10 Times Harry Potter Magic Made NO Sense

[Music] hey everyone welcome to another installment of Harry Potter Theory today we'll be discussing a few noteworthy instances in which Wizarding World magic makes absolutely no sense as many fans of fantasy fiction will tell you magic tends to have different rules depending on which Universe you're referencing for example in some fantasy realms Wizards are called warlocks and witches are called Mages in these universes those who have magical abilities may or may not require ones sometimes witches and wizards solely rely on the magic they can Brew in a cauldron other times they ride dragons but regardless of the differences between each of these fantasy worlds they all have one thing in common that is that they all have their own set of rules on how magic exists and operates in terms of the Harry Potter Universe they there are of course many rules and stipulations as to how magic Works in The Wizarding World but with a universe that has continued to expand over the course of two decades it's not all that surprising that some of these rules don't really make much sense at all and sometimes there aren't any rules to even reference in today's video we'll be going through 10 instances of Wizarding World Magic that truly make no sense at all let's begin one the confusing functionality of the train throughout the Harry Potter series we are introduced to the idea that young witches and wizards below the age of 17 are considered underage while the very choice of this number seems somewhat a mystery after all the age of majority in most places within the mugle world is 18 it's not so much the actual numeric Milestone that I take issue with instead I find the magic that's used by adult witches and wizards to monitor underage magic to be problematic this particular spell is called the trace and it is used by institutions like the British Ministry of magic to alert officials working within a department such as the improper use of magic office evidently the trace is placed on young individuals with magical abilities and when a spell is performed in close proximity to someone who is underage can identify the following what where and to when magic was cast that is the ministry can tell what spell was used the location due to the trace being somewhat bound to the young person and the exact time it was cast this is well supported throughout the novels and films with a particularly good bit of evidence in the following letter received by Harry after Dobby the houseal performed magic at number four privet Drive during summer holiday Dear Mr Potter we have received intelligence that a hover charm was used at your place of residence this evening at 12 minutes 9 and yet despite all those details we're left with many questions like how is the trace bound to a young rual wizard who put puts the spell on underage magical children as far as we know the ministry doesn't send officials to each and every place of residence within wisting Society to bind the trace to young witches and wizards nor is there any mention of someone from the ministry visiting magical schools like Hogwarts to do a mass incantation of the spell I suppose parents could perform the trace upon having a child kind of like how Muggles register their newborns with governments but what about muggleborn children their parents wouldn't know how to do this some fans have suggested that perhaps students get the trace upon boarding the Hogwarts Express for the first time but what about children who don't go to school like Mar gaun to me this doesn't add up every underage magical child has the trace we just don't know where it comes from even more confusing still there's the question of how the ministry would be able to identify if underage witches or Wizards were actually using magic outside of school for example if someone with the trace on them were to use a spell at their house wouldn't the improper use of magic office just assume that it was apparent casting magic for if they didn't there would be a lot of alerts they would need to unnecessarily respond to each and every time a senior member of a child's house performed magic of course doing so would be completely unsustainable not to mention rather impossible the same could be said for basically everywhere outside of school within the Wizarding World as well from shopping in Diagon Alle to attending quidditch matches with so many witches and wizards how would Ministry officials be able to identify if any of the magic they detected through the trace was from an underage witch or Wizard or someone of the age of majority who was simply standing near an underage witch or wizard it seems to me that the trace is only really effective for Muckle borns as it would be obvious who set off the trace if a young witch or wizard with Muckle parents used magic this particular scenario is described in the following scene between Madi Moody and Harry Potter in the Deathly Hallows second problem you're underage which means you've still got the trace on you I don't the trace the trace said madii impatiently the charm that detects magical activity around under 17s the way the ministry finds out about underage magic if you or anyone around you cast a spell to get you out of here thickness is going to know about it and so will the Death Eaters the final issue that I have with the trace is the way it's portrayed as having One Singular use to track underage witches and wizards doing magic but if the ministry has been able to use the trace to monitor children don't you think they could have or should have applied the same principle to criminals for example the trace could be used to track people released from aaban to ensure that they're not casting unforgivable curses or committing further crimes so why is the ministry more concerned with a bunch of kids learning magic than they are with actual criminals two veritus serum's lack of use in law enforcement veritus Serum is a powerful truth potion that we learn about in the gulit of fire when Professor SRA Snape explains the following to a group of fourth year Hogwart students it is verit serum a truth potion so powerful that three drops would have you spilling your innermost secrets for this entire class to hear now the use of this potion is controlled by very strict Ministry guidelines but unless you watch your step you might just find that my hand slips right over your evening pumpkin juice and then Potter then we'll find out whether you've been in my office or not as described by Snape veritus Serum is highly controlled by the ministry of magic suggesting that the Wizarding government is in possession of the majority of this potent potion so why is it then that the ministry doesn't use Dara serum to solve crimes or identify murderers the most obvious example of how the potion could be used by the ministry was serious blacks murder trial or lack thereof for Not only was Sirius not asked for his side of the story which would have been irrefutable had he shared it under the influence of verit serum he wasn't even given a proper trial for the crimes he was accused of namely the mass murder of many Muggles and aiding Voldemort to finding the Potters which led to James and Lily's deaths however if the ministry had simply administered what was it just three drops of ver serum he could have pointed out the actual murderer Peter wormtail pagr of course with this logic verit serum could be used to help the ministry of magic solve all sorts of crimes so why isn't it used three Voldemort's interest in the elixir of Life The Elixir of Life shows up in the very first installment of the Harry Potter series and is described in great detail through passages like the following the ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the philosopher stone a legendary substance with astonishing Powers the stone will transform any metal into pure gold it also produces the elixir of Life which will make the Drinker Immortal there have been many reports of the philosopher stone over the centuries but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr Nicolo Fel the noted Alchemist and Opera lover and so as an item of incredible Rarity and value it wasn't all that that surprising when the philosopher stone was the first thing we ever saw Voldemort go after aside from Unicorn Blood that is and at the time the Dark Lord's interest in the stone and its electure of Life made perfect sense here was a wizard who had lost his corporeal form and who had always been obsessed with immortality the philosopher stone seemed the perfect solution for a bloke like that but as the series went on we learned that Voldemort had long since created multiple seven to be exact H cers in a somewhat successful attempt to make himself live forever indeed it was this exact dark magic that allowed him to evade death when he was hit by his own ricocheted killing curse the Fateful night he tried to murder Harry Potter as an infant so why would he want or need the elixir of life he was already Immortal enough through HW cers now I know what you're thinking maybe the philosopher stone could have given him a new body but that's not what the elixir of life was known to do in my opinion it's more likely to have kept him Immortal in his shadow form as we learn later later on in the series that in order to get his body back he needed a dark arts ritual like the one performed with wormtail's help in the gobit of fire so to me at least Voldemort's interest in the elixir of life doesn't really make much sense at all four the paradoxes of the time Turner when the time Turner first showed up in the prison of aaban it without a doubt in my mind became the most problematic bit of magic in the entire series disproportionately to its size this little hourglass caused some very big problems s in terms of plot holes and canonical contradictions of course when we first learn about the device that herion has been wearing around her neck like a piece of jewelry it seems harmless enough herione has used its powers to complete a course load that shouldn't be possible within the constraints of actual time typical herione but then larger questions come to mind if one can simply go back in time why not go back and fix mistakes or save those who've died Harry could go back and save his parents or later sirious black Dumbledore and even the Fallen members of the Order of the Phoenix or why not go back and simply take down Voldemort before any of those deaths even happened the explanation meant to rectify these major narrative issues was the introduction of the concept that one would Age the amount of time traveled backward so if you traveled back a decade you would age that number of years Upon returning to your current time however I find it hard to believe that Harry wouldn't have given up 10 years of his life in order to go back and prevent the murder of his parents not to mention all the time traveling herione did to keep up with her course load in her third year by all accounts I think she should have looked at least a little bit older by the end of the prisoner of asaman and clearly author JK Rawling realized how problematic the time Turner became sharing with fans on wisting world.com I went far too light-heartedly into the subject of time travel in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of baban while I do not regret it prisoner of aaban is one of my favorite books in this series it opened up a vast number of problems for me because after all if Wizards could go back and undo problems where were my future plots I solved the problem to my own satisfaction in stages firstly I had Dumbledore and herione emphasized how dangerous it would be to be seen in the past to remind the reader that there might be unforeseen and dangerous