It seems like the spells in the HP universe are complicated and abstract enough that they must have been designed (programmed?) by wizards long ago, who added them to the laws of the universe and left them there.
Now, if I were designing a spell like the Killing Curse, I would include a little easter egg/safety mechanism: after a thousand castings, it backfires. Choose a number large enough that only a major dark wizard like Voldemort will encounter it, so it doesn’t hit some minor villain and spoil the surprise. (Alternatively, rather than counting kills, count evilness, with killing a baby counting for more evilness points than an adult. That would explain why it backfired on Harry Potter, rather than some other victim.)
This is the most sensible explanation I can come up with. Or it could be that it backfired because the third through fifteenth places of the decimal expansion of the local humidity were a prime number, or something similarly arbitrary. But I would be disappointed if it was something like that. (I would also be disappointed if his parents came up with a spell that reflected it, because everyone seems convinced that no such spell is possible.)
It seems like the spells in the HP universe are complicated and abstract enough that they must have been designed (programmed?) by wizards long ago, who added them to the laws of the universe and left them there.
You’d think that, but in the series there are references to people inventing spells of their own. The series implies that the “science” behind spells does exist, but Rowling never explains any of it.
Well, the word ‘wing’ does date back to the 12th century, a little earlier than halfway between us and Merlin, and a time in which learned people did know Latin but were also starting to mangle it up pretty badly (not quite that badly IRL, but if we assume wizards were always a bit more eccentric than Muggles...).
Unfortunately, that particular fan-wank completely breaks down when you consider that the pronunciation (let alone spelling) of ‘wing’ was nowhere near the same back then. Although you could save it by suggesting that, just as spoken language evolves really, really slowly, so did the spell-marks imprinted on reality as the spell got cast a million times over a thousand years, a wee little bit differently every time.
I haven’t thought about this idea completely, but a karma system can actually be maintained in a magical society. I mean actual karma, the way Hindus and Buddhists think about. What goes around, comes around. Violate it badly enough and the universe will make an exception just to get you out of the way. As another commentor put it, somebody would have tried to protect another while they were being avara-kedavra’ed, earlier than lily protecting Harry. But voldemort’s karma credit really ran out. So, whoopsie, there goes the body. But of course, he had his horcruxes.
But if making people realize that we have to wake up in this hostile universe is one of the goals of this fic, the above wouldn’t be true in HP&MOR.
Another speculation, maybe true prophecies only come when there are serious thresholds crossed.
Or maybe it just doesn’t work on children? No one knows because no one’s ever tried it.
If you could program a slaying weapon, what is the one group of people that no-one in their right mind could possibly ever want to kill? I’d say that group would be children too young to speak. Anyone going after them is certainly an absolute psycho.
It seems like the spells in the HP universe are complicated and abstract enough that they must have been designed (programmed?) by wizards long ago, who added them to the laws of the universe and left them there.
Now, if I were designing a spell like the Killing Curse, I would include a little easter egg/safety mechanism: after a thousand castings, it backfires. Choose a number large enough that only a major dark wizard like Voldemort will encounter it, so it doesn’t hit some minor villain and spoil the surprise. (Alternatively, rather than counting kills, count evilness, with killing a baby counting for more evilness points than an adult. That would explain why it backfired on Harry Potter, rather than some other victim.)
This is the most sensible explanation I can come up with. Or it could be that it backfired because the third through fifteenth places of the decimal expansion of the local humidity were a prime number, or something similarly arbitrary. But I would be disappointed if it was something like that. (I would also be disappointed if his parents came up with a spell that reflected it, because everyone seems convinced that no such spell is possible.)
You’d think that, but in the series there are references to people inventing spells of their own. The series implies that the “science” behind spells does exist, but Rowling never explains any of it.
‘Inventing’ might mean ‘discovering’.
Not to mention, the ancient wizards made the levitation spell be called “Wingardium Leviosa”?
Well, the word ‘wing’ does date back to the 12th century, a little earlier than halfway between us and Merlin, and a time in which learned people did know Latin but were also starting to mangle it up pretty badly (not quite that badly IRL, but if we assume wizards were always a bit more eccentric than Muggles...).
Unfortunately, that particular fan-wank completely breaks down when you consider that the pronunciation (let alone spelling) of ‘wing’ was nowhere near the same back then. Although you could save it by suggesting that, just as spoken language evolves really, really slowly, so did the spell-marks imprinted on reality as the spell got cast a million times over a thousand years, a wee little bit differently every time.
I haven’t thought about this idea completely, but a karma system can actually be maintained in a magical society. I mean actual karma, the way Hindus and Buddhists think about. What goes around, comes around. Violate it badly enough and the universe will make an exception just to get you out of the way. As another commentor put it, somebody would have tried to protect another while they were being avara-kedavra’ed, earlier than lily protecting Harry. But voldemort’s karma credit really ran out. So, whoopsie, there goes the body. But of course, he had his horcruxes.
But if making people realize that we have to wake up in this hostile universe is one of the goals of this fic, the above wouldn’t be true in HP&MOR.
Another speculation, maybe true prophecies only come when there are serious thresholds crossed.
Or maybe it just doesn’t work on children? No one knows because no one’s ever tried it.
If you could program a slaying weapon, what is the one group of people that no-one in their right mind could possibly ever want to kill? I’d say that group would be children too young to speak. Anyone going after them is certainly an absolute psycho.