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Spells in Silence (Harry Potter)

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On the "hags hunting humans instead of having set up systems to get dying humans" thing: I'll note that Wizard interference could play a role there.

If hags have systems to acquire dying humans and thus eat more comfortably and ethically than hunting, then that would 1: give hags more power by virtue of living more stable lives, 2: make it easier for them to become less ostracized, and therefore exert influence in politics, and 3: make it harder to use them as political scapegoats.

I reckon that there would thus be political factions with an interest in ensuring that the status quo re:hags remains something where hags are both voiceless and easily exploited as political talking points. Keep Your Children Safe From Those Scary Magical Creatures By Voting For Me and all that.
 
Reese said:
(The werewolves, I remember reading, are supposed to represent people with AIDS, which is why there's a whole one of them in canon who isn't portrayed as a murderous child predator, an of course completely accurate statistical representation of people with AIDS and definitely not gaining the stereotype bonus of associating AIDS, child predation, and homosexuality in a wonder triangle.
(And just in case, because this is the internet: SARCASM.))
But indeed, Silently Watches I trust to not do, er. That sort of thing.
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That make no since under any interpretation. Werewolf's in HP go thou what amounts to bouts of violently insane mass murders. They are driven to hunt and kill people, without hesitation or restraint.
LadyLynn said:
On the "hags hunting humans instead of having set up systems to get dying humans" thing: I'll note that Wizard interference could play a role there.

If hags have systems to acquire dying humans and thus eat more comfortably and ethically than hunting, then that would 1: give hags more power by virtue of living more stable lives, 2: make it easier for them to become less ostracized, and therefore exert influence in politics, and 3: make it harder to use them as political scapegoats.

I reckon that there would thus be political factions with an interest in ensuring that the status quo re:hags remains something where hags are both voiceless and easily exploited as political talking points. Keep Your Children Safe From Those Scary Magical Creatures By Voting For Me and all that.
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Killing people is bad and you are a monster for promoting it. Also Hags eat children not adults.
 
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Earth-Destroyer said:
Killing people is bad and you are a monster for promoting it.
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Didn't we go through this rigmarole back in an earlier chapter? I don't believe it was you causing a ruckus at the time, but it was about the same shit.

This is a FICTIONAL story, number one. Calling anyone a "monster" because of their views on a fictional story is over the line. No ifs, ands, or buts. I do not want to see it again in my thread.

Number two, this is a story that has and will continue to explore nonhuman species. These species will have their own culture and their own morality. Sometimes that morality will conflict with traditional human morality, and that's okay. Creatures that aren't human will think and act differently to humans. Simple as that.

Now if this idea is a deal-breaker to you, if you get triggered about something whenever it's even mentioned, this story will not be one you will enjoy long term. Feel free to move along and find something else to read.
 
Earth-Destroyer said:
That make no since under any interpretation. Werewolf's in HP go thou what amounts to bouts of violently insane mass murders. They are driven to hunt and kill people, without hesitation or restraint.
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There's a parallel in how manageable the disease is and how terrified the public is of them, even when they're in no danger. Like how HIV's methods of transmission were misrepresented. In both cases the authorities were seen as so untrustworthy that nobody wanted to work with them, even if it would ideally be the right choice.

It should be simple to track the full moon and have folks sit somewhere once every 28 days. Or be chaperoned to a human free area.
I can think of plenty of ways to do that even without magic, depending on how humane you wanna be. With magic it should be trivial. They've even already got the means to counteract the insanity portion of the transformation, if you have the money.
 
I have enjoyed the story a great deal for the exact reason of how well Silently is handling the nonhuman cultures and characters. It is leagues better than most 90% of actual published works and I feel that Silently will not intentionally insult or demean people with their writing.
 
esp said:
There's a parallel in how manageable the disease is and how terrified the public is of them, even when they're in no danger. Like how HIV's methods of transmission were misrepresented. In both cases the authorities were seen as so untrustworthy that nobody wanted to work with them, even if it would ideally be the right choice.

