The Ancient Magic Witch theory, the fight back

[grey_wolf_c]

No: HPFGUIDX 42128

Abigail wrote: 
> What if it's exactly the uselessness of Lily's sacrifice that 
> protects Harry? Lily is presented with a choice with regards to her 
> life alone - Harry's fate is already decided.  Whether she lives or 
> dies makes no difference as far as he is concerned, and yet she 
> chooses to die rather than leave him - knowing that it is a useless 
> gesture (at least in the pragmatic, save-my-baby sense), because the 
> other option is simply unthinkable to her, as I would suspect it 
> would be to most parents (and the reason that no other parent ever
> made this choice is simply that Voldemort wasn't exactly in the habit 
> of offering the relatives of his victims their lives - which leads us 
> to the very interesting question of why he chose to make the 
> exception in Lily's case.)  This gesture is motivated by pure love, 
> not self-interest or any other purpose - Lily doesn't think it will 
> save Harry's life, and this love is deep enough to repel Voldemort's 
> AK curse.

I resist to believe this position, and I think I've made my reasons 
clear enough to go through them again. I don't think it's as simple as 
that because then more people would be carrying around the love shield, 
and at least someone would have survived the AK before. We are talking 
of no occurences in some 4000 years of magical history, which is a long 
time for someone not to have sacrified his/her live for a loved one 
even when it wasn't going to help.

Anyway, you want a gesture motivated by "pure love, not self-interest 
or any other purpose", and my version gives you that: the ancient magic 
spell Lily uses *requires* to lay the caster's life for love of the 
recipient. The spell will not work if there is self-interest (but 
someone tainted by self-interest would not use it anyway, since if he 
utters the spell, his/her life will be finished, no matter the outcome, 
and a selfish-oriented person wouldn't do that). You also mention 
"other purposes". I can't imagine what other purposes would induce Lily 
to use the spell: only the most absolute love for her baby would make 
her renounce to the slight possibility of salvation Voldemort is 
offering in exchange for the wild possibility that a spell that hasn't 
been used in recorded history will work. Desperation would not take her 
to this extreme, nor histerics, nor any other purpose I can think of. 
As I've said, I don't understand what's so great about laying down 
one's life when it's not going to have any impact on reality (i.e. it's 
not going to increase the chances of Harry's survival), but I CAN 
understand using a spell that will kill you as a part of it's 
activation cost if that way a loved person will survive.

> kangasboy wrote:
> 
> >I always interpreted the "ancient magic" alluded to in HP as 
> > referring to the most basic primeval forces from which all magic 
> >stems. Ancient magic could be connected to power of the Heir of 
> >Slytherin (and any other heirs out there), plus it could be 
> >responsible for magical abilities that cannot be learnt (eg 
> >Divination). I believe it to be "pure" magic, in that it is 
> >incorruptible; which is why Voldemort can't use it, and has been 
> >thwarted by it.
> 
> That's pretty close to my understanding of the phrase "ancient 
> magic", but I thought of it more in the Narnia, ancient magic from 
> before the dawn of time sense - the underlying rules of magic which 
> no force, however powerful, can overcome.  Like the magical laws of 
> physics - magic and electricity don't mix, an animagus can only turn 
> into one animal, and sacrificing yourself for someone leaves a 
> magical mark on them. I think Voldemort's failure to remember this 
> basic principle kind of makes sense - he's mastered such advanced 
> magic that maybe he no longer thinks about the basic bulding block of 
> how magic works.
>
> Abigail

I think both you, Abigail, and Kangasboy are trying to play this hand 
with the cards of the previous. Nothing in JKR's HP series points 
towards an "elemental" magic of any sort. We've seen wandless magic, 
and subsconscious magic, but we've never witnessed elemental magic. I 
haven't read the Narmia series, but it seems that most of your 
arguments for this elemental magic are coming from some sort of magic 
displayed in those books. I'm not the one to criticise that (I've used 
examples from other books myself), but in this case I don't think there 
is a clear relation between them.

Then again, your argument about Voldemort forgetting one of the 
principles of magic doesn't make any sense to me. As Ollivanders puts 
it, "he did great things -terrible, yes, but great". Like the scientist 
that invented the Atomic bomb, Voldemort is someone that knows magic 
inside and out, and I don't think he would forget something as basic as 
that. It would be like a cientist saying "blimey, I had forgotten that 
nothing can go faster than light" or "uuups! I had forgotten that if 
you manage to break the nuclei bonds (break the atom), all hell brakes 
loose". It just doesn't happen. I also dislike Kangasboy idea of "pure, 
incorruptible" elemental magic. It makes no sense: any elemental is, by 
definition, neutral: it cannot be "good" or "bad" in itself, just as 
"fire" or "water" or "hidrogen atom" are not good or bad /per se/. A 
morality can only be attached when used for good or bad things. If the 
essence of magic, the elemental magic, was "pure" and "incorruptible", 
the Dark magic could not exist, since there would be no building blocks 
to construct it out of.

Thus, I am left with my original explanation: Ancient magic, just as 
the name suggests, is a sort of magic used a long time ago. Just like 
"ancient" technology was used a long time ago, but it's not anymore, 
this ancient magic must have, at some point in the past, been abandoned 
in favour of other sort of magic. The reasons why the magic was 
abandoned will depend on the sort of magic it is. I'd say it's too 
costly, it's got too many side effects, or there is a new magic that 
does the same, only better. 

We know of three ancient spells, the love shiled, the Dudley protection 
and the resurrection potion (an "old jewel"). The last one is the most 
doubtfull: we don't really know if it's "ancient" as the other two. But 
-and here I'm going into MAGIC DISHWASHER gear- let's asume it is. The 
first one -the love shield- is too costly (one life for another basis, 
with lots of subcosts: love, sacrifice, etc.), the second one we don't 
really know what's wrong with it, but it's altoghether possible that 
Dumbkedore paid a very big price to put it up (some suggest the playing 
with the put-outer has something to do with it), and the last one 
-according to MAGIC DISWASHER, I repeat- is fundamentaly flawed, and 
Voldemort will pay a big price for having used it (his entire 
existance, hopefully).

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf