Why *are* the spells in HP all mangled Latin?

[conuly]

Is it just because Latin is cool? Or is there some reason for it? Would spells from other countries sound different... ooh! Does that mean that maybe Chinese people have completely different spells, or even that there's some language difficulties - no "translation" for reparo, you have to do something different, but they have a spell that wouldn't exist in England...?

On a tangentially-related note, despite whatever you have heard, alea iacta est does *not* mean "the die is cast". Latin has a really messed up tense system. Third principle part + is = has been. Don't ask me why. So "alea iacta est" means that the die has been cast, not that it is cast.

Comments

[conuly]

I have a theory on the need for spells, though it's backed up by very little.

Magical kids have a *lot* of potential. Harry can blow up his aunt, make his hair grow, apparate (or fly, I'm not sure which) to the top of a tall building... with no training or apparent effort.

Then they go to school, and learn spells. They need wands to do spells (look at how "wandless magic" is a common sue-trait!). They can *only* do the spells. Spells are difficult.

It seems to me that maybe the spells help them focus, so their magic is predictable - but it has the not-necessarily-unintentional side effect of limiting their capabilities - we certainly don't hear of wandless magic from adults.

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

So, for that matter, why was the Ministry of Magic never down Harry's throat for the magic he performed before he knew what he was doing? Do they not monitor pre-secondary-school age children? Is not illegal if it's an accident?

[robotliliput.livejournal.com]

I think that's just another one of those lovely inconsistencies we've come to expect from HP.

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

*sssssshhhhhhhhhhhhh*

Don't wake up conuly

[conuly]

I suspect the former. After all, they never bothered Colin Creevey (who was doing lots of things before he got the letter) or that boy who blew up a slug ("you bust slug, you bust slug!") or the girl whose wings grew right out of her romper.

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

Also, they apparently never noticed that Tom Riddle (Lord Voldemort) killed his father *and* grandparents, when, according to the timeline, he had to have been an infant or a young child.

[conuly]

Well, in the books he's written as being a teenager, probably just out of school.

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

Apparently he was in power much longer than I realized, then.

The opening of book four places the present day 50 years after the murders.

Also--if Hagrid was at school with Tom, and it's now fifty years since Tom graduated/murdered and H. was expelled, H. is much, much older than I'd realized. So is Dumbledore.

this is all quite irrelevant

[griphus.livejournal.com]

having not read, nor planning to read, the HP books, I can only comment on the general idea of casting spells in fiction.

In an issue of Planetary, one of the characters referred to magic as nothing but signal: cheat codes for the operating system of the world. Just like cheat codes for video games, you have to get into the system SOMEHOW. From what I can tell about the HP universe (from, uh, watching the first film under the influence of god-knows-what) the kids there have something in them already before they come to Hogwarts, they've got access to the system but no tools.

In Planetary, Drummer (a pretty interesting quasimagical character) uses a pair of drumsticks to rap on pieces of tech and access them. Zatanna from the Justice League spoke english backwards, although in the postmodern continuity claimed it was just a way to focus her attention.

So it might all come down to just that. Like Grant Morrison says, magic is all around us and it's up to us to name it. In an issue of the Invisibles, Jack Frost blows a wall out of a building by uttering "Tot'p", which is just an acronym for "Top of the Pops", as he saw a commercial for it right before casting the "spell".

The spell language, the magic wands, etc. are all just there to focus inherent skill. In some fiction anyway; if Rowling is ambiguous about it, the theory might be as valid as anything else.