by him when he's angry and emotional and may interpret that as a sense of 'power' even without any magical intervention.

Then there's the magic element. Magic does seem to be tied to emotion at least a little, and I guess a sense of presence might just be a result of Dumbledore struggling to control his anger. The very weakest form of accidental magic artificially enhancing his 'presence' I guess, or even an intentional use of that by Dumbledore to subdue his opposition.

Overall, I don't think this is direct contradiction of binary magical power, just an artifact of the 'multiple factor' model where force of personality and emotion in a given situation come into play.

 

I went with binary because in my head, you have magic or you don't, and it doesn't work like a mana bar. It is experience, expertise and creativity that sets apart the truly gifted magic users, not the size of their battery.

The way the use their magic, esoteric knowledge/understanding and the thought process they go through in order to achieve results is what marks them as genius or powerful etc.

Years of efforts and talent to me results in mastery, not an increase of reserves or better quality magic or whatever anime bullshit.

 

Going with the idea of wizards and witches having a variable 'quality' of magic, in canon certain wands are better at casting certain types of magic, and it would be reasonable to assume that certain magic users are predisposed towards certain schools of magic, in the same way that some people are more mathematically minded and others are quicker at picking up new languages. With that being said a natural predisposition towards something doesn't mean that you'll necessarily be better at it than someone with less innate talent but more ambition, drive or a better work ethic (or simply a better level of education.).

You get characters like Dumbledore and Voldemort when a person has drive, intelligence, a good work ethic and high quality magic that's well disposed towards most schools of magic. In my headcanon, the three Dumbledore siblings all had the same magical potential, but it was a combination of Albus' other traits and the way he reacted to Ariana's death that drove him to become the most powerful wizard of the day.

 

Yeah I just don't see the canon argument for Variability. Even Taure's argument in text seems pretty weak on the basis of the arguments already stated above.

I was kinda surprised so many people, especially on DLP, leaned towards variability. I don't think there is anything inherent, or seen in canon, that shows that there is some magic attribute that varies between person to person. Any sort of "aptitude" is more likely to be tied to other factors such as personality or skillset.

 

Age is really the only one. And even that is a binary Adult-or-Child thing.

 

Well if variability isn't a factor, why is the disparity in demonstrated power between a figure like Dumbledore and senior Death Eaters and Aurors so stark? I don't consider the Fantastic Beast series canon, but the idea that Grindelwald would be able to take on upwards of 20 aurors in a fight at once without some sort of inherent difference in their power levels is a bit ridiculous imo. I don't think that magic can necessarily be quantified, because it doesn't run out. There isn't a magical core or a pool of magical power that wizards draw from, but there has to be some difference between the prodigal talents we see and average wizards beyond personality and intelligence. It's not like the Olympics, where Dumbledore is slightly better than a group of others who represent the very best humanity has to offer. He's heads and shoulders above all of the competition in his generation (as far as we know) aside from Grindelwald before Voldemort came along.

 

See my post above.

I consider casting magic like an art form. Like painting, even. Everyone can have the same dyes, canvas and brushes, but it is innate talent, experience, creativity and (perhaps most importantly) the right thought process that makes one great.

Asking how someone is stronger without having 'more magic' is an incredibly shallow explanation of what strength is in a wizard. Dumbledore isn't a powerful wizard because his spell damage numbers are higher than an auror. There's a lot of esoteric knowledge, practice, talent and attitude involved.

Remember, Hogwarts is a school, with classes. Classes meant to increase knowledge, experience and understanding of magic, even to the newest entries to the ranks of wizardry. If magic was variable, Hogwarts would be a magical gym full of bros. Why bother learning theory when you can just cast a spell 50-, no 100 times! Exhaust yourself repeatedly, weakling! That's how your reserves grow stronger. Mix that newt liver powder in your lunch; it's good for your gains.

Do you even conjure, bro?

 

In CoS Neville gets all kinds of talismans to protect himself from the Heir of Slytherin, saying "They went for Filch first -- and everyone knows I'm almost a Squib."

If magic was binary—and more importantly culturally known to be such—that would be an utterly nonsensical statement given that Neville has demonstrably shown to be able to use magic, even if somewhat unsuccessfully.