consequences as well as Solutions in time travel secondly I had to M give back the only time Turner ever to enter Hogwarts thirdly I smashed all remaining time Turners during the battle in the department of mysteries removing the possibility of reliving even short periods in the future so obviously the possibilities presented by the existence of the time Tera created some pretty troubling issues five the petronus charms difficulty level aside from a few of the most famous spells like wingardium mosa expelis and Dada kadavra expecto patronum is probably among the most well-known incantations within the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and as many of you will know it it is the spell that casts the petronis charm the potent spell heavily featured in the prison of aaban but if you're feeling a little fuzzy on the details of this particular charm here are the need to know Basics expecto patronum can produce a non-corporeal or corporeal variation of the petronis charm the non-corporeal version typically resembles wisps of silver which is most likely to occur when a witch or wizard is First Learning the spell the corporeal form on the other hand is that of an animal in a silvery vapor-like State the animal is unique to the individual and relates to their personality and emotions in most cases the animal will remain the same over the course of a witch or Wizard's life but it has been known to change in the event of a traumatic or life-altering event the following is an excerpt from the prison of asaman in which Professor Remis Lupin explains to Harry Potter how a petronus Works in that it is a kind of anti-d a guardian which acts as a shield between you and the DOR a kind of positive force a projection of the very things that the dementa feeds upon hope happiness the desire to survive but it cannot feel despair as real humans can so the ders can't hurt it and so in order to produce one a witch or wizard must Focus all their energy on a single very happy memory it is through this thought or memory that the charm is conjured and more specifically what makes it such a potent spell against dark magical beings like Dementors and lethifolds of course the catch is that the presence of these beings especially Dementors literally suck all the happiness from the room this makes performing the patronous charm extremely difficult when faced with a dementa as focusing on happy thoughts when this emotion is being ripped away from your body comes with some logistical issues however in the series we see a number of character characters struggle to conjure this spell even when there are no Dementors present in my opinion this makes little to no sense for surely it wouldn't be all that difficult to Simply think about your happiest thought some random moment and yell the words expecto patronum would it surely not as we see Harry easily cast the full force of his Patronis at a group of Southern students merely pretending to be Dementors even though at the time he was still struggling to conjure the spell when up against actual Dementors six the invention of new spells the idea that spells could be invented Was A New Concept introduced in the Half Blood Prince in this book we discover that Snape was not only incredibly talented at potion making while he was a student we also learned that he invented many spells while he was attending Hogwarts having created at least seven spells during his youth the most noteworthy one is a curse called sectum SRA which lacerates its Target causing severe bleeding in the following excerpt from the sixth novel we see the exchange between Harry and Professor Snape in which seus admits to being the creator of the Spells Harry had discovered in his textbook you dare use my own spells against me Potter it was I who invented them I the Half Blood Prince and you'd turn my inventions on me like your filthy father would you I don't think so no while the idea that new spells can be created is an exciting one I think it presents quite a few problems in terms of the laws of magic basically what's required to create new charms or curses are there parameters or limitations of course it seems to be rather dangerous work as proven by the accidental death of Luna Lov Good's mother who died while experimenting with new spells but if a student at Hogwarts could create curses so harmful and Powerful as the one Snape invented it's probably quite accessible so why weren't new spells created all the time for example why wouldn't Voldemort have simply created a murderous curse even more powerful and potent than Avada kadavra or why didn't Harry invent some spell to specifically take down the Dark Lord Seven Transfiguration questionable ethical nature Transfiguration is a discipline of study at Hogwarts and other magical schools that teaches the art of transforming one thing into another Conjuring Vanishing and more for the most part this particular branch of magic while rather difficult to master appears to be rather straightforward forward witches and wizards who are skilled in Transfiguration can transform an inanimate object into something else conjure certain items and even make things disappear all of this seems rather benign until the objects being transformed are living creatures for example does anyone know what happens to the biology or sentience of a dog who is turned into say a broom what about if you turn a teapot into a cat does the cat have the ability to think even though it was originally a teapot and what about if you turn the cat back into a teapot does it lose its brief abilities to think feel and be alive then there's the matter of the actual transformation when Transfiguration magic is cast does the Target of the spell feel pain what happens if the spell is performed incorrectly does a living being become permanently disfigured or Worse sadly I believe so as according to the following text from em switches a beginner's guide to Transfiguration incomplete transfigurations are difficult to put right but you must attempt to do so leaving the head of a rabbit on a foot stool is irresponsible and dangerous say reparifage and the object or creature should return to its natural state so with all that in mind the art of transfiguration seems to become a lot more ethically questionable does it not I mean a decapitated rabbit must be in extreme pain and since sometimes Transfiguration spells are permanent and other times they are not there's even more reason to second guess the usage of this particular branch of Magic on living creatures eight the homonculus charm's lack of use in law enforcement while you may not immediately recognize the name of the homonculus charm odds are you know of at least one magical item that uses this particular bit of magic for the homonculus charm is the spell that James Potter Sirius Black Remis Lupin and Peter pigr used to create none other than the Marauders map despite the general mischievous nature of the map it's not the item itself that is responsible for its incredible ability to track each and every living and a ghostly being on the grounds of Hogwarts that is actually the homonculus charm a spell so formidable that it's even able to show individuals who are in their animal and omegas form or hidden by magical artifacts like the cloak of invisibility so knowing just how powerful and effective the homonculus charm is and the fact that a group of young students were able to perform it quite effectively why why isn't this spell used more often to me it seems almost insane that a charm such as this wouldn't be leveraged by say the school itself to track down Mischief Makers and keep the castle safe from Intruders even more obvious than that shouldn't the ministry of magic be leveraging a spell like this to monitor areas that are susceptible to The Wizarding world's greatest risks a few locations that come to mind are Gringo's Wizarding bank or as caban prison and yet for some strange reason the one and only time we see this charming use is within the mischievous folds of the Marauders map nine animeg guys's registration requirements over the course of the series despite there being fewer than a thousand in existence we meet several animi these are witches and wizards who can transform themselves into an animal counterparts at well and unlike a person's Patronus the form of an individual's animagus cannot be influenced by emotion or experiences and therefore can never be altered and so as each animus has a specific animal that they can transform into witches and wizard are asked to register their animega ability and animal type with the ministry of Magic's animega registry failure to do so has often resulted in imprisonment in aaban now while I understand the reasoning behind a registry known anime GUI would be less likely to get away with criminal activity in their animal form I do feel that imprisonment for failure to register seems a bit much this is particularly so in consideration of the fact that animi seem to have been singled out in this way for example why aren't legilimens or mind readers as us Muggles would call them asked to register with the ministry shouldn't all Extraordinary magical abilities be treated the same 10 the inconsistency of incantations lastly on today's list we'll be covering incantations and the overall inconsistency with their linguistic morphology here's what I mean many spells that we learn about in the series are General commands Akio the spell that summons an item or object Wingard Leviosa the levitation spell that can lift any object up into the air lumos a charm that brings light and expelis the defense spell that removes a weapon most often a wand from another person but not all incantations are this General and for no apparent Rhyme or Reason certain spells are oddly specific like slugulus erecto a spell that's used to induce the vomiting of only slug Oculus reparo a charm that specifically fixes glasses and dorio a hex that induces the growth of teeth in all three of these examples it seems incredibly confusing at least to me why they are so specific for shouldn't slugulus Aro actually be arcto a general vomiting spell that you could then tack whatever you wanted onto the end saying something like uo slugs or aruo boogers after all this is how spells like AO are used the same way of thinking could then be applied to Oculus reparo and dorio both these spells would make a lot more sense if they were repairo and Yu-Gi-Oh for repair and grow respectively with so much inconsistency within the structure of the Wizarding world's incantations I'm left wondering if there was any reasoning behind how these spells were created at all and with that we've come to the end of another video what did you think did I miss any major examples of Wizarding World Magic making no sense share your thoughts in the comments below and as always if you enjoyed this video don't forget to like it and subscribe to the channel also be sure to check out the content on Spotify as well as extra content on my second Channel Harry Potter Theory extra until next time remember it does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live

Channel: Harry Potter Theory

Views: 150,934

Keywords: harry potter, ron weasley, fantastic beasts, hermione granger, avada kedavra, wizarding world, harry potter theory, harry potter explained, j.k. rowling, slytherin, gryffindor, history of wands, grindelwald, dumbledore, hogwarts, deathly hallows, voldemort, snape, weasley, hidden details, easter egg, theory, folklore, death eaters, spells, behind the scenes, half-blood prince, patronus, bellatrix, elder wand, horcrux, secret, dementor, azkaban, history, powerful, plot, hole, mistake, time turner

Id: zBpnkGUHefo

Length: 22min 59sec (1379 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 03 2024