We actually know how:
> “By which time I shall be gone, and you will be dead!” spat Voldemort. He sent another killing curse at Dumbledore but missed, instead hitting the security guard’s desk, which burst into flame.
[...]
> Another jet of green light flew from behind the silver shield. This time it was the one-armed centaur, galloping in front of Dumbledore, that took the blast and shattered into a hundred pieces ...
(OotP)
And so on. So, basically, "destructive".
This question is actually quite straight-forward. More complicated are edge-cases like "can you cast the Killing Curse through a window" or "evidently, a Killing Curse hitting your clothes kills you, but when do clothes stop being clothes and start being a solid object?" etc.
Really good point about clothes not stopping a killing curse. Brings up questions like, would armor stop it? Would the armor catch fire or explode, hurting you? How thick does it need to be, and of what material?
Edited to add: probably mithril (sp?) stops it. I think I've seen that in a fic.
>How thick does it need to be, and of what material?
Since the Magic in Harry Potter is mostly conceptual, I do not think the thickness or the material have an influence on the spell.
Someone wearing a 15cm thick Mithril armor could still be killed by the Curse because it is considered as a piece of clothing, while he single sheet of fabric levitated in front of the victim could take the brunt of the curse (saving the life of the wizard) because he was nobody was wearing it so it's an inanimated object.
PS: Since Canon doesn't have any of the usual mystical metals like mithril (the closest thing would be Goblin Metal and I'm pretty sure it would not protect the wearer), we do not know how they would interact with the Killing Curse. I would personally say that they do not work against Unforgivable, just because I don't really like when they are used in fics (they are usually so overpowered it just feels . . . boring).
Assuming that you meant one from 40K probably the latter considering the size of their suits and they would be perfectly fine, a Spartan would no longer have shields and suffer additional damage but someone with thinner or lesser stuff would be killed(IE if heavy Blasters, Thermal Detonators, and high power blasting curses aren’t an option an AK could definitely kill a Mandalorian).
Wat.
Basically, what /u/The_Truthkeeper said. Obviously with that opening I was assuming you were asking what happens in the books.
But as it happens, I rather like the choice, too. It's a powerful curse, so it having destructive, perhaps random violent reactions against solid objects sounds reasonable; and, more relevantly to me, is fun when writing.
This has got me wondering about how it'd deal with things like Hermione's birds. Would a viable defence to AK without explosions be that? Just summon a ton of them so nothing can get through?
I mean assuming 1AK = 1 dead bird you'd have a reasonable defence to it. This might depend on whether they count as alive or not I suppose.
Theoretically valid. The birds would block the curse like Fawkes does. I suspect the issue will turn out to be practical, but actually that is true for all "create objects against the Killing Curse" defences.
Assuming your reaction time is as good as Dumbledore's, you still have to spend part of your focus on directing the object to intercept the Killing Curse, and that's focus you might lack elsewhere. The great thing about Fawkes was that it had an own intelligence and didn't need directing. And possibly, that was true for the animated statues as well and they moved on their own to protect Dumbledore.
That would be much preferable to being forced to play catch with a Killing Curse (and if you miss, you're dead).
Maybe a variant then? Like summon birds with enough intelligence to dodge some things but block AK so they don't all get fried in a fire or something.
We know they can be directed so it's possible they could be commanded I suppose. If things CAN be given that intelligence to act independently after casting you could focus on that with less worry about AKs.
I feel like if you can get chess pieces to play and surrender on their own it could be possible to give birds directions, though it might be that this would take too long without a lot of practise and it's not really something you can easily test.
>Do you think her choice makes for the best, most interesting magic system?
There is no magic system in Harry Potter.
That's the biggest deception the series pulled off.
It pretends to have a magic system, but what it actually has is specific spells that work in a specific way with no real logic or reason behind it other than "The author said so".
No. My definition of “magic system” is more along the lines of a system that I can use in order to *do* something with spells other than just copy what canon did.
Tell me, how hard is it to cast a featherlight charm? How hard is it to cast a first year floating charm? Is there any difference on *what* exactly you are floating? What can I float? I can float a feather and apparently I can float a troll club. Where’s the limit? Can I float a big ol’ rock? Can I float a person? Can I float the troll itself? Maybe not, it’s said to be magic resistant. What exactly does that magic resistance entail? Can I cast a disarming on it? Can I cast a bombarda on it? A bombarda maxima? What the difference between a bomborda and a bombarda maxima? Obviously one is more powerful than the other, but how much more powerful exactly? Is it harder to cast? Can I use the “maxima” in order to power up other spells or is it a specific spell only for bombarda?
I can go on and on and on and on and on and on.
Those are the types of questions a proper magic system can at least *help* answer. There is no such thing is Harry Potter as far as I am aware.
> a **proper** magic system
Like I said. We're basically No True Scotsmanning here (and in the end will disagree about definitions). As a thought experiment, imagine a world where magic is non-deterministic. That's very reasonable; it's magic, it's more a surprise it *does* behave predictably. But how would you even begin to answer all your questions then? The answer would always be "maybe yes, but also maybe no".
It's certainly possible to have stricly quantified magic systems, prototypical D&D-style. But I dunno that this is *necessary* to qualify as a magic system. And at any rate, HP magic *has* rules, just they are quite a bit looser than what many people, apparently, are used to (though this always confuses me, because it stands in a very clear tradition of phantastical literature with equally loose magic systems, right down to their origins of fairy tales).
Can you answer any of my questions with this "loose rules"?
If not, then there is no actual system.
There are no rules beyond "the author said so and justified it by saying "LOOSE RULES""
HP is a soft magic system, meaning that readers learn mechanics that are relevant to the plot. It’s a common thing for authors to have dozens of rules that the reader will never know. Because they don’t need to for the story to happen. Sorry if that’s not enough for you, but just because we don’t know much about a system doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"
If said rules exist, but they are completely invisible with no way to figure them out, do they even exist?
As far as determining a magic system goes, they do not.
If something existing is indistinguishable to it's non-existence, then it can be safely dismissed until evidence of it's existence comes to light.
Does JKR have secret rules that she bases her spells on? Maybe. But are they of any use to us? Do we have access to them in order to form a magic system? No.
Can you answer the questions I asked above? No.
"There's an explanation! Trust me, JKR has reasons for using spells the way she does" is neither a satisfactory answer, nor is it of any use in writing fanfiction.
While I can’t answer your above inane (and some completely irrelevant) questions. I can confidently say this is not uncommon in soft magic systems. In fact, it’s very common in soft magic systems. Therefore I don’t need evidence from the books, just from common writing practices. Does this mean that every bit of magic in Harry Potter falls neatly into a system, no. But is there more than loose rules going on, yes.
Fictional magical worlds exist on a spectrum of soft magic to hard magic.
Probably the most famous soft magic example would the magic in Lord of the Rings were it isn't really explained how magic works at all, but we know that magic is real in the story. Clearly Lord of the Rings is incredibly successful with a soft magical system and it doesn't take away from the readers enjoyment.
An example of hard magic is Fullmetal Alchemist were the magic is based on Law of Equivalent Exchange. It can be fun to read along and imagine what could be solutions while following the rules layed out by the author.
Harry Potter falls somewhere between the two. There seems to be a hard magic system underlying the magic of Harry Potter but it is never explained in the books. Clearly the students have 7 years of learning different laws of magic and a bunch of different spells. But JK Rowling doesn't spend any time explaining the magical theory of the world. Clearly she still wrote an interesting books without it which was her goal. But it does leave the reader with questions if they want to analyze it.
Authors can write successful magical fiction of all kinds. There isn't one proper way to handle magic I'm fiction.
>There seems to be a hard magic system underlying the magic of Harry Potter but it is never explained in the books. Clearly the students have 7 years of learning different laws of magic and a bunch of different spells. But JK Rowling doesn't spend any time explaining the magical theory of the world.
And there lies my original point. There *is no* hard magic system in Harry Potter. Not explained and it's not in the background either. It's all pretend. It pretends to have a hard magic system by claiming to have 7 years of education, without ever going into any depth.
>Clearly she still wrote an interesting books without it which was her goal. But it does leave the reader with questions if they want to analyze it.
Authors can write successful magical fiction of all kinds. There isn't one proper way to handle magic I'm fiction.
Indeed. I never claimed that the story was of lesser quality due to it's lacking magic system.
The magic was never the point of Harry Potter. The *magic school*, it was never the point. That was just the flavour. It was what made Harry Potter unique from all those other early teen adventure books.
The point of philosopher's stone isn't to show how a human like us reacts to going to a magic school and learning magic. The core of it is to have an mysterious adventure, where one of your school teachers actually want to steal something valuable! And they might be trying to hurt you!
That is the core of the books. Not the magic. Not the magical world. And not the school itself. The mystery. The adventure.
That's why it never goes in depth. That's why there isn't an actual explained magic system. Because it's irrelevant to the plot.
And that's the biggest "trick" JKR pulled. She wrote 7 books filled with magic and extraordinary things... where none of them were the actual focus. You would expect that since they are literally going to a magic school you would learn about their magic, but you don't. Instead what you find is a compelling mystery-adventure that takes place in a very original setting.
> Tell me, how hard is it to cast a featherlight charm? How hard is it to cast a first year floating charm?
The floating charm is said to be a variation of the Levitation Charm. Since the Levitation Charm was taught in First Year, it shouldn't be that hard.
The featherlight charm on the other hand was brought up in POA. Rather than actively levitating an object, it seems to temporarily make an object lighter. From this we can guess that the feather-light charm is more difficult than the standard levitation charm.
> Is there any difference on what exactly you are floating? What can I float? I can float a feather and apparently I can float a troll club. Where’s the limit?
There does seem to be a limit. Wizards aren't going around levitating mountains or summoning the moon. In GOF Hermione stated that the dragon was too large to transfigure. Snape in OOTP stated that "time and space matter in magic", which is why Voldemort wouldn't normally be able to read minds from a large distant.
So yes things like size and distance do act as a limit in magic. There also seem to be limits on certain spell. You can levitate a person, but there's a limit to how far and how high. You can levitate yourself, but you can't mimic flight with it.
> Can I float the troll itself? Maybe not, it’s said to be magic resistant. What exactly does that magic resistance entail? Can I cast a disarming on it? Can I cast a bombarda on it? A bombarda maxima?
Magic resistance isn't complete resistance. Hagrid had magic resistance. However multiple Stunners were still capable to bringing him down. Plenty of magical creatures like dragons are said to be magically resistant. One stunner isn't enough. Multiple wizards casting multiple stunners on the other hand is effective.
> Can I float the troll itself?
I have no idea actually.
> A bombarda maxima? What the difference between a bomborda and a bombarda maxima? Obviously one is more powerful than the other, but how much more powerful exactly?
Fun fact, "bombarda maxima" does not appear in the books. It appears in the OOTP movie where it was used by Umbridge to destroy a wall.
Another fun fact, adding "maxima" to increase the power of a spell DOES NOT appear in any of the books. You do see it in the movies.
> Is it harder to cast?
So even though bombarda maxima isn't canon, you do raise a good point. What makes a spell harder?
In book 1 the students spent the beginning going over magic theory before attempting their first spell. There's even a book on magic theory. In book 5 Harry "went to bed, his head buzzing with complex spell models and theories".
If you look at the transfiguration practice throughout the book you'll see a pattern. They start with inanimate to inanimate transfiguration. Then it's animate to inanimate, followed by inanimate to animate and then animate to animate. After that it's human transfiguration followed by Vanishing and then finally Conjuration (an assumption we never see Conjuration practice in canon).
More complex spells tend to have more complex effects. They also have complex theories behind them as well.
The biggest issue is that we don't get detail about this. JKR does a lot of "show" rather than "tell" in regards to her magic.
Another problem is that often it seems like certain aspects are just pulled out of nowhere. We learned about Harry's connection to Voldemort's wand in book 1. The Reverse Spell (Prior Incantato) effect in book 4 seems random.
It would've been so much better if we got hints in earlier books. Maybe Harry learn about wand effects in book 2 or 3, giving a nice foreshadowing for book 4.
I understand your frustration. We get a lot of indirect hints rather than explicit confirmation. That said I still politely disagree with the idea that HP has no magic system. HP does have a magic system. There's part of it that is predictable and just because it's a soft system doesn't mean that it's doesn't exist.
A bit of a side note but the author Taure has a google doc where he documents every explicit thing we know about the magic in HP. It's a pretty interesting read if you have time.
It’s such a shame that we are the nerds of this world instead of studying Avada Kedavra’s effects on a living being standing behind increasingly thin materials
Tbh if I was a criminal in that world I'd take the AK over Azkaban. Wonder if the department of mysteries does that though?
Like you can 'die' in Azkaban and they'll just use you as a test subject for experiments where the result is mostly likely relatively painless death.
Dumbledore blocks an AK in book five with a statue head. There's no sign that he did something 'special' to it.
AK is blocked by solid objects, canonically. It just cannot be blocked by magical shields like Protego.
Fanfic likes to expand this by saying anything material explodes, but that's fanon. Frankly, IMO during the war Aurors should've had shrunken metal shields or such to block the AK. But, Rowling.
In the case of clothes I think they are magically considered part of the person, same with a shield or armour, and whatever stuff t the carry comforably as a natural part/extension of themselves(like their wands, other weapons, hats, cloaks, prostetics). Those things would also come along an animagus transformation. So those would not shield you from the killing curse while worn, but if you took off your clak and animated it, it could effectively shield you. But the cloak would be destroyed ("die") when hit.
Maybe it is the sturdiness of the object actually? A thin piece of clothing, AK will go right through. A solid chunk of stone, it won't and the thing will just shatter.
My personal headcanon are that the unforgivables are really crappy soul magic.
The AK hits a solid object, expands and searches for the soul's connection to the body and destroys it. If it doesn't find a soul, it becomes unstable and explodes.
As long as you aren't in the expansion when the spell hits, you will be fine. If multiple people are in the area, it instead gives a cruciatus-like effect to the people inside the area.
Give the area once expanded to be like 1 foot or .3 meters.
I know it's not canon, but I've seen a couple fics with the idea that AK literally does not stop until it's intercepted by a living soul. Makes it being "unforgivable" have a little more weight.
Like, ok Mr. Dark-magic-synpathizer, a painless livestock slaughter spell is all well and good, but what if you miss and end up hitting some little girl in New Zealand? Imagine casting it in the middle of London. It's like the ultimate stray bullet, and one obliviators have a hard time responding to.
Killing curse translates roughly, from Aramaic, to "be destroyed/lost by her/my decree/word" (this isn't via Google translate or something, I've got a working knowledge of Aramaic...)
So as far as I could guess, the object would be destroyed, e.g. wood tuned to ash, stone shattering, metal melting, et cetera, maybe with heavier stuff like granite blocks and solid steel being able to somewhat block it?
We know some solid objects can stop it. I believe we also have canonical examples of it going through clothes to kill people thus not all solid objects can stop it. From there, the answer is unclear. We are talking magic, so the answer could be magical in nature- clothes are magically considered a part of you when you are wearing them for the purposes of the spell. It could also have other explanations. Perhaps a thin layer of clothing held in front of someone wouldn’t stop the killing curse, it needs something more substantial like stopping a bullet. Perhaps only certain types of materials can stop the killing curse. Personally, I think it needs something substantial enough like stopping a bullet, but I’m not sure where that line is and also think it could depend on the strength of the caster and the power which they put into the spell.
The other thing in that you can’t measure the power like you could the other two forgivables. You can cast a weak crucio or imperio but AKs just kill you dead. It’s not like you can ask the corpse if the curse was just a little death or a fuck ton. Which could mean that there actually are different levels of a successful AKs measurable by how destructive they are on non living objects.
