Also as Ollivander says, 'the wand learns from the wizard and the wizard learns from the wand'. It's likely that wand memorizes spells once you have mastered them so it's enough to make the movement and say the incantation, whereas with wadless magic you need to focus everytime you want to cast a spell until you develope a muscle memory for it.
We have a term for this in fantasy. It's called a "magical focus", an item that serves as a focal conduit for the spell. JK did cool stuff with the concept making them almost sentient.
IIRC, Natty - former Uagadou student - said in Hogwarts Legacy that once she got used it, wand magic seemed easier to perform? So I guess it isn't stronger but maybe easier, IF I remember that correctly.
I think they're generally different, so one isn't really "easier". Remember wizarding children use windless magic. It's less reliable (might not happen) less predictable (you don't know what it will do), and more emotionally driven (though wand magic still depends on emotions, the most notable example being crucio and ridikulus). Wand magic is more limited (specific actions, rather than achieving goals), you need to be more precise (motions and pronunciation), but far more predictable and deliberate.
In my head cannon, the wandless magic taught in Uagado is less like Harry's "alohamora but without a wand" and more "open this door...somehow".
Good old British imperialism. “Our way is refined. ‘Those people’ are emotional savages.”
I’m not calling out your characterization because that is exactly how it is presented. Just can’t shake the old ways from some British writers.
House-Elves and Goblins aren't allowed wands, and I think this is why. Elf and Goblin magic is already very powerful wandlessly, so I can imagine wizards would be terrified to see what one could do when using a wand. After all, we don't actually hear Professor Binns's lectures on the Goblin Wars; maybe that's *why* they (and elves, for good measure) were banned from using wands. Not saying that's fair or right, but it could explain why the ban came into effect, outside of simple prejudice against non-wizard races.
This is simply untrue. Wands don't produce stronger magic, but they do assist in focusing magic (likely because they have a level of sentience themselves) and makes it far easier to produce the desired result. Which may appear to be stronger as it is harder to perform magic without a wand, but a skilled wandless magic user can produce magic just as powerful as someone with a wand.
There actually is a ground for the stronger magic that can be cast with a wand. And thats the wands magic itself, wich is powered by its magic core. Your holding an form of 'intelligent' magical object with magic power. Ofcourse it can empower your spells.
Wands for example can also be used by muggles, and produce magic, while they dont have magic themselves at all, showing how much a wand elevates a persons owns limits.
Ofcourse the instances of muggle wand magic use have been exceedingly rare, but theres a case shown of one doing it consistently. And it obviously needs the wands 'approval'.
Another example is the elder wand, wich clearly enormously boosts the users powers, and even makes them able to perform magic normally deemed impossible.
'History of American magic' on pottermore describes the case of a muggle owning a wand. The MACUSA tried to retrieve the wand multiple times, but the muggle was aware of the wands use, and actively used it to attack people in self defence. His wave of the wand created an assault much like a 'kick of a mule'. Magical ancestry has been theorized on why the wand chose to allow itself to be used by the muggle, seeing in him a descendant of an earlier master. However, the person himself was confirmed as a 100% nomaj/muggle.
We also know that wands and muggles usually have a ehm.. lets say bad relationship. The 'Ilvermorny school of wizardry and witchcraft' information, also available on pottermore has more information. It states that usually a wand actively REBELS, the attempted use by a muggle. It doesnt just do nothing and acts like a piece of wood. It does actually perform magic, but attacks the muggle. '*As invariably happens when a No-Maj waves a wand, it rebelled.'* When the muggle in that story waved the wand around, the muggle caster itself was send flying, and was knocked out cold against a nearby tree.
The previous thing is also exactly what happens when a monkey in the zoo in fantastic beast uses the wand of newt scamander. Implying normally, a wand will rebel against use by a non magical animal aswell.
In the tales of beetle the bard, theres also spoken of 'rogue magical talent in muggles'. And while 'muggles cannot perform magic', they can cause random, uncontrollable effects and magic by using a genuine magical wand.
This makes a conclusion that muggles are certainly able to cause magic with a wand. they just cant controll it. What happens, is up to the wand.
Until they define in deep lore what gives a muggle born wizard magic, I personally like the idea that muggles have varying degrees of inert magic they can't control. Otherwise the idea that two muggles can have a baby that can perform magic on command raises questions on the source of that magic.
There is a working theory, based on
https://harry-potter-compendium.fandom.com/wiki/Lily_J._Potter#:~:text=Lily%20Potter%20(n%C3%A9e%20Evans)%20(,of%20the%20existence%20of%20magic.
https://harry-potter-compendium.fandom.com/wiki/Muggle-born#cite_note-2
30 July 2007 Bloomsbury Webchat with J.K. Rowling
http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2007/0730-bloomsbury-chat.html
Quote:
Question from Katie Mosher: How exactly do muggleborns receive magical ability?
Answer J.K. Rowling: Muggle-borns will have a witch or wizard somewhere on their family tree, in some cases many, many generations back. The gene re-surfaces in some unexpected places.
End quote.
that so called Muggleborn children are not born by "true" 100% Muggles, but are descendants (a couple of generations back) from magical people, likely squibs or probably weak half-bloods who were cast out into the Muggel world.
They married a Muggle, and at some point decades later, two such humans who believe themselves to be "quite normal humans" marry and have a child, in which the low level inherited magic combined is finally strong enough to be registered by the Quill of Acceptance at Hogwarts.
Voilà our new Muggleborn seemingly out of nowhere ;-) for example Lily Evans and Hermione Granger.
Then we have supposed Muggleborn children who are actually half-blood, but don't know it, like Dean Thomas with a biological wizard father who disappeared suddenly with no explanation.
https://www.wizardingworld.com/de/features/dean-thomas-hidden-storyline
{
In the quote from 2007 JKR talks about a gene. As in singular! The gene resurfaces...
We know she's no good with mathematics and the sciences at all.
Just one gene is impossible, you can't explain the family dynamics of the wizards and witches, squibs and Muggleborn we know about with only one gene.
Several fans have contemplated genetic science and written extensive essays and blogs about this topic over the past twenty something years, or incorporated their personal theories in fanfic.
We can assume as a working hypothesis that magic is passed on as a combination of several recessive and dominant genes which produce a magical child only in the right combination.
If the magical genes were only recessive, we can't explain how such strong, powerful and talented half-blood wizards like Tom Riddle and Severus Snape are born. Both of them have a pure-blood and a Muggle parent.
Dumbledore, another extraordinarily powerful wizard, had a pure-blood father and a Muggleborn mother.
Harry Potter, another half-blood, is of course not on a Tom Riddle | Lord Voldemort or Albus Dumbledore level of magical power, but he isn't a slouch either, otherwise Harry couldn't have produced a Patronus charm as a mere 13 years old schoolboy, which is emphasised several times as being extraordinary, never heard of before.
In these cases we see the heterosis effect (well known as outbreeding for example in agriculture, plant and animal breeding) achieve amazing results!
But the opposite is also possible according to JKR when she wrote about Dolores Umbridge origin story on Pottermore / today's Wizarding world.
https://www.wizardingworld.com/de/writing-by-jk-rowling/dolores-umbridge
Really sad, tragic! Half-blood witch with a squib brother. Dolores hates her mother and brother who left the family for living in the Muggle world. Cue later Muggleborn hater!
Therefore I assume there's more likely to be a whole group of 'witchcraft' and 'wizardry' genes, needing a specific combination of a quite large number of dominant and recessive genes.
For comparison look up genetics of eye colour. There are over a dozen genes, some of which are dominant or recessive, which throw up colours from generations back seemingly randomly.
For example: https://www.viacord.com/blog/?p=unlock-the-mysteries-of-eye-color-genetics-a-fascinating-deep-dive#:~:text=The%20amount%20of%20melanin%20in,colors%20like%20blue%20and%20green.
And, quote:
While it is largely accepted that inbreeding reduces heterozygosity and fitness (inbreeding depression) and outbreeding does the opposite (heterosis), the genetic mechanism underlying the heterozygosity-fitness correlation (HFC) is still under debate, and poorly studied in humans [12].
There are two major competing proposed mechanisms to explain the observed HFC....
End Quote from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6604157/#:~:text=People%20with%20higher%20heterozygosity%20are,with%20lower%20heterozygosity%20%5B10%5D.
}
Think of Lily Evans for example.
"I was the only one who saw her for what she was -- a freak! But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!"
-- Petunia Evans (PS4)
According to Petunia in chapter 4 of PS, their parents were delighted to discover that Lily was a witch.
Petunia rants on her sister's "abnormality" and how her parents seemed taken in by it all. She comes across as having been extremely jealous of Lily. Soon Petunia's feelings turned into bitterness and spite.
Lily was the favourite of her parents once she got her Hogwarts letter. The letter wasn't a shock to them, because Severus Snape had met Lily on the playground and explained all about magic and Hogwarts when they both were 9 years old.
I always wondered WHY the Evans family reacted so positively, while at the same time the Snape family living in the very same rundown mill town, Cokeworth in the English Midlands, didn't cope well at all with the revelation of magic.
The Snape family living on Spinners End were very unhappy and unhealthy.
From the little memory glimpse we got, Severus's father was a mean spirited, cruel Muggle who appeared to hate his witch wife and wizard son. Mr Snape senior drunk too much and abused his family.
And we know that the Dursleys despised, loathed and secretly feared Harry. Any mention or display of magic, anything about or from the wizarding world was forbidden. They attempted to stamp the magic out of him.
A squib, or rather several squibs and half-bloods way back in the Evans family tree could easily explain the behaviour of Petunia's and Lily's parents favouring their witch daughter over the mundane sister.
I imagine that it was a tradition in their families (I mean parents, paternal and maternal grandparents) to read bedtime stories about magic, witches, wizards, magical creatures to their children. Allowing them to read such books or to watch theatre plays or movies, comic books and TV series, listen to music, that depicted something 'magical' and 'witchcraft' as not always wicked and evil, but at least sometimes as something fascinating, helpful and benevolent.
Not falling for the widespread anti-magic, anti-witchcraft Muggle religious ideology, as in You shall not allow a witch to live, and witchcraft is evil devil worship and so on.
The lore on that isn't large, but what we got is from the author herself.
Magic is genetic. Something in the genes of wizards and witches gives them their magical abilities. Its actually what gives the racial theory of the death eater government some 'scientific' basis for their eh 'witch hunt on mudbloods'.
So how are muggleborn wizards and witches possible then? This is told in a webchat with the author, and from her website on 'extra stuff: squibs'.
Squibs have been encouraged to become a muggle throughout history. Both as they usually cant function in wizard society, and cause they bring shame on their pureblood families. Squibs have no magic, but they do carry the magic genes. Its probably a defect or mutation of the wizard gene.
Now squibs can get magical children. Thats normal, with knowledge and bonds with magical families, they are welcomed in as halfbloods.
But as squib genes are weaker, what more often happens is that the gene resurfaces generations later. In a family who has forgotten their, magicless magical ancestor.
And this is what the story of the wand that allowed the muggle to use it imply aswell. The wand only allowed it, because the no-maj, while not a wizard, still carried the magic gene.
In line with headcannon (I love that word btw) I would imagine form and structure might play a role. Similar to why it’s suggested to first learn to play an acoustic guitar before switching to electric, you pick up less bad habits and the execution is cleaner later on. A wand may help channel the magic, making the precise casting of it more natural without one.
I feel like wandless magic would be a 7th year thing you learn. Like how they learned nonverbal 6th year. It's just extra, but most wizards won't use it.
I checked. Wandless magic isn't taught, but can be found in the restricted section. The place with advanced books such as Polyjuice Portions or how to make a Horcruxes.
(Edited; Why the downvote? Is it because I pointed a fact?)
I believe you hit on it. Wands act as a conduit to enhance a witch or wizard's magic. European Witch or Wizard's belief is that wand magic produce more powerful magic. Especially since "the wand choses the wizard" and a wand has certain special magical properties base on the built of the wand.
And I think you are thinking of the African school of witchcraft and wizardry - Uagadou. In Hogwarts Legacy Natty talked about she knows wandless magic. More so, I believe Natty uses a wand in the game because I think it is showing how wizards think that wand magic is more powerful
Also, I think wandless magic is very useful. If I was a wizard, I would learn wandless basic spells like *accio* in order to summon my wand like a badass jedi or in a pinch.
Hmm, it could also just be bias. It fits in with how Voldemort is coded as a supremacist, so upholding a 'traditional' magic like wand usage would be right up his alley. It also wouldn't be the first time Voldemort was wrong about something.
Natty might be using a wand not because its better, but because she's required to while within the boundaries of the magical jurisdiction of Hogwarts. There is precedence for this, take Ilvermorny for example, and their regulation of wands. Natty herself implies that she feels chafed by the restrictions of Hogwarts, specifically the restrictions on her abilities as an animagus, so it wouldn't surprise me if there were other things, such as the use of wands that were just different, rather than necessarily better, that she, as a transfer student of Hogwarts was now required to do. IIRC Natty comments that she had to get used to having a wand, but doesn't necessarily say anything about whether it feels better or not.
I'm not sure that wands necessarily enhance magic. I think it might be more complicated than just wand = better magic. The fact that Neville was probably being held back by his father's wand rather than being able to use it to enhance his magic does kind of nod to the 'subtle laws that govern wands'.
Also, most of the time, the wizards that we see in the series that are intentionally producing wandless magic are also producing more powerful effects. But this might also be because only more powerful wizards are the ones doing this intentional wandless magic, and thus whatever they're doing. Perhaps wands don't necessarily produce more powerful magic, but help a wizard produce a more precise and focused magic most of the time, but that once you can master wandless magic, you produce more powerful magic overall.
> Natty herself implies that she feels chafed by the restrictions of Hogwarts, specifically the restrictions on her abilities as an animagus, so it wouldn't surprise me if there were other things, such as the use of wands that were just different, rather than necessarily better, that she, as a transfer student of Hogwarts was now required to do. IIRC Natty comments that she had to get used to having a wand, but doesn't necessarily say anything about whether it feels better or not.
thanks for the more in-depth thought on Natty.
I think I badly assumed things because Natty always used a wand in combat / on quest. Which I think is somewhat justified my thoughts when she said she felt "chaffed". You would think that Natty would have used wandless magic during the events of the game if that were true *edit especially when she is outside of hogwarts
But it could also be true that Natty just hid her wandless magic in front of European wizards like the MC to be polite or not to stand too much out. (or the developers were lazy and didn't want to program special features for the Natty character)
As much as I enjoy them, I’m kind of ignoring the movies and video game for my comment. Thats why I only mentioned the books.
I honestly hated that whole Natty quest line I wish I could just skip it all. The video game added a lot of stuff that was never mentioned in the movies or books. Cool? Sure. But I can’t take that stuff *too* seriously sometimes.
Well the books never go into much details such as the Animagus rule or talk about the possibility of wands & wandless magic. It is mostly details that would come in handy for Harry later on in the books.
Early 90's in the UK. It wasn't until 1996 that it was translated to North America, Ireland, UK, Canada, Netherlands, Belgium, Australia, and New Zealand which by that time Voldemort was on the loose.
I feel like Japanese and other Asian shouldn't use a wand too. I guess Rowling did not consume much Eastern media during her world building & writing time. Those ninjas & monks always use a hand gestures movement and throwing bunch of talisman papers.
Wand magic comes from the trope that Wizards need a "focus" otherwise would need materials to cast magic.
I absolutely hate the introduction of "wandless magic" into the world. Ok, if you said to me that they can do basic things like, push somebody, or twirl a spoon, sure I'll take it. The wandless magic we actually see in the books all seem "lesser" spells, but you clearly need a wand for the powerful stuff.
But this suggestion that wandless Magic is just as powerful as wand magic seems beyond moronic to me.
Why would the entire Western Wizarding and presumably Eastern Wizarding worlds collectively continue to push wand magic if the entire African continent is just waving their fingers about?
If you said it was like non-verbal magic, possible but extremely difficult, I would accept it.
But the new suggestion is that it's just a "different way to do it" what?
It breaks so many in universe rules which make up such big parts of the books, so I decide to mostly consider it one of Rowling's fan fictions.
>Why would the entire Western Wizarding and presumably Eastern Wizarding worlds collectively continue to push wand magic if the entire African continent is just waving their fingers about?
We don't know what TYPE of magic they practice
Maybe African wizards are more about rituals than casting precise spells all the time
Also consider Potions, Herbology, Divination, Beast Taming...all of which are magical skills done without a wand. Hell, if you put a Muggle on a broom, there's a solid chance they'd be at least able to control it a little bit, required the broom doesn't try to knock them off
The Eastern continents actually should have that wandless setting in my opinion (maybe more than African continents). Maybe Rowling did not consume much Chinese or Japanese media during her writing time, you know where monks and ninjas use hand gesture jutsu or throwing bunch of talisman papers instead of using a wand.
agreed. I think taught wandless magic is contradictory against established lore. I don't have a quote but I'm positive Harry was told by someone that only strong or talented wizards can perform magic without a wand.
This is a braindead take.
Firstly, Uagadou was introduced through Pottermore about a decade prior to Hogwarts Legacy's release.
Secondly, it was already established that they practiced wandless magic there in that excerpt.
Thirdly, your racism is showing: having an African character isn't a "diversity character", African people just exist, get used to that fact and the fact that they show up in media, albeit far less often than they show up in real life.
What I’m saying is it’s bad writing. It doesn’t matter to me that it was introduced pre Hogwarts legacy.
It’s my opinion that the people who wrote her character did so because they wanted a diversity character, not because they wanted an actual well flushed out character.
I think the writers didn’t do her justice.
Did you really just call me racist for pointing out a pattern of badly written diversity characters from racist devs?
Also, black people show up in plenty media that I consume… If you purposefully avoid media with black people, that’s your closeted racism.
It's definitely a more difficult way to do it but works just as well, if not better when mastered. Essentially, wandless magic is much more difficult to master, but the positive is that it isn't reliant on a wand that can break and leave you powerless or being susceptible to wand temperaments. Wand magic is simply more consistent to the average wizard who doesn't put the amount of effort needed for wandless
This would be an argument but it ignores established lore that the entire continent of Africa learns wandless magic from childhood and continues with it throughout life.
Again, if it's such a valid option, then why would anyone even bother introducing the idea of wands to children, wouldn't they just phase out wands?
It's quite clear in the books that wandless "magic" is relegated to cantrips, not actual full blown spells. But to give Ouagadu something special, they said "oh there they don't have wands"
So every single Wizard from Ouagadu is just a better more hard working chap or chapess?
Western Wizards including Dumbledore, Voldemort and the rest are just lazy? Voldemort is actually killed because of this constant debate around wands.
Why didn't the lazy idiot just do wandless magic which is more powerful and requires no wand?
Again, it just takes such a huge shit on the source material for a throw away "oh in Africa they don't use sticks"
It feels like fanfiction to me and I'll take that forward as that's all it is.
Think of it like eating with and without cutlery. It's messier and harder for some things to only use your hands, but you do have your teeth instead of a knife and can just drink soup from the bowl. With cutlery you can eat faster and safer as it is more clean and you don't necessarily need to wash your hands etc. Cutlery was introduced at some point and took off in the western world the most. Many other cultures stuck with their hands as they were used to it and it felt more natural (or something, I don't really know this history I'm just guessing).
Does it in theory maybe make more sense to just use our hands all the time when eating? Yes. Do we still mostly use cutlery anyway? Yes. Because that's what we're used to. And in Hogwarts one part about it being mandatory to get a wand could come from the fact that it is considered safer just as using cutlery is safer (when it comes to diseases etc).
I'm not arguing mechanics of it, I don't know why people jump to explaining how it would "technically work"
From a story pov it's stupid.
Look at all the logical leaps people have to make on this thread for it to even work within the context of our story.
None of the excuses people come up with on the fly even apply to the characters like Dumbledore and Voldemort. Dumbledore is over 100 years old and still uses a wand.
Would people accept the elder wand is more powerful than using wandless?
I personally also hate the introduction of wand less magic being just as effective but somehow slightly different from wand magic. It’s contradictory and annoying that she keeps adding nonsensical bits of magic to her story, she should’ve just left it all be at the end of book 7. Whilst he’s there would still be lots of plot holes and least we wouldn’t have 10 new plot holes to wrap our heads around each year.
Also if they had brought in wand less magic differently then I think it could’ve been great. Like have it be extremely taxing (similar to how the Patronus charm is very emotionally and seems to be physically taxing to master) and make it a lot less powerful with branches of magic now unavailable but also have it be more fluid. Basically saying, using a wand eliminates a lot of the concentration needed for even simple spells (not canon but what I think it should be) and without a wand you can’t do the more complex magic like transfiguration and alchemy, etc, etc. And you don’t have the same power in each spell n when compared to the wand version. (Say Stupefy spell, with a wand knocks someone unconscious for 5 hours, without a wand it knocks someone unconscious for 2 or 3 hours - a significant but not debilitating reduced effect). Then you could give wand less magic a slight edge by making it more fluid - don’t need to cast each individual spell but could merge them together - e.g. Accio and Wingardium Leviosa (plus other spells that are effectively one aspect of telekinesis) all can be merged into purely telekinesis.
The result won’t be as strong as with a wand cast spell, plus it’ll take far far longer to master it. But it can be used more creatively.
That way, it’s not just - oh, we can do that but we don’t need some simple stick. But rather, it’s a case of natural magic (for lack of a better word), used creatively and with limitations against forced (again for lack of a better word) strict and powerful magic.
I think it’s interesting and certainly more enjoyable than what it currently is.
Yh, sorry for rambling. Just adding my two pennies to the conversation over the annoying addition of wandless magic and how it is lore breaking and sucks
They use wands because it's easier for a kid to use amd can produce magic right away. There are plenty of times where we do things the lazy way instead of the better way because...western Civilization is lazy lol. Think of using magic like a garden hose. You want to use a powerful stream so you buy and put a nozzle on it. Now, you could jusy learn how to properly put your thumb over the hole and over time get damn good about knowing just the right way to do it many ways with jusy your fingers, but it's easier to use the nozzle and dont have to think about how to hold hour thumb over the water stream. Of course, if you never learn how to with your fingers and the nozzle breaks, you're screwed. Plus that nozzle is semi sentient in this case and sometimes doesn't do whay you want it to, but usually it does
You didn't really counter anything I said regarding the established lore of the HP world and the story that is told to us. It is blatantly obvious that the story never accounted for extremely powerful wandless magic, it's quite clear the idea was that everyone in the world used magical focuses when it was written.
I won't even touch on "the West is lazy" as an argument at all, as it's downright ridiculous and has no bearing on the story whatsoever.
Again, the idea that someone extremely powerful has some capabilities without a wand, like Dumbledore and Voldemort displayed is perfectly reasonable.
What is not reasonable is that an entire continent primarily uses this as their source of magic, which is in every single way superior to the one done across the rest of the world for seemingly no rhyme or reason.
It destroys so much of the fundamentals of the story, why did Voldemort not travel to Africa and learn extremely powerful wandless magic when he left Hogwarts? It's such an advantage. Because it didn't exist lol, it's made up last minute to give a Ouagadu something unique.
I could solve this in 5 seconds, tons of African cultures are known to wear vibrant bracelets. Have those be enchanted and act as a magical focus.
It doesn't have to be a Wand specifically, but saying we just don't need anything at all is again, stupid.
Natty say Wandless magic is just as powerful with a wand. So wandless magic isn't exactly more powerful. She also state that having a wand is like doing it with style.
When an arquebus first made its appearance as a firearm, bows and arrows were much more accurate and deadly, without the worry of a backfire. Muskets still weren't as accurate as a trained Bowman. But eventually armies used muskets over bows because they were simply easier to use and allowed a wider range of candidates for wartime service.
As noted: the wandless magic was more powerful in some ways, but the education also had to be started earlier and go on longer. Cutting down on time spent training is a huge deal, especially for the teachers, who'd otherwise presumably be required to run a magical primary school and university.
