I like this line of reasoning. I’ve been batting around the idea that Dementors and Patronuses are essentially opposite (anti) versions of one another. Perhaps a dementor is made when someone tries to cast the Patronus Charm with entirely ‘the wrong kind of thought to cast a Patronus Charm.’
A dark ritual would explain their persistence compared to the patronuses, but it doesn’t adequately explain their number… Also, if the ritual created a dementor, wouldn’t people be saying the ritual summons a dementor, rather than Death? Most people in hpmor seem to associate the dementors only with fear, not death, and you would expect otherwise if the ritual to summon death always resulted in a dementor.
Countering that, though, most people trying to summon ‘Death’ are probably both very sensitive to dementors and incapable of defending against them, so people could be mistaking the results of a Kiss with ‘what happens when you try to summon Death.’
someone tries to cast the Patronus Charm with entirely ’the wrong kind of thought to cast a Patronus Charm
Under what circumstances would such an event actually take place?
A few obstacles:
A caster would already have been trained in the Patronus Charm (otherwise they’d not know the wandwork etc.), and therefore would be aware that there’s no point trying to cast the Patronus Charm with non-happy thoughts.
The basic use of the Patronus Charm is emergency Dementor protection, which you would not want to mess up by experimenting with alternative kinds of thought when casting.
There must be countless instances of people trying to cast the Patronus Charm in the face of a Dementor, and failing because Dementor exposure had already turned their thoughts too dark. Wouldn’t people notice if such castings could generate new Dementors?
Fair points, though a failed Patronus Charm wouldn’t always produce a Dementor if it only happened with a certain subset of wrong kinds of thought. I’m not sure why anyone might be making an attempt to cast a Patronus with a negative thought, but maybe if they use a happy thought that is at its core selfish or harmful to others? In which case, learning to cast the charm would tend to produce a new Dementor every so often as people experiment with finding a suitable memory or thought to use.
As for your last point, I suppose it would only make sense if the Dementors aren’t created at the place in which the failed casting occurs. This might be an explanation of why the Dementors seem to be concentrated at Azkaban… fail to cast a Patronus and something produces a Dementor there. Although I don’t think this is right because it seems too complicated, and I seem to recall something saying that wizards gathered/herded the Dementors to their nest in Azkaban.
Alternatively, the initial product of the failed Patronus Charm is undetected or unrecognized and only later grows into a Dementor. But if all the Dementors are rigidly controlled by the government, you might expect them to notice new Dementors being created outside their control even if it isn’t obvious what is creating them.
This might be an explanation of why the Dementors seem to be concentrated at Azkaban… fail to cast a Patronus and something produces a Dementor there. Although I don’t think this is right because it seems too complicated, and I seem to recall something saying that wizards gathered/herded the Dementors to their nest in Azkaban.
There’s also the fact that Azkaban is a small isolated island in the middle of a storm-swept sea. If by some accident of magical geography it happened to be the place where all Dementors naturally spawned, the probability of someone coming across the island AND discovering the Dementors AND living to tell the tale to the government is pretty low.
But if all the Dementors are rigidly controlled by the government, you might expect them to notice new Dementors being created outside their control even if it isn’t obvious what is creating them.
Has it been established that Azkaban accounts for all Dementors? I can’t remember any conclusive evidence in either direction.
My inference is based on the complaints Dumbledore makes about getting permission to bring a Dementor to Hogwarts and then having to explain its disappearance. You’re right, though, it implies that the Ministry makes a firm accounting of the Dementors in Azkaban or otherwise under its control, but it doesn’t really say anything about all Dementors everywhere.
Again the ghost of that statement about the wizards herding them all to Azkaban rises up… I don’t remember if that statement claimed ALL Dementors had been moved there or if it was just all the ones in Britain. I don’t even remember if that was a statement from canon or HPMoR or how reliable the speaker is.
they are considered national possessions, Harry, weapons in case of war.
Ah. I made an assumption here, but from this I got that they kept their Dementors in reserve so that they would not lose an advantage that their enemies had. But an equally applicable interpretation would be that they did not want to lose an advantage that they had over their enemies.
Keeping that in mind, however, I would rather doubt that other governments would allow Britain to have such an exclusive advantage, not when the weapons are all held out in the middle of the ocean. Though that assumes that all of the other governments don’t have their own exclusive weapons...
That ritual required quite a number more components… But then, it didn’t WORK, so perhaps Burgess and his order meant to perform the one Quirrell meant.
Ritual for summoning Death is just reference to the spell of Seething Death from one of the Lawrence Watt-Evans books.
Or the Rite of Ashk’Ente from Discworld.
Or it’s the ritual to create dementors. Quirrel says that “the spell to dismiss Death is lost” and nobody knows how to destroy a dementor.
I like this line of reasoning. I’ve been batting around the idea that Dementors and Patronuses are essentially opposite (anti) versions of one another. Perhaps a dementor is made when someone tries to cast the Patronus Charm with entirely ‘the wrong kind of thought to cast a Patronus Charm.’
A dark ritual would explain their persistence compared to the patronuses, but it doesn’t adequately explain their number… Also, if the ritual created a dementor, wouldn’t people be saying the ritual summons a dementor, rather than Death? Most people in hpmor seem to associate the dementors only with fear, not death, and you would expect otherwise if the ritual to summon death always resulted in a dementor.
Countering that, though, most people trying to summon ‘Death’ are probably both very sensitive to dementors and incapable of defending against them, so people could be mistaking the results of a Kiss with ‘what happens when you try to summon Death.’
Under what circumstances would such an event actually take place?
A few obstacles:
A caster would already have been trained in the Patronus Charm (otherwise they’d not know the wandwork etc.), and therefore would be aware that there’s no point trying to cast the Patronus Charm with non-happy thoughts.
The basic use of the Patronus Charm is emergency Dementor protection, which you would not want to mess up by experimenting with alternative kinds of thought when casting.
There must be countless instances of people trying to cast the Patronus Charm in the face of a Dementor, and failing because Dementor exposure had already turned their thoughts too dark. Wouldn’t people notice if such castings could generate new Dementors?
Fair points, though a failed Patronus Charm wouldn’t always produce a Dementor if it only happened with a certain subset of wrong kinds of thought. I’m not sure why anyone might be making an attempt to cast a Patronus with a negative thought, but maybe if they use a happy thought that is at its core selfish or harmful to others? In which case, learning to cast the charm would tend to produce a new Dementor every so often as people experiment with finding a suitable memory or thought to use.
As for your last point, I suppose it would only make sense if the Dementors aren’t created at the place in which the failed casting occurs. This might be an explanation of why the Dementors seem to be concentrated at Azkaban… fail to cast a Patronus and something produces a Dementor there. Although I don’t think this is right because it seems too complicated, and I seem to recall something saying that wizards gathered/herded the Dementors to their nest in Azkaban.
Alternatively, the initial product of the failed Patronus Charm is undetected or unrecognized and only later grows into a Dementor. But if all the Dementors are rigidly controlled by the government, you might expect them to notice new Dementors being created outside their control even if it isn’t obvious what is creating them.
There’s also the fact that Azkaban is a small isolated island in the middle of a storm-swept sea. If by some accident of magical geography it happened to be the place where all Dementors naturally spawned, the probability of someone coming across the island AND discovering the Dementors AND living to tell the tale to the government is pretty low.
Has it been established that Azkaban accounts for all Dementors? I can’t remember any conclusive evidence in either direction.
My inference is based on the complaints Dumbledore makes about getting permission to bring a Dementor to Hogwarts and then having to explain its disappearance. You’re right, though, it implies that the Ministry makes a firm accounting of the Dementors in Azkaban or otherwise under its control, but it doesn’t really say anything about all Dementors everywhere.
Again the ghost of that statement about the wizards herding them all to Azkaban rises up… I don’t remember if that statement claimed ALL Dementors had been moved there or if it was just all the ones in Britain. I don’t even remember if that was a statement from canon or HPMoR or how reliable the speaker is.
It’s just the ones in Britain, I understood.
Ah. I made an assumption here, but from this I got that they kept their Dementors in reserve so that they would not lose an advantage that their enemies had. But an equally applicable interpretation would be that they did not want to lose an advantage that they had over their enemies.
Keeping that in mind, however, I would rather doubt that other governments would allow Britain to have such an exclusive advantage, not when the weapons are all held out in the middle of the ocean. Though that assumes that all of the other governments don’t have their own exclusive weapons...
Or the ritual from the beginning of Gaiman’s Sandman?
A crossover in which HJPEV meets Dream and/or Death would be awesome, if anyone’s bold enough to try to write this...
That ritual required quite a number more components… But then, it didn’t WORK, so perhaps Burgess and his order meant to perform the one Quirrell meant.
This is my headcanon, now.