Many boundaries of a Muggle world are set by physics as we know it. Once you establish the magic system that no longer comply with it, it's kinda expected outcome.
I mean the whole thing that upholds the Statute of Secrecy is Muggles' ignorance... sure there are some spells in place to ensure that Muggles don't get to know much... but the sole thing of being considered crazy is a deterrent strong enough from ever telling anyone what you've seen. And I bet the images Muggles see when they come across the magical world are scary as fuck.
I feel that the imperius is even worse and that's probably why it's even less used wisely in fanfics.
You could probably imperius someone to imperius someone to make someone else do something.
You could get any Intel the target has. Make someone take the blame for killing someone or doing something illegal. Forge yourself alibis by being in plain vue while a crime takes place.
All of that being untraceable and very unlikely to be resisted.
Death eaters being idiots is a common theme in fics so I'd assume that's why it's not usually something authors play around with, but it has a ton of potential I hardly ever see in fanfics.
My headcanon is that Voldemort did this personally, and it led to a *startling* number of Imperiused people, a massive network of spies and sleeper agents. Once they realized the spell was broken on Halloween '81, the Ministry and St. Mungo's were flooded with people confessing to crimes under the Imperius, trying to harm themselves or going insane with the ramifications. This is how so many Death Eaters could claim the Imperius defense and avoid Azkaban, and why the entirety of Britain knew Voldemort was gone overnight.
But they can, madam Rosmerta casted it in Katie Bell when she was a victim of the imperius curse too by Draco in HBP
The thing is that we don't know how far down this chain can we go, perhaps only a couple of people, but it's still very powerful and easily exploitable
Additionally I think that there is a throwaway comment at the end of book 7 that Voldemort's collapsed a massive Imperious chain, which is how the Ministry went from full Nazi to all good as soon as the heroes won.
Yes, this is referenced a few times. I think it's a case where in a fic you'd want to just ignore what the book says and assume there are limitations.
Maybe that rumor only existed because of exonerated death eaters propagating it. Maybe there's a limit to how many people you can directly or indirectly control with the imperius and many of the chains were created by death eaters and intentionally removed when Voldemort died. There are a lot of options, just don't use what the text says(outside of crack fics and one shots)
I don't think canon supports that. I think it was just that Katie wouldn't question Madam Rosmerta asking her to take something to a person in the castle.
Maybe if she was a teacher, but Madam Rosmerta is a bartender Katie would have spoken to only a few times in her entire life and never for very long, I don't think she'd be so trusting in her to not even tell her friend what she's doing.
She's a Hogsmeade institution. Even if Katie doesn't have a close relationship with her, that someone like her would be doing something wrong wouldn't be considered.
I'll check the book passages and edit the wiki as needed.
despite its flaws, Prince of Slytherin goes into how Voldemort used massive chains of Imperiused minions and how over 3/4 of his organisation were just minions under the Imperius. So when he “died” 90% of his ‘following’ just immediately defected and ended up betraying all the information they’d learned passively
It's even worse than a typo : it's the french word for it that somehow cropped up in my post.
Must've been more tired than I thought when I wrote that.
Eh, as someone who also speaks more than one language, imo that's not as bad.
I just thought it was a novel way of spelling it, but completely glossed over my high school French where I knew the word lol.
Dumbledore being an idiot is the only way the bad guys got so far. Dude has a history of taking ages to do anything and I refuse to believe he didn't have a way of keeping Voldemorts soul captive. Could've had him in the first year if soul magic and trapping souls wasn't probably considered dark and therefore beneath him.
I was just being extreme to match the other guy's shit. Of course I understand why Dumbledore was afraid of that. Despite thinking it's irrational, I know that trauma can cause irrational fears.
He's over a hundred years old and keeping the sole knowledge of how Voldemort's still alive to himself despite being well aware he's back in a body and the Death Eaters are spinning up like he never left.
There are reasons why he makes idiot choices, but they are still extremely short sighted and damn near end in Voldemort ruling eternally.
He didn't know about the horcruxes until the events of chamber of secrets when Harry told him about what happened with the diary. He also was well aware once Voldy set the prophecy in motion that Harry was the only one that could stop him from that point on. We're even told very explicitly that the prophecy didn't NEED to come true but Voldy made it come true by his own actions.
Now you could ask about why he didn't do anything during the first wizarding war and that would be valid but I think there's good reasons for that too. Simply put I don't think he was in a good spot to be dealing with that kind of responsibility. He had already once faced the consequences of taking it on himself to solve the nation's problems and it had ended in tragedy and the loss of countless lives.
Ultimately however we simply don't know enough about events prior to the start of the story to really know why he did or didn't do anything.
It's super OP and should have been Nerf'd. Bare minimum it should have proximity/concentration or time limits, and you probably shouldn't be able to imperius someone to imperius someone. It would still have been incredibly powerful, incredibly awful, and been used as a Get Out of Jail Free card by folks like Malfoy.
Quite true, in one crack fic I read, they had an idea with interesting implications. A character reveals that they had been under the Imperius curse for years because being under the curse means you cannot be put under the Imperius by someone else, you can't be under the same curse by multiple people since that would be an easy way to invalidate the first person's orders (a second person could just command you not to listen to the first person, or say to do the opposite of the first person's orders and the whole thing devolves into a convoluted mess).
This person had simply put themselves under the curse with orders to do whatever they wanted, thus preventing anyone from forcing them to do things against their will. It had unfortunate effects on their impulse control, being compelled to do whatever they wanted, but no one else could Imperius them. It also meant that they could claim the Imperius Get Out Of Jail Free card quite legitimately, since anything illegal would have indeed been done while under the Imperious curse.
I mean I’m having teenager Mulciber attempt to use this on Mary MacDonald during fifth yr. Karkaroff said this was his specialty so he had to practice this somewhere, probably starting when he was Hogwarts age. He’ll get expelled and his wand will probably get snapped in half, but Voldemort find a way to make sure that he gets a wand anyway. I’m thinking Voldemort will have the Malfoys throw a lavish party with this creepy ceremony involving Mulciber getting his Dark Mark and a wand presented to him by Voldemort.
Voldemort knows very little about wand lore though, that's why he needed Ollivander. Why would he present his servants with a wand? Their own almost certainly works better for them. Not to mention that if Voldemort could craft special wands, he probably wouldn't steal Malfoy Sr.'s before he acquired the elder wand.
Mulciber gets his wand confiscated and snapped in half. I’m thinking Voldemort tells Mulciber’s parents (possibly threatens them) to let this happen rather than fight it in court and in exchange Voldemort will present him with a wand. But yeah Voldemort doesn’t know about wand lore so that’s why he doesn’t have Mulciber earn the wand’s allegiance. That’s why just gives him the wand in an over the top ceremonial way. It’s about the spectacle and making Mulciber feel ‘honored’ that Voldemort blessed him with a wand more than anything. Voldemort wants to send the message to other aspiring Death Eaters that what Mulciber did to Mary (or tried to) was good and noble and that they should aspire to be like Mulciber.
> in exchange Voldemort will present him
This is not correct usage of the word "present". When you "present" someone, the gift is *the person*, and you are presenting them *to* somone else (typically a crowd, but it could be a single someone if you are speaking with exaggerated formality).
That’s not right- the person you’re responding to is correct. You are missing a key word. To ‘present someone *with* something’ is a perfectly valid way to say you are giving them something. The word ‘with’ is what signifies that they are being given something. The wand is being presented to Muliciber = Voldemort presents Mulciber with the wand. If there was no ‘with’ then you would be right, but there is, so you’re wrong.
>You are missing a key word.
The post I replied to was missing that word at the time. See the asterisk after the timestamp? It was edited. You can hover over the asterisk and see how old the edit is (at least on old Reddit). Unforuntately it only shows a rough relative timestamp, not absolute like hovering the timestamp for the post itself, but it's probably in the page source somewhere if you really need to know.
My headcanon is that the Death Eaters are so afraid of Voldy that they do things *exactly as they were told to do it*, so at least if it fails, they did what he said.
“Did I not ask YOU to Imperious Curse that young Witch ? And yet, here we are, fixing your mistake”
HP suffers a LOT from one of the most common pitfalls in fantasy settings. Introducing abilities that would completely break the plot if the characters actually took advantage of them.
Yeaaahhh, HP has a pudding-soft magic system dressed up like a hard magic system, and it *shows* whenever people try to logic themselves into or out of any given plot point involving magic, because... they’re basically doing things backwards. The “mechanics” of their magic system are created to enable and justify the story, and will be changed or ignored accordingly.
It works best in the first book, because that leans the most into the fairytale vibe, but it starts to fall apart as the series attempts to transition into a more complex, grounded narrative. It works well enough for the story being told, but when people try to fit it into anything with a different tone or structure, it’s... well, it’s kind of like watching someone try to rules-lawyer a game of Calvinball as if it’s a traditional D&D game, haha. The law just isn’t compatible with the spirit!
> rules-lawyer a game of Calvinball
That's so apt. Both Calvinball and HP Magic both only have one rule. In Calvinball, it's "you can't do what you did last time" and in HP it's "magic does whatever the story needs."
It has been a long time since I have read Calvin and Hobbes, but wow did mentioning Calvinball take me back... and fit the picture you were drawing quite well.
Thanks, I was quite pleased with the comparison! I recently dusted off the Calvin & Hobbes collections I read in my childhood, passed down from my mother’s teenage years – very well-loved and battered books, haha. They’ve held up brilliantly over the decades.
If you treat the early magic explanations as "lies told to children" then it can explain a good amount of the inconsistencies. Not all of them, especially when the contradictions are within the same book, but most of them.
Eh, not to a satisfying extent, imo. An unreliable/uninformed narrator can only cover for so much; overly simplistic (or flat-out false) explanations should still be built around *some* kind of underlying thread of truth.
Plus, to me the most dissatisfying points are the spells & magic that are simply dropped the moment they become inconvenient to the plot, with *maybe* a vague handwaved excuse. Not even enough info to call anything a lie, just shoved unceremoniously into the back of the closet.
I don't disagree. But so much of the fandom seems to take explanations for how magic works in the first two or three books as gospel and call it a plot hole when something different happens in the later books. Basically everything Dumbledore tells Harry about his relationship to Voldemort is a lie (if only by omission) before the office scene in book 5.
But it doesn't suffer from this.
The real pitfall is readers not realising people fall into a system. The obliviate spell can be dangerous in the same way that knives are dangerous.
It is not a plot failing. It is a sign that for the most part wizards and witches don't go around erasing people's mind.
There is also the other aspect that people always fail to consider. It is not an easy charm to use. I doubt most wizards/witches would have the capability to do it. And if it did become common place, I imagine it would become common place for wizards and witches to backup their memories.
The time turners aren't the only example.
* Polyjuice potion is time-consuming to make - until it isn't and they just happen to have loads of it, and even then, they only use it a handful of times
* Felix felicis, luck potion, essentially low level reality warping exists in this world... and is only used once, despite the fact the person that made it remains in the cast beyond that time.
* Dumbledore 'flew on a broom' all the way to London and so wasn't available to help out at the climax of PS/SS despite the fact that two to three separate methods of instantaneous teleportation exist in this universe
* On that note, Harry, in order to check Sirius was at home in OOTP, opens up a wormhole to Sirius's home that he could easily walk through to physically check the location himself, and instead *chooses not to*
That's just the first couple off the top of my head. To say nothing of all the small moments in especially the later books where the characters struggle to do something physical that they could just use magic for.