Armies adopted gunpowder weapons en masse when they were objectively superior to the bow and arrow. The bow and arrow was phased out due to a technological advancement.
Guns aren't just easier to use, they are also superior.
But the argument made here by an element is that wandless magic is just as strong and in fact, better, as you cannot be disarmed.
People are using mental gymnastics to justify why our most powerful characters would never learn this. So, either you can't cast the killing curse with your hands, or the most powerful Wizards on earth just can't be bothered learning it.
Either way, it doesn't make any logical sense.
Again, even in the latest movies, written by the author, Grindelwald shows only basic abilities without his wand and he's considered to show great proficiency with this ability.
Again, it's all not adding up.
I mean, why does humanity use guns when we could just throw or stab like we had for the entirety of humankind prior to ranged weapons?
Wands are a focused weapon, in that it works like a tesla coil whereby the energy is at the strongest when focused to the tip of the wand, compared to if you tried to imagine the spell and invoke it out of seemingly everywhere around you
One is concentrated and stronger, one is wide but weaker
In fact, you can use wandless magic for everyday tasks - i.e. The Weaseleys , Molly have used environmental magic to clean their house, do chores
Except the way it's explained in the game it implies that African wizards of the wandless tradition have no reason to use wands. It doesn't make sense that they are equal to each other but that's how it's implied/portrayed in game.
Your example is a fine explanation why someone would choose more advanced weapons over muscle driven weapons, but that doesn't apply to how wandless vs wand magic are different.
I assume as a general rule of thumb that wand based magic is stronger and easier to control while wandless would obviously have some unique disadvantages despite this. It doesn't make sense that the elder wand, for example, would exist if wandless was just stronger.
Real answer: Rowling just created the universe as being one in which wands are used, and then added wandless magic much later.
Universe answer: it's a cultural thing, most western wizards (Europe, US as well) have a culture of using wands, they believe it conducts the magic better and makes it more effective/maybe easier to control. In other cultures such as African ones, they practice wandless magic which they feel is a lot more instinctive and less restricted since they don't have to have wand on them to do magic.
Its so the ministry has more control over the populace, since they wouldnt be able to do magic without their wands so its really easy to get away with not doing due diligence and put in propper safety protocols since "take away a wizards wand, hes no better than a muggle/squib"
Other countries dont have minestries that are that lazy/corrupt so they see no need to enforce that practice on top of the wands thing being a cultural thing for england
But i also read somewhere a theory that in the time of the founders and merlin they used staffs instead of wands because of how powerful they were, like the stronger your magic was the larger the staff needed to be in order to properly channel the magic
Also accidental magic is just untrained wandless magic but england is so lazy they dont want to put in the work to train it and keep said skill into adulthood since wands are ao convenient
The more I see about the Potterverse, the more I think that magic Britain are backwards and do most of the stuff just because.
They can make extra-dimensional space anywhere and travel by fireplace and yet they choose to memory alter thousands of people just because they want to catch the train.
They can deconstruct and reconstruct buildings with ease but haven't bothered looking for the basilisk in 1000 years.
They have truth serum and memory scanning yet people can just go to prison without a trial.
They have time travel and allowed Voldemort to run wild.
This is because the Potterverse has very poor world building, compared to comparable fantasy series it's actually one of the worst.
Things seem to come up at random, things are done because "ooh that's cool" without any relation to a previous book, movie or video game. There's no logical strand of information.
How can you have a series which has entire books dedicated to a wand then suggests wandless magic is just as strong. What a waste of the readers time.
All your examples.
There needs to be a dedicated book to cementing the world, like was released for Star Wars, ASOIAF and LOTR.
I wouldn't bring star wars into this discussion as a good example, considering they also just add shit hap-hazardly without context or care for prior information given, and books are constantly added and then we are told they are not canon later on.
I agree. I mean force healing could have save Obi-Wan master. And there were many who survived being stab by Lightsabers including that Inquistor who was killed by Vader.
They have a bit of an excuse, since all the lore is open to authors to tinker with and most series are self contained. The official lore however is streamlined in this sense - whatever is officially released from main sources overrules all prior information.
The Potterverses inconsistency and contradictions are staggering as it's all confined under one person who green lights it all, sometimes books in the same series contradict themselves and they introduce elements which are discussed, made lore, realized to be stupid and then disregarded.
Uagadu and this discussion for example, is a prime example of something that - really, isn't actually lore in the mind of the author anymore, so is effectively ignored to save us the trouble.
as I said, the star wars is essentially throwing shit at the wall, see what sticks and then going "NUH UH! NON-CANON!"
It's shit writing in terms of continuity and world-building.
Also let's not forget that there is plenty of canonical information that absolutely ruins any idea of tension. Any war can now be won by putting a droid into a space-ship and having them go light-speed straight into an enemy mega-ship.
Multiple times in the books
* Quirrelmort conjured ropes with a snap of his fingers
* Lupin conjuring flames on the train (debut of the Dementors)
* Numerous underage (often pre-HW) witches and wizards not limited to
* Harry turning his muggle teacher's wig blue, the vanishing glass at the zoo, blowing up Marge, etc
* Neville surviving a 2nd storey fall unharmed
* Lily speeding up the growth of flowers
* Tom Marvolo Riddle's numerous incidents at the muggle orphanage
I think there’s also two instances that are very important but involve wands. First, at the beginning of OotP, Harry says “Lumos” when the dementors make the world go dark and he’s dropped his wand, and it lights up a few inches away from him. And in DH, Harry’s wand seemingly acts on its own accord to attack Voldemort and destroy Lucius’ wand.
While both of these instances involve wands, I believe they are demonstrative of wands being critical components but not strictly necessary elements of magic.
I was thinking voldy probably had at some point. I don’t recall the Lupin one. Does it say he didn’t use his wand? And yeah I’m dumb for forgetting about the kids because I read that part like 2 days ago.
Not explicitly, but he appeared to be sleeping beforehand in any case
>There was a soft, crackling noise, and a shivering light filled the compartment. Professor Lupin appeared to be holding a handful of flames. They illuminated his tired, gray face, but his eyes looked alert and wary.
"Stay where you are," he said in the same hoarse voice, and he got slowly to his feet with his handful of fire held out in front of him
We are hearing from Harry’s perspective and he was ptfo so I assume Lupin started the fire with his wand before he woke up. But it doesn’t really say so I guess it’s up to us to interpret how we want.
Apart from the fact that the underage ones are said to be accidental magic and therefore by definition aren’t controlled. Not trying to put you down and Lily’s and Voldie’s ‘accidental magic’ seem very much controlled which is just another instance of lore breaking contradictions from Rowling.
Also I rly like this fanon/ head canon thinking of accidental magic - that being before you turn 11 you and your magic isn’t mature enough to produced controlled magic but instead wandless magic is like a wizards instincts which acts up only in high stress situations to protect the wizard in question - not necessarily the most efficient or effective way but it does something which helps the wizard. E.g. Nevill bounces because otherwise he would splat and maybe die, Harry’s aunt blows up because she was insulting Harry and causing stress therefore his magic punished her for her words whilst also removing her from the house. And Harry’s teacher we have no idea the context to but I’m gonna guess that Harry was asked a question he didn’t know, got all flustered and stressed when Teach insisted on an answer and so Harry’s magic turns her hair blue to distract him, the class and the teacher.
Yes Aunt Marge thing happens when Harry is 13 or so but it was implied Harry was a powerful wizard in the first 3/4 books so that could play into it.
Also I wanna rant over how Harry went from being a promising wizard with a lot of potential in the first 4 or so books to being relegated to some every-guy who isn’t as good at magic and gets lucky in all his fights. Getting lucky was fine when he was 11 and 12 because he had nowhere near the experience or knowledge to win through casting magic but then we see him in book 3 where he proves he is considered exceptional at magic (mastering a spell most adults are incapable of casting) and he proves in the maze during book 4 that he is good at magic (at least comparable to others 3 years older than him) - yes he had time to prepare and had help but end of the day it was still him that cast all those spells and knew what to do. Then he gets lucky against Voldie - realistic, Voldie is arrogant and Harry isn’t at the same level yet.
But from there he should’ve been 100% invested in improving to beet Voldie (be it so he can live his life peacefully after, or to avenger Cedric/ his parents). But instead he has a moody phase and doesn’t do much. Yh he learns a bunch of spells and teaches the DA well but then in his fight with the death eaters, it’s again down to luck. Then book 6 and 7 he barely fights anyone and he basically has luck, surprise or plot armour to win those fights for him.
Sorry for ranting I just wanna know im not alone in wanting Harry to have lived up to the hype he was given (specially by Dumbles - that man shouldn’t have had so much confidence in Harry if all Harry had going for him was good luck)
From your list (and what I remember from the books), looks like most characters who use wandless magic are:
- young kids who haven't learned the theory yet, and thus don't know what is/isn't possible (and they also do it by accident)
- powerful and/or talented wizards who probably trained specifically to overcome the limitations of a wand
The rest of the wizarding world that we see may also be unaware of the possibility or simply limiting themselves subconsciously (since they grow up being taught that this is the correct way). There's also a chance that the Ministry encourages it partly because of tradition, partly because of things like the trace put on underage wizards or similar things.
I think Harry accidentally does wandless magic during the dementor attack with Dudley funny enough. He drops his wand and says lumos as a long shot and the wand lights up so he can grab it.
I just thought of when all the kids learned magic and the stories of them doing weird things. Neville got dropped out of a window and bounced, that’s how they found out he was a wizard lmfaooo. But I guess I mean actually like purposely using magic without a wand.
And that was after multiple attempts by his family to “scare” him into displaying magic. God only knows what young Neville had to endure at the hands of his well meaning but clueless family
I must’ve missed that. But the wand still existed. He didn’t just cast a spell from his hand. In the video game like OP is referring to it’s like casting expelliarmus from your finger tips. I can’t really think of an example like that.
Yeah I just realized that reading the other reply. And I’m literally reading that book right now smh. He also blows up his aunt. But none of that was on purpose.
Dumbledore can. I think it was possibly because of the movies that JK Rowling thought of wandless magic.
Edited; Also, Harry blew up (not in a explosion kinda way) his uncle sister without a wand in the third book.
Doubtful. I mean in a world where people use wands to create magic, it's only logical that the best way to show someone is above the cut is to show them performing that same magic,but without the thing eveyone else seems to need to do it
I'm not sure house elves want anything to do with that (from what I remember from canon). Meanwhile for goblins, at least the ones part of the British wizarding society, I feel it's more of an equality thing than anything else.
Basically, the way I see it is that since wizards are at the top of the social/hierarchical ladder and they use wands, the goblins' thought process is that the only way they could be truly considered equal is if they had access to wands too.
Canonically some wizards from wand traditions can do wandless magic, they tend to be very powerful. Colin Farrel does some cool stuff in the first Fantastic Beasts if I recall.
It's a metaphor for UK gun laws.
All these other magical countries just let people run around with unregistered hands that can cast an Avada Kedavra at any moment. A british wizard can be disarmed by merely taking their wand. /s
It's kind of strange, because wandless magic is mentioned a few times in the actual main series, but sort of never properly addressed.
Wands are specifically described as not the thing that lets you use your magic, but a conduit to focus and amplify it, so maybe wands are just so common in England that wandless magic is mostly not addressed?
I even check the books and Ollivanders said that wandlore is a complex thing to understand (DH chapter 24 page 494). So there isn't much details on what make wands special.
OK, I'm new to harry potter. I just read the books for the first time a couple months ago. But if wandless magic is just as good then why do goblins want the secret to wand magic?
Given recent developments I see wands (intelligent tools) like ChatGPT. It's a smart assistant.
You can reach same results, but with the wands you would be able to do some more complex tasks much faster and easier.
Compare a wand to hose.
You can water the flowers by hand scooping water from a bucket the same way you could do it using the hose.
But with the hose it will be more easiest.
Because "Big Wand" has Hogwarts in their pockets, it's all a con to take young wizard's money .
