Revised: Polyjuice Potion: Gender?

[grey_wolf_c]

No: HPFGUIDX 42869

Yoris wrote:
> 
> Just a VERY SMALL note on DNA transformation
> 
> Polyjuicing in HP series is CANON BASED, NOT DNA-transformation:
> scars and lost legs and lost eyes are NOT in your DNA, but Crouch jr.
> got them anyway when he converts to Mad-Eye Moody :)
> 
> Yoris

I think you have misunderstood what I meant with DNA-transformation. 
This concept is that you turn into an exact copy of the person you're 
polyjuicing down to their own DNA, which is the most improtant detail 
from a sexual/reproduction point of view. I assume that all other 
details are also identical, including things that are not detailed in 
the DNA code (like, for example, the digital prints). In fact, your own 
example of scars and lost legs seems to point to the DNA-transformation 
more than illusion-based.

How can this be? Well, an illusion cannot, traditionally, hide matter; 
that is, if you're impersonting Moody, but still have both legs, an 
illusion will make the missing one look and feel like the woden leg, 
but it cannot make it disapear so you can wear Moody's real woodden 
leg. Same goes for the eye. Of course, this inmediately presents any 
number of logical problems (like: what if you're fatter than the one 
you're impersonating?), which traditionally are ignored with a 
convenient "it's magic", which is why I didn't discard the illusion- 
based PP. 

On the other hand, DNA_transformation changes ll and every cell in your 
body to make them equal to the ones of the impersonateed person. This 
is way you "grow" into the other person: the cells change when the 
potion starts to develop. If you prefer, it can be called 
"cell"-transformation instead of DNA-transformation, if it's clearer 
that way. Thinking about it, however, I DO like the DNA (or cell) 
transformation better than illusion-based, but there isn't enough canon 
for me to choose one right away.

I'm not sure of what you mean with "CANON BASED", but if you mean 
narrative imperative (aka metathinking), you're welcomed to expand it 
into a proper theory, but I don't think you'll be able to get much 
after "JKR wants it so". I don't like those sort of theories, but 
develop it if you will, since it'll probably be closer to the truth 
than either of mine.

Haggridd wrote:
> This is truly an odd thread, but Grey Wolf's reply got me thinking.  
> I assume that ADN refers to deoxyribonucleic acid.  (In America we 
> use a slightly different acronym, DNA.)  

Yep, sorry for the ADN acronym, it's just the one used in my country. 

> He mentions two cases. In 
> one pregnancy, the fetus would die when the polyjuice potion wore 
> off.  I guess it would be theoretically possible for a pregnancy to 
> continue to term and deliver, if the polyjuice was taken throughout 
> the pregnancy, as Barty Crouch, Jr. took PP throughout the 
> schoolyear.

I though quite a bit about this, but if the PP works in the DNA- 
transformation hipothesis (sp?), the next time the pregnant man!woman 
took the PP, he!she'd be taking it from someone who is *not* pregnant, 
and thus the new body would not be ready to carry the child. Maybe not 
within the next hour, but posibly about one month later (or so), when 
the fetus becomes attached to the uterus, and the placenta is 
established. It's difficult to tell were the mother stops and the child 
starts during the pregnancy, but I'm sure that the mother must be 
prepared in some way or another to carry a baby, which in this case 
would not happen, and thus a misscarriage would happen.

> I would like to argue differently, in that a 
> fetus does not recognize maternal tissue as foreign.  The immune 
> response is absent.

I'll take your word for it. I have never really studied the biology of 
a fetus, and I assumed that there could be inmune response to a strange 
body like a fetus from the inmunologic system of the mother. If what 
you say is true (and I've got no reason to doubt it), then a 
woman!woman could in fact carry a baby with the impersonated woman's 
DNA.

> I know it is like arguing how many angels could dance on the head of 
> a pin, but I got caught up in the question.

I agree... on both counts. This question is somewhat strange, but it 
gives us a good insight to the ineer workings of the PP, so it's an 
interesting discussion, AND we're discussing something that will never 
have the slightest relevance in future books (and since I don't read 
fanfiction, even if it appears in some sick fanfic I will never know. 
Won't want to, either). But as has been often said in the list, "It's a 
long time until OoP comes out, and this is almost as much fun".

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf