Challenges & transfiguration.

[prillalar]

Current challenges:
Harry Potter Flashficathon - January 27
Master and the Wolf -- Remus/Snape fest - January 31
Woobies of Destiny - Harry/Neville fest - April 15

double_helix is soliciting interest for a Femslash Ficathon which I plan to do if it goes forward. I'm just a girl who can't say no. :)

I don't seem to have any LotR or Stargate challenges going. Are there any? I've only just gone back on "mail" on my LotR lists, so I'm a little out of the loop there. Also, I don't think I'm really in the LotR loop on LJ either. I went to the LotR BNF deathmatch thingy and looked at a bunch of the BNF LJs and it seemed to be actually Lotrips, which is not my bag. Hmm.

 

As the latest in my long list of questions about magic in Harry Potter, I present:

How the hell does transfiguration work?

I was talking with kestrelsan about my Remus/Snape story, trying to work out what Remus is doing with himself at the time I've set the story, and I got wondering about wizard wealth. Why is Remus poor? Why can't he just use magic to get what he needs?

It seems that there must be some limits on transfiguration, but the books don't really seem to support that. Sure, it's hard to do, but once mastered, seems to have a permanent effect.

In PS, Hagrid tries to transfigure Dudley into a pig. He fails, but Dudley has a pig's tail that has to be surgically removed. In GoF, Cedric transfigures a rock into a dog.

Do you need to learn a specific spell for each kind of transfiguration? It seems unlikely, since why would they teach students to transfigure teapots to tortoises, then?

Do you expend a lot of energy in the transfiguration? Does it take more calories to transfigure a stone into a bun than the bun has in it? The students complain about the difficulty of the spells, but they don't seem to be all that physically taxed by them.

(That would be an interesting wizard slimming programme -- transfigure all your food yourself so that you lose weight even though you're eating.)

There must be a limiting factor. But I just can't see what it is, given what we know so far.

Comments

[electricandroid.livejournal.com]

I've asked double_helix if I can pimp the ficathon, I konw a few people who would be interesting in writing femeslash (me included) - and for the food wizarding diet - YES PLEASE....thinks of transfiguring amaretti!


*hugs*
e.a.

[marinarusalka.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think that's one of those things JKR has really failed to think through properly. The way she seems to have set it up, there's really no reason why people like Remus or the Weasleys can't just transfigure their shabby old stuff into shiny new stuff, or just change some rocks into whatever they need.

I could fanwank some of it away. Like, maybe wizard manufacturers put anti-transfiguration spells on the things they make and sell. They'd kind of have to, otherwise no one would ever buy new clothes or furniture or anything, and everyone would go out of business. And I've theorized, like you, that transfiguring an object into food actually burns up more calories than the food you end up with. But it still doesn't explain why Remus can't transfigure a pile of dirt into a nice set of robes for himself.

The only think I can come up with is that it's not permanent. Maybe Dudley's tail would've gone away on its own if the Dursleys had waited long enough. And maybe the duration of the effect is unpredictable, so if you go out in your nice transfigured robes, you might find yourself in the middle of Diagon Alley wearing nothing but a pile of dirt.

Of course, that raises the question of what, exactly, Transfiguration is good for. It's treated like an important subject at Hogwarts, but if you can only change things temporarily, then it's only of limited use outside of school.