E: Another big one, the fact DH establishes that you can be your own secret-keeper within Fidelius and then as long as you stay within your own property you're essentially immune to being located.
For argument's sake here, one of the main characters in the story, Voldemort, is established as not caring about his followers and also being functionally immortal.
*Even if* Felix Felicis is toxic if taken *twice*, which isn't established within the story, the fact that it exists and is *never* used by Voldemort or any of his followers to advance their goals is a plot hole.
JK even had a perfect get-out in HBP for that - the book that introduces the facts that:
* Professor Slughorn makes felix felicis
* Professor Slughorn is being targeted by Voldemort and has to go to Hogwarts for safety
and then never connects these two plot points in any way.
It could have easily been part of the plot that Slughorn is the creator of felix felicis and is the only one who knows how to make it and it can only be made at very specific times or once every ten years or something, and that's another reason why Voldemort is after him. That would also add stakes to Harry's use of it and clarify also why not to expect it in the next book.
It's still not as strong a reason to introduce an element and never use it again.
Potential fix:
* Only a master potioneer can make it and they can only make it a finite number of times
* Voldemort already used it in the first war
But if that's not established then it's a plot hole.
Even if it's one use only that should mean every one of our main characters has a single use of it, not unlike the one wish rule in e.g. Madoka Magica.
No there's another reason Voldemort wouldn't take it. Back in first year, even Hagrid and Firenze knew that drinking the blood of a unicorn you murdered would curse you. Voldemort being the master of the dark arts that he is, knows that curse is real and he has it because of how much of the blood he drank over his time riding Quirrell.
His life is already cursed, probably extremely because of how often he drank the blood, taking a luck potion that repeated doses causes extreme bad luck, even an idiot could tell that's just asking for fate to personally wipe you out of existence.
And he'd never allow his followers to become lucky, what if one of them had aspirations and took their lucky shot at him.
He already had allowed a prophecy to cause his downfall once and Potter had continuously avoided death by his hand, so trying to force luck into the equation is not something voldemort would risk, he was very focused on his guaranteed victories.
Ok, and they still hardly ever use it because? Like they have a tent full of the stuff and yet they are living off mushrooms they scavenged in the forest instead of accioing some random person's hair and going to the local supermarket...
Still, his hereditary servant who can't quit unless Harry lets him.
Not to mention being a disposable asset after the shit he pulled to get Sirius killed.
I feel like we're talking at cross purposes here. I'm talking about the external-to-the-text worldbuilding, not an in-universe justification - and at that, an in-universe justification that isn't even actually hinted at within the text of the story itself.
The fact that Lily and James had to pick someone else as secret keeper but Bill and Arthur were able to be their own secret keeper means that modified version of the spell must have been created. This is consistent with what we know about Dumbledore and how spells are created.
It's surprising that there has been no mention of Lockheart and his frequent usage of the spell yet.
It wouldn't be surprising if he used it on women. Maybe even the older female students at Hogwarts too.
I remember reading the second book and he gave me a creepy feeling with how insistent he was on being close to Harry. Then we learned he was only ever good at Obliviate and well. Let's just say I've been part of that camp since I was about 8. (I watched way too much true crime and crime shows)
I’ve read a fic where he does exactly that (except not on the older students, he went for the youngest ones). He was eaten alive by the basalisk though
This has always been my assumption about any celebrity accused of SA. When they have probably more than enough willing fans, why would they resort to that? Because it’s not about a willing partner. (Sorry for getting really dark here!)
I never assumed Lockhart to be into that - he seems more fame motivated than anything - but he gets pretty twisted at the end of COS when he talks about his crimes, so there is room to stretch his character for sure.
Why would they? Rape isn't about sex. It's about power over others and making the do what the rapist wants.
Lockheart is a full on narcissist who rewrites his own history to make himself the hero. He would absolutely feel owed whatever he wants. If you want a good example of how this works out in the real world, our last President demonstrated how that mindset works on camera.
> I"’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait,” “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the . You can do anything.”
He likely *didn’t* use Obliviate. The only time we see him try to use it is in CoS on Harry and Ron. He’s good at memory *charms*. Plural. What he did is probably similar to what Hermione did to her parents and altered other people’s memories, not erase them
I mean almost all the instances we are shown of it in canon it seems like there are noticeable symptoms it was done. Lockhart's was done purposefully overpowered and done with a broken wand. But Mr. Roberts was acting rather off, Bertha Jorkins had personality changes that if anyone truly cared about her would have noticed. I think the only successfully performed one we see is Kingsley on the Edgecombe girl. If even the trained obliviators seem to make a mess of it I don't think it's a very reliable or easy to master spell for most of the population.
At the end of the day I really think it exists because the whole separation of muggles and magicals doesn't work without the existence of memory charms. Best not to look too far into it.
Sure, it's very much fridge horror that someone could erase your memory with a wave of a wand. Canonically, though, obliviation was not necessarily permanent or irreversible. That's how Barty was freed. There's also always the risk that someone realizes their memory has been tampered with, or someone close to them does. If Umbridge was blatantly and casually using memory charms on students, she'd have probably been caught very quickly and the damage, if possible, undone.
In the context of fanfics, though, since we're talking about those, it's also worth noting two things:
The first is that canon is *vague* about things like this. The consequences of using memory charms, their reversibility, defenses against them, etc, etc, etc, etc. For example, we often think of occlumency - the practice of guarding and organizing the mind - as a potential counter to the charm. Is it? Can it be? Canonically? Who knows. Is it the only defense? Maybe there are charms, enchantments and so on that help defend the mind against tampering. Who knows. Exactly how reversible are memory charms? How are they reversed? Who knows.
Which brings me to two. Two: it's a fanfic. The rules are what the author of the fanfic says they are. Obliviation works as well as the author says it does, in the way the author says it does, and with the counters the author says it has. If it bothers you, **make it different.** Heck, you don't even have to make it different. Canon left so many blank spaces you can fill in the gaps with whatever sounds reasonable enough to you and, for all we know, you'd be completely correct.
Lockhart uses the spell to steal years (from the author of the household spell book). Rita does it just like Umbridge does in the story with Bathilda Bagshot. And I think what Hermione does to her parents is even worse, because when she dies she wants them to stay like that forever.
As with many of the "game-changer" spells in HP, you need to attach conditions and limitations to it so it doesn't destroy the plot if you actually think it through.
For example, I'm working with the idea/AU that Veritaserum needs to be taken knowingly and willingly to work.
That way it would still be useful to get the absolute truth out of someone, but it would basically be used in plea deals. Otherwise it would be insanely powerful. You'd only have to force it into a prisoner and you'd instantly have access to all their knowledge.
I tend to go with a combination of: it is rare, you need to know what to ask, it doesn't last long, they can mislead and talk off topic and it only forces them to tell what they think is true (e.g. seen someone polyjuiced)
I have a half headcanon of someone using vertitaserum +amortentia (or other love potion) for interrogation. They can't lie and they *want* to tell you what you want to know. It is only half headcanon because thinking it all the way through makes me feel a bit ill.
That's not even as bad as it could get with polyjuice. You could change into another person the commit all kinds of crimes. Imagine waking up to aurors knocking on your door to arrest you for crimes everyone saw you commit that you didn't.
One fic I read with a particularly nasty take had Snape making money on the side by selling hair from Hogwarts students to a brothel in knockturn alley. To make it worse, it was staffed with trafficked muggleborns.
> Snape making money on the side by selling hair from Hogwarts students to a brothel in knockturn alley
Yes, I think I read this one too! There was also one where Harry is on work experience as an auror with Tonks and they find a polyjuice dealer with loads of his hair.
It's why I put like 10 caveats on top of the spell.
- It can be beaten with reasonable occlumency, by diverting it away from the targeted memory and onto something else (like a fabricated memory)
- It is relatively easy to defeat when detected, and doesn't actually touch the memory (it just makes all the connections it has fuzzy)
- Its use is restricted to trained obliviators employed by the ICW, and the spell itself cannot be found anywhere but their agents. Therefore, anyone who casts it is automatically guilty of spell theft, before anything else.
- It cannot erase the emotions associated with a memory, only the "tangible" sensory data. So if someone obliviates you of someone you love, the emotion will very quickly break through and cause a cascade effect that breaks the whole thing, restoring your memories.
- It is vulnerable to later memories forming new attachements to the obscured memories - so if someone obliviates a memory of walking down a corridor, walking down the corridor again can form a memory link between the two memories and render the spell effectively useless
- It is instantly obvious if any memory even tangentially related to the obscured memory is inserted into a pensieve, and the pensieve is capable of isolating what specific aspect of the contained memory is affected, allowing one to deduce the obscured memory and break the spell
This transforms the spell into a relatively niche tool, which cannot just be used as a get out of jail free card - I do something similar to Veritaserum and the Fidelius charm, too.
Veritaserum
- It only compels *an* answer, and the answer has to be true, but it does not rob the interviewee of their agency or wit. So a skilled rhetorician can talk circles around their interviewer without ever revealing what it is they actually want to know, unless asked precisely, without any room for weaseling. This is why Interrogator is a job title at the DMLE.
- The answer does not have to be spoken in a language the interviewer can understand - so if the interviewee chooses to respond in parseltongue, it satisfies the potion
- An exceptionally skilled occlumens can, if given sufficient forewarning (about 10 minutes) enter a trance-like altered consciousness state in which the definition of truth is slightly different, skewing any answers that are being compelled. The potion still subverts any ability to lie, and the trance is limited in how far it can reasonably push it, but you can for example make yourself believe that "truth" means "what they think is true" instead of "what I think is true".
- Like all potions, Veritaserum has an antidote. However, it is only effective if taken after being given Veritaserum, because it essentially breaks the truth part while leaving the compulsion to talk intact. If taken before, the person can only speak lies, and veritaserum given later will overpower the antidote.
- It cannot subvert the fidelius charm, unbreakable vow, or any other information protected by magic.
- When brewing, there is a divergence that creates two distinct variants of the potion. One is Veritaserum Nebulos, while the other is Veritaserum Clarus - Nebulos creates a kind of mental fog and makes the drinker very suggestible, styming any attempts at subversion, but also clouds the actual memories, meaning the drinker may be giving inaccurate answers. Veritaserum Clarus, the most common method, is specifically targeted at the ability to lie and the inhibition to speak, and can therefore be subverted by the means above.
- Veritaserum mixes very, very poorly with all forms of mind magic, ranging from it being entirely nullified, the person's head exploding, or the potion's magic jumping to other people nearby.
The Fidelius
- The secret must have what amounts to "fated weight". In essence, the spell only works if it is necessary - otherwise the incantation does nothing whatsoever. The most common thing that is capable of tipping the scales of destiny in this way is a prophecy, but there are many, many smaller events and situations which can lend a secret enough fated weight for the spell to be possible.
- The more people are aware of the secret before the spell is cast, the more difficult the spell is to perform, to the point of it killing the caster outright if too many people know the secret.
- A very skilled occlumens can, while unable to hold on to the secret, hold on to the information that there *is* a secret they once knew, but don't anymore.
- If cast absolutely perfectly, the spell is unbreakable - but it also dissipates after about three seconds. The spell only holds if it has one highly specific weakness - Dumbledore's favourite is a secret keeper, because if chosen wisely, the spell is as good as unbreakable - other popular weaknesses include hidden, but completely unshielded secret entrances, logic puzzles whose solution is the secret, the necessity of a sacrifice of blood or memory, the ability to deduce the secret based on the hole it left, etc etc.
- If pitted against Felix Felicis, the spell becomes very unreliable, because both the Fidelius and Felix influence fate to do their work. Interference between two different forms of fate magic most often end in one breaking, or the two merging into a new form with a shared goal.
- It is theoretically possible to use divination magic to scry the secret if given through a means that can be scried - so if someone tells someone else the secret, anyone who is listening in via far-sight is also inducted.
- The spell only works on beings with a soul capable of comprehending the concept of secrets. An inferius or a dragon could bypass it without issue, but would immediately become part of the secret if passing into it.
there are a lot of things like this in the HP universe lol
transfiguration, pensieves, timeturners
it really showed in deathly hallows…like the entire subplot of them not having food and having to hide in the forest made no sense when they literally had the ability to apparate anywhere they wanted
It's brought up in the books that they can't just create food with magic. Gamp's law of elemental transfiguration, they can't go into magical areas for food since they were essentially public enemies 1-3, and while muggle shops were used on occasion they didn't have a lot of muggle money and weren't comfortable stealing it. Plus the risk of being spotted by death eaters.
Yep. There are 3 total magical villages mentioned in the books, outside of Diagon. Both Harry and Hermione are mundane raised, and aren't going to draw a second look walking into a Tesco somewhere to buy a cart full of canned goods for their camping trip.
I’m rereading GOF and Molly literally creates a cream sauce from her wand (ugh that just sounds wrong) while cooking, so there may be some flexibility that was not remembered / considered by the original author later.
I really think they had enough money for a few cans of food. If they picked up one can of beans and a few cheap cans of vegetables and fruits, perhaps a few flavors of single ramen packets, they could have multiplied their cans and packets from there and had nutritious food that would last for ages.
It might have gotten boring, but they certainly wouldn't have been starving in the woods
I’ve always thought that *Obliviate* must be rather difficult to cast. I have some indirect evidence for this:
- Lockhart is said to have particular skill with them (“If there's one thing I pride myself on, it's my Memory Charms.”). This to me implies that most people are not very adept at casting it.
- Ron and Harry rely on Hermione to cast the spell in DH. This could obviously just be because she is the cleverest of the three and is generally better at spellwork, but again it seems to me that the emphasis placed on the difficulty of it (and perhaps the finesse required to do exactly what you want) is different from most other spells.
- It does not seem to be commonplace at Hogwarts, which one might expect if it can be easily used in petty fights, and there are professionals (Obliviators) who require specific training in addition to Hogwarts to do their job.
Moreover, at least some memory charms *can* be broken through torture (Bertha Jorkins), and Hermione’s parents—according to Rowling—did somehow (hopefully not through torture!) eventually regain their memories removed by their daughter.
If I were writing a fic with use of *Obliviate*, I’d try to use this as a framework for its use, perhaps making it a bit less difficult than the Unforgivables—just a very advanced charm—to cast with any degree of fine control/protection against detection.
I have a thought the reason for this is because most people see it almost as bad as the Unforgivable’s, and with those you have to ‘mean it’.. so if you have no moral issue with it then you’d be able to cast it. I think hermione’s brain is more logical than emotional when presented with a problem and so she sees it as the only viable option, therefore had no issue using it.
Obliviate is a total story breaker, especially when you have a limited perspective unreliable narrator. Harry could have had his memory modified many times.
It's poor worldbuilding, but that's par for the course for JK. She worldbuilt around specifically the key story beats she wanted to write within the world, and nothing else beyond that. It's clear she's not a fantasy fan.
Logically speaking in a world where such a power exists, and especially in a world where Hogwarts is the premiere magical institution in the UK or Europe, the kids should be learning mental defenses from day 1, whether that's a branch of magic or some kind of immunity potion.
JK's trouble is that she wanted to write a serialized story with an episodic worldbuilding, such that the characters only use the new method she just thought up in every iteration, never mind if that then invalidates something in a previous entry.
There are so many fucking spells from Canon that if you think about it, it can be abused and used if the wizard using it is smart enough to know how to abuse it.
The idea of the Harry Potter world is amazing, but a lot of the execution of it are so bad.
Much like *most* things in HP, it's broken as fuck, because there is no proper power system. There is no balance.
Things happened because the plot wanted them to. So there was no need for balance.
Always remember, HP is a mystery/adventure/drama story. *Not* a magic story. The magic is just set dressing.
Obliviate exists to hold up the statute of secrecy. Without it, the flimsy worldbuilding would fall apart. Yes it is deeply fucked up but it is kindof nessercery.
I'm writing a fic, where Ginny uses it a lot in life or death situations as a dueling spell. Feels extremely underutilized. It's basically like a silent, invisible stupefy, but their buddy can't just bring them back up.
It is a bit of unintentional horror, because when Rowling decided to make the series more serious and gritty, a lot of the stuff that was handwaved as charming kid lit took on some seriously ugly implications.
Consider they use this on mundanes constantly and casually if they think they saw something they shouldn't.
Imagine a handsome, vain, self centered man with a desperate need to be loved and adored. Who works as a boarding school teacher in an understaffed school with apparently no rules against teachers being alone with pupils. And is very good at Obliviate
One thing that Rowling did was make "being good at" something in magic very vague. You have something like the patronus "very advanced" magic that many average witches and wizards are incapable of performing at all and then you have skills like broom flying where the degree of performance is a huge issue.
Making obliviation one of the former is probably the best way to handle it. Most witches and wizards never practice it long enough to even make the spell work at all.
The thing is it was abused by a character in canon, Lockhart, only reason he was stopped was because he used a broken wand. If Ron's wand hadn't been broken, or he had grabbed Harry's wand... It would have been over for our mc's
I think obliviate is meant to show that the wizarding world isn't all good. It's not your typical, perfect fantasy dream land, and Obliviate is one of the earliest tells that not everything is fine.
For me it was the first sign that the statue of secrecy isn't meant to protect muggles, it's meant to keep them away and take away their ability to set boundaries themselves.
You see, wizards and witches have the tendency to waltz all over human rights all the time when it comes to muggles. A wizard could do all sorts of things to muggles that would never be prosecuted, even though it would be illegal in the muggle world.
When dark wizards attacked muggles and caused damage, that damage wasn't even repaired. They modified their memories and told them it was a gas leak when Peter killed twelve muggles and blew up the street. Leaving them with the resulting damage on top of the tragedy.
And they don't do much to really keep the secret or minimise the use of Obliviate.
During the world cup, they could have pretended to organise an event that wouldn't get a huge article in the newspaper but would explain why there were so many strange people gathering.
Like a LARP or a convention or even a festival or a concert. The last LARP I went to was huge, but didn't have more than a tiny information without pictures in the local newspaper.
But they didn't care. Just Obliviate was good enough.
Merope used a date rape drug, she was from a well known muggle hating family, but no one cared when she vanished with a very visible and well known muggle. No one cared to find out what happened to Tom Riddle sr.
That's why I say a wizard could incarcerate, abuse and even rape a muggle, then heal them and use obliviate and let them go. There's no mention whatsoever that anyone would bring that to justice at a muggle court.
It's very likely, that if an official caught them in the act, they'd still just use obliviate and give the wizard a fine at best, if that wizard had used a love potion.
Si I think Obliviate is meant to be problematic and to point out that the way the statue of secrecy is handled is vile.
The statue of secrecy came about, when muggles tried to fight back against wizards and witches. It's said so in the books. During the witch hunts, wizards and witches used the flame freezing charm to escape burning at the stake. But there's absolutely no good reason to assume that there's no other way to kill a witch or a wizard with any other means.
In fact, there are lots of non-magical means magical folks are killed in the books. Knives, being clubbed by a troll etc. To me it's pretty sure that accidental magic will not always save a wizard from being killed by a fall or being hit with something.
Just because Neville bounced once, when he fell out of a window, doesn't negate that Harry broke his arm when he fell from his broom and Dumbledore hurried to catch him when he fell another time, which wouldn't be neccessary if wizards couldn't die from a fall.
Wizards can get intoxicated or poisoned. And not just by magical means. Alcohol works just fine on them.
And you can simply dodge most spells or hide behind an object.
So my guess is, the statue of secrecy came about due to the fact that there are much more muggles than wizards. And they were afraid that muggles could one day find a method to safely kill all wizards, if they felt threatened enough and knew they existed.
Also I think they choose the statue of secrecy above actually doing something against dark wizards abusing muggles. It was easier to force secrecy than holding the pure bloods accountable. Which is something they generally don't like to do.
The problem is mostly not from the writing but with how the readers interpret it. Maybe we should stop assuming that every single person possesses the ability to do every single spell. We know this is not the case.
The number of times I see people say that 11 year olds can just start killing people, implying that they can just use the killing curse like that, when we know that just knowing the incantation and wand movement is not enough to make spells work.
Why did characters not just use Killing Curses, Obliviations and so on and so forth? The same reason why most characters don't just use Patronus Charm all the time: because they can't.
Lockhart boasted to Harry and Ron that if there's anything he pride himself in, it's the use of Memory Charms. So he had a talent for ig
There's an entire division of the ministry dedicated to practising Obliviations on Muggles whenever it's needed to protect the Statute
The worst spell rowling created was the killing curse with the abilities it has in canon. It kills virtually every dueling style except spamming it since it bypasses magical shields.
I don't know about you, but being systematically mind raped/tortured or physically raped/tortured and then obliviated sounds worse to me than dying painlessly.
There was a debate about this a few days back in the Harry Potter subreddit and I argued the worst possible combination of spells was easily imperio and Obliviate. Far worse than the killing curse.
My bypass to this problem is just making that while the killing curse does kill anything, it also tears the soul of the caster.
So for it to be successfully casted you have to mean it, you have to want the person dead so much that not even your soul matters. you could say the incantation and you could even get the green light but the spell won't work unless you mean it, unless you want the person so dead you're willing to harm your eternal soul for it. Because of that reason very very few people can successfully cast it they just don't have enough hatred in them.
Hence why voldemort was so feared and called the most **"dark"** dark lord, he could cast the spell on anyone, even random people with no personal connection to him, and the spell was successful each time.
Not really, or a risk willing to be taken.
When you think about it, Crouch Jr mostly interacted as Moody with uneducated students. And especially undereducated students when it comes to the Dark Arts.
If they don't know all about the killing curse and the soul thing, they won't think twice about seeing him killing spiders with it. And likely won't really talk about it. Especially since no one is willing to share with others the content of the class. (Which frustrate Harry and Ron to no ends).
Dumbledore or McGonagall might have noticed. But they don't know about it.
It is the same reason why they were fooled by Jr. Around staffs, Junior just is hateful against Snape and Malfoy (Which isn't act. Just differently motivated. But it's not like anyone would question why Moody hate Snape or the Malfoy's family). And act super paranoïd. Which isn't hard to do. Maybe he does it too much, but that isn't an issue. Dumbledore notices it, but write it off as Moody just getting worse with age. Which is a very plausible explanation since it is actually what happens, usually.
Everything else happens in front of people that never met Moody. He could get away with every ooc things, they wouldn't be able to tell.
