Magical Myths and Origin Stories!

The Potter Discussion: Harry Potter, Fantastic Beasts and the Wizarding World Fandom

In this episode, we discuss possible origins for well known magical ideas and wizarding practices. Enjoy!
Topics/Summary:
· Listen to the episode where the challenge question came from here.

· 3:18 Why are spells in Latin? This is a simple answer. A plausible answer is that spells are in Latin because spoken magic was coming into being when and where Latin was popular. They used the words that made sense to them and conjured what they wanted. The Latin versions of spells have stayed around because casting a spell is an exact art, and it would be very difficult to move away from that without redesigning the entire magical system.

· 9:05 Where did wands come from? This is a more difficult answer, as tracking the origins of a language are far easier than that of a wand. However, we can try. The basic explanation that makes sense to me is the shape of a wand just made sense. The shape that wands are is exactly how trees grow and it is very easy to find a wand-like twig. It is also natural, and it makes sense that the spell would come out of the end. A scene in the Half Blood Prince between Hagrid and Slughorn tells us that unicorn hair can get caught on bushes and trees and come out, which means that a lot of magical material in the woods surrounded by wand quality wood? It works. Not to mention a sign outside Olivander’s that says “Makers of fine wands since 382 B. C.”

· 15:41 An ulterior function of magical schools. Besides a place of education, magical schools are also the perfect place to act as a safe house for wizards in times of need. They are extremely well protected, with hundreds of spells protecting its every inch. Their locations are also kept secret, which is even more important. If a band of muggles were to stumble across Hogwarts, they would see a sign of warning and a rundown building. Very convenient. Harry’s year isn’t alerted because a threat like that hasn’t been around for a very long time. They don’t protect the location from Voldemort because he already knows where it is.

· 20:13 Why do wizards drink so much pumpkin juice? The UK produces millions of pumpkins every single year, and it would be suspicious to send millions of gallons of water to Hogwarts a year. Pumpkins, on the other hand, are less suspicious. However, it still might draw eyes, so they might just grow their own. Hagrid does, so why not the rest?

· 23:58 Why are muggle magic tricks so similar to real magic? Well, they came from the same exact thing. Wizards can show muggles low level magic and pass it off as good handwork, and muggles will buy it. The first muggle magic tricks evolved right around the same time and place as wizard magic. It makes a lot of sense for real wizards to be performing and inspiring the origins of muggle magic.
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