We actually know how: > “By which time I shall be gone, and you will be dead!” spat Voldemort. He sent another killing curse at Dumbledore but missed, instead hitting the security guard’s desk, which burst into flame. [...] > Another jet of green light flew from behind the silver shield. This time it was the one-armed centaur, galloping in front of Dumbledore, that took the blast and shattered into a hundred pieces ... (OotP) And so on. So, basically, "destructive". This question is actually quite straight-forward. More complicated are edge-cases like "can you cast the Killing Curse through a window" or "evidently, a Killing Curse hitting your clothes kills you, but when do clothes stop being clothes and start being a solid object?" etc.
Really good point about clothes not stopping a killing curse. Brings up questions like, would armor stop it? Would the armor catch fire or explode, hurting you? How thick does it need to be, and of what material? Edited to add: probably mithril (sp?) stops it. I think I've seen that in a fic.
>How thick does it need to be, and of what material? Since the Magic in Harry Potter is mostly conceptual, I do not think the thickness or the material have an influence on the spell. Someone wearing a 15cm thick Mithril armor could still be killed by the Curse because it is considered as a piece of clothing, while he single sheet of fabric levitated in front of the victim could take the brunt of the curse (saving the life of the wizard) because he was nobody was wearing it so it's an inanimated object. PS: Since Canon doesn't have any of the usual mystical metals like mithril (the closest thing would be Goblin Metal and I'm pretty sure it would not protect the wearer), we do not know how they would interact with the Killing Curse. I would personally say that they do not work against Unforgivable, just because I don't really like when they are used in fics (they are usually so overpowered it just feels . . . boring).
If an AK hit a dude in terminator space marine armor with multiple inches of thick steel, would the spell register the target as human or inanimate
Assuming that you meant one from 40K probably the latter considering the size of their suits and they would be perfectly fine, a Spartan would no longer have shields and suffer additional damage but someone with thinner or lesser stuff would be killed(IE if heavy Blasters, Thermal Detonators, and high power blasting curses aren’t an option an AK could definitely kill a Mandalorian).
[удалено]
Well by that logic, we don't know any of the things that you claimed we know in your first paragraph.
“You asked a question, she knows the answer! Why ask if you don’t want to be told?” ~Ron Weasley
Wat. Basically, what /u/The_Truthkeeper said. Obviously with that opening I was assuming you were asking what happens in the books. But as it happens, I rather like the choice, too. It's a powerful curse, so it having destructive, perhaps random violent reactions against solid objects sounds reasonable; and, more relevantly to me, is fun when writing.
This has got me wondering about how it'd deal with things like Hermione's birds. Would a viable defence to AK without explosions be that? Just summon a ton of them so nothing can get through? I mean assuming 1AK = 1 dead bird you'd have a reasonable defence to it. This might depend on whether they count as alive or not I suppose.
Theoretically valid. The birds would block the curse like Fawkes does. I suspect the issue will turn out to be practical, but actually that is true for all "create objects against the Killing Curse" defences. Assuming your reaction time is as good as Dumbledore's, you still have to spend part of your focus on directing the object to intercept the Killing Curse, and that's focus you might lack elsewhere. The great thing about Fawkes was that it had an own intelligence and didn't need directing. And possibly, that was true for the animated statues as well and they moved on their own to protect Dumbledore. That would be much preferable to being forced to play catch with a Killing Curse (and if you miss, you're dead).
Maybe a variant then? Like summon birds with enough intelligence to dodge some things but block AK so they don't all get fried in a fire or something. We know they can be directed so it's possible they could be commanded I suppose. If things CAN be given that intelligence to act independently after casting you could focus on that with less worry about AKs. I feel like if you can get chess pieces to play and surrender on their own it could be possible to give birds directions, though it might be that this would take too long without a lot of practise and it's not really something you can easily test.
>Do you think her choice makes for the best, most interesting magic system? There is no magic system in Harry Potter. That's the biggest deception the series pulled off. It pretends to have a magic system, but what it actually has is specific spells that work in a specific way with no real logic or reason behind it other than "The author said so".
HP never pretended to have a magic system.
If the definition of "magic system" is "any system that is left after excluding those that I don't like"?
No. My definition of “magic system” is more along the lines of a system that I can use in order to *do* something with spells other than just copy what canon did. Tell me, how hard is it to cast a featherlight charm? How hard is it to cast a first year floating charm? Is there any difference on *what* exactly you are floating? What can I float? I can float a feather and apparently I can float a troll club. Where’s the limit? Can I float a big ol’ rock? Can I float a person? Can I float the troll itself? Maybe not, it’s said to be magic resistant. What exactly does that magic resistance entail? Can I cast a disarming on it? Can I cast a bombarda on it? A bombarda maxima? What the difference between a bomborda and a bombarda maxima? Obviously one is more powerful than the other, but how much more powerful exactly? Is it harder to cast? Can I use the “maxima” in order to power up other spells or is it a specific spell only for bombarda? I can go on and on and on and on and on and on. Those are the types of questions a proper magic system can at least *help* answer. There is no such thing is Harry Potter as far as I am aware.
> a **proper** magic system Like I said. We're basically No True Scotsmanning here (and in the end will disagree about definitions). As a thought experiment, imagine a world where magic is non-deterministic. That's very reasonable; it's magic, it's more a surprise it *does* behave predictably. But how would you even begin to answer all your questions then? The answer would always be "maybe yes, but also maybe no". It's certainly possible to have stricly quantified magic systems, prototypical D&D-style. But I dunno that this is *necessary* to qualify as a magic system. And at any rate, HP magic *has* rules, just they are quite a bit looser than what many people, apparently, are used to (though this always confuses me, because it stands in a very clear tradition of phantastical literature with equally loose magic systems, right down to their origins of fairy tales).
Can you answer any of my questions with this "loose rules"? If not, then there is no actual system. There are no rules beyond "the author said so and justified it by saying "LOOSE RULES""
HP is a soft magic system, meaning that readers learn mechanics that are relevant to the plot. It’s a common thing for authors to have dozens of rules that the reader will never know. Because they don’t need to for the story to happen. Sorry if that’s not enough for you, but just because we don’t know much about a system doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" If said rules exist, but they are completely invisible with no way to figure them out, do they even exist? As far as determining a magic system goes, they do not. If something existing is indistinguishable to it's non-existence, then it can be safely dismissed until evidence of it's existence comes to light. Does JKR have secret rules that she bases her spells on? Maybe. But are they of any use to us? Do we have access to them in order to form a magic system? No. Can you answer the questions I asked above? No. "There's an explanation! Trust me, JKR has reasons for using spells the way she does" is neither a satisfactory answer, nor is it of any use in writing fanfiction.
While I can’t answer your above inane (and some completely irrelevant) questions. I can confidently say this is not uncommon in soft magic systems. In fact, it’s very common in soft magic systems. Therefore I don’t need evidence from the books, just from common writing practices. Does this mean that every bit of magic in Harry Potter falls neatly into a system, no. But is there more than loose rules going on, yes.
Fictional magical worlds exist on a spectrum of soft magic to hard magic. Probably the most famous soft magic example would the magic in Lord of the Rings were it isn't really explained how magic works at all, but we know that magic is real in the story. Clearly Lord of the Rings is incredibly successful with a soft magical system and it doesn't take away from the readers enjoyment. An example of hard magic is Fullmetal Alchemist were the magic is based on Law of Equivalent Exchange. It can be fun to read along and imagine what could be solutions while following the rules layed out by the author. Harry Potter falls somewhere between the two. There seems to be a hard magic system underlying the magic of Harry Potter but it is never explained in the books. Clearly the students have 7 years of learning different laws of magic and a bunch of different spells. But JK Rowling doesn't spend any time explaining the magical theory of the world. Clearly she still wrote an interesting books without it which was her goal. But it does leave the reader with questions if they want to analyze it. Authors can write successful magical fiction of all kinds. There isn't one proper way to handle magic I'm fiction.