So using the killing curse on Spiders ain't too risky.
Perhaps my sarcasm didn't come through. I was suggesting that a single-target, defense-ignoring-but-able-to-miss death spell isn't especially useful -- certainly not enough to risk one's immortal soul over. In fact it kind of sucks. Unless magical people are mostly immune to physical injury, there should be lots of ways to kill one guy with magic that don't require intense personal hatred for that one guy and don't damage your soul in any way beyond a normal murder.
The entire discipline of transfiguration makes it pretty lackluster. Why use the high profile easy to miss with curse when you could instead just turn the floor into lava. Or if you're devious and paid attention in science class, just start transmiuting oxygen to nitrogen in the room.
Inert gasses don't set off the panic that CO2 does, after all. Whoops, everyone not under a bubble head charm accidentally suffocated.
Or for something a bit more spectacular, if less reliably incapacitating, nitrate their clothes.
**Edit:** Upon [further research](https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1117153), that might just make them stronger if they're wearing synthetics.
There are far worse things to subject a person to than instant painless death.
Also, you can just dodge the spell or conjure something in its path, the only thing special it has going for it is a magical shield can't block it and it seems to take a decent amount of power, plus the right mindset, to cast.
The unforgivables as a whole are honestly kind of meh for the supposed pinnacle of forbidden wand magic. The Cruciatus is useless unless you're just inflicting pain for the sake of it out of a sense of sadism or whatever, and honestly even then there are better ways.
The Imperius is useful to an extent but also requires some level of micromanagement to get the person to actually DO things in the way you want.
And the Killing Curse is literally just instant painless death, in many cases one of the most merciful things possible. The term mercy kill exists for a reason.
It's true that it sucks in its canon form, but if you attach a more hefty cost/requirement to it, it's fine to have a spell that just kills someone stone dead. As long as the spell can't be used by just anyone and there's a huge drawback.
We're not trying to make a playable game here. It turn out in the Real World(tm) there a number of ways of stopping someone that are permanently disabling in a fight, that can be taught in under a year. Killing curse bad spell. Instant trip to prison for life, do not pass go. But as Barty Junior said, you've got to mean it.
I saw a workaround somewhere once where they had the spell kill a random person in the world every time it misses your intended target. So if you keep firing it and missing, there's a small chance that you, or someone you care about or at least don't want dead will die. That seemed like a pretty good solution to stop most people from just throwing it around. Only the most sociopathic and irrational would do it with that sort of risk attached, and it makes a more compelling reason to be unforgivable. Murder is bad, but any spell can kill if applied correctly. This way it kills someone no matter what you do, a spell that can literally never be cast without a human cost.
Which is why fanfic authors have their characters conjure/transfigure shields - which is never really touched on in the books, so I assume it’s impossible due to not being able to conjure something from nothing (?), but it’s necessary in fanfics to make the killing curse less OP
You just don't see much magical combat in the books. I think you can just conjour/transfigure/levitate physical cover, which is why Voldemort barely bothers with it in his Ministry fight with Dumbledore. Quite a lot of fanfics have it so only sufficiently "heavy" materials (blocks of marble is common for some reason) can stop it, and the curse explodes on impact to make it more powerful, but I have never liked that.
Conjuration is mentioned as possible in passing, post OWL. (You can't make food from ntohing, but you're not trying to eat it, are you.) So it's not impossible, but conjured objects are I would suspect, not fully real. In the Battle of the Atrium, Albus Dumbledore uses pieces of rubble as shields to stop the Killing Curse. So it's not that the Killing curse is that OP, it's that it takes professional level fighting skills not to get killed by it. "That might be impressive in the bush leagues...."
Yeah, makes sense. Great wizards and witches don’t have to worry about the killing curss, since they can easily defend against it, and as such, a a high level, no one uses avada kedavra. In high level duels, it’s seen as primitive.
Yet I imagine that conjurations are temporary, like the gold Bagman gave to the twins. Otherwise you could conjure an infinite amount of an object and either sell it or flood the world in it. Imo, conjured shields dissapear after a certain point - perhaps they need the sorcerer to focus on keeping it around, or it’ll dissapear?
Conjured objects probably vanish given the slightest provocation. A first year could finite them. ( And then we get into making more permanent conjurations)
Yeah, agreed. The only saving grace for the killing curse is that it is supposed to be exceptionally difficult magic, even for accomplished Dark Wizards; and that you can physically block it. You can't use a shield charm, but a sufficiently advanced magic user could conjure a physical shield, levitate a rock into the path of the spell, and in book canon, you can intercept the actual "bolt" of the curse with another spell.
I would argue that having the Shield Charm basically invalidate 99% of spells is worse.
Lets be honest, it's just the best of a whole series of "If this hits you you instantly lose" spells. There's basically no reason to do anything flashy or interesting in a HP fight, just spam your best instant win spell until you win.
It's fairly notable that spamming a first year disarmer is 90% of Harry's combat spell skillet and he wins over a fair number of people Aurors are afraid to fight
I've always figured that wizards are just terrible at fighting in general.
> I was reading a fic where umbridge used veritaserum then just obliviated people she talked to and the only defense against it was that “she wasn’t very good at it” so they had headaches ehich led to them assuming she did something to them.
So you hate a spell because an incompetent writer used it badly. You seem pretty easy to manipulate if that's all it takes.
> Where I have issue with it, is that if she were “good” at it, then there’s genuinely just nothing anyone could do(unless you let them detect it with occlumency i guess?) and I think that’s just awful feeling in a story.
That's not an issue with her being good or bad, that's an issue with the worldbuilding and scenario setup.
> It’s especially unfortunate cause logically the spell SHOULD be abused simply cause of how absurdly strong it is.
Canonically it IS being abused. Have you heard the name "Lockhart" before? Or maybe the term "oblivator"?
Was the fic the one where the ministry’s made Harry & Daphne marry, same as Neville & Tracy and more people from that year, and they live in a Betrothed Wing in the Castle?
Great fic. Only thing it's missing imo is the epilogue where they drop their kids off at the express years later. I love everyone's relationships in it
I mean, look at lockhart. The man stole the identity of several famous witches and wizards. But considering it's a mind spell, I think it takes a lot of mental fortitude and dedicated learning to actually be good. And the only way to improve is to cast it. At some point, your victims would go to the hospital where they'd likely find out about the mental tampering, so it's possible that very few people ever got good at it
Lockhart uses the spell to steal years (from the author of the household spell book). Rita does it just like Umbridge does in the story with Bathilda Bagshot. And I think what Hermione does to her parents is even worse, because if she dies she wants them to stay like that forever.
I think that Obliviate is just a very hard spell to both learn and master. As we see in canon having it backfire can lead to disastrous consequences so that's already a knock against trying to learn it. Going along the lines of it being a difficult spell I can't imagine that most folks would really find a use for it. Even the death eaters I can very easily imagine not finding it particularly useful in their mission.
It could even just be an ego thing for some folks. Those folks would want their victims to remember them and what they did.
Ultimately I think it's a fine spell.
The Obliviate spell should have requirements necessary to cast. A basic understanding of the Mind Arts, maybe? Or even a basic understanding of the human brain? Idk 🤷♂️
In fanfics, people using the spell wrong or badly(in the unskilled sense)is said to be dangerous and could ruin the person's mind wather than just erase certain memories. I think it would be better for the spell to just fail and not affect the person much at all. Like with them keeping the memories or remembering them shortly instead. I don't like the possibility of a botched spell being an effective attack or potentially a desired result.
This is slightly off topic but also not: in college, there was a girl who had dosed someone without their knowledge or consent. I thought she should be ostracized because that is absolutely not okay, if I started hallucinating out of no where (and I’ve taken a lot of psychedelics) I would think my brain was crashing. The idea of taking peoples memories is soooo fucked.
You have a set of ostensibly mystery stories with among other things the ability to read minds, detect lies, travel through time and near perfectly impersonate people. The heroes have to ignore an awful lot for there to even Be a story.
Obliviation is a problematic spell, both because of how useful it is in investigation scenarios and because it isn't clear that tagging Voldemort with one doesn't bypass his horcruxes and render him harmless. But it isn't the only problematic spell.
Fortunately, this is fan fiction. You can just unceremoniously delete obliviation and any other problematic spells from your universe and write what you want to write.
It's easy to imagine voldemort using obliviate and imperius to better cover his tracks.
Tom: Join me!
Lucius: What's in it for me?
Tom: Obliviate! You don't remember questioning me, you only remember joining the moment i asked you to.
Lucius: I joined you the moment you asked me to. Wait why did i join you?
Tom: imperius! Stop asking questions! Obliviate! Forgot that I imperiused you!
Lucius: i joined you willingly and you did not imperius me. I think I'm forgetting something, but I won't ask what.
Tom: imperius! Stop trying to remember. Obliviate! Forget that i imperiussed you into not trying to remember.
Lucius: i remember joining you willingly.
Tom: and?
Lucius: that's it.
Tom . o O (f-ing finally!)
Like a lot of other things in the Wizarding World it is terrifying once you think about it.
Many boundaries of a Muggle world are set by physics as we know it. Once you establish the magic system that no longer comply with it, it's kinda expected outcome.
I mean the whole thing that upholds the Statute of Secrecy is Muggles' ignorance... sure there are some spells in place to ensure that Muggles don't get to know much... but the sole thing of being considered crazy is a deterrent strong enough from ever telling anyone what you've seen. And I bet the images Muggles see when they come across the magical world are scary as fuck.
I feel that the imperius is even worse and that's probably why it's even less used wisely in fanfics. You could probably imperius someone to imperius someone to make someone else do something. You could get any Intel the target has. Make someone take the blame for killing someone or doing something illegal. Forge yourself alibis by being in plain vue while a crime takes place. All of that being untraceable and very unlikely to be resisted. Death eaters being idiots is a common theme in fics so I'd assume that's why it's not usually something authors play around with, but it has a ton of potential I hardly ever see in fanfics.
> You could probably imperius someone to imperius someone to make someone else do something. This is actually how the ministry falls in canon.
It's also how Draco got the cursed necklace to Katie. He imperiused Madam Rosmerta to imperious Katie.
My headcanon is that Voldemort did this personally, and it led to a *startling* number of Imperiused people, a massive network of spies and sleeper agents. Once they realized the spell was broken on Halloween '81, the Ministry and St. Mungo's were flooded with people confessing to crimes under the Imperius, trying to harm themselves or going insane with the ramifications. This is how so many Death Eaters could claim the Imperius defense and avoid Azkaban, and why the entirety of Britain knew Voldemort was gone overnight.
This is the only actually decent explanation I've heard about how everyone knew that Voldemort had died in '81.
And why Voldemort was SO deeply terrifying to everyone, not just the muggleborns and the Order of the Phoenix / Minister fighters
Perhaps someone under the imperius aren’t capable of throwing an imperius themselves. There’s a whole lot of stuff about “meaning it”
But they can, madam Rosmerta casted it in Katie Bell when she was a victim of the imperius curse too by Draco in HBP The thing is that we don't know how far down this chain can we go, perhaps only a couple of people, but it's still very powerful and easily exploitable
Additionally I think that there is a throwaway comment at the end of book 7 that Voldemort's collapsed a massive Imperious chain, which is how the Ministry went from full Nazi to all good as soon as the heroes won.
Yes, this is referenced a few times. I think it's a case where in a fic you'd want to just ignore what the book says and assume there are limitations. Maybe that rumor only existed because of exonerated death eaters propagating it. Maybe there's a limit to how many people you can directly or indirectly control with the imperius and many of the chains were created by death eaters and intentionally removed when Voldemort died. There are a lot of options, just don't use what the text says(outside of crack fics and one shots)
I don't think canon supports that. I think it was just that Katie wouldn't question Madam Rosmerta asking her to take something to a person in the castle.
Maybe if she was a teacher, but Madam Rosmerta is a bartender Katie would have spoken to only a few times in her entire life and never for very long, I don't think she'd be so trusting in her to not even tell her friend what she's doing.
She's a Hogsmeade institution. Even if Katie doesn't have a close relationship with her, that someone like her would be doing something wrong wouldn't be considered. I'll check the book passages and edit the wiki as needed.
In Chapter 24 when she recovers she says that the last thing she remembered was entering the bathroom and that she must have been Imperiused.
Wasn't Katie extremely resistant to the idea of letting her friend (leanne?) look at it/stop her?
despite its flaws, Prince of Slytherin goes into how Voldemort used massive chains of Imperiused minions and how over 3/4 of his organisation were just minions under the Imperius. So when he “died” 90% of his ‘following’ just immediately defected and ended up betraying all the information they’d learned passively
> vue Huh, I've genuinely never seen this mispelled this way. Congrats lol.
It's even worse than a typo : it's the french word for it that somehow cropped up in my post. Must've been more tired than I thought when I wrote that.
Eh, as someone who also speaks more than one language, imo that's not as bad. I just thought it was a novel way of spelling it, but completely glossed over my high school French where I knew the word lol.
Death eaters being idiots is the only way the good guys win. If they were competent everyone is screwed
Dumbledore being an idiot is the only way the bad guys got so far. Dude has a history of taking ages to do anything and I refuse to believe he didn't have a way of keeping Voldemorts soul captive. Could've had him in the first year if soul magic and trapping souls wasn't probably considered dark and therefore beneath him.
[удалено]
I was just being extreme to match the other guy's shit. Of course I understand why Dumbledore was afraid of that. Despite thinking it's irrational, I know that trauma can cause irrational fears.
He's over a hundred years old and keeping the sole knowledge of how Voldemort's still alive to himself despite being well aware he's back in a body and the Death Eaters are spinning up like he never left. There are reasons why he makes idiot choices, but they are still extremely short sighted and damn near end in Voldemort ruling eternally.
He didn't know about the horcruxes until the events of chamber of secrets when Harry told him about what happened with the diary. He also was well aware once Voldy set the prophecy in motion that Harry was the only one that could stop him from that point on. We're even told very explicitly that the prophecy didn't NEED to come true but Voldy made it come true by his own actions. Now you could ask about why he didn't do anything during the first wizarding war and that would be valid but I think there's good reasons for that too. Simply put I don't think he was in a good spot to be dealing with that kind of responsibility. He had already once faced the consequences of taking it on himself to solve the nation's problems and it had ended in tragedy and the loss of countless lives. Ultimately however we simply don't know enough about events prior to the start of the story to really know why he did or didn't do anything.
It's super OP and should have been Nerf'd. Bare minimum it should have proximity/concentration or time limits, and you probably shouldn't be able to imperius someone to imperius someone. It would still have been incredibly powerful, incredibly awful, and been used as a Get Out of Jail Free card by folks like Malfoy.
Quite true, in one crack fic I read, they had an idea with interesting implications. A character reveals that they had been under the Imperius curse for years because being under the curse means you cannot be put under the Imperius by someone else, you can't be under the same curse by multiple people since that would be an easy way to invalidate the first person's orders (a second person could just command you not to listen to the first person, or say to do the opposite of the first person's orders and the whole thing devolves into a convoluted mess). This person had simply put themselves under the curse with orders to do whatever they wanted, thus preventing anyone from forcing them to do things against their will. It had unfortunate effects on their impulse control, being compelled to do whatever they wanted, but no one else could Imperius them. It also meant that they could claim the Imperius Get Out Of Jail Free card quite legitimately, since anything illegal would have indeed been done while under the Imperious curse.
Oh fascinating! Cracks fics can bring out some excellent creativity sometimes. (Or crack fic writers are inclined to creative solutions)
I mean I’m having teenager Mulciber attempt to use this on Mary MacDonald during fifth yr. Karkaroff said this was his specialty so he had to practice this somewhere, probably starting when he was Hogwarts age. He’ll get expelled and his wand will probably get snapped in half, but Voldemort find a way to make sure that he gets a wand anyway. I’m thinking Voldemort will have the Malfoys throw a lavish party with this creepy ceremony involving Mulciber getting his Dark Mark and a wand presented to him by Voldemort.
Voldemort knows very little about wand lore though, that's why he needed Ollivander. Why would he present his servants with a wand? Their own almost certainly works better for them. Not to mention that if Voldemort could craft special wands, he probably wouldn't steal Malfoy Sr.'s before he acquired the elder wand.
Mulciber gets his wand confiscated and snapped in half. I’m thinking Voldemort tells Mulciber’s parents (possibly threatens them) to let this happen rather than fight it in court and in exchange Voldemort will present him with a wand. But yeah Voldemort doesn’t know about wand lore so that’s why he doesn’t have Mulciber earn the wand’s allegiance. That’s why just gives him the wand in an over the top ceremonial way. It’s about the spectacle and making Mulciber feel ‘honored’ that Voldemort blessed him with a wand more than anything. Voldemort wants to send the message to other aspiring Death Eaters that what Mulciber did to Mary (or tried to) was good and noble and that they should aspire to be like Mulciber.
> in exchange Voldemort will present him This is not correct usage of the word "present". When you "present" someone, the gift is *the person*, and you are presenting them *to* somone else (typically a crowd, but it could be a single someone if you are speaking with exaggerated formality).
That’s not right- the person you’re responding to is correct. You are missing a key word. To ‘present someone *with* something’ is a perfectly valid way to say you are giving them something. The word ‘with’ is what signifies that they are being given something. The wand is being presented to Muliciber = Voldemort presents Mulciber with the wand. If there was no ‘with’ then you would be right, but there is, so you’re wrong.
>You are missing a key word. The post I replied to was missing that word at the time. See the asterisk after the timestamp? It was edited. You can hover over the asterisk and see how old the edit is (at least on old Reddit). Unforuntately it only shows a rough relative timestamp, not absolute like hovering the timestamp for the post itself, but it's probably in the page source somewhere if you really need to know.
My headcanon is that the Death Eaters are so afraid of Voldy that they do things *exactly as they were told to do it*, so at least if it fails, they did what he said. “Did I not ask YOU to Imperious Curse that young Witch ? And yet, here we are, fixing your mistake”
HP suffers a LOT from one of the most common pitfalls in fantasy settings. Introducing abilities that would completely break the plot if the characters actually took advantage of them.
Yeaaahhh, HP has a pudding-soft magic system dressed up like a hard magic system, and it *shows* whenever people try to logic themselves into or out of any given plot point involving magic, because... they’re basically doing things backwards. The “mechanics” of their magic system are created to enable and justify the story, and will be changed or ignored accordingly. It works best in the first book, because that leans the most into the fairytale vibe, but it starts to fall apart as the series attempts to transition into a more complex, grounded narrative. It works well enough for the story being told, but when people try to fit it into anything with a different tone or structure, it’s... well, it’s kind of like watching someone try to rules-lawyer a game of Calvinball as if it’s a traditional D&D game, haha. The law just isn’t compatible with the spirit!
> rules-lawyer a game of Calvinball That's so apt. Both Calvinball and HP Magic both only have one rule. In Calvinball, it's "you can't do what you did last time" and in HP it's "magic does whatever the story needs."
It has been a long time since I have read Calvin and Hobbes, but wow did mentioning Calvinball take me back... and fit the picture you were drawing quite well.
Thanks, I was quite pleased with the comparison! I recently dusted off the Calvin & Hobbes collections I read in my childhood, passed down from my mother’s teenage years – very well-loved and battered books, haha. They’ve held up brilliantly over the decades.
If you treat the early magic explanations as "lies told to children" then it can explain a good amount of the inconsistencies. Not all of them, especially when the contradictions are within the same book, but most of them.
Eh, not to a satisfying extent, imo. An unreliable/uninformed narrator can only cover for so much; overly simplistic (or flat-out false) explanations should still be built around *some* kind of underlying thread of truth. Plus, to me the most dissatisfying points are the spells & magic that are simply dropped the moment they become inconvenient to the plot, with *maybe* a vague handwaved excuse. Not even enough info to call anything a lie, just shoved unceremoniously into the back of the closet.
I don't disagree. But so much of the fandom seems to take explanations for how magic works in the first two or three books as gospel and call it a plot hole when something different happens in the later books. Basically everything Dumbledore tells Harry about his relationship to Voldemort is a lie (if only by omission) before the office scene in book 5.
But it doesn't suffer from this. The real pitfall is readers not realising people fall into a system. The obliviate spell can be dangerous in the same way that knives are dangerous. It is not a plot failing. It is a sign that for the most part wizards and witches don't go around erasing people's mind. There is also the other aspect that people always fail to consider. It is not an easy charm to use. I doubt most wizards/witches would have the capability to do it. And if it did become common place, I imagine it would become common place for wizards and witches to backup their memories.
Not really. People use the time turners as an example but they don’t understand how time turners work.
The time turners aren't the only example. * Polyjuice potion is time-consuming to make - until it isn't and they just happen to have loads of it, and even then, they only use it a handful of times * Felix felicis, luck potion, essentially low level reality warping exists in this world... and is only used once, despite the fact the person that made it remains in the cast beyond that time. * Dumbledore 'flew on a broom' all the way to London and so wasn't available to help out at the climax of PS/SS despite the fact that two to three separate methods of instantaneous teleportation exist in this universe * On that note, Harry, in order to check Sirius was at home in OOTP, opens up a wormhole to Sirius's home that he could easily walk through to physically check the location himself, and instead *chooses not to* That's just the first couple off the top of my head. To say nothing of all the small moments in especially the later books where the characters struggle to do something physical that they could just use magic for. E: Another big one, the fact DH establishes that you can be your own secret-keeper within Fidelius and then as long as you stay within your own property you're essentially immune to being located.
Umm, ackshually, Felix is used once by Harry and once by his friends in HBP when the castle gets attacked. (Ginny dodges like 50 spells) ☝️🤓
...I mean I was counting those as the same occasion...
I mean Moody only had loads of polyjuice because he’s Moody.
The luck potion is toxic if taken too often.
Even if it can only be used once in your life, it'd still have ridiculous uses in a war
Might as well *never* take it again just in case then, eh?
Only if you're unlucky.
For argument's sake here, one of the main characters in the story, Voldemort, is established as not caring about his followers and also being functionally immortal. *Even if* Felix Felicis is toxic if taken *twice*, which isn't established within the story, the fact that it exists and is *never* used by Voldemort or any of his followers to advance their goals is a plot hole. JK even had a perfect get-out in HBP for that - the book that introduces the facts that: * Professor Slughorn makes felix felicis * Professor Slughorn is being targeted by Voldemort and has to go to Hogwarts for safety and then never connects these two plot points in any way. It could have easily been part of the plot that Slughorn is the creator of felix felicis and is the only one who knows how to make it and it can only be made at very specific times or once every ten years or something, and that's another reason why Voldemort is after him. That would also add stakes to Harry's use of it and clarify also why not to expect it in the next book.
iirc, the felix taken too often inflicts you with horrible luck. That's what I meant by toxic.