 

I don't think that magic is quantifiable, which is why I like the idea of some people being naturally predisposed to be better at certain types of magic, which I think is supported by canon. Some people are born smarter than other people, some people have fast metabolisms and some people can learn how to use certain types of spells more quickly than other people. Some of that is down to circumstance, as in a person's magic will protect them when they're young if they're abused or frequently exposed to danger, and then that will manifest itself later in life as a natural talent towards defensive magic or whatever, but then at the same time others are just born with the right genetic cocktail that makes them whopper at magic. The opposite of being born a squib (who has more magic than a Muggle but less than a wizard, working against the binary idea).

 

Not sure I'd use a 12 year old with incredibly low self-esteem as a point in your favor

 

In fact considering the low self esteem, low confidence Neville in Books 1,2 and 3 isn't a very good wizard, whereas the more confident happier Neville we see in books 5,6 and 7 is actually pretty powerful (far as we can tell) is if anything support for the idea that personality is a major factor in magical power.

 

It is a nonsensical statement though because there's no such thing as almost a squid. Neville is (proven as) a perfectly capable wizard with a lot of confidence issues early on in his life, and they were 12 at the time. People are dumb and say dumb stuff and are superstitious about dumb shit.

 

People's leanings and 'talents' are hard to explain irl, but why do you feel the need to color code magic types and say 'oh this person's magic is bluer so that's why they're good at charms'.

Just like in real life, people have talent for some things, or have mental leanings towards something, or find specific thought processes easier to go through. That's not magic; that's just life. Combine that with specific wands being more or less suited for specific applications, and voila. Specialisation.

 

On the contrary, I'd say Neville is the perfect person to weigh in on this question. He has unique perspective what the difference between a Squib and a Wizard means, given how his uncle had decided to "test" him. If it was widely believed that magic is binary, Neville would be the last person to think that he is "almost a Squib", but rather be worried that he is too stupid or lazy or something else to be as good as his father. His family would have made sure of that.

Of course we can say that the canon characters mistakenly believe that there is a scale to individual magic and in reality magic in fact is binary, but that is a totally different discussion.

 

Didn't Neville's uncle only "test" him since he was late in showing accidental magic?

Which makes sense, in a macabre, hilarious way

"Toss the child out the window, if he shows his magic, yay, if he doesn't, let the squib thump on the ground with a nice bit of dead-cat-bounce and find a nice hole to bury him in"

I think that it's mostly his low self-esteem saying that.

"My grand-whatever was worried so he pitched me out a window, but I successfully managed enough accidental magic to not die. I just bounced, I didn't levitate, so maybe I'm barely magical'

When in reality, the bouncing or floating or sudden shield near the ground amounts to the whole thing. The child is magical. He was clearly magical the day he knowingly cast a bit of magic

 

Because that's more or less how it works in canon, and it makes sense to me.

 

Then there is the prophecy: Voldemort clearly believed that there was something innately special about Harry that made him a threat that needed to be dealt with.

And sure, you can say that _magic_ is binary, but the way you _use magic_ is effected by a myriad of other innate and learned traits. I just don't feel like there's a need to make that distinction.

 

I think Voldemort was right, there was something special about Harry. But then, Prophecies are another vague area that we as the reader don't really understand. I'm not even sure that Voldemort or other in universe characters actually understand them all that well.

Was the prophecy about Harry because he was already 'special' at the time it was made? Was it about him because the oracle can see that Harry would become that 'special' person by the time that the prophecy came to fruition? Was it actually more of a generic self fulfilling prophecy that could've applied to plenty of candidates because it was inevitable that somebody would defeat Voldemort eventually, and it was Voldemort selecting Harry that ultimately made Harry 'special'? We don't really know.

Either way, I think it's fair to say that the thing that makes Harry 'special' in that context wasn't his magical ability, at least not in a generalist 'Voldemort tier wizard' sense.

In fact, he beat Voldemort by truly understanding a very specific area of magic just a little better than Voldemort did.

To me, that again supports an 'innate/learned traits' school of thought. Harry was better at using the Hallows. Not because he was able to brute force them with his enormous magical core, but because his 'special' power was understanding what they were, the intricacies of how they worked and having a personality that was highly compatible with them. Voldemort on the other hand didn't understand them, and his desire to flee from death was the antithesis of what the hallows really stood for. So he lost.

As to the second point, yeah it's just a semantic distinction really, but an important one in how you interpret the world, talent and magical ability. Both schools of thought might lead to similar observable outcomes of course, but it's rather a different fundamental basis for power.