It should be simple to track the full moon and have folks sit somewhere once every 28 days. Or be chaperoned to a human free area.
I can think of plenty of ways to do that even without magic, depending on how humane you wanna be. With magic it should be trivial. They've even already got the means to counteract the insanity portion of the transformation, if you have the money.
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And that does not help at all, deprived of humans to hunt Werewolfs will attack themselves. So you options are hurt yourself, or hunt humans. Nevermind the potion is rare and only a few years old, nor does it suppress the pain of the transformation.
 
PinkShadowReader said:
I assume there is nutrition potions from the endless amount of fanfictions. Because wizards is that good at preventing permanent damage to be permanent.
it would also solve her reluctance to be feed excessive amount of food as a single dose would do. It would let her stomach get 'tricked' to eat the same while not eating the same.

I have always had a hard time thinking that magic couldn't fix eye sight problems. I can see people not wanting to do this treatment because of style, too muggle (dunno how), pain, unfortunate side effects under the spell/potions treatment effect or humiliating side effects during the period. Maybe it could only be corrected during their youth like before their get to 18 year old and before that they are too insecure to let themselves to be treated by that if its something humiliating. Maybe its a discovery made by a muggle born so pureblood families won't take it.
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Silently Watches said:
I'm undecided if such magic exists in my story. While I fully recognize that wizards have magic for every little thing, when this has a mundane solution of "just eat more", I feel like it would be a solution in search of a problem. It also wouldn't help her for the third of the year where she'd still be going around in borderline starvation mode.
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Pomfrey fixes Hermione's teeth but Harry, his dad and others need glasses for life. Ugly bodyshapes, dwarfism and various skin conditions aren't fixed either unless they were created by jinxes. It's probably because living things don't want to change. Teeth, nails and hair and clothes are dead things so they can be changed but eyes, excessive fat tissue or malnourished physiques can only be altered with illegal rituals and or transfigurations.
 
Earth-Destroyer said:
And that does not help at all, deprived of humans to hunt Werewolfs will attack themselves. So you options are hurt yourself, or hunt humans. Nevermind the potion is rare and only a few years old, nor does it suppress the pain of the transformation.
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But ultimately, it leads to the condition being harmful to one's self rather than others. It's not a pleasant choice, but it is a choice, and I wouldn't say it doesn't help at all.
And, of course, the potion's rarity is a solvable problem.
 
Half Moon said:
But ultimately, it leads to the condition being harmful to one's self rather than others. It's not a pleasant choice, but it is a choice, and I wouldn't say it doesn't help at all.
And, of course, the potion's rarity is a solvable problem.
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Few people would be willing to suffer for others. As for the potions its rare enough, and hard enough to produce that is it was only invented thousands of years after the werewolf curse being around. That says it requires ingredients so hard to get its not scalable, or so rare that, scaling would almost certainly lead to their those ingredients going extinct.

And if you want to help people, solve the cause not the effect. Figure out how to break the curse, don't waste time with costly endeavors that don't actually solve the issue.
 
Earth-Destroyer said:
As for the potions its rare enough, and hard enough to produce that is it was only invented thousands of years after the werewolf curse being around. That says it requires ingredients so hard to get its not scalable, or so rare that, scaling would almost certainly lead to their those ingredients going extinct.
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To be fair, it was invented by Snape as I recall, a potions master who was nearly killed by a werewolf at one point so had a vested interest in looking into it. Not to mention he very well may have his own motives for how the potion actually works.

As for the price, the ingredients could possibly be inflated artificially by the government to make it harder to afford to brew the potion.

Being hard to make on a skill level is true enough, but that could also be attributed to being so new, and noone really trying to improve on it yet, or even Snape intentionally making it hard to brew.
 
Earth-Destroyer said:
And if you want to help people, solve the cause not the effect. Figure out how to break the curse, don't waste time with costly endeavors that don't actually solve the issue.
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Breaking the curse and taking measures to make the curse more tolerable are not mutually exclusive in the slightest. And while the ingredients may be rare forever, steps can be taken to make them less so. It might not work perfectly, but considering how it will improve the lives of a number of disadvantaged people, I'd say it's worth trying.
 
corblimey said:
Pomfrey fixes Hermione's teeth but Harry, his dad and others need glasses for life. Ugly bodyshapes, dwarfism and various skin conditions aren't fixed either unless they were created by jinxes. It's probably because living things don't want to change. Teeth, nails and hair and clothes are dead things so they can be changed but eyes, excessive fat tissue or malnourished physiques can only be altered with illegal rituals and or transfigurations.
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Teeth are alive, it's why they're such a pain in the ass to take care of.
 
Earth-Destroyer said:
Did you miss the entire point of the the 3 becoming animagues. That Werewolfs ignore animals, that they only hunt humans. Deprived of humans werewolfs will attack themselves.
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That is trivial to prevent, even without magic. With magic you can fake some humans for them to chase.

Not that them attacking themselves should mean much. The commune werewolves were fighting each other in the story here and the only thing worth mentioning was the pain that comes from transforming. They seem to be doing just fine not hunting humans, it's the discrimination screwing them over.
 
Pretty sure Snape did not invent the Wolfsbane potion.

I am also equally sure that the reason it is so expensive and difficult to brew is for early adopter reasons. It was a recent creation and has not been optimized yet. It could also be because of trade reasons where the ingredients to create it were just recently put on the market and are thus not easy to find. It could also just simply be that one of the ingredients is a pain to gather vanilla and saffron are and the potion requires a big bunch of them.
 
Roots and a fair amount of the core, enamel is not the majority of the tooth, even the upper portion of the tooth.
 
PinkShadowReader said:
I assume there is nutrition potions from the endless amount of fanfictions.
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In the business we call those potions "soup".

PinkShadowReader said:
I have always had a hard time thinking that magic couldn't fix eye sight problems. I can see people not wanting to do this treatment because of style, too muggle (dunno how), pain, unfortunate side effects under the spell/potions treatment effect or humiliating side effects during the period. Maybe it could only be corrected during their youth like before their get to 18 year old and before that they are too insecure to let themselves to be treated by that if its something humiliating. Maybe its a discovery made by a muggle born so pureblood families won't take it.
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How old are you? Because the above paragraph smeels like something written by someone who never had to deal with presbyopia.
 
Silently Watches said:
but what was really surprising was that wizards attributed completely different properties to some of those plants than what she had read previously. It was quite strange how much ideas could shift in the span of centuries.
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I want to see her successfully make a potion using those alternate properties and give Snape a "Well, according to what I know of them, they work this way..."

Is this an override to the "wizardy" properties since she believes her own more strongly, or would it just let her substitute? Then again, wasn't there a lesson from the Hags on how dangerous the study is? Her own magic has been weirdly safe when developing new spells, but I don't think that would stop her getting blown up by a bad potion.
Silently Watches said:
Tom, the bartender for the Leaky Cauldron pub, had been the person who told her about them, had even recommended she convert her normal money into gold and silver to make it easier for her to buy things.
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Welp, and now she doesn't know that she actually has money, either.
Silently Watches said:
Meanwhile, she is confused why people think she's exaggerating or making things up when she hasn't even mentioned the wild stuff yet!
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Hermione might be a fellow researcher/outcast, but good luck finding her. Maybe Luna, but that'd be next year...
 
Isiri Pudireach said:
Did Joanne Kathleen Rowling really have to put the word wolf in the name of every werewolf she comes up with? (Lobo=wolf)
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It's a law that when you become infected you legally have to change your name to reflect your condition obviously. As is the rational response.

That or someone cursed all people with wolf in their names to end up getting bitten.
 
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