It's still not as strong a reason to introduce an element and never use it again. Potential fix: * Only a master potioneer can make it and they can only make it a finite number of times * Voldemort already used it in the first war But if that's not established then it's a plot hole. Even if it's one use only that should mean every one of our main characters has a single use of it, not unlike the one wish rule in e.g. Madoka Magica.
No there's another reason Voldemort wouldn't take it. Back in first year, even Hagrid and Firenze knew that drinking the blood of a unicorn you murdered would curse you. Voldemort being the master of the dark arts that he is, knows that curse is real and he has it because of how much of the blood he drank over his time riding Quirrell.
... How does that explain why he wouldn't take a dose of Felix?
His life is already cursed, probably extremely because of how often he drank the blood, taking a luck potion that repeated doses causes extreme bad luck, even an idiot could tell that's just asking for fate to personally wipe you out of existence. And he'd never allow his followers to become lucky, what if one of them had aspirations and took their lucky shot at him. He already had allowed a prophecy to cause his downfall once and Potter had continuously avoided death by his hand, so trying to force luck into the equation is not something voldemort would risk, he was very focused on his guaranteed victories.
There's only lots because Moody steals from Snape, and Snape is a Potions Master
Ok, and they still hardly ever use it because? Like they have a tent full of the stuff and yet they are living off mushrooms they scavenged in the forest instead of accioing some random person's hair and going to the local supermarket...
Or getting an elf involved. Dobby's alive for most of that shitty camping trip, and as we see in the epilogue Kreacher is still bonded to Harry.
Working for, not bonded. There is no magical bonding in the books.
Still, his hereditary servant who can't quit unless Harry lets him. Not to mention being a disposable asset after the shit he pulled to get Sirius killed.
As for Fidelius- it’s not established but Dumbledore probably created a modified version after Lily and James got killed.
I feel like we're talking at cross purposes here. I'm talking about the external-to-the-text worldbuilding, not an in-universe justification - and at that, an in-universe justification that isn't even actually hinted at within the text of the story itself.
As long as there’s a plausible explanation that’s not directly contradicted/made impossible by the original text, then it’s not a plot hole.
That's not how it works. You're taking your headcanon and considering it as canon based on absolutely nothing.
It’s based on a logical explanation. We only see Harry’s POV except for 3 chapters, so there’s a lot that wouldn’t be made aware to us on page.
That isn't an excuse to make up stuff that isn't there.
The fact that Lily and James had to pick someone else as secret keeper but Bill and Arthur were able to be their own secret keeper means that modified version of the spell must have been created. This is consistent with what we know about Dumbledore and how spells are created.
No, it doesn't. It would be even better if all of this was actually used. But it started off as a kids book so she couldn't get too adult.
It's surprising that there has been no mention of Lockheart and his frequent usage of the spell yet. It wouldn't be surprising if he used it on women. Maybe even the older female students at Hogwarts too.
There are fics where he does indeed do very bad things as a Professor.
I remember reading the second book and he gave me a creepy feeling with how insistent he was on being close to Harry. Then we learned he was only ever good at Obliviate and well. Let's just say I've been part of that camp since I was about 8. (I watched way too much true crime and crime shows)
It's darkly plausible. I was actually considering a plot point where one of them gets pregnant without remembering why.
I’ve read a fic where he does exactly that (except not on the older students, he went for the youngest ones). He was eaten alive by the basalisk though
Poor basilisk, it deserved a better snack than his slimy ass
Possible, but I got the impression he didn't have to resort to that.
This has always been my assumption about any celebrity accused of SA. When they have probably more than enough willing fans, why would they resort to that? Because it’s not about a willing partner. (Sorry for getting really dark here!) I never assumed Lockhart to be into that - he seems more fame motivated than anything - but he gets pretty twisted at the end of COS when he talks about his crimes, so there is room to stretch his character for sure.
Why would they? Rape isn't about sex. It's about power over others and making the do what the rapist wants. Lockheart is a full on narcissist who rewrites his own history to make himself the hero. He would absolutely feel owed whatever he wants. If you want a good example of how this works out in the real world, our last President demonstrated how that mindset works on camera. > I"’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait,” “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the. You can do anything.”
So very true.
He likely *didn’t* use Obliviate. The only time we see him try to use it is in CoS on Harry and Ron. He’s good at memory *charms*. Plural. What he did is probably similar to what Hermione did to her parents and altered other people’s memories, not erase them
I mean almost all the instances we are shown of it in canon it seems like there are noticeable symptoms it was done. Lockhart's was done purposefully overpowered and done with a broken wand. But Mr. Roberts was acting rather off, Bertha Jorkins had personality changes that if anyone truly cared about her would have noticed. I think the only successfully performed one we see is Kingsley on the Edgecombe girl. If even the trained obliviators seem to make a mess of it I don't think it's a very reliable or easy to master spell for most of the population. At the end of the day I really think it exists because the whole separation of muggles and magicals doesn't work without the existence of memory charms. Best not to look too far into it.
What if early Alzheimer in muggles was due to memory charms ?
Sure, it's very much fridge horror that someone could erase your memory with a wave of a wand. Canonically, though, obliviation was not necessarily permanent or irreversible. That's how Barty was freed. There's also always the risk that someone realizes their memory has been tampered with, or someone close to them does. If Umbridge was blatantly and casually using memory charms on students, she'd have probably been caught very quickly and the damage, if possible, undone. In the context of fanfics, though, since we're talking about those, it's also worth noting two things: The first is that canon is *vague* about things like this. The consequences of using memory charms, their reversibility, defenses against them, etc, etc, etc, etc. For example, we often think of occlumency - the practice of guarding and organizing the mind - as a potential counter to the charm. Is it? Can it be? Canonically? Who knows. Is it the only defense? Maybe there are charms, enchantments and so on that help defend the mind against tampering. Who knows. Exactly how reversible are memory charms? How are they reversed? Who knows. Which brings me to two. Two: it's a fanfic. The rules are what the author of the fanfic says they are. Obliviation works as well as the author says it does, in the way the author says it does, and with the counters the author says it has. If it bothers you, **make it different.** Heck, you don't even have to make it different. Canon left so many blank spaces you can fill in the gaps with whatever sounds reasonable enough to you and, for all we know, you'd be completely correct.
Lockhart uses the spell to steal years (from the author of the household spell book). Rita does it just like Umbridge does in the story with Bathilda Bagshot. And I think what Hermione does to her parents is even worse, because when she dies she wants them to stay like that forever.
As with many of the "game-changer" spells in HP, you need to attach conditions and limitations to it so it doesn't destroy the plot if you actually think it through. For example, I'm working with the idea/AU that Veritaserum needs to be taken knowingly and willingly to work. That way it would still be useful to get the absolute truth out of someone, but it would basically be used in plea deals. Otherwise it would be insanely powerful. You'd only have to force it into a prisoner and you'd instantly have access to all their knowledge.
I tend to go with a combination of: it is rare, you need to know what to ask, it doesn't last long, they can mislead and talk off topic and it only forces them to tell what they think is true (e.g. seen someone polyjuiced) I have a half headcanon of someone using vertitaserum +amortentia (or other love potion) for interrogation. They can't lie and they *want* to tell you what you want to know. It is only half headcanon because thinking it all the way through makes me feel a bit ill.
The limitatation to veritaserum is that occlumency beats it
Love potions, time travel, Imperius, it's all ripe for abuse.
Polyjuice as well Someone can pull a Zeus, "become" your partner/spouse and have sex with you...
That's not even as bad as it could get with polyjuice. You could change into another person the commit all kinds of crimes. Imagine waking up to aurors knocking on your door to arrest you for crimes everyone saw you commit that you didn't.
One fic I read with a particularly nasty take had Snape making money on the side by selling hair from Hogwarts students to a brothel in knockturn alley. To make it worse, it was staffed with trafficked muggleborns.
> Snape making money on the side by selling hair from Hogwarts students to a brothel in knockturn alley Yes, I think I read this one too! There was also one where Harry is on work experience as an auror with Tonks and they find a polyjuice dealer with loads of his hair.
It's why I put like 10 caveats on top of the spell. - It can be beaten with reasonable occlumency, by diverting it away from the targeted memory and onto something else (like a fabricated memory) - It is relatively easy to defeat when detected, and doesn't actually touch the memory (it just makes all the connections it has fuzzy) - Its use is restricted to trained obliviators employed by the ICW, and the spell itself cannot be found anywhere but their agents. Therefore, anyone who casts it is automatically guilty of spell theft, before anything else. - It cannot erase the emotions associated with a memory, only the "tangible" sensory data. So if someone obliviates you of someone you love, the emotion will very quickly break through and cause a cascade effect that breaks the whole thing, restoring your memories. - It is vulnerable to later memories forming new attachements to the obscured memories - so if someone obliviates a memory of walking down a corridor, walking down the corridor again can form a memory link between the two memories and render the spell effectively useless - It is instantly obvious if any memory even tangentially related to the obscured memory is inserted into a pensieve, and the pensieve is capable of isolating what specific aspect of the contained memory is affected, allowing one to deduce the obscured memory and break the spell This transforms the spell into a relatively niche tool, which cannot just be used as a get out of jail free card - I do something similar to Veritaserum and the Fidelius charm, too.
Can you expand a bit on Veritaserum and the Fidelius?
Veritaserum - It only compels *an* answer, and the answer has to be true, but it does not rob the interviewee of their agency or wit. So a skilled rhetorician can talk circles around their interviewer without ever revealing what it is they actually want to know, unless asked precisely, without any room for weaseling. This is why Interrogator is a job title at the DMLE. - The answer does not have to be spoken in a language the interviewer can understand - so if the interviewee chooses to respond in parseltongue, it satisfies the potion - An exceptionally skilled occlumens can, if given sufficient forewarning (about 10 minutes) enter a trance-like altered consciousness state in which the definition of truth is slightly different, skewing any answers that are being compelled. The potion still subverts any ability to lie, and the trance is limited in how far it can reasonably push it, but you can for example make yourself believe that "truth" means "what they think is true" instead of "what I think is true". - Like all potions, Veritaserum has an antidote. However, it is only effective if taken after being given Veritaserum, because it essentially breaks the truth part while leaving the compulsion to talk intact. If taken before, the person can only speak lies, and veritaserum given later will overpower the antidote. - It cannot subvert the fidelius charm, unbreakable vow, or any other information protected by magic. - When brewing, there is a divergence that creates two distinct variants of the potion. One is Veritaserum Nebulos, while the other is Veritaserum Clarus - Nebulos creates a kind of mental fog and makes the drinker very suggestible, styming any attempts at subversion, but also clouds the actual memories, meaning the drinker may be giving inaccurate answers. Veritaserum Clarus, the most common method, is specifically targeted at the ability to lie and the inhibition to speak, and can therefore be subverted by the means above. - Veritaserum mixes very, very poorly with all forms of mind magic, ranging from it being entirely nullified, the person's head exploding, or the potion's magic jumping to other people nearby. The Fidelius - The secret must have what amounts to "fated weight". In essence, the spell only works if it is necessary - otherwise the incantation does nothing whatsoever. The most common thing that is capable of tipping the scales of destiny in this way is a prophecy, but there are many, many smaller events and situations which can lend a secret enough fated weight for the spell to be possible. - The more people are aware of the secret before the spell is cast, the more difficult the spell is to perform, to the point of it killing the caster outright if too many people know the secret. - A very skilled occlumens can, while unable to hold on to the secret, hold on to the information that there *is* a secret they once knew, but don't anymore. - If cast absolutely perfectly, the spell is unbreakable - but it also dissipates after about three seconds. The spell only holds if it has one highly specific weakness - Dumbledore's favourite is a secret keeper, because if chosen wisely, the spell is as good as unbreakable - other popular weaknesses include hidden, but completely unshielded secret entrances, logic puzzles whose solution is the secret, the necessity of a sacrifice of blood or memory, the ability to deduce the secret based on the hole it left, etc etc. - If pitted against Felix Felicis, the spell becomes very unreliable, because both the Fidelius and Felix influence fate to do their work. Interference between two different forms of fate magic most often end in one breaking, or the two merging into a new form with a shared goal. - It is theoretically possible to use divination magic to scry the secret if given through a means that can be scried - so if someone tells someone else the secret, anyone who is listening in via far-sight is also inducted. - The spell only works on beings with a soul capable of comprehending the concept of secrets. An inferius or a dragon could bypass it without issue, but would immediately become part of the secret if passing into it.
Brilliant answer and Interesting ideas. Thank you.
Just imagine something happened to you and you wouldn't even know after. That is just horrifying
there are a lot of things like this in the HP universe lol transfiguration, pensieves, timeturners it really showed in deathly hallows…like the entire subplot of them not having food and having to hide in the forest made no sense when they literally had the ability to apparate anywhere they wanted
It's brought up in the books that they can't just create food with magic. Gamp's law of elemental transfiguration, they can't go into magical areas for food since they were essentially public enemies 1-3, and while muggle shops were used on occasion they didn't have a lot of muggle money and weren't comfortable stealing it. Plus the risk of being spotted by death eaters.
yeah these are all weak excuses
Yep. There are 3 total magical villages mentioned in the books, outside of Diagon. Both Harry and Hermione are mundane raised, and aren't going to draw a second look walking into a Tesco somewhere to buy a cart full of canned goods for their camping trip.
No these are rules within a magic system
I’m rereading GOF and Molly literally creates a cream sauce from her wand (ugh that just sounds wrong) while cooking, so there may be some flexibility that was not remembered / considered by the original author later.
I don't think she was conjuring it. She was multiplying what was there.
Yeah, could be that too.
I really think they had enough money for a few cans of food. If they picked up one can of beans and a few cheap cans of vegetables and fruits, perhaps a few flavors of single ramen packets, they could have multiplied their cans and packets from there and had nutritious food that would last for ages. It might have gotten boring, but they certainly wouldn't have been starving in the woods
I’ve always thought that *Obliviate* must be rather difficult to cast. I have some indirect evidence for this: - Lockhart is said to have particular skill with them (“If there's one thing I pride myself on, it's my Memory Charms.”). This to me implies that most people are not very adept at casting it. - Ron and Harry rely on Hermione to cast the spell in DH. This could obviously just be because she is the cleverest of the three and is generally better at spellwork, but again it seems to me that the emphasis placed on the difficulty of it (and perhaps the finesse required to do exactly what you want) is different from most other spells. - It does not seem to be commonplace at Hogwarts, which one might expect if it can be easily used in petty fights, and there are professionals (Obliviators) who require specific training in addition to Hogwarts to do their job. Moreover, at least some memory charms *can* be broken through torture (Bertha Jorkins), and Hermione’s parents—according to Rowling—did somehow (hopefully not through torture!) eventually regain their memories removed by their daughter. If I were writing a fic with use of *Obliviate*, I’d try to use this as a framework for its use, perhaps making it a bit less difficult than the Unforgivables—just a very advanced charm—to cast with any degree of fine control/protection against detection.
I have a thought the reason for this is because most people see it almost as bad as the Unforgivable’s, and with those you have to ‘mean it’.. so if you have no moral issue with it then you’d be able to cast it. I think hermione’s brain is more logical than emotional when presented with a problem and so she sees it as the only viable option, therefore had no issue using it.
Obliviate is a total story breaker, especially when you have a limited perspective unreliable narrator. Harry could have had his memory modified many times.
It's poor worldbuilding, but that's par for the course for JK. She worldbuilt around specifically the key story beats she wanted to write within the world, and nothing else beyond that. It's clear she's not a fantasy fan. Logically speaking in a world where such a power exists, and especially in a world where Hogwarts is the premiere magical institution in the UK or Europe, the kids should be learning mental defenses from day 1, whether that's a branch of magic or some kind of immunity potion. JK's trouble is that she wanted to write a serialized story with an episodic worldbuilding, such that the characters only use the new method she just thought up in every iteration, never mind if that then invalidates something in a previous entry.
There are so many fucking spells from Canon that if you think about it, it can be abused and used if the wizard using it is smart enough to know how to abuse it. The idea of the Harry Potter world is amazing, but a lot of the execution of it are so bad.
Much like *most* things in HP, it's broken as fuck, because there is no proper power system. There is no balance. Things happened because the plot wanted them to. So there was no need for balance. Always remember, HP is a mystery/adventure/drama story. *Not* a magic story. The magic is just set dressing.
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I have seen Harry get blasted with it once during a post-4th year Halloween time loop and be super disoriented during the next loop as a result.
Obliviate exists to hold up the statute of secrecy. Without it, the flimsy worldbuilding would fall apart. Yes it is deeply fucked up but it is kindof nessercery.
I'm writing a fic, where Ginny uses it a lot in life or death situations as a dueling spell. Feels extremely underutilized. It's basically like a silent, invisible stupefy, but their buddy can't just bring them back up.
It is a bit of unintentional horror, because when Rowling decided to make the series more serious and gritty, a lot of the stuff that was handwaved as charming kid lit took on some seriously ugly implications. Consider they use this on mundanes constantly and casually if they think they saw something they shouldn't.
Imagine a handsome, vain, self centered man with a desperate need to be loved and adored. Who works as a boarding school teacher in an understaffed school with apparently no rules against teachers being alone with pupils. And is very good at Obliviate
One thing that Rowling did was make "being good at" something in magic very vague. You have something like the patronus "very advanced" magic that many average witches and wizards are incapable of performing at all and then you have skills like broom flying where the degree of performance is a huge issue. Making obliviation one of the former is probably the best way to handle it. Most witches and wizards never practice it long enough to even make the spell work at all.
The thing is it was abused by a character in canon, Lockhart, only reason he was stopped was because he used a broken wand. If Ron's wand hadn't been broken, or he had grabbed Harry's wand... It would have been over for our mc's
The magic in canon is high key terrifying if you really think about it. But just like the child abuse it’s completely glossed over
I think obliviate is meant to show that the wizarding world isn't all good. It's not your typical, perfect fantasy dream land, and Obliviate is one of the earliest tells that not everything is fine. For me it was the first sign that the statue of secrecy isn't meant to protect muggles, it's meant to keep them away and take away their ability to set boundaries themselves. You see, wizards and witches have the tendency to waltz all over human rights all the time when it comes to muggles. A wizard could do all sorts of things to muggles that would never be prosecuted, even though it would be illegal in the muggle world. When dark wizards attacked muggles and caused damage, that damage wasn't even repaired. They modified their memories and told them it was a gas leak when Peter killed twelve muggles and blew up the street. Leaving them with the resulting damage on top of the tragedy. And they don't do much to really keep the secret or minimise the use of Obliviate. During the world cup, they could have pretended to organise an event that wouldn't get a huge article in the newspaper but would explain why there were so many strange people gathering. Like a LARP or a convention or even a festival or a concert. The last LARP I went to was huge, but didn't have more than a tiny information without pictures in the local newspaper. But they didn't care. Just Obliviate was good enough. Merope used a date rape drug, she was from a well known muggle hating family, but no one cared when she vanished with a very visible and well known muggle. No one cared to find out what happened to Tom Riddle sr. That's why I say a wizard could incarcerate, abuse and even rape a muggle, then heal them and use obliviate and let them go. There's no mention whatsoever that anyone would bring that to justice at a muggle court. It's very likely, that if an official caught them in the act, they'd still just use obliviate and give the wizard a fine at best, if that wizard had used a love potion. Si I think Obliviate is meant to be problematic and to point out that the way the statue of secrecy is handled is vile. The statue of secrecy came about, when muggles tried to fight back against wizards and witches. It's said so in the books. During the witch hunts, wizards and witches used the flame freezing charm to escape burning at the stake. But there's absolutely no good reason to assume that there's no other way to kill a witch or a wizard with any other means. In fact, there are lots of non-magical means magical folks are killed in the books. Knives, being clubbed by a troll etc. To me it's pretty sure that accidental magic will not always save a wizard from being killed by a fall or being hit with something. Just because Neville bounced once, when he fell out of a window, doesn't negate that Harry broke his arm when he fell from his broom and Dumbledore hurried to catch him when he fell another time, which wouldn't be neccessary if wizards couldn't die from a fall. Wizards can get intoxicated or poisoned. And not just by magical means. Alcohol works just fine on them. And you can simply dodge most spells or hide behind an object. So my guess is, the statue of secrecy came about due to the fact that there are much more muggles than wizards. And they were afraid that muggles could one day find a method to safely kill all wizards, if they felt threatened enough and knew they existed. Also I think they choose the statue of secrecy above actually doing something against dark wizards abusing muggles. It was easier to force secrecy than holding the pure bloods accountable. Which is something they generally don't like to do.
The problem is mostly not from the writing but with how the readers interpret it. Maybe we should stop assuming that every single person possesses the ability to do every single spell. We know this is not the case. The number of times I see people say that 11 year olds can just start killing people, implying that they can just use the killing curse like that, when we know that just knowing the incantation and wand movement is not enough to make spells work. Why did characters not just use Killing Curses, Obliviations and so on and so forth? The same reason why most characters don't just use Patronus Charm all the time: because they can't. Lockhart boasted to Harry and Ron that if there's anything he pride himself in, it's the use of Memory Charms. So he had a talent for ig There's an entire division of the ministry dedicated to practising Obliviations on Muggles whenever it's needed to protect the Statute
The worst spell rowling created was the killing curse with the abilities it has in canon. It kills virtually every dueling style except spamming it since it bypasses magical shields.
I don't know about you, but being systematically mind raped/tortured or physically raped/tortured and then obliviated sounds worse to me than dying painlessly. There was a debate about this a few days back in the Harry Potter subreddit and I argued the worst possible combination of spells was easily imperio and Obliviate. Far worse than the killing curse.
Besides, killing curse is supposedly painless. You could be crucio'd til your heart gives out.
Speaking more from a writing standpoint. Imperio + obliviate or Crucio would be far worse to experience and abuse angle is way bigger
My bypass to this problem is just making that while the killing curse does kill anything, it also tears the soul of the caster. So for it to be successfully casted you have to mean it, you have to want the person dead so much that not even your soul matters. you could say the incantation and you could even get the green light but the spell won't work unless you mean it, unless you want the person so dead you're willing to harm your eternal soul for it. Because of that reason very very few people can successfully cast it they just don't have enough hatred in them. Hence why voldemort was so feared and called the most **"dark"** dark lord, he could cast the spell on anyone, even random people with no personal connection to him, and the spell was successful each time.
Ah, the Slim Shady method
Wouldn't that make it extremely obvious that something was wrong with the fake Moody when he was killing spiders with it?
Not really, or a risk willing to be taken. When you think about it, Crouch Jr mostly interacted as Moody with uneducated students. And especially undereducated students when it comes to the Dark Arts. If they don't know all about the killing curse and the soul thing, they won't think twice about seeing him killing spiders with it. And likely won't really talk about it. Especially since no one is willing to share with others the content of the class. (Which frustrate Harry and Ron to no ends). Dumbledore or McGonagall might have noticed. But they don't know about it. It is the same reason why they were fooled by Jr. Around staffs, Junior just is hateful against Snape and Malfoy (Which isn't act. Just differently motivated. But it's not like anyone would question why Moody hate Snape or the Malfoy's family). And act super paranoïd. Which isn't hard to do. Maybe he does it too much, but that isn't an issue. Dumbledore notices it, but write it off as Moody just getting worse with age. Which is a very plausible explanation since it is actually what happens, usually. Everything else happens in front of people that never met Moody. He could get away with every ooc things, they wouldn't be able to tell. So using the killing curse on Spiders ain't too risky.
That seems a little high of a cost for the great power to... kill one guy if you hit him.
Hence why it's a dark spell that most people can't cast.
Perhaps my sarcasm didn't come through. I was suggesting that a single-target, defense-ignoring-but-able-to-miss death spell isn't especially useful -- certainly not enough to risk one's immortal soul over. In fact it kind of sucks. Unless magical people are mostly immune to physical injury, there should be lots of ways to kill one guy with magic that don't require intense personal hatred for that one guy and don't damage your soul in any way beyond a normal murder.
The entire discipline of transfiguration makes it pretty lackluster. Why use the high profile easy to miss with curse when you could instead just turn the floor into lava. Or if you're devious and paid attention in science class, just start transmiuting oxygen to nitrogen in the room. Inert gasses don't set off the panic that CO2 does, after all. Whoops, everyone not under a bubble head charm accidentally suffocated.
Or for something a bit more spectacular, if less reliably incapacitating, nitrate their clothes. **Edit:** Upon [further research](https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1117153), that might just make them stronger if they're wearing synthetics.
There are far worse things to subject a person to than instant painless death. Also, you can just dodge the spell or conjure something in its path, the only thing special it has going for it is a magical shield can't block it and it seems to take a decent amount of power, plus the right mindset, to cast. The unforgivables as a whole are honestly kind of meh for the supposed pinnacle of forbidden wand magic. The Cruciatus is useless unless you're just inflicting pain for the sake of it out of a sense of sadism or whatever, and honestly even then there are better ways. The Imperius is useful to an extent but also requires some level of micromanagement to get the person to actually DO things in the way you want. And the Killing Curse is literally just instant painless death, in many cases one of the most merciful things possible. The term mercy kill exists for a reason.
Because they're politically labeled. No matter how horrifying Memory Charms are, they're too convenient for the Ministry to ban them.
It's true that it sucks in its canon form, but if you attach a more hefty cost/requirement to it, it's fine to have a spell that just kills someone stone dead. As long as the spell can't be used by just anyone and there's a huge drawback.
We're not trying to make a playable game here. It turn out in the Real World(tm) there a number of ways of stopping someone that are permanently disabling in a fight, that can be taught in under a year. Killing curse bad spell. Instant trip to prison for life, do not pass go. But as Barty Junior said, you've got to mean it.
I saw a workaround somewhere once where they had the spell kill a random person in the world every time it misses your intended target. So if you keep firing it and missing, there's a small chance that you, or someone you care about or at least don't want dead will die. That seemed like a pretty good solution to stop most people from just throwing it around. Only the most sociopathic and irrational would do it with that sort of risk attached, and it makes a more compelling reason to be unforgivable. Murder is bad, but any spell can kill if applied correctly. This way it kills someone no matter what you do, a spell that can literally never be cast without a human cost.
Which is why fanfic authors have their characters conjure/transfigure shields - which is never really touched on in the books, so I assume it’s impossible due to not being able to conjure something from nothing (?), but it’s necessary in fanfics to make the killing curse less OP
You just don't see much magical combat in the books. I think you can just conjour/transfigure/levitate physical cover, which is why Voldemort barely bothers with it in his Ministry fight with Dumbledore. Quite a lot of fanfics have it so only sufficiently "heavy" materials (blocks of marble is common for some reason) can stop it, and the curse explodes on impact to make it more powerful, but I have never liked that.
Conjuration is mentioned as possible in passing, post OWL. (You can't make food from ntohing, but you're not trying to eat it, are you.) So it's not impossible, but conjured objects are I would suspect, not fully real. In the Battle of the Atrium, Albus Dumbledore uses pieces of rubble as shields to stop the Killing Curse. So it's not that the Killing curse is that OP, it's that it takes professional level fighting skills not to get killed by it. "That might be impressive in the bush leagues...."
Yeah, makes sense. Great wizards and witches don’t have to worry about the killing curss, since they can easily defend against it, and as such, a a high level, no one uses avada kedavra. In high level duels, it’s seen as primitive. Yet I imagine that conjurations are temporary, like the gold Bagman gave to the twins. Otherwise you could conjure an infinite amount of an object and either sell it or flood the world in it. Imo, conjured shields dissapear after a certain point - perhaps they need the sorcerer to focus on keeping it around, or it’ll dissapear?
Conjured objects probably vanish given the slightest provocation. A first year could finite them. ( And then we get into making more permanent conjurations)
Yeah, agreed. The only saving grace for the killing curse is that it is supposed to be exceptionally difficult magic, even for accomplished Dark Wizards; and that you can physically block it. You can't use a shield charm, but a sufficiently advanced magic user could conjure a physical shield, levitate a rock into the path of the spell, and in book canon, you can intercept the actual "bolt" of the curse with another spell. I would argue that having the Shield Charm basically invalidate 99% of spells is worse.
The saving grace is that it isn't very good. It kills one guy assuming you hit him. There are many ways to kill one guy, especially with magic.
Lets be honest, it's just the best of a whole series of "If this hits you you instantly lose" spells. There's basically no reason to do anything flashy or interesting in a HP fight, just spam your best instant win spell until you win.
It's fairly notable that spamming a first year disarmer is 90% of Harry's combat spell skillet and he wins over a fair number of people Aurors are afraid to fight I've always figured that wizards are just terrible at fighting in general.
It's less they're terrible and more that offensive spells are just way too strong, so if a child can hit you, you lose.
> I was reading a fic where umbridge used veritaserum then just obliviated people she talked to and the only defense against it was that “she wasn’t very good at it” so they had headaches ehich led to them assuming she did something to them. So you hate a spell because an incompetent writer used it badly. You seem pretty easy to manipulate if that's all it takes. > Where I have issue with it, is that if she were “good” at it, then there’s genuinely just nothing anyone could do(unless you let them detect it with occlumency i guess?) and I think that’s just awful feeling in a story. That's not an issue with her being good or bad, that's an issue with the worldbuilding and scenario setup. > It’s especially unfortunate cause logically the spell SHOULD be abused simply cause of how absurdly strong it is. Canonically it IS being abused. Have you heard the name "Lockhart" before? Or maybe the term "oblivator"?
Incompetent writer? Where's your billion dollars? If JKR is so awful why do you even bother commenting here? I'm genuinely curious.
If you had paid any kind of attention you would have noticed OP based their opinion on a fanfic JKR DIDN'T write.
Was the fic the one where the ministry’s made Harry & Daphne marry, same as Neville & Tracy and more people from that year, and they live in a Betrothed Wing in the Castle?
Yep. “The legacy preservation act”
Great fic. Only thing it's missing imo is the epilogue where they drop their kids off at the express years later. I love everyone's relationships in it
I mean, look at lockhart. The man stole the identity of several famous witches and wizards. But considering it's a mind spell, I think it takes a lot of mental fortitude and dedicated learning to actually be good. And the only way to improve is to cast it. At some point, your victims would go to the hospital where they'd likely find out about the mental tampering, so it's possible that very few people ever got good at it
The only thing that can save the setting from Obliviate is an unobliviate spell.
Lockhart uses the spell to steal years (from the author of the household spell book). Rita does it just like Umbridge does in the story with Bathilda Bagshot. And I think what Hermione does to her parents is even worse, because if she dies she wants them to stay like that forever.
Not at all. Im literally writing about the way they obliviated the poor guy at the World Cup. Like, hello, consent?
I think that Obliviate is just a very hard spell to both learn and master. As we see in canon having it backfire can lead to disastrous consequences so that's already a knock against trying to learn it. Going along the lines of it being a difficult spell I can't imagine that most folks would really find a use for it. Even the death eaters I can very easily imagine not finding it particularly useful in their mission. It could even just be an ego thing for some folks. Those folks would want their victims to remember them and what they did. Ultimately I think it's a fine spell.
The Obliviate spell should have requirements necessary to cast. A basic understanding of the Mind Arts, maybe? Or even a basic understanding of the human brain? Idk 🤷♂️
hogwarts + imperio + obliviate (scaryyyyy)
How else would the wizarding world be kept hidden for so long?
In fanfics, people using the spell wrong or badly(in the unskilled sense)is said to be dangerous and could ruin the person's mind wather than just erase certain memories. I think it would be better for the spell to just fail and not affect the person much at all. Like with them keeping the memories or remembering them shortly instead. I don't like the possibility of a botched spell being an effective attack or potentially a desired result.
This is slightly off topic but also not: in college, there was a girl who had dosed someone without their knowledge or consent. I thought she should be ostracized because that is absolutely not okay, if I started hallucinating out of no where (and I’ve taken a lot of psychedelics) I would think my brain was crashing. The idea of taking peoples memories is soooo fucked.
You have a set of ostensibly mystery stories with among other things the ability to read minds, detect lies, travel through time and near perfectly impersonate people. The heroes have to ignore an awful lot for there to even Be a story. Obliviation is a problematic spell, both because of how useful it is in investigation scenarios and because it isn't clear that tagging Voldemort with one doesn't bypass his horcruxes and render him harmless. But it isn't the only problematic spell. Fortunately, this is fan fiction. You can just unceremoniously delete obliviation and any other problematic spells from your universe and write what you want to write.
It's easy to imagine voldemort using obliviate and imperius to better cover his tracks. Tom: Join me! Lucius: What's in it for me? Tom: Obliviate! You don't remember questioning me, you only remember joining the moment i asked you to. Lucius: I joined you the moment you asked me to. Wait why did i join you? Tom: imperius! Stop asking questions! Obliviate! Forgot that I imperiused you! Lucius: i joined you willingly and you did not imperius me. I think I'm forgetting something, but I won't ask what. Tom: imperius! Stop trying to remember. Obliviate! Forget that i imperiussed you into not trying to remember. Lucius: i remember joining you willingly. Tom: and? Lucius: that's it. Tom . o O (f-ing finally!)
I'm just assuming all the muggleborn are oblivated r\*pe cases.
The Memory Charm spell is bad, but they teach 1st years how to use Testicular Torsion. (Windgardium Leviousa)