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Discussion [Harry Potter] The Wizarding World- We solemnly swear we're up to no good!

Discussion in 'Non Star Wars Fan Fiction' started by LilyHobbitJedi, Aug 11, 2008.

  1. NYCitygurl

    NYCitygurl Manager Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2002
    I can't remember the movie (I haven't seen it since it first came out like a decade ago), but I just reread the first book. Fred and George gave him the spell, and it was very un-spell-like. Ron decided that they'd been screwing with him, and in my opinion, that's what happened.

    Instead of being a mumbo-jumbo word/phrase like all the other spells we've seen, it was:

    "Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow,
    Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow."

    (Again, from the book.)
     
  2. moosemousse

    moosemousse CR Emeritus: FF-UK South star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 3, 2004
    See, my thinking is that most of the spells in Harry Potter have Latin roots because they're old spells and they spoke Latin back then, and I expect that ancient Greek and Egyptian spells have roots in those languages because that's what they spoke, so it seems to make sense that modern spells would have roots in modern languages because that's what's spoken. Yeah, I must admit that the spell is a bit silly sounding, but now we know everything it does perhaps cast a slightly different light on things, don't you think?
     
  3. NYCitygurl

    NYCitygurl Manager Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2002
    Maybe, but I think the twins were just screwing with him. That's an awfully long spell.
     
  4. LilyHobbitJedi

    LilyHobbitJedi Jedi Knight star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 29, 2005
    I agree, the twins were defintiely messing with him.
     
  5. Lady_Jade

    Lady_Jade Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 22, 2004
    Happy Birthday to the Boy Who Lived!
     
  6. NYCitygurl

    NYCitygurl Manager Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2002
  7. LilyHobbitJedi

    LilyHobbitJedi Jedi Knight star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 29, 2005

    I was thinking about this too yesterday, and also Happy belated Birthday to JK Rowling!
     
  8. NYCitygurl

    NYCitygurl Manager Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2002
    For any interested parties, C&G is hosting the JC Hogwarts House Cup, which is a big Harry Potter game. (It involves writing fanfic!) Check it out to see if you're interested!
     
  9. SilSolo

    SilSolo Jedi Knight star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 5, 2004
    Haven't been inside this thread for ages, but the topic of spells reminds me of another question that's been burning. JK Rowling showed us the European part of the Wizarding world, where spells are bound to spoken words. I want to explore the Asian part. Do you think that it's possible for the magic to work in the following manner in places like China and Japan:

    Instead of spoken words and wands, we have scrolls and paintbrushes, or at least magic paintbrushes. To cast a spell, the witch/wizard writes the target of teh spell, followed by the spell itself, down on a special scroll using the enchanted paintbrushes in a manner that looks extremely similar to calligraphy. The spells are written in either ancient or traditional Chinese characters (definitely not the newest, simplified, ones). A more experienced or powerful caster can skip the writing and cast a spell just by either going through the motions of calligraphy or envisioning the characters. The scrolls are not made of ordinary paper but of some sort of paper derived from one of those enchanted trees. The brushes are also made of special wood and hairs, like the European wands.

    Does this look reasonable?
     
  10. NYCitygurl

    NYCitygurl Manager Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2002
    Anything's possible, but in my experience, writers tend to stick to a fairly uniform system of magic. (Not all--Brandon Sanderson is a great example of someone who does--but most.) To me, that looks like an entirely different system of magic. I guess I'd ask why they would do it differently.
     
  11. SilSolo

    SilSolo Jedi Knight star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 5, 2004
    It's the same system. One thing about Harry Potter that always intrigued me was the Latin words behind it. The words were Latin, but if I remember correctly, some of the wizards featured on the cards were Greek, which came before Latin. So it's likely that magic is older than the Latin language and maybe the Latin-speaking wizards did a lot of work to formalize things. Elsewhere in the world, there were older cultures that flourished without coming into much contact with the western world. The question is, could they have cultivated the same magical essence (enchanted wood, unicorn hairs, dragons, etc) in a similar but somewhat different manner? Like the root magic is the same but the shaping is different. Just a thought.