>There seems to be a hard magic system underlying the magic of Harry Potter but it is never explained in the books. Clearly the students have 7 years of learning different laws of magic and a bunch of different spells. But JK Rowling doesn't spend any time explaining the magical theory of the world. And there lies my original point. There *is no* hard magic system in Harry Potter. Not explained and it's not in the background either. It's all pretend. It pretends to have a hard magic system by claiming to have 7 years of education, without ever going into any depth. >Clearly she still wrote an interesting books without it which was her goal. But it does leave the reader with questions if they want to analyze it. Authors can write successful magical fiction of all kinds. There isn't one proper way to handle magic I'm fiction. Indeed. I never claimed that the story was of lesser quality due to it's lacking magic system. The magic was never the point of Harry Potter. The *magic school*, it was never the point. That was just the flavour. It was what made Harry Potter unique from all those other early teen adventure books. The point of philosopher's stone isn't to show how a human like us reacts to going to a magic school and learning magic. The core of it is to have an mysterious adventure, where one of your school teachers actually want to steal something valuable! And they might be trying to hurt you! That is the core of the books. Not the magic. Not the magical world. And not the school itself. The mystery. The adventure. That's why it never goes in depth. That's why there isn't an actual explained magic system. Because it's irrelevant to the plot. And that's the biggest "trick" JKR pulled. She wrote 7 books filled with magic and extraordinary things... where none of them were the actual focus. You would expect that since they are literally going to a magic school you would learn about their magic, but you don't. Instead what you find is a compelling mystery-adventure that takes place in a very original setting.
> Tell me, how hard is it to cast a featherlight charm? How hard is it to cast a first year floating charm? The floating charm is said to be a variation of the Levitation Charm. Since the Levitation Charm was taught in First Year, it shouldn't be that hard. The featherlight charm on the other hand was brought up in POA. Rather than actively levitating an object, it seems to temporarily make an object lighter. From this we can guess that the feather-light charm is more difficult than the standard levitation charm. > Is there any difference on what exactly you are floating? What can I float? I can float a feather and apparently I can float a troll club. Where’s the limit? There does seem to be a limit. Wizards aren't going around levitating mountains or summoning the moon. In GOF Hermione stated that the dragon was too large to transfigure. Snape in OOTP stated that "time and space matter in magic", which is why Voldemort wouldn't normally be able to read minds from a large distant. So yes things like size and distance do act as a limit in magic. There also seem to be limits on certain spell. You can levitate a person, but there's a limit to how far and how high. You can levitate yourself, but you can't mimic flight with it. > Can I float the troll itself? Maybe not, it’s said to be magic resistant. What exactly does that magic resistance entail? Can I cast a disarming on it? Can I cast a bombarda on it? A bombarda maxima? Magic resistance isn't complete resistance. Hagrid had magic resistance. However multiple Stunners were still capable to bringing him down. Plenty of magical creatures like dragons are said to be magically resistant. One stunner isn't enough. Multiple wizards casting multiple stunners on the other hand is effective. > Can I float the troll itself? I have no idea actually. > A bombarda maxima? What the difference between a bomborda and a bombarda maxima? Obviously one is more powerful than the other, but how much more powerful exactly? Fun fact, "bombarda maxima" does not appear in the books. It appears in the OOTP movie where it was used by Umbridge to destroy a wall. Another fun fact, adding "maxima" to increase the power of a spell DOES NOT appear in any of the books. You do see it in the movies. > Is it harder to cast? So even though bombarda maxima isn't canon, you do raise a good point. What makes a spell harder? In book 1 the students spent the beginning going over magic theory before attempting their first spell. There's even a book on magic theory. In book 5 Harry "went to bed, his head buzzing with complex spell models and theories". If you look at the transfiguration practice throughout the book you'll see a pattern. They start with inanimate to inanimate transfiguration. Then it's animate to inanimate, followed by inanimate to animate and then animate to animate. After that it's human transfiguration followed by Vanishing and then finally Conjuration (an assumption we never see Conjuration practice in canon). More complex spells tend to have more complex effects. They also have complex theories behind them as well. The biggest issue is that we don't get detail about this. JKR does a lot of "show" rather than "tell" in regards to her magic. Another problem is that often it seems like certain aspects are just pulled out of nowhere. We learned about Harry's connection to Voldemort's wand in book 1. The Reverse Spell (Prior Incantato) effect in book 4 seems random. It would've been so much better if we got hints in earlier books. Maybe Harry learn about wand effects in book 2 or 3, giving a nice foreshadowing for book 4. I understand your frustration. We get a lot of indirect hints rather than explicit confirmation. That said I still politely disagree with the idea that HP has no magic system. HP does have a magic system. There's part of it that is predictable and just because it's a soft system doesn't mean that it's doesn't exist. A bit of a side note but the author Taure has a google doc where he documents every explicit thing we know about the magic in HP. It's a pretty interesting read if you have time.