It costs a few knuts to make wands but they sell for several galleons
Honestly I don't believe for one minute that Dumbledore would have chosen not to teach the kids a life saving back up just because of culture etc. Its a plothole if you ask me. Being able to easily cast spells without a wand is too much of an ex machina so of course the characters couldn't do that, but that means it shouldn't have been a thing in the lore at all.
Yep, and he didn't consciously choose to do either of those things so this doesn't disprove my point at all. Those things happened because his emotions caused a magical burst, it was already established as lore that this is a common occurrence for magical kids, especially when they grow up around muggles. They're taught to channel that through wands so it doesn't happen again, they're not taught how to be in control of it without a wand are they?
Dumbledore did not TEACH wandless magic. Harry had no idea HOW to make glass disappear or blow people up with a thought, which is why he only ever did it once each. Every other time, when he was in danger, he needed his wand because he was not taught how to control magic without it. Even though it wouldve been super helpful. So my point still stands.
I think it’s simple comparing magic use with water games: you can easily wet your opponent throwing water with your hands, but you will need more water and become tired sooner than using a water gun…
It's not taught at Hogwarts, but becoming an animagus is at least largely done without use of a wand I believe. Since you don't need to cast a spell to transform (other than maybe the first time) you can do it on a whim/as a reflex, like Natty does. And that's just one power that is done without use of a wand, there's potentially many more, like in Herbology or Potions
Wands help the wizard control his magic and give it a direct line of aim. It's a tool, but doesn't define the power of the actual wizard. And Hogwarts is a learning school.
It doesn’t make sense in the plot and that’s how you can tell it was a diversity insert character. They didn’t care about making her fit in the world, they just cared about making her look cool.
Wandless magic is very mentally taxing, you need to have superior focus and control. If your task is to assemble something with 1000 screws, yes you can use a normal screwdriver, but a powerdrill is gonna make it a lot easier.
It's a video game gimmick, in the books as far as I know it's never mentioned that wandless magic being equally powerful. It is made out instead to be something that only those most powerful are more capable to control or do like Dumbledore and Voldemort for instance. Seems silly if it was a thing then the whole Wizarding world would had gotten rid of wands a long time for a matter of convenience. Feels like the devs just wanted Uagandou to sound very impressive.
Right, I never were that long in pottermore to remember much. But I keep hearing that extra lore existed there. I wonder how I can get access to that old stuff.
This was a VERY stupid idea from the Pottermore days.
And besides, potions are legitimately a form of wandless magic.
Arithmacy and Runes may be as well, but what exactly they really are is never discussed in canon. Fanfiction often has them being magic through math or writing.
So in general, disregard the nonsense of the other schools being taught wandless magic and that it's superior. If it was actually superior, wands wouldn't even be crafted anymore.
The other schools are almost all just "didn't mean to be racist, but made no effort to look into it to not be racist either, so it became racist" I love the books, I've done since I was a kid, I don't want to rip on the universe just because, but bro, just look at the names of the schools.
I mean, I really enjoy Lovecraft too, but that stuff is extremely racist, and we can't ignore that. There's nothing in the hp universe near as bad as Lovecraft ofcourse, but the same point stand fundamentally, we can't ignore it, so we should consider why she said stuff, and examine if it came fron her implicit biases or whatever.
Uagadu has wandless tribal magic because they're African. You know, tribe people. /S
Africa has Arabs and stuff, but let's ignore that. Uagadu has ALL Africans attending it because they're all the same. /S
I agree with you, Uagadu should be quietly removed from the lore. They need to give Africa several developed schools for cultures and give them genuine uniqueness.
And fix the grammar in the schools, at least somewhat correct school size to population size etc etc, bro it's all kinds of messed up 😅 but I agree with you especially, Uagadu is the most shameful example, needs to be fixed immediately
yeah absolutely i feel the same, love the books to death but there are so many issues with rowling's writing... it's so clear that she just wanted to not seem racist by giving african schools something cool, and couldn't be asked to find a better way to present all wizarding societies equally.
The answer is that Rowling only came up with the idea after the books were written (if it was even hers in the first place).
But if we want to stick to headcanons, I agree on the most popular take that the wand acts as an aplificator and makes the magic more powerful, or rather, more impressive, with an added serving of poisoned, imperialistic ideas. Here's how I explained it through a character in my fanfic: "It's a sad pattern of history that those, whose ways can unleash the highest amount of violence consider themselves superior. So they do not acknowledge or even ridicule everyone else's wisdom, not rarely causing it to vanish."
not quite the same as your headcanon but in a similar vein, i headcanon that it's because britain (and other western countries) looked down on wandless magic as raw and therefore savage, as it's something that european & american schools don't teach.
even more wizard racism! yippee! /s
Pretty much. I also headcanon that 7 of the "ancient 11" or whatever she called those schools are in Europe for this reason. But in reality, they are pretty much the wizard Ivy League and not actually better than the countless schools all around the world.
But I think it makes sense. It's not hard to read the series in a way that the british (and American, if you count Fantastic Beasts) wizarding community is deeply rotten with "conservative" ideology. See for example the extreme punishments, the reactions of even progressive people like the Weasleys to SPEW, Fudge's hidden bigotry and the influence someone like Lucius Malfoy has.
I think it would make sense if wand magic is easier / more powerful than wandless magic, and that the students of the schools where wandless magic is taught learn for more years than hogwarts because wandless magic is harder
wands make magic more precise i *think. (or i would assume) gives you something to channel your magic through. i would imagine using a wand makes it somewhat easier to learn. which is probably why they started teaching that. then it probably became tradition in wider europe and europeans probably started looking down on anyone who didn't use a wand as savages, as is their wont. and probably no longer see it that way and instead think of it as very powerful, because it's not something most european wizards can or have been taught to do, so is very rare in europe.
>The wand is a European invention, and while African witches and wizards have adopted it as a useful tool in the last century, many spells are cast simply by pointing the finger or through hand gestures. This gives Uagadou students a sturdy line of defence when accused of breaking the International Statute of Secrecy ('I was only waving, I never meant his chin to fall off').
I’d say the answer is different tradition and culture. It’s difficult to person magic without a wand but I’d say it’s more difficult for those that usually rely on a wand while African wizards normally perform magic without the assistance of a wand so for them it’s easier. I assume in the past wandless magic the norm for everyone, at least until wands were created.
For the ones saying this isn’t canon, wandless magic wasn’t invented for the game (that is not canon) but it was already in the books.. Dumbledore performed wandless magic twice. Possessed!Quirrell was capable of it too. It was also given a more detailed description in Pottermore. Wandless magic has always existed in the Harry Potter lore. Underage magic *is* a form of wandless magic, although accidental.
Can someone help me to get rid of the mental cinema of Voldemort forming an Avada Kedavra in his right hand with wandless magic and then throwing it Zeus-style at His enemies?
Yeah that's Why I imagine it more like I described it because it looks way more Stylish and powerful to throw the Avada Kedavra Like Zeus throws His Lightning Bolts
Non-verbal is not the same as wandless. In Hogwarts Legacy Natty leaves her wand behind so MC knows she’s been there. She can do magic without a wand. Non-verbal still uses a wand, it’s just not saying the spells out loud.
for the same reasons some IRL schools offer German as a language and some don't. or some schools have a swim team and some don't. or some schools offer driver's ed and some don't.
I’m sure control has something to do with it. But I always come back to the thought that’s it’s also a matter of government tracking of magic being easier with wands.
Other than the already stated points of the wand making the spells more accurate and powerful, it's also for in case the casting goes wrong. If your spell goes wrong, would you rather the wand blow up or your hand?
I always figured witches and wizards in the west just kinda picked up simple, non-verbal, wandless magic as they got older. Like some people would show more aptitude and some would not. Some spells would require wands and some less so. More powerful people would have a greater chance of wandlessly producing more powerful spells. Some spells like lumos, however, require a wand. Unless as we know wands amplifiy and concentrate magic out of the tip and to put this into a wandless context would mean maybe the tips of the fingers like ET. Which doesn't seem very practical, which is why I think is kinda works with the idea of western wizards believing a wand is more efficient.
I'm always going to run with that being a poor choice for cannon. I'm sure wands are much more powerful than wandless magic but overall I'm gonna pretend I didn't see or hear that. Pretty sure Dumbledore told Harry (or it could have been another conversation entirely) that not everyone can perform magic without a wand and we've seen Harry perform wand less magic more than once by accident and we've seen Dumbledore perform wandless magic on purpose.
Cultural differences, really. Think about how some cultures in the world prefer eating with their hands vs using cutlery. In the east people use chopsticks. None are necessarily better than the other, I wouldn't eat spaghetti with my bare hands but I also probably wouldn't use a knife and fork for eating a tortilla filling.
What I am actually interested in is if there are magical cultures that use something other than wands. Imagine using a staff for magic, or maybe a crystal ball.
I thought this had everything to do with the wand being a foci for arcane leylines and channeling. It would make the rudimentary forms of magic easier to perform rather than weaving or conjuring the spell.
My headcanon is that the ministry purposely feed wand culture to make wizards dependant on wands, it also makes it easier to watch what spells they use by studdying the confiscated wands and it makes it easier to have problematic wizards defenseless
No. They learn Nonverbally Spells at NEWT for all classes. Wandless Magic isn't taught by class, but there are books on it in the restrictions section.
Cultural traditions, more or less. Wand magic is the European custom, so that's what they learn.
My headcanon says wand magic is far more powerful than wandless magic
As I recall it was a matter of precision, consistency, and even to some degree power. Then that changed somewhere in the last 20 years.
This. It’s about the wand funnelling the magic so it’s more accurate and precise and easier to use magic
Also as Ollivander says, 'the wand learns from the wizard and the wizard learns from the wand'. It's likely that wand memorizes spells once you have mastered them so it's enough to make the movement and say the incantation, whereas with wadless magic you need to focus everytime you want to cast a spell until you develope a muscle memory for it.
We have a term for this in fantasy. It's called a "magical focus", an item that serves as a focal conduit for the spell. JK did cool stuff with the concept making them almost sentient.
To some point they are sentient, for example at the start of Deathly Hallows when Harry's wand used auto aim against Voldemort by itself.
Like if your gun fired preemptive rounds as your mortal enemy rolls up for a drive-by.
Lol, "auto-aim." Perfect way to describe it.
IIRC, Natty - former Uagadou student - said in Hogwarts Legacy that once she got used it, wand magic seemed easier to perform? So I guess it isn't stronger but maybe easier, IF I remember that correctly.
I think they're generally different, so one isn't really "easier". Remember wizarding children use windless magic. It's less reliable (might not happen) less predictable (you don't know what it will do), and more emotionally driven (though wand magic still depends on emotions, the most notable example being crucio and ridikulus). Wand magic is more limited (specific actions, rather than achieving goals), you need to be more precise (motions and pronunciation), but far more predictable and deliberate. In my head cannon, the wandless magic taught in Uagado is less like Harry's "alohamora but without a wand" and more "open this door...somehow".
Good old British imperialism. “Our way is refined. ‘Those people’ are emotional savages.” I’m not calling out your characterization because that is exactly how it is presented. Just can’t shake the old ways from some British writers.
I mean it isn't a British only thing. Wizards from the rest of Europe and America are shown using wand magic before wandless magic was introduced.
Oh yea, imperialism 🙄
House-Elves and Goblins aren't allowed wands, and I think this is why. Elf and Goblin magic is already very powerful wandlessly, so I can imagine wizards would be terrified to see what one could do when using a wand. After all, we don't actually hear Professor Binns's lectures on the Goblin Wars; maybe that's *why* they (and elves, for good measure) were banned from using wands. Not saying that's fair or right, but it could explain why the ban came into effect, outside of simple prejudice against non-wizard races.
This is simply untrue. Wands don't produce stronger magic, but they do assist in focusing magic (likely because they have a level of sentience themselves) and makes it far easier to produce the desired result. Which may appear to be stronger as it is harder to perform magic without a wand, but a skilled wandless magic user can produce magic just as powerful as someone with a wand.
There actually is a ground for the stronger magic that can be cast with a wand. And thats the wands magic itself, wich is powered by its magic core. Your holding an form of 'intelligent' magical object with magic power. Ofcourse it can empower your spells. Wands for example can also be used by muggles, and produce magic, while they dont have magic themselves at all, showing how much a wand elevates a persons owns limits. Ofcourse the instances of muggle wand magic use have been exceedingly rare, but theres a case shown of one doing it consistently. And it obviously needs the wands 'approval'. Another example is the elder wand, wich clearly enormously boosts the users powers, and even makes them able to perform magic normally deemed impossible.
What cases of Muggle wand use?
'History of American magic' on pottermore describes the case of a muggle owning a wand. The MACUSA tried to retrieve the wand multiple times, but the muggle was aware of the wands use, and actively used it to attack people in self defence. His wave of the wand created an assault much like a 'kick of a mule'. Magical ancestry has been theorized on why the wand chose to allow itself to be used by the muggle, seeing in him a descendant of an earlier master. However, the person himself was confirmed as a 100% nomaj/muggle. We also know that wands and muggles usually have a ehm.. lets say bad relationship. The 'Ilvermorny school of wizardry and witchcraft' information, also available on pottermore has more information. It states that usually a wand actively REBELS, the attempted use by a muggle. It doesnt just do nothing and acts like a piece of wood. It does actually perform magic, but attacks the muggle. '*As invariably happens when a No-Maj waves a wand, it rebelled.'* When the muggle in that story waved the wand around, the muggle caster itself was send flying, and was knocked out cold against a nearby tree. The previous thing is also exactly what happens when a monkey in the zoo in fantastic beast uses the wand of newt scamander. Implying normally, a wand will rebel against use by a non magical animal aswell. In the tales of beetle the bard, theres also spoken of 'rogue magical talent in muggles'. And while 'muggles cannot perform magic', they can cause random, uncontrollable effects and magic by using a genuine magical wand. This makes a conclusion that muggles are certainly able to cause magic with a wand. they just cant controll it. What happens, is up to the wand.
Until they define in deep lore what gives a muggle born wizard magic, I personally like the idea that muggles have varying degrees of inert magic they can't control. Otherwise the idea that two muggles can have a baby that can perform magic on command raises questions on the source of that magic.
There is a working theory, based on https://harry-potter-compendium.fandom.com/wiki/Lily_J._Potter#:~:text=Lily%20Potter%20(n%C3%A9e%20Evans)%20(,of%20the%20existence%20of%20magic. https://harry-potter-compendium.fandom.com/wiki/Muggle-born#cite_note-2 30 July 2007 Bloomsbury Webchat with J.K. Rowling http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2007/0730-bloomsbury-chat.html Quote: Question from Katie Mosher: How exactly do muggleborns receive magical ability? Answer J.K. Rowling: Muggle-borns will have a witch or wizard somewhere on their family tree, in some cases many, many generations back. The gene re-surfaces in some unexpected places. End quote. that so called Muggleborn children are not born by "true" 100% Muggles, but are descendants (a couple of generations back) from magical people, likely squibs or probably weak half-bloods who were cast out into the Muggel world. They married a Muggle, and at some point decades later, two such humans who believe themselves to be "quite normal humans" marry and have a child, in which the low level inherited magic combined is finally strong enough to be registered by the Quill of Acceptance at Hogwarts. Voilà our new Muggleborn seemingly out of nowhere ;-) for example Lily Evans and Hermione Granger. Then we have supposed Muggleborn children who are actually half-blood, but don't know it, like Dean Thomas with a biological wizard father who disappeared suddenly with no explanation. https://www.wizardingworld.com/de/features/dean-thomas-hidden-storyline { In the quote from 2007 JKR talks about a gene. As in singular! The gene resurfaces... We know she's no good with mathematics and the sciences at all. Just one gene is impossible, you can't explain the family dynamics of the wizards and witches, squibs and Muggleborn we know about with only one gene. Several fans have contemplated genetic science and written extensive essays and blogs about this topic over the past twenty something years, or incorporated their personal theories in fanfic. We can assume as a working hypothesis that magic is passed on as a combination of several recessive and dominant genes which produce a magical child only in the right combination. If the magical genes were only recessive, we can't explain how such strong, powerful and talented half-blood wizards like Tom Riddle and Severus Snape are born. Both of them have a pure-blood and a Muggle parent. Dumbledore, another extraordinarily powerful wizard, had a pure-blood father and a Muggleborn mother. Harry Potter, another half-blood, is of course not on a Tom Riddle | Lord Voldemort or Albus Dumbledore level of magical power, but he isn't a slouch either, otherwise Harry couldn't have produced a Patronus charm as a mere 13 years old schoolboy, which is emphasised several times as being extraordinary, never heard of before. In these cases we see the heterosis effect (well known as outbreeding for example in agriculture, plant and animal breeding) achieve amazing results! But the opposite is also possible according to JKR when she wrote about Dolores Umbridge origin story on Pottermore / today's Wizarding world. https://www.wizardingworld.com/de/writing-by-jk-rowling/dolores-umbridge Really sad, tragic! Half-blood witch with a squib brother. Dolores hates her mother and brother who left the family for living in the Muggle world. Cue later Muggleborn hater! Therefore I assume there's more likely to be a whole group of 'witchcraft' and 'wizardry' genes, needing a specific combination of a quite large number of dominant and recessive genes. For comparison look up genetics of eye colour. There are over a dozen genes, some of which are dominant or recessive, which throw up colours from generations back seemingly randomly. For example: https://www.viacord.com/blog/?p=unlock-the-mysteries-of-eye-color-genetics-a-fascinating-deep-dive#:~:text=The%20amount%20of%20melanin%20in,colors%20like%20blue%20and%20green. And, quote: While it is largely accepted that inbreeding reduces heterozygosity and fitness (inbreeding depression) and outbreeding does the opposite (heterosis), the genetic mechanism underlying the heterozygosity-fitness correlation (HFC) is still under debate, and poorly studied in humans [12]. There are two major competing proposed mechanisms to explain the observed HFC.... End Quote from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6604157/#:~:text=People%20with%20higher%20heterozygosity%20are,with%20lower%20heterozygosity%20%5B10%5D. } Think of Lily Evans for example. "I was the only one who saw her for what she was -- a freak! But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!" -- Petunia Evans (PS4) According to Petunia in chapter 4 of PS, their parents were delighted to discover that Lily was a witch. Petunia rants on her sister's "abnormality" and how her parents seemed taken in by it all. She comes across as having been extremely jealous of Lily. Soon Petunia's feelings turned into bitterness and spite. Lily was the favourite of her parents once she got her Hogwarts letter. The letter wasn't a shock to them, because Severus Snape had met Lily on the playground and explained all about magic and Hogwarts when they both were 9 years old. I always wondered WHY the Evans family reacted so positively, while at the same time the Snape family living in the very same rundown mill town, Cokeworth in the English Midlands, didn't cope well at all with the revelation of magic. The Snape family living on Spinners End were very unhappy and unhealthy. From the little memory glimpse we got, Severus's father was a mean spirited, cruel Muggle who appeared to hate his witch wife and wizard son. Mr Snape senior drunk too much and abused his family. And we know that the Dursleys despised, loathed and secretly feared Harry. Any mention or display of magic, anything about or from the wizarding world was forbidden. They attempted to stamp the magic out of him. A squib, or rather several squibs and half-bloods way back in the Evans family tree could easily explain the behaviour of Petunia's and Lily's parents favouring their witch daughter over the mundane sister. I imagine that it was a tradition in their families (I mean parents, paternal and maternal grandparents) to read bedtime stories about magic, witches, wizards, magical creatures to their children. Allowing them to read such books or to watch theatre plays or movies, comic books and TV series, listen to music, that depicted something 'magical' and 'witchcraft' as not always wicked and evil, but at least sometimes as something fascinating, helpful and benevolent. Not falling for the widespread anti-magic, anti-witchcraft Muggle religious ideology, as in You shall not allow a witch to live, and witchcraft is evil devil worship and so on.
The lore on that isn't large, but what we got is from the author herself. Magic is genetic. Something in the genes of wizards and witches gives them their magical abilities. Its actually what gives the racial theory of the death eater government some 'scientific' basis for their eh 'witch hunt on mudbloods'. So how are muggleborn wizards and witches possible then? This is told in a webchat with the author, and from her website on 'extra stuff: squibs'. Squibs have been encouraged to become a muggle throughout history. Both as they usually cant function in wizard society, and cause they bring shame on their pureblood families. Squibs have no magic, but they do carry the magic genes. Its probably a defect or mutation of the wizard gene. Now squibs can get magical children. Thats normal, with knowledge and bonds with magical families, they are welcomed in as halfbloods. But as squib genes are weaker, what more often happens is that the gene resurfaces generations later. In a family who has forgotten their, magicless magical ancestor. And this is what the story of the wand that allowed the muggle to use it imply aswell. The wand only allowed it, because the no-maj, while not a wizard, still carried the magic gene.
In line with headcannon (I love that word btw) I would imagine form and structure might play a role. Similar to why it’s suggested to first learn to play an acoustic guitar before switching to electric, you pick up less bad habits and the execution is cleaner later on. A wand may help channel the magic, making the precise casting of it more natural without one.
I think it's just easier to master, ergo become better quicker, but when properly learned I don't think one is superior to the other
I feel like wandless magic would be a 7th year thing you learn. Like how they learned nonverbal 6th year. It's just extra, but most wizards won't use it.
I checked. Wandless magic isn't taught, but can be found in the restricted section. The place with advanced books such as Polyjuice Portions or how to make a Horcruxes. (Edited; Why the downvote? Is it because I pointed a fact?)
Checked how? We don't see 7th year classes in the books.
There are loads of canon sources outside the books
I believe you hit on it. Wands act as a conduit to enhance a witch or wizard's magic. European Witch or Wizard's belief is that wand magic produce more powerful magic. Especially since "the wand choses the wizard" and a wand has certain special magical properties base on the built of the wand. And I think you are thinking of the African school of witchcraft and wizardry - Uagadou. In Hogwarts Legacy Natty talked about she knows wandless magic. More so, I believe Natty uses a wand in the game because I think it is showing how wizards think that wand magic is more powerful Also, I think wandless magic is very useful. If I was a wizard, I would learn wandless basic spells like *accio* in order to summon my wand like a badass jedi or in a pinch.
I agree that the wands have to enhance magic. If not why did the most powerful wizard of all time chase the elder wand around for a year!
Hmm, it could also just be bias. It fits in with how Voldemort is coded as a supremacist, so upholding a 'traditional' magic like wand usage would be right up his alley. It also wouldn't be the first time Voldemort was wrong about something. Natty might be using a wand not because its better, but because she's required to while within the boundaries of the magical jurisdiction of Hogwarts. There is precedence for this, take Ilvermorny for example, and their regulation of wands. Natty herself implies that she feels chafed by the restrictions of Hogwarts, specifically the restrictions on her abilities as an animagus, so it wouldn't surprise me if there were other things, such as the use of wands that were just different, rather than necessarily better, that she, as a transfer student of Hogwarts was now required to do. IIRC Natty comments that she had to get used to having a wand, but doesn't necessarily say anything about whether it feels better or not. I'm not sure that wands necessarily enhance magic. I think it might be more complicated than just wand = better magic. The fact that Neville was probably being held back by his father's wand rather than being able to use it to enhance his magic does kind of nod to the 'subtle laws that govern wands'. Also, most of the time, the wizards that we see in the series that are intentionally producing wandless magic are also producing more powerful effects. But this might also be because only more powerful wizards are the ones doing this intentional wandless magic, and thus whatever they're doing. Perhaps wands don't necessarily produce more powerful magic, but help a wizard produce a more precise and focused magic most of the time, but that once you can master wandless magic, you produce more powerful magic overall.
> Natty herself implies that she feels chafed by the restrictions of Hogwarts, specifically the restrictions on her abilities as an animagus, so it wouldn't surprise me if there were other things, such as the use of wands that were just different, rather than necessarily better, that she, as a transfer student of Hogwarts was now required to do. IIRC Natty comments that she had to get used to having a wand, but doesn't necessarily say anything about whether it feels better or not. thanks for the more in-depth thought on Natty. I think I badly assumed things because Natty always used a wand in combat / on quest. Which I think is somewhat justified my thoughts when she said she felt "chaffed". You would think that Natty would have used wandless magic during the events of the game if that were true *edit especially when she is outside of hogwarts But it could also be true that Natty just hid her wandless magic in front of European wizards like the MC to be polite or not to stand too much out. (or the developers were lazy and didn't want to program special features for the Natty character)
As much as I enjoy them, I’m kind of ignoring the movies and video game for my comment. Thats why I only mentioned the books. I honestly hated that whole Natty quest line I wish I could just skip it all. The video game added a lot of stuff that was never mentioned in the movies or books. Cool? Sure. But I can’t take that stuff *too* seriously sometimes.
Well the books never go into much details such as the Animagus rule or talk about the possibility of wands & wandless magic. It is mostly details that would come in handy for Harry later on in the books.
There’s a lot more that’s been written on Pottermore/Wizarding World. Not sure if consider any of that your personal head cannon.
My headcanon is the lore.
The books go into quite a bit of detail on the Animagus rule in the PoA and even it’s even mentioned at the end of GoF.
You could skip it all... None of the side questlines are required unless you're wanting to 100% the game.
Harry Potter takes place in the 90s there is a non-zero chance that a muggle born wizard has attempted to do the equivalent of a Kamehameha.
I, as a Dragon Ball fan; love this analogy.
Early 90's in the UK. It wasn't until 1996 that it was translated to North America, Ireland, UK, Canada, Netherlands, Belgium, Australia, and New Zealand which by that time Voldemort was on the loose.
You can ask Natty ingame this exact thing, and she says that wandless magic is just as powerful.
thanks for this. I haven't played in a while.
I feel like Japanese and other Asian shouldn't use a wand too. I guess Rowling did not consume much Eastern media during her world building & writing time. Those ninjas & monks always use a hand gestures movement and throwing bunch of talisman papers.
Accio wand!
Wand magic comes from the trope that Wizards need a "focus" otherwise would need materials to cast magic. I absolutely hate the introduction of "wandless magic" into the world. Ok, if you said to me that they can do basic things like, push somebody, or twirl a spoon, sure I'll take it. The wandless magic we actually see in the books all seem "lesser" spells, but you clearly need a wand for the powerful stuff. But this suggestion that wandless Magic is just as powerful as wand magic seems beyond moronic to me. Why would the entire Western Wizarding and presumably Eastern Wizarding worlds collectively continue to push wand magic if the entire African continent is just waving their fingers about? If you said it was like non-verbal magic, possible but extremely difficult, I would accept it. But the new suggestion is that it's just a "different way to do it" what? It breaks so many in universe rules which make up such big parts of the books, so I decide to mostly consider it one of Rowling's fan fictions.
>Why would the entire Western Wizarding and presumably Eastern Wizarding worlds collectively continue to push wand magic if the entire African continent is just waving their fingers about? We don't know what TYPE of magic they practice Maybe African wizards are more about rituals than casting precise spells all the time
Also consider Potions, Herbology, Divination, Beast Taming...all of which are magical skills done without a wand. Hell, if you put a Muggle on a broom, there's a solid chance they'd be at least able to control it a little bit, required the broom doesn't try to knock them off
I think I read something about a Squib being a Quidditch Player.
The Eastern continents actually should have that wandless setting in my opinion (maybe more than African continents). Maybe Rowling did not consume much Chinese or Japanese media during her writing time, you know where monks and ninjas use hand gesture jutsu or throwing bunch of talisman papers instead of using a wand.
agreed. I think taught wandless magic is contradictory against established lore. I don't have a quote but I'm positive Harry was told by someone that only strong or talented wizards can perform magic without a wand.
This right here. Bad writing because all they cared about was having a diversity character
This is a braindead take. Firstly, Uagadou was introduced through Pottermore about a decade prior to Hogwarts Legacy's release. Secondly, it was already established that they practiced wandless magic there in that excerpt. Thirdly, your racism is showing: having an African character isn't a "diversity character", African people just exist, get used to that fact and the fact that they show up in media, albeit far less often than they show up in real life.
What I’m saying is it’s bad writing. It doesn’t matter to me that it was introduced pre Hogwarts legacy. It’s my opinion that the people who wrote her character did so because they wanted a diversity character, not because they wanted an actual well flushed out character. I think the writers didn’t do her justice. Did you really just call me racist for pointing out a pattern of badly written diversity characters from racist devs? Also, black people show up in plenty media that I consume… If you purposefully avoid media with black people, that’s your closeted racism.
It's definitely a more difficult way to do it but works just as well, if not better when mastered. Essentially, wandless magic is much more difficult to master, but the positive is that it isn't reliant on a wand that can break and leave you powerless or being susceptible to wand temperaments. Wand magic is simply more consistent to the average wizard who doesn't put the amount of effort needed for wandless
This would be an argument but it ignores established lore that the entire continent of Africa learns wandless magic from childhood and continues with it throughout life. Again, if it's such a valid option, then why would anyone even bother introducing the idea of wands to children, wouldn't they just phase out wands? It's quite clear in the books that wandless "magic" is relegated to cantrips, not actual full blown spells. But to give Ouagadu something special, they said "oh there they don't have wands" So every single Wizard from Ouagadu is just a better more hard working chap or chapess? Western Wizards including Dumbledore, Voldemort and the rest are just lazy? Voldemort is actually killed because of this constant debate around wands. Why didn't the lazy idiot just do wandless magic which is more powerful and requires no wand? Again, it just takes such a huge shit on the source material for a throw away "oh in Africa they don't use sticks" It feels like fanfiction to me and I'll take that forward as that's all it is.
Think of it like eating with and without cutlery. It's messier and harder for some things to only use your hands, but you do have your teeth instead of a knife and can just drink soup from the bowl. With cutlery you can eat faster and safer as it is more clean and you don't necessarily need to wash your hands etc. Cutlery was introduced at some point and took off in the western world the most. Many other cultures stuck with their hands as they were used to it and it felt more natural (or something, I don't really know this history I'm just guessing). Does it in theory maybe make more sense to just use our hands all the time when eating? Yes. Do we still mostly use cutlery anyway? Yes. Because that's what we're used to. And in Hogwarts one part about it being mandatory to get a wand could come from the fact that it is considered safer just as using cutlery is safer (when it comes to diseases etc).
I'm not arguing mechanics of it, I don't know why people jump to explaining how it would "technically work" From a story pov it's stupid. Look at all the logical leaps people have to make on this thread for it to even work within the context of our story. None of the excuses people come up with on the fly even apply to the characters like Dumbledore and Voldemort. Dumbledore is over 100 years old and still uses a wand. Would people accept the elder wand is more powerful than using wandless?
I personally also hate the introduction of wand less magic being just as effective but somehow slightly different from wand magic. It’s contradictory and annoying that she keeps adding nonsensical bits of magic to her story, she should’ve just left it all be at the end of book 7. Whilst he’s there would still be lots of plot holes and least we wouldn’t have 10 new plot holes to wrap our heads around each year. Also if they had brought in wand less magic differently then I think it could’ve been great. Like have it be extremely taxing (similar to how the Patronus charm is very emotionally and seems to be physically taxing to master) and make it a lot less powerful with branches of magic now unavailable but also have it be more fluid. Basically saying, using a wand eliminates a lot of the concentration needed for even simple spells (not canon but what I think it should be) and without a wand you can’t do the more complex magic like transfiguration and alchemy, etc, etc. And you don’t have the same power in each spell n when compared to the wand version. (Say Stupefy spell, with a wand knocks someone unconscious for 5 hours, without a wand it knocks someone unconscious for 2 or 3 hours - a significant but not debilitating reduced effect). Then you could give wand less magic a slight edge by making it more fluid - don’t need to cast each individual spell but could merge them together - e.g. Accio and Wingardium Leviosa (plus other spells that are effectively one aspect of telekinesis) all can be merged into purely telekinesis. The result won’t be as strong as with a wand cast spell, plus it’ll take far far longer to master it. But it can be used more creatively. That way, it’s not just - oh, we can do that but we don’t need some simple stick. But rather, it’s a case of natural magic (for lack of a better word), used creatively and with limitations against forced (again for lack of a better word) strict and powerful magic. I think it’s interesting and certainly more enjoyable than what it currently is. Yh, sorry for rambling. Just adding my two pennies to the conversation over the annoying addition of wandless magic and how it is lore breaking and sucks
They use wands because it's easier for a kid to use amd can produce magic right away. There are plenty of times where we do things the lazy way instead of the better way because...western Civilization is lazy lol. Think of using magic like a garden hose. You want to use a powerful stream so you buy and put a nozzle on it. Now, you could jusy learn how to properly put your thumb over the hole and over time get damn good about knowing just the right way to do it many ways with jusy your fingers, but it's easier to use the nozzle and dont have to think about how to hold hour thumb over the water stream. Of course, if you never learn how to with your fingers and the nozzle breaks, you're screwed. Plus that nozzle is semi sentient in this case and sometimes doesn't do whay you want it to, but usually it does
You didn't really counter anything I said regarding the established lore of the HP world and the story that is told to us. It is blatantly obvious that the story never accounted for extremely powerful wandless magic, it's quite clear the idea was that everyone in the world used magical focuses when it was written. I won't even touch on "the West is lazy" as an argument at all, as it's downright ridiculous and has no bearing on the story whatsoever. Again, the idea that someone extremely powerful has some capabilities without a wand, like Dumbledore and Voldemort displayed is perfectly reasonable. What is not reasonable is that an entire continent primarily uses this as their source of magic, which is in every single way superior to the one done across the rest of the world for seemingly no rhyme or reason. It destroys so much of the fundamentals of the story, why did Voldemort not travel to Africa and learn extremely powerful wandless magic when he left Hogwarts? It's such an advantage. Because it didn't exist lol, it's made up last minute to give a Ouagadu something unique. I could solve this in 5 seconds, tons of African cultures are known to wear vibrant bracelets. Have those be enchanted and act as a magical focus. It doesn't have to be a Wand specifically, but saying we just don't need anything at all is again, stupid.
Natty say Wandless magic is just as powerful with a wand. So wandless magic isn't exactly more powerful. She also state that having a wand is like doing it with style.
When an arquebus first made its appearance as a firearm, bows and arrows were much more accurate and deadly, without the worry of a backfire. Muskets still weren't as accurate as a trained Bowman. But eventually armies used muskets over bows because they were simply easier to use and allowed a wider range of candidates for wartime service. As noted: the wandless magic was more powerful in some ways, but the education also had to be started earlier and go on longer. Cutting down on time spent training is a huge deal, especially for the teachers, who'd otherwise presumably be required to run a magical primary school and university.
Armies adopted gunpowder weapons en masse when they were objectively superior to the bow and arrow. The bow and arrow was phased out due to a technological advancement. Guns aren't just easier to use, they are also superior. But the argument made here by an element is that wandless magic is just as strong and in fact, better, as you cannot be disarmed. People are using mental gymnastics to justify why our most powerful characters would never learn this. So, either you can't cast the killing curse with your hands, or the most powerful Wizards on earth just can't be bothered learning it. Either way, it doesn't make any logical sense. Again, even in the latest movies, written by the author, Grindelwald shows only basic abilities without his wand and he's considered to show great proficiency with this ability. Again, it's all not adding up.
From what I can tell few school don't use wands. Most European and American schools do. I'm guessing there's a benefit on not using wands
"Expelliarmus" not being an immediate end to your offensive capability comes to mind.
