Well, if his trick for deactivating other wizards’ patronuses (patronii?) works, he basically has an unblockable army of instant-death assassins, the only defense against which would be Apparition… That’s a pretty good ultimate weapon in a Mutually Assured Destruction sense. And as long as we’re discussing mutually assured destruction, there seems little doubt that Harry would be able to transfigure nuclear weaponry. Or botulinum toxin (of which it would take an appallingly small amount to kill every human on Earth). Etc, etc. Harry does not lack for access to Ultimate Weapons.
He does have the ability to turn the world into a lake of fire, true. All powerful wizards have this ability and it is implied that every magical power in the world would turn against him if he tried anything that foolish. He has a giant hammer which he dare not use, if only because he’s not evil. Also, he is still amazingly vulnerable to almost any adult wizard who wishes him ill—powerful weaponry doesn’t imply a powerful defense. He might have been able to assassinate every member of the Wizengamot, but I doubt he would have survived the attempt. If it comes to open warfare he’s toast, and his stunt made it much more likely that someone would decide he had stepped over the threshold of open warfare. He’s safe for now at Hogwarts, but it was still stupid.
The first item was “I will not go around provoking strong, vicious enemies”
All powerful wizards have this ability and it is implied that every magical power in the world would turn against him if he tried anything that foolish.
I’ve always felt that that was peculiar. Iraq used chemical weapons and no-one cared in the least.
Also, he is still amazingly vulnerable to almost any adult wizard who wishes him ill—powerful weaponry doesn’t imply a powerful defense.
If he were to go nuclear, his perfect offense would be his perfect defense. If he truly wanted to end the world, he’d cancel the world’s patronii, seize the wizengamot with the entirety of the world’s dementors, and tell half a dozen of them to go out and replicate until they turned the planet to dust. Nobody could come in because they’d be toast without the presence of a patronus, they couldn’t nuke the building from the outside, and dementors are an unstoppable weapon that reproduce like Von Neumann machines. Hell, even if people obliviated each other to be able to recast the patronus charm, without Patronus 2.0, dementors could just replicate off the muggle population until they could overwhelm any defense.
Assuming it’s not different from canon, they do so in book six. It’s not really clear how they reproduce, but they were spreading all over England, reproducing and spreading mist and despair.
Presumably they disappear somehow (old age?) as well, since Harry isn’t asking them questions from the days of Atlantis. We know that they existed at least as far back as the founders’ days, and he’s also not pumping them for info about magic from Lord Foul / the Founders. I still operate on the idea that things are unchanged from canon unless explicitly mentioned. Plus I can’t imagine hundreds of idiots summoning dementors and nobody figuring out that they’re the manifestation of death.
Presumably they disappear somehow (old age?) as well,
Do I really need to quote the bit where Quirrell talks about how they are “undying”? I rather highly doubt that the shadows of Death die of old age.
since Harry isn’t asking them questions from the days of Atlantis. We know that they existed at least as far back as the founders’ days, and he’s also not pumping them for info about magic from
Harry can’t hear them speak. He doesn’t even think they have anything like minds or memories, either.
Plus I can’t imagine hundreds of idiots summoning dementors and nobody figuring out that they’re the manifestation of death.
Do we have any indication that more than one person has performed the ritual to summon them? Maybe all the Dementors that exist today were created by one madman in Atlantis.
Edit: Or, here’s a thought: suppose some incautious Dark Wizard performs the ritual to summon Death. The end result of which is—oops! - he’s suddenly face-to-nothingness with a Dementor. In all likelihood the thing’s first instinct is to give him a big ol’ smooch in gratitude.
Probably; magic makes everything easier, but you still have to find a way to get the people you want to eat it, inhale it, or get it into their bloodstream, and the Harry Potter world isn’t defined well enough to give an obvious way to distribute it in such a way that, say, wearing a gas mask and only eating thoroughly cooked food wouldn’t defeat.
and the Harry Potter world isn’t defined well enough to give an obvious way to distribute it in such a way that, say, wearing a gas mask and only eating thoroughly cooked food wouldn’t defeat.
Gas mask? That doesn’t defeat the most obvious distribution mechanism: transfiguration into oxygen or nitrogen. But of course this would require an actual source of botox. If trying to use transfiguration as an ultimate weapon purely in the sense of ‘creating stuff for free’ (rather than untransfiguring stuff inside folks) it would be far simpler to transfigure something into radioactive isotopes of common airborne gasses. Oxygen-15 seems like it has a half-life in the right ballpark.
I think we have well and truly established that the untransmute-from-gas-hack constitutes a superweapon—whether you use botox, cyanide or rocks. The context, however, was exploring the possibility of using tranmutation itself (without untransmutation) to create powerful weapons (such as botox). Whether the poison you consider is botox or cyanide you can either use transmutation to create it or transmutation to deliver it past the gas masks but not both. In that context the task is to create a lethal substance that can be devilvered easily.
Or their face into cyanide.
If only time travel wasn’t limited to 6 hours. Then the natural improvement would have been “Or their mom’s face into cyanide”. As it happens, though, we are left with considering “transmute their face into cyanide” as a line of sight attack spell. But as Quirrell’s explained in his first battle magic class the best spell for that role is pretty much always avada kedavra.
Except that can be dodged. How do you dodge transmutation? It’s been established that it has been used in combat by an expert duelist(albeit incredibly dangerously), so I’d wager that it’s not without use.
I guess you’re right, even though there’s no reason for that limitation either, given how the physics of transfiguration works- e.g is there really a difference between the electron clouds in a metal and clouds of gas.
Anyway, he can transfigure through the ground, up through a leg, and to the face.
Well, if his trick for deactivating other wizards’ patronuses (patronii?) works, he basically has an unblockable army of instant-death assassins, the only defense against which would be Apparition… That’s a pretty good ultimate weapon in a Mutually Assured Destruction sense. And as long as we’re discussing mutually assured destruction, there seems little doubt that Harry would be able to transfigure nuclear weaponry. Or botulinum toxin (of which it would take an appallingly small amount to kill every human on Earth). Etc, etc. Harry does not lack for access to Ultimate Weapons.
He does have the ability to turn the world into a lake of fire, true. All powerful wizards have this ability and it is implied that every magical power in the world would turn against him if he tried anything that foolish. He has a giant hammer which he dare not use, if only because he’s not evil. Also, he is still amazingly vulnerable to almost any adult wizard who wishes him ill—powerful weaponry doesn’t imply a powerful defense. He might have been able to assassinate every member of the Wizengamot, but I doubt he would have survived the attempt. If it comes to open warfare he’s toast, and his stunt made it much more likely that someone would decide he had stepped over the threshold of open warfare. He’s safe for now at Hogwarts, but it was still stupid.
Good advice, and advice Harry failed to follow.
I’ve always felt that that was peculiar. Iraq used chemical weapons and no-one cared in the least.
If he were to go nuclear, his perfect offense would be his perfect defense. If he truly wanted to end the world, he’d cancel the world’s patronii, seize the wizengamot with the entirety of the world’s dementors, and tell half a dozen of them to go out and replicate until they turned the planet to dust. Nobody could come in because they’d be toast without the presence of a patronus, they couldn’t nuke the building from the outside, and dementors are an unstoppable weapon that reproduce like Von Neumann machines. Hell, even if people obliviated each other to be able to recast the patronus charm, without Patronus 2.0, dementors could just replicate off the muggle population until they could overwhelm any defense.
Since when do Dementors reproduce?
Assuming it’s not different from canon, they do so in book six. It’s not really clear how they reproduce, but they were spreading all over England, reproducing and spreading mist and despair.
Presumably they disappear somehow (old age?) as well, since Harry isn’t asking them questions from the days of Atlantis. We know that they existed at least as far back as the founders’ days, and he’s also not pumping them for info about magic from Lord Foul / the Founders. I still operate on the idea that things are unchanged from canon unless explicitly mentioned. Plus I can’t imagine hundreds of idiots summoning dementors and nobody figuring out that they’re the manifestation of death.
Do I really need to quote the bit where Quirrell talks about how they are “undying”? I rather highly doubt that the shadows of Death die of old age.
Harry can’t hear them speak. He doesn’t even think they have anything like minds or memories, either.
Do we have any indication that more than one person has performed the ritual to summon them? Maybe all the Dementors that exist today were created by one madman in Atlantis.
Edit: Or, here’s a thought: suppose some incautious Dark Wizard performs the ritual to summon Death. The end result of which is—oops! - he’s suddenly face-to-nothingness with a Dementor. In all likelihood the thing’s first instinct is to give him a big ol’ smooch in gratitude.
A lethal dose of botulinum toxin is indeed tiny; using it as an Ultimate Weapon, though, requires a delivery system.
Which is also easy with magic.
Probably; magic makes everything easier, but you still have to find a way to get the people you want to eat it, inhale it, or get it into their bloodstream, and the Harry Potter world isn’t defined well enough to give an obvious way to distribute it in such a way that, say, wearing a gas mask and only eating thoroughly cooked food wouldn’t defeat.
Gas mask? That doesn’t defeat the most obvious distribution mechanism: transfiguration into oxygen or nitrogen. But of course this would require an actual source of botox. If trying to use transfiguration as an ultimate weapon purely in the sense of ‘creating stuff for free’ (rather than untransfiguring stuff inside folks) it would be far simpler to transfigure something into radioactive isotopes of common airborne gasses. Oxygen-15 seems like it has a half-life in the right ballpark.
Or just transmute cyanide into oxygen. Or their face into cyanide.
I think we have well and truly established that the untransmute-from-gas-hack constitutes a superweapon—whether you use botox, cyanide or rocks. The context, however, was exploring the possibility of using tranmutation itself (without untransmutation) to create powerful weapons (such as botox). Whether the poison you consider is botox or cyanide you can either use transmutation to create it or transmutation to deliver it past the gas masks but not both. In that context the task is to create a lethal substance that can be devilvered easily.
If only time travel wasn’t limited to 6 hours. Then the natural improvement would have been “Or their mom’s face into cyanide”. As it happens, though, we are left with considering “transmute their face into cyanide” as a line of sight attack spell. But as Quirrell’s explained in his first battle magic class the best spell for that role is pretty much always avada kedavra.
Except that can be dodged. How do you dodge transmutation? It’s been established that it has been used in combat by an expert duelist(albeit incredibly dangerously), so I’d wager that it’s not without use.
You make sure your opponent doesn’t touch you with his wand.
You transfigure (a one atom line in the air to the person and his face) to cyanide.
Harry can do partial transfiguration; he can’t transfigure gases.
I guess you’re right, even though there’s no reason for that limitation either, given how the physics of transfiguration works- e.g is there really a difference between the electron clouds in a metal and clouds of gas.
Anyway, he can transfigure through the ground, up through a leg, and to the face.
Huh, somehow I missed that restriction.
wedrifid did it first.
Do we have any examples of transfiguration occurring without wand contact?