Usually you need to sacrifice something that is yours. Assuming we’re not talking about our own Sun, sacrificing some other star seems too easy. It would be like sacrificing someone else’s drop of blood to fuel Fiendfyre.
I don’t think their beliefs correspond to reality in this particular. It’s just one more reason to consider the pretend ritual unrealistic—in addition to those that Quirrell gave.
Also, why do we “own” Sol? Because we live near it and nobody else does? Once HJPEV acquires the ability to sacrifice stars, constructing a space station orbiting Alpha Centauri and living in it for as long as it takes to acquire “ownership” would be trivial.
The word “sacrifice” means to give up something valuable, to experience a loss in trade for gain.
If we lost our own Sun, that would be a tragedy and life on Earth as it currently is would end.
If we lost a neighboring star, we just wouldn’t care. That’s why I wouldn’t call it a “sacrifice”. It could be a material component of a spell, certainly. But it wouldn’t be a sacrifice.
If you permanently Transfigure a ball of glass into iron with Crystferrium, you don’t think of that as “sacrificing” the ball of glass that you had. You’re just… using it up.
If someone performs the ritual to summon death then they lose a sword and a noose, unless they’re a particular sort of obsessed with the remnants of past crimes they wouldn’t care either except that they’d need to get new material components if they want to do it again. just as we’d have to pick out another star if we sacrificed Alpha Centauri A..
It seems to me that the term sacrifice is used simply to denote that even if someone wants their spell component back they can’t get it, whereas there is a spell to reverse Crystferrium if you find you prefer the original to the glass.
It might be. There’s no reason for magic not to have universal patterns that can manifest on both tiny and vast levels, and the ultra-specific instructions for how to brew any given potion would certainly fit the notion of “ritual”.
Or raw materials, perhaps. Tearing apart stars sounds like something you might resort to if you needed more stuff than you could harvest from a planet. Computronium maybe?
Having solved death in the general case, why wouldn’t Harry eventually end up using stars as raw material? The only reason he isn’t planning to do so now is that it requires a timescale longer than ordinary life.
Is there any way that tearing the stars apart could plausibly be related to trying to save Hermione?
The simplest I can think of is if huge amounts of energy are needed.
A star would make a great sacrificial component for a spell. This chapter talks about both sacrificial magic and inventing new spells.
And thus this story’s Holy Shit Quotient has increased to cosmic proportions.
Usually you need to sacrifice something that is yours. Assuming we’re not talking about our own Sun, sacrificing some other star seems too easy. It would be like sacrificing someone else’s drop of blood to fuel Fiendfyre.
Somehow I doubt even those who believed Tracey’s Harry summoning ritual was real believed she had ownership over Yog-Sothoth.
I don’t think their beliefs correspond to reality in this particular. It’s just one more reason to consider the pretend ritual unrealistic—in addition to those that Quirrell gave.
Also, why do we “own” Sol? Because we live near it and nobody else does? Once HJPEV acquires the ability to sacrifice stars, constructing a space station orbiting Alpha Centauri and living in it for as long as it takes to acquire “ownership” would be trivial.
The word “sacrifice” means to give up something valuable, to experience a loss in trade for gain.
If we lost our own Sun, that would be a tragedy and life on Earth as it currently is would end.
If we lost a neighboring star, we just wouldn’t care. That’s why I wouldn’t call it a “sacrifice”. It could be a material component of a spell, certainly. But it wouldn’t be a sacrifice.
If you permanently Transfigure a ball of glass into iron with Crystferrium, you don’t think of that as “sacrificing” the ball of glass that you had. You’re just… using it up.
If someone performs the ritual to summon death then they lose a sword and a noose, unless they’re a particular sort of obsessed with the remnants of past crimes they wouldn’t care either except that they’d need to get new material components if they want to do it again. just as we’d have to pick out another star if we sacrificed Alpha Centauri A..
It seems to me that the term sacrifice is used simply to denote that even if someone wants their spell component back they can’t get it, whereas there is a spell to reverse Crystferrium if you find you prefer the original to the glass.
That’s an excellent point.
But if “ritual sacrifice” simply means “spell with material components which are expended”, then every potion ever brewed is a “ritual sacrifice”.
It might be. There’s no reason for magic not to have universal patterns that can manifest on both tiny and vast levels, and the ultra-specific instructions for how to brew any given potion would certainly fit the notion of “ritual”.
What if there are alien magic users capable of resisting and striking back?
You could select a clearly uninhabited star, like one with no planets, or a white dwarf.
Or raw materials, perhaps. Tearing apart stars sounds like something you might resort to if you needed more stuff than you could harvest from a planet. Computronium maybe?
Having solved death in the general case, why wouldn’t Harry eventually end up using stars as raw material? The only reason he isn’t planning to do so now is that it requires a timescale longer than ordinary life.