The Animagus Clothing Cop-Out

[Tabouli]

No: HPFGUIDX 24979

Cindy:
> I'm still puzzling over this issue of what animagi take with them 
when they transform.  It seems they keep their robes.

Animagi are common figures in fantasy novels (as I mused a couple of months ago), and every time a fantasy author decides to toss a couple into the plot, they hit that age-old problem of What To Do About Their Clothes.  Arguments about "but it's Magic!" aside, I would argue that only the person's body should transform into the animal, with any clothing, objects carried, etc. left hanging ridiculously from the animal's body (picture a wolf crammed into Lupin's patched robes) or falling to the ground, unable to be held by a hoof or wing or paw.  In Nancy Springer's Isle series she took this option, and then had to organise her plot around her characters being naked when they turned back into human form.  However...

JKR, like David Eddings, and many others before her, has taken the Clothing Cop-Out.  In her books, when a fully-dressed, object-carrying person tranforms into another animal, everything they wear and carry apparently vanishes into a parallel dimension, to reappear when the animal resumes its human form.  A particularly unconvincing moment for me in the Belgariad is when Garion, carrying the vitally important Orb of Aldur, asks Belgarath what happens to it when he changes into a wolf.  Very good question, I say.  Belgarath tell him that it "goes where our clothes go - they're with us, and at the same time, they're not" (how convenient), after which Garion says "Isn't that dangerous to have it hanging there, unattached, so to speak?" or something.  Which is garbage, because as anyone can deduce, if you have something incredibly valuable, important and stealable which vanishes into intangible nowhere when you change form the Obvious Best Way to keep it safe is to change into animal form where no-one can get at it unless you change back!!  Tsk tsk tsk.

The main rationale for the Clothing Cop-Out seems to be convenience.  It's terribly awkward to organise for the animal to carry human clothes with it, or to have to write in great irrelevant explanations around the nudity issue every time there's a shape change.  Moreover, in JKR's case, the morality police are already on her back about the witchcraft issue: imagine how they'd cope if there was (gasp!) nudity in there as well?

Tabouli.


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