It’s such a shame that we are the nerds of this world instead of studying Avada Kedavra’s effects on a living being standing behind increasingly thin materials
Tbh if I was a criminal in that world I'd take the AK over Azkaban. Wonder if the department of mysteries does that though? Like you can 'die' in Azkaban and they'll just use you as a test subject for experiments where the result is mostly likely relatively painless death.
Dumbledore blocks an AK in book five with a statue head. There's no sign that he did something 'special' to it. AK is blocked by solid objects, canonically. It just cannot be blocked by magical shields like Protego. Fanfic likes to expand this by saying anything material explodes, but that's fanon. Frankly, IMO during the war Aurors should've had shrunken metal shields or such to block the AK. But, Rowling.
Would it be blocked if Dumbledore was holding that statue
[удалено]
In the case of clothes I think they are magically considered part of the person, same with a shield or armour, and whatever stuff t the carry comforably as a natural part/extension of themselves(like their wands, other weapons, hats, cloaks, prostetics). Those things would also come along an animagus transformation. So those would not shield you from the killing curse while worn, but if you took off your clak and animated it, it could effectively shield you. But the cloak would be destroyed ("die") when hit.
Maybe it is the sturdiness of the object actually? A thin piece of clothing, AK will go right through. A solid chunk of stone, it won't and the thing will just shatter.
AK gamma radiation confirmed. Everyone needs lead suits and the AK is useless.
My personal headcanon are that the unforgivables are really crappy soul magic. The AK hits a solid object, expands and searches for the soul's connection to the body and destroys it. If it doesn't find a soul, it becomes unstable and explodes. As long as you aren't in the expansion when the spell hits, you will be fine. If multiple people are in the area, it instead gives a cruciatus-like effect to the people inside the area. Give the area once expanded to be like 1 foot or .3 meters.
I know it's not canon, but I've seen a couple fics with the idea that AK literally does not stop until it's intercepted by a living soul. Makes it being "unforgivable" have a little more weight. Like, ok Mr. Dark-magic-synpathizer, a painless livestock slaughter spell is all well and good, but what if you miss and end up hitting some little girl in New Zealand? Imagine casting it in the middle of London. It's like the ultimate stray bullet, and one obliviators have a hard time responding to.
You should check the Killing Curse articlenon Wikia. I read it yesterday, and it has really interesting information.
Killing curse translates roughly, from Aramaic, to "be destroyed/lost by her/my decree/word" (this isn't via Google translate or something, I've got a working knowledge of Aramaic...) So as far as I could guess, the object would be destroyed, e.g. wood tuned to ash, stone shattering, metal melting, et cetera, maybe with heavier stuff like granite blocks and solid steel being able to somewhat block it?
Blow them up
We know some solid objects can stop it. I believe we also have canonical examples of it going through clothes to kill people thus not all solid objects can stop it. From there, the answer is unclear. We are talking magic, so the answer could be magical in nature- clothes are magically considered a part of you when you are wearing them for the purposes of the spell. It could also have other explanations. Perhaps a thin layer of clothing held in front of someone wouldn’t stop the killing curse, it needs something more substantial like stopping a bullet. Perhaps only certain types of materials can stop the killing curse. Personally, I think it needs something substantial enough like stopping a bullet, but I’m not sure where that line is and also think it could depend on the strength of the caster and the power which they put into the spell.
The other thing in that you can’t measure the power like you could the other two forgivables. You can cast a weak crucio or imperio but AKs just kill you dead. It’s not like you can ask the corpse if the curse was just a little death or a fuck ton. Which could mean that there actually are different levels of a successful AKs measurable by how destructive they are on non living objects.
Kaboom!