The Magic - Part 3 - Controlling Magic

 So Harry can produce magic without even thinking about it. Why does he need a wand, let alone go to school?

Okay, so I'll try to keep this brief:


Since Harry can't control his magic, he can't control the amounts in which he uses it. So he goes to Hogwarts to learn to control it (it should be noted that in the space of time between the incident at the zoo and Harry actually going to Hogwarts for the first time, he has not been in fear of his life, so he hasn't used magic in that time.) Hogwarts is a safe(ish) environment, so students aren't usually  prompted to do magic without meaning to, and classes are taught on how to make produce particular magic, or 'spells'. We don't get full details of how those first classes go (as it was a kid's book, and kids really don't want to read about deep philosophy and such when they're in the middle of an adventure), but we do hear how the children are taught in later books:

- Professor Remus Lupin tells his students to think of happy things (memories or ideas) to fend off creatures that feed upon fear and despair

- Professor Moody urges the students to think for their own and ask questions when a 'dark spell'* is used to overpower their will

- Bellatrix Lestrange says an unforgivable curse (dark spells used to kill or torture or control) will only work if the caster really, really wants it to happen.

* 'Dark spell' is basically a term stamped onto any spell that causes injury in any kind or death.

Now, as for the wands, they're sort of the aiming rod for the students to use when employing magic.

                                                                     Vs.
We aren't really told how wands are made, but we do know that they all contain a part of a magical creature, like a dragon's heart-string or a thread of unicorn hair.
And the wand chooses the wizard, meaning that some wands are more capable of being controlled than others, kind of like how different people are suited to different musical instruments, but they all make music of their own kind.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Magic - Part 2 - Where does it come from?

Image
So how did these characters get these powers? Well, to tell the truth, I think it's like the X-men. Basically, what I mean, is that somehow magic was introduced into the world a while ago (pre-medieval ages) and stuck around, influencing the genes of humans and typically staying within the bloodlines of the humans who it affected, much like in the X-men franchise, where Mystique + Azazel = Nightcrawler, Phoenix + Cyclops = Rachel (telepath/telekentic) or X-man (same). To quote Harry Potter Wiki: "Due to the dominance of the magic gene, children born to at least one magical parent will usually be magical themselves." Then there are these quotes from the books: "I'm a what? " "A wizard, o' course... With a mum an' dad like yours, what else would yeh be?" - HP and the Philosopher's Stone "What about you, Neville?" said Ron "Well, my gran brought me up and she's a witch," said Neville, "bu...
Read more

The Hogwarts Houses

Image
So basically, long ago (Medieval-Tudor ages of England) four of the most powerful magically gifted adults gathered together on the border of Scotland and built a school. Their names were Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Salazar Slytherin, and Rowena Ravenclaw (I know, right?) Anyway, in creating the school, they decided that their students would be sorted to the charge of each of them based off character traits which each founder appreciated. Thus now we have: Even after the founders passed away (or left) the teachers they had trained up under the kept with this tradition, sorting children according to character traits, but there were really not enough of them who were fluent in all subjects, so they started splitting up the teaching between them. Slytherins (who are known for their conniving ways) were prone to teach potions, Hufflepuffs herbology, Ravenclaws charms (which is a science and very complicated to get just right), and Gryffindors usually made the bes...
Read more

Good magic vs dark arts

Image
To put it simply, 'good magic' and 'dark arts' sort of work like the Force, where a Jedi throws an opponent and a Sith strangles an opponent. Good magic is magic that doesn't typically cause physical harm, while the dark arts is magic specifically used to harm others, like in the case of the magic Voldemort tries to use to kill Harry.  It's the difference between the torturing curse that Voldemort uses on his victims and the puking pastilles the trickster twins, Fred and George, market for skipping classes at school. But sometimes the lines get a little blurry, especially in the last book. Though to be fair, the situation sin the last book were mostly 'terrorists are trying to kill our children!/We will be tortured and killed!' situations, not a 'the bad guys are going to take the unicorns away!' situation, so I think that gives the heroes the right to defend their children/families/homes by any means possible (then there's the whole...
Read more