Creating spells

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 186054

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "eggplant107" <eggplant107 at ...> wrote:

Geoff:
> > When I said "How do you invent a spell" 
> > I thought it was clear that I was looking
> > at it from a Wizarding World point of 
> > view and not "ours" 

Eggplant: 
> But that was my point, we can't look at it from a Wizard point of view because we don't have the magic gene. If I could look at writing from Shakespeare's point of view then I could write as well as Shakespeare. I can't.

Geoff:
How fo you know you couldn't? This isn't a magic writing 
gene. It's a combination of imagination, grammar and an 
ability to use words effectively which can  be in the grasp 
of anyone in our real non-magical, non-fictional world who 
has been taught to use English properly.

Our magic gene belongs to a fictional world and comparisons 
with the real world are really not viable.

Geoff (earlier):
> > if we were given the relevant ingredients 
> > and the instructions for a potion, we ought
> > to be able to make it; why should we become
> > hopelessly confused? 

Eggplant:
> Alchemists were notorious for using obscure symbolism and being very confusing in their instruction manuals. You may have noticed that in the Potter series we are never given a lengthy quotation from a potions book, probably because it would all sound like gibberish to us. The following comes from a Alchemist book and is supposed to be
> a step by step guide on how to make a potion; if you have the magic gene the meaning is obvious, clear as a bell, but if you don't, well, imagine that you had one hour to complete this potion and Snape was yelling at you and asking you why you don't just follow the very simple instructions

<snip>

> And now Snape says "you have 4 minutes left to complete your potion". Yea, right, just follow the instructions, easy as pie. Actually the above would make far more sense even to Neville than it would to any of us. 
 
Geoff:
But, as Potioncat has observed, that isn't how Snape 
works. He puts the information on the board and since 
he apparently believes that most students are dunderheads, 
probably sets this out very succinctly and precisely!

When I was teaching, I was responsible for setting up the 
computing department in the mid-1980s and for training 
my colleagues, this being in the days when teaching the 
subject was viewed by many of them as making me the 
keeper of the oracle!  Very often I would write very detailed 
instructions. On one occasion, I was thanked for starting 
one of my guides with the immortal words "Make sure that 
your computer is switched on at the wall".

This is the level at which I suspect Snape works explaining 
down to the last detail how to carry out certain basic activities.

Personally, I have suspicions about the place of alchemy in the 
Harry Potter universe at all and I don't see evidence that Snape 
or anyone else is using it in their classes and I feel that using it 
as an example to prove that we couldn't cope  in the Wizarding 
World is just muddying the waters.