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Vanishing vs the Unforgivables or more questions about Dark Magic

The World of Severus Snape

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Vanishing vs the Unforgivables or more questions about Dark Magic

[info]oryx_leucoryx
9/14/09 09:27 am
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"Where do Vanished objects go?"
"Into nonbeing, which is to say, everything."

In their 5th year Harry and his classmates learn to Vanish living beings - first snails, then mice. While Vanishing a mammal is difficult and requires more concentration than Vanishing an invertebrate it is still within grasp of the general trained wizard. And what happens to the mouse? It ceases to exist. From McGonagall's reply to the Ravenclaw common room question, it seems to be an irreversible transition. Does this mean that with just a bit more concentration anyone with E or higher on their Transfiguration OWL knows how to magically kill a human being? How is Vanishing different from AK (apart from not leaving a body behind)? Why aren't the students warned against doing it the way Crouch Jr warns them of a mandatory life sentence for performing Unforgivables on human beings?
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  • (Anonymous)
    9/15/09 01:19 pm (UTC)
    IAWTC. The HP view of animals sems positively Cartesian (http://sztybel.tripod.com/Descartes.html). They've all wandered in from the Tom & Jerry-verse where stuffing an animal with firecrackers is just a funny gag. And why do children have to spend years studying the art of turning living creatures into objects, with all the potential for animal suffering that that entails? Do wizards prefer to make their furniture out of pets? (I could believe it.)

    Animals who enter the story are no more than plot devices, either. After Crookshanks serves his purpose in PoA, we don't hear of Hermione showing him affection or making arrangements for him. Harry has a moment of tearing up after Hedwig dies, and then never thinks about her again. He'd only had her since he was eleven. As you say, characters who care about their pets are silly, like Neville with his toad. (However, it's suddenly supposed to be cruel when Snape sets Neville to dissecting animals that might remind him of Trevor.)

    -L

    • [info]oryx_leucoryx
      9/15/09 05:19 pm (UTC)
      And why do children have to spend years studying the art of turning living creatures into objects, with all the potential for animal suffering that that entails? Do wizards prefer to make their furniture out of pets? (I could believe it.)


      Well, supposedly transfigured objects don't last (or else why would the Weasleys be poor? Unless of course Molly and Arthur failed Transfiguration. We mostly see them performing charms and DADA related magic.) So Transfiguration in general looks more like an exercise in magic for its own sake most of the time. Though if one needs to improvise and doesn't have the right object at hand conjuring or transfiguring something else will do.

      The practical uses of Transfiguration we see in canon that I can recall are:
      - animating inanimate objects: Minerva's chess men in PS, also used in the Dumbledore vs Voldmeort duel and the Severus vs Minerva duel. (The army of desks is never seen in action.)
      - Vanishing messes. (eg after Potions lessons, or spilled ink from Ron's essay)
      - Duplicating objects (Hermione with the locket, the spell the goblins use against theft) - we don't know how long the fakes last
      - Used as a form of disguise (eg Hermione disguising Ron before the Gringotts invasion)
      - Complete and incomplete Animagus transformation
      - Cedric (temporarily?) transfiguring a rock into a dog (1st task GOF)
      - Crouch transforming Draco into a ferret.
      - I suppose some of the twins' toys such as the fake wands, are objects with transfiguration spells on them?
      - the various conjured chairs
      (Was the meade Dumbledore offered the Dursleys conjured, summoned or what? And if conjured what about Gamp's law?)
      Anything else?

    • [info]shyfoxling
      9/15/09 07:26 pm (UTC)
      . (However, it's suddenly supposed to be cruel when Snape sets Neville to dissecting animals that might remind him of Trevor.)

      A "horned toad" is a spiny-looking sort of lizard and only vaguely resembles a toad. It may be that JKR was using it incorrectly as the next line does say Neville got "toad guts" under his fingernails, or she was thinking of a magical creature that was literally a toad with horns (and therefore might look like Trevor). There's no mention of Trevor being involved in the cause for this detention, just that Neville had melted his sixth cauldron, so I don't think it was meant to be directly related. Perhaps Neville's state of "nervous collapse" is because he's squeamish about this sort of thing.
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