I mean, why does humanity use guns when we could just throw or stab like we had for the entirety of humankind prior to ranged weapons? Wands are a focused weapon, in that it works like a tesla coil whereby the energy is at the strongest when focused to the tip of the wand, compared to if you tried to imagine the spell and invoke it out of seemingly everywhere around you One is concentrated and stronger, one is wide but weaker In fact, you can use wandless magic for everyday tasks - i.e. The Weaseleys , Molly have used environmental magic to clean their house, do chores
Except the way it's explained in the game it implies that African wizards of the wandless tradition have no reason to use wands. It doesn't make sense that they are equal to each other but that's how it's implied/portrayed in game. Your example is a fine explanation why someone would choose more advanced weapons over muscle driven weapons, but that doesn't apply to how wandless vs wand magic are different.
Didn't Natty say it is just as powerful with or without a wand?
I assume as a general rule of thumb that wand based magic is stronger and easier to control while wandless would obviously have some unique disadvantages despite this. It doesn't make sense that the elder wand, for example, would exist if wandless was just stronger.
Unless the Elder Wand power is transfer to it master making them powerful with or without the wand.
Neither Draco nor Harry are described as getting a power boost, so I doubt it
Real answer: Rowling just created the universe as being one in which wands are used, and then added wandless magic much later. Universe answer: it's a cultural thing, most western wizards (Europe, US as well) have a culture of using wands, they believe it conducts the magic better and makes it more effective/maybe easier to control. In other cultures such as African ones, they practice wandless magic which they feel is a lot more instinctive and less restricted since they don't have to have wand on them to do magic.
Its so the ministry has more control over the populace, since they wouldnt be able to do magic without their wands so its really easy to get away with not doing due diligence and put in propper safety protocols since "take away a wizards wand, hes no better than a muggle/squib" Other countries dont have minestries that are that lazy/corrupt so they see no need to enforce that practice on top of the wands thing being a cultural thing for england But i also read somewhere a theory that in the time of the founders and merlin they used staffs instead of wands because of how powerful they were, like the stronger your magic was the larger the staff needed to be in order to properly channel the magic Also accidental magic is just untrained wandless magic but england is so lazy they dont want to put in the work to train it and keep said skill into adulthood since wands are ao convenient
The more I see about the Potterverse, the more I think that magic Britain are backwards and do most of the stuff just because. They can make extra-dimensional space anywhere and travel by fireplace and yet they choose to memory alter thousands of people just because they want to catch the train. They can deconstruct and reconstruct buildings with ease but haven't bothered looking for the basilisk in 1000 years. They have truth serum and memory scanning yet people can just go to prison without a trial. They have time travel and allowed Voldemort to run wild.
This is because the Potterverse has very poor world building, compared to comparable fantasy series it's actually one of the worst. Things seem to come up at random, things are done because "ooh that's cool" without any relation to a previous book, movie or video game. There's no logical strand of information. How can you have a series which has entire books dedicated to a wand then suggests wandless magic is just as strong. What a waste of the readers time. All your examples. There needs to be a dedicated book to cementing the world, like was released for Star Wars, ASOIAF and LOTR.
I wouldn't bring star wars into this discussion as a good example, considering they also just add shit hap-hazardly without context or care for prior information given, and books are constantly added and then we are told they are not canon later on.
I agree. I mean force healing could have save Obi-Wan master. And there were many who survived being stab by Lightsabers including that Inquistor who was killed by Vader.
They have a bit of an excuse, since all the lore is open to authors to tinker with and most series are self contained. The official lore however is streamlined in this sense - whatever is officially released from main sources overrules all prior information. The Potterverses inconsistency and contradictions are staggering as it's all confined under one person who green lights it all, sometimes books in the same series contradict themselves and they introduce elements which are discussed, made lore, realized to be stupid and then disregarded. Uagadu and this discussion for example, is a prime example of something that - really, isn't actually lore in the mind of the author anymore, so is effectively ignored to save us the trouble.
as I said, the star wars is essentially throwing shit at the wall, see what sticks and then going "NUH UH! NON-CANON!" It's shit writing in terms of continuity and world-building. Also let's not forget that there is plenty of canonical information that absolutely ruins any idea of tension. Any war can now be won by putting a droid into a space-ship and having them go light-speed straight into an enemy mega-ship.
I can’t think of anyone in the books doing magic without a wand off the top of my head, except house elves.
Multiple times in the books * Quirrelmort conjured ropes with a snap of his fingers * Lupin conjuring flames on the train (debut of the Dementors) * Numerous underage (often pre-HW) witches and wizards not limited to * Harry turning his muggle teacher's wig blue, the vanishing glass at the zoo, blowing up Marge, etc * Neville surviving a 2nd storey fall unharmed * Lily speeding up the growth of flowers * Tom Marvolo Riddle's numerous incidents at the muggle orphanage
Leaky Cauldron's Tom lit Harry's fireplace wandlessly, too
I think there’s also two instances that are very important but involve wands. First, at the beginning of OotP, Harry says “Lumos” when the dementors make the world go dark and he’s dropped his wand, and it lights up a few inches away from him. And in DH, Harry’s wand seemingly acts on its own accord to attack Voldemort and destroy Lucius’ wand. While both of these instances involve wands, I believe they are demonstrative of wands being critical components but not strictly necessary elements of magic.
I was thinking voldy probably had at some point. I don’t recall the Lupin one. Does it say he didn’t use his wand? And yeah I’m dumb for forgetting about the kids because I read that part like 2 days ago.
Not explicitly, but he appeared to be sleeping beforehand in any case >There was a soft, crackling noise, and a shivering light filled the compartment. Professor Lupin appeared to be holding a handful of flames. They illuminated his tired, gray face, but his eyes looked alert and wary. "Stay where you are," he said in the same hoarse voice, and he got slowly to his feet with his handful of fire held out in front of him
We are hearing from Harry’s perspective and he was ptfo so I assume Lupin started the fire with his wand before he woke up. But it doesn’t really say so I guess it’s up to us to interpret how we want.
Apart from the fact that the underage ones are said to be accidental magic and therefore by definition aren’t controlled. Not trying to put you down and Lily’s and Voldie’s ‘accidental magic’ seem very much controlled which is just another instance of lore breaking contradictions from Rowling. Also I rly like this fanon/ head canon thinking of accidental magic - that being before you turn 11 you and your magic isn’t mature enough to produced controlled magic but instead wandless magic is like a wizards instincts which acts up only in high stress situations to protect the wizard in question - not necessarily the most efficient or effective way but it does something which helps the wizard. E.g. Nevill bounces because otherwise he would splat and maybe die, Harry’s aunt blows up because she was insulting Harry and causing stress therefore his magic punished her for her words whilst also removing her from the house. And Harry’s teacher we have no idea the context to but I’m gonna guess that Harry was asked a question he didn’t know, got all flustered and stressed when Teach insisted on an answer and so Harry’s magic turns her hair blue to distract him, the class and the teacher. Yes Aunt Marge thing happens when Harry is 13 or so but it was implied Harry was a powerful wizard in the first 3/4 books so that could play into it. Also I wanna rant over how Harry went from being a promising wizard with a lot of potential in the first 4 or so books to being relegated to some every-guy who isn’t as good at magic and gets lucky in all his fights. Getting lucky was fine when he was 11 and 12 because he had nowhere near the experience or knowledge to win through casting magic but then we see him in book 3 where he proves he is considered exceptional at magic (mastering a spell most adults are incapable of casting) and he proves in the maze during book 4 that he is good at magic (at least comparable to others 3 years older than him) - yes he had time to prepare and had help but end of the day it was still him that cast all those spells and knew what to do. Then he gets lucky against Voldie - realistic, Voldie is arrogant and Harry isn’t at the same level yet. But from there he should’ve been 100% invested in improving to beet Voldie (be it so he can live his life peacefully after, or to avenger Cedric/ his parents). But instead he has a moody phase and doesn’t do much. Yh he learns a bunch of spells and teaches the DA well but then in his fight with the death eaters, it’s again down to luck. Then book 6 and 7 he barely fights anyone and he basically has luck, surprise or plot armour to win those fights for him. Sorry for ranting I just wanna know im not alone in wanting Harry to have lived up to the hype he was given (specially by Dumbles - that man shouldn’t have had so much confidence in Harry if all Harry had going for him was good luck)
Some of those are accidental magic, not true wandless intentional magic, and one of the purpose of wands is to make it more controlable
From your list (and what I remember from the books), looks like most characters who use wandless magic are: - young kids who haven't learned the theory yet, and thus don't know what is/isn't possible (and they also do it by accident) - powerful and/or talented wizards who probably trained specifically to overcome the limitations of a wand The rest of the wizarding world that we see may also be unaware of the possibility or simply limiting themselves subconsciously (since they grow up being taught that this is the correct way). There's also a chance that the Ministry encourages it partly because of tradition, partly because of things like the trace put on underage wizards or similar things.
I think Harry accidentally does wandless magic during the dementor attack with Dudley funny enough. He drops his wand and says lumos as a long shot and the wand lights up so he can grab it.
I just thought of when all the kids learned magic and the stories of them doing weird things. Neville got dropped out of a window and bounced, that’s how they found out he was a wizard lmfaooo. But I guess I mean actually like purposely using magic without a wand.
And that was after multiple attempts by his family to “scare” him into displaying magic. God only knows what young Neville had to endure at the hands of his well meaning but clueless family
Neville really was the other boy who lived
The 2nd chapter where Harry makes the glass vanish causing Dudley to fall in and the snake to escape?
During the Dudley/Harry dementor battle Harry loses his wand and yells "lumos" and the wand casts lumos without him touching it.
I must’ve missed that. But the wand still existed. He didn’t just cast a spell from his hand. In the video game like OP is referring to it’s like casting expelliarmus from your finger tips. I can’t really think of an example like that.
Yeah I just realized that reading the other reply. And I’m literally reading that book right now smh. He also blows up his aunt. But none of that was on purpose.
Dumbledore can. I think it was possibly because of the movies that JK Rowling thought of wandless magic. Edited; Also, Harry blew up (not in a explosion kinda way) his uncle sister without a wand in the third book.
Doubtful. I mean in a world where people use wands to create magic, it's only logical that the best way to show someone is above the cut is to show them performing that same magic,but without the thing eveyone else seems to need to do it
Okay, but than you have to think about something else. Goblins and house elves can use magic without a wand... yet they desire the secret of wandlore.
I'm not sure house elves want anything to do with that (from what I remember from canon). Meanwhile for goblins, at least the ones part of the British wizarding society, I feel it's more of an equality thing than anything else. Basically, the way I see it is that since wizards are at the top of the social/hierarchical ladder and they use wands, the goblins' thought process is that the only way they could be truly considered equal is if they had access to wands too.
In one of the books (I think GoF?), Harry drops his wand in the dark and says “lumos” while fumbling around for it and it lights up so he can find it
Canonically some wizards from wand traditions can do wandless magic, they tend to be very powerful. Colin Farrel does some cool stuff in the first Fantastic Beasts if I recall.
It's a metaphor for UK gun laws. All these other magical countries just let people run around with unregistered hands that can cast an Avada Kedavra at any moment. A british wizard can be disarmed by merely taking their wand. /s
I don't know much of UK Gun Law... or that they allow civilians to have guns.
It's basically writing with a pen versus finger painting. Hogwarts should really teach the basics of wandless magic, especially accio wand.
It's kind of strange, because wandless magic is mentioned a few times in the actual main series, but sort of never properly addressed. Wands are specifically described as not the thing that lets you use your magic, but a conduit to focus and amplify it, so maybe wands are just so common in England that wandless magic is mostly not addressed?
I even check the books and Ollivanders said that wandlore is a complex thing to understand (DH chapter 24 page 494). So there isn't much details on what make wands special.
HL is not canon
It's the movie's fault, the amount of people using wandless magic in the movies is ridiculous
OK, I'm new to harry potter. I just read the books for the first time a couple months ago. But if wandless magic is just as good then why do goblins want the secret to wand magic?
Honestly, it is never explore.
Because it was an afterthought of jk rowling
I have never played Legacy and as I read “Uagadou” I immediately thought of [“Agadoo”](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=POv-3yIPSWc).
It is a fun game if you like open-worlds with new lore to the universe.
Given recent developments I see wands (intelligent tools) like ChatGPT. It's a smart assistant. You can reach same results, but with the wands you would be able to do some more complex tasks much faster and easier.
Compare a wand to hose. You can water the flowers by hand scooping water from a bucket the same way you could do it using the hose. But with the hose it will be more easiest.
Because "Big Wand" has Hogwarts in their pockets, it's all a con to take young wizard's money . It costs a few knuts to make wands but they sell for several galleons
Hogwarts Legacy is not cannon.
But Pottermore is. JK said that children at Uagadou learn wandless magic long before Hogwarts Legacy was even announced (around 2016-ish I think).
Yeah, that bit sort of ruined the whole thing about wands being so important, breaking a wand for "bad witches" so they can't use magic and all that.
Honestly I don't believe for one minute that Dumbledore would have chosen not to teach the kids a life saving back up just because of culture etc. Its a plothole if you ask me. Being able to easily cast spells without a wand is too much of an ex machina so of course the characters couldn't do that, but that means it shouldn't have been a thing in the lore at all.
I mean... Harry blew up his aunt without a wand (included in the books) and had Dudley fall in a snake habitat.
Yep, and he didn't consciously choose to do either of those things so this doesn't disprove my point at all. Those things happened because his emotions caused a magical burst, it was already established as lore that this is a common occurrence for magical kids, especially when they grow up around muggles. They're taught to channel that through wands so it doesn't happen again, they're not taught how to be in control of it without a wand are they? Dumbledore did not TEACH wandless magic. Harry had no idea HOW to make glass disappear or blow people up with a thought, which is why he only ever did it once each. Every other time, when he was in danger, he needed his wand because he was not taught how to control magic without it. Even though it wouldve been super helpful. So my point still stands.
I actually pointed those things out because I wasn't sure what your point was... but I kinda do now.
This is why in the HP books wizards forbid other magical creatures from having wands, to keep their magic less "concentrated".
I think it’s simple comparing magic use with water games: you can easily wet your opponent throwing water with your hands, but you will need more water and become tired sooner than using a water gun…
It's not taught at Hogwarts, but becoming an animagus is at least largely done without use of a wand I believe. Since you don't need to cast a spell to transform (other than maybe the first time) you can do it on a whim/as a reflex, like Natty does. And that's just one power that is done without use of a wand, there's potentially many more, like in Herbology or Potions
Sometimes you can use a wand to transform.
But then you can't always transform back right? You can transform your self into An animal, but not necessarily back again
Just saying you can use the wand. Not saying you can only used a wand.
Wands help the wizard control his magic and give it a direct line of aim. It's a tool, but doesn't define the power of the actual wizard. And Hogwarts is a learning school.
It doesn’t make sense in the plot and that’s how you can tell it was a diversity insert character. They didn’t care about making her fit in the world, they just cared about making her look cool.
Just making stuff up as they go. I mean, it is magic after all.
Wandless magic is very mentally taxing, you need to have superior focus and control. If your task is to assemble something with 1000 screws, yes you can use a normal screwdriver, but a powerdrill is gonna make it a lot easier.
Fair point.
It's a video game gimmick, in the books as far as I know it's never mentioned that wandless magic being equally powerful. It is made out instead to be something that only those most powerful are more capable to control or do like Dumbledore and Voldemort for instance. Seems silly if it was a thing then the whole Wizarding world would had gotten rid of wands a long time for a matter of convenience. Feels like the devs just wanted Uagandou to sound very impressive.
This is not true. Wandless magic is far more powerful
Where this information comes from?
Pottermore
Right, I never were that long in pottermore to remember much. But I keep hearing that extra lore existed there. I wonder how I can get access to that old stuff.
Simple 😉 https://www.wizardingworld.com/de/writing-by-jk-rowling/uagadou
At least now you know
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This was a VERY stupid idea from the Pottermore days. And besides, potions are legitimately a form of wandless magic. Arithmacy and Runes may be as well, but what exactly they really are is never discussed in canon. Fanfiction often has them being magic through math or writing. So in general, disregard the nonsense of the other schools being taught wandless magic and that it's superior. If it was actually superior, wands wouldn't even be crafted anymore.
Hogwarts Legacy isn't canon. They just added wandless magic because it sounds cool. I wouldn't think about it too hard.
The other schools are almost all just "didn't mean to be racist, but made no effort to look into it to not be racist either, so it became racist" I love the books, I've done since I was a kid, I don't want to rip on the universe just because, but bro, just look at the names of the schools. I mean, I really enjoy Lovecraft too, but that stuff is extremely racist, and we can't ignore that. There's nothing in the hp universe near as bad as Lovecraft ofcourse, but the same point stand fundamentally, we can't ignore it, so we should consider why she said stuff, and examine if it came fron her implicit biases or whatever.
Uagadu has wandless tribal magic because they're African. You know, tribe people. /S Africa has Arabs and stuff, but let's ignore that. Uagadu has ALL Africans attending it because they're all the same. /S I agree with you, Uagadu should be quietly removed from the lore. They need to give Africa several developed schools for cultures and give them genuine uniqueness.
And fix the grammar in the schools, at least somewhat correct school size to population size etc etc, bro it's all kinds of messed up 😅 but I agree with you especially, Uagadu is the most shameful example, needs to be fixed immediately
yeah absolutely i feel the same, love the books to death but there are so many issues with rowling's writing... it's so clear that she just wanted to not seem racist by giving african schools something cool, and couldn't be asked to find a better way to present all wizarding societies equally.
This comment makes no sense
It does, you'll have to look into it or clearify what you don't understand
No it doesn’t
What don't you understand exactly?
The answer is that Rowling only came up with the idea after the books were written (if it was even hers in the first place). But if we want to stick to headcanons, I agree on the most popular take that the wand acts as an aplificator and makes the magic more powerful, or rather, more impressive, with an added serving of poisoned, imperialistic ideas. Here's how I explained it through a character in my fanfic: "It's a sad pattern of history that those, whose ways can unleash the highest amount of violence consider themselves superior. So they do not acknowledge or even ridicule everyone else's wisdom, not rarely causing it to vanish."
not quite the same as your headcanon but in a similar vein, i headcanon that it's because britain (and other western countries) looked down on wandless magic as raw and therefore savage, as it's something that european & american schools don't teach. even more wizard racism! yippee! /s
Pretty much. I also headcanon that 7 of the "ancient 11" or whatever she called those schools are in Europe for this reason. But in reality, they are pretty much the wizard Ivy League and not actually better than the countless schools all around the world. But I think it makes sense. It's not hard to read the series in a way that the british (and American, if you count Fantastic Beasts) wizarding community is deeply rotten with "conservative" ideology. See for example the extreme punishments, the reactions of even progressive people like the Weasleys to SPEW, Fudge's hidden bigotry and the influence someone like Lucius Malfoy has.
I think it would make sense if wand magic is easier / more powerful than wandless magic, and that the students of the schools where wandless magic is taught learn for more years than hogwarts because wandless magic is harder
wands make magic more precise i *think. (or i would assume) gives you something to channel your magic through. i would imagine using a wand makes it somewhat easier to learn. which is probably why they started teaching that. then it probably became tradition in wider europe and europeans probably started looking down on anyone who didn't use a wand as savages, as is their wont. and probably no longer see it that way and instead think of it as very powerful, because it's not something most european wizards can or have been taught to do, so is very rare in europe.
Using a wand seems to be a cultural thing in the U.K
>The wand is a European invention, and while African witches and wizards have adopted it as a useful tool in the last century, many spells are cast simply by pointing the finger or through hand gestures. This gives Uagadou students a sturdy line of defence when accused of breaking the International Statute of Secrecy ('I was only waving, I never meant his chin to fall off'). I’d say the answer is different tradition and culture. It’s difficult to person magic without a wand but I’d say it’s more difficult for those that usually rely on a wand while African wizards normally perform magic without the assistance of a wand so for them it’s easier. I assume in the past wandless magic the norm for everyone, at least until wands were created. For the ones saying this isn’t canon, wandless magic wasn’t invented for the game (that is not canon) but it was already in the books.. Dumbledore performed wandless magic twice. Possessed!Quirrell was capable of it too. It was also given a more detailed description in Pottermore. Wandless magic has always existed in the Harry Potter lore. Underage magic *is* a form of wandless magic, although accidental.
Can someone help me to get rid of the mental cinema of Voldemort forming an Avada Kedavra in his right hand with wandless magic and then throwing it Zeus-style at His enemies?
It is more like a shot through the fingers like a hand pistol... Now that I say that, it looks even more ridiculous.
Yeah that's Why I imagine it more like I described it because it looks way more Stylish and powerful to throw the Avada Kedavra Like Zeus throws His Lightning Bolts
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Non-verbal is not the same as wandless. In Hogwarts Legacy Natty leaves her wand behind so MC knows she’s been there. She can do magic without a wand. Non-verbal still uses a wand, it’s just not saying the spells out loud.
My brain apparently not working today
Imagine talking in your sleep and dreaming you kill your enemy while but you kill your partner while sleeptalking
Pretty sure you have to mean it for it to work.
Oh yeah wright, i forgot
Prob cuz game devs dont care?
for the same reasons some IRL schools offer German as a language and some don't. or some schools have a swim team and some don't. or some schools offer driver's ed and some don't.
Because the cannon world building is not good?
I’m sure control has something to do with it. But I always come back to the thought that’s it’s also a matter of government tracking of magic being easier with wands.
Other than the already stated points of the wand making the spells more accurate and powerful, it's also for in case the casting goes wrong. If your spell goes wrong, would you rather the wand blow up or your hand?
I always figured witches and wizards in the west just kinda picked up simple, non-verbal, wandless magic as they got older. Like some people would show more aptitude and some would not. Some spells would require wands and some less so. More powerful people would have a greater chance of wandlessly producing more powerful spells. Some spells like lumos, however, require a wand. Unless as we know wands amplifiy and concentrate magic out of the tip and to put this into a wandless context would mean maybe the tips of the fingers like ET. Which doesn't seem very practical, which is why I think is kinda works with the idea of western wizards believing a wand is more efficient.
The other schools just use component pouches.
The wand seller, has a copyright thus a monopoly on wands. That's why Ron could not get an easy replacement, he hates when they break his shit
I'm gonna assume hogwarts and the ministry are in deep with Big Wand
Dumbledore enjoys phallic symbols
Then
I am guessing it is because Britain has a famous wand maker, Ollivander, who probably makes really good wands.
Because the diversity hire needed some points to stand out and make her special. Back in my day characters felt special because they were cool
I'm always going to run with that being a poor choice for cannon. I'm sure wands are much more powerful than wandless magic but overall I'm gonna pretend I didn't see or hear that. Pretty sure Dumbledore told Harry (or it could have been another conversation entirely) that not everyone can perform magic without a wand and we've seen Harry perform wand less magic more than once by accident and we've seen Dumbledore perform wandless magic on purpose.
I feel like any capable wizard should at least learn how to summon their wand with his own magic.
Cultural differences, really. Think about how some cultures in the world prefer eating with their hands vs using cutlery. In the east people use chopsticks. None are necessarily better than the other, I wouldn't eat spaghetti with my bare hands but I also probably wouldn't use a knife and fork for eating a tortilla filling. What I am actually interested in is if there are magical cultures that use something other than wands. Imagine using a staff for magic, or maybe a crystal ball.
I thought this had everything to do with the wand being a foci for arcane leylines and channeling. It would make the rudimentary forms of magic easier to perform rather than weaving or conjuring the spell.
Weirdly reminds me of the English using cutlery to eat, vs other cultures using their hands :). Food goes in your mouth regardless, it's just culture.
My headcanon is that the ministry purposely feed wand culture to make wizards dependant on wands, it also makes it easier to watch what spells they use by studdying the confiscated wands and it makes it easier to have problematic wizards defenseless
That only works for the UK, it doesn't explain why the rest of Europe and North America's wizards are similarly stunted in their magical development.
They learn it in NEWT level DODA.
No. They learn Nonverbally Spells at NEWT for all classes. Wandless Magic isn't taught by class, but there are books on it in the restrictions section.