A Magical Theory Question

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

In order to perform most spells, wizards and witches must speak or think a particular incantation and wave their wands, often using specific movements. Different combinations of incantations and wand movements will have different magical effects.

I've long believed that all of the incantations and wand waving involved in spell-casting are merely focusing techniques. In other words, while the words and movements help to center one's attention upon a specific spell, it is ultimately the caster's intent which produces the desired results. However, I now realize that there is at least one instance of spell-casting in canon that defies this reasoning. It is the case of Harry casting Sectumsempra upon Draco in HBP. This has undoubtedly been discussed elsewhere before, but it is a new conundrum for me.

Harry finds the incantation for Sectumsempra in the Prince's potions book at the beginning of chapter 21 of HBP.

He had just found an incantation “Sectumsempra!" scrawled in a margin above the intriguing words "For enemies," and was itching to try it out, but thought it best not to in front of Hermione. Instead, he surreptitiously folded down the corner of the page.

There are no accompanying directions for how to wave one's wand to cast the spell, nor is there any description of what the spell is supposed to do.

Harry casts Sectumsempra for the first time in response to Draco's attempted Cruciatus Curse in chapter 24.

"SECTUMSEMPRA!" bellowed Harry from the floor, waving his wand wildly.

Blood spurted from Malfoy's face and chest as though he had been slashed with an invisible sword. He staggered backward and collapsed onto the waterlogged floor with a great splash, his wand falling from his limp right hand.

If Harry had ever studied Latin, he would have known that "sectum sempra" means something like "always cuts" or, as Whitehound put it, "sever forever." But he never learned Latin, and so he didn't know beforehand what the effects of the spell would be.

"I didn't mean it to happen," said Harry at once. His voice echoed in the cold, watery space. "I didn't know what that spell did."

Setting aside Harry's deplorable behavior in casting an unknown spell designed "for enemies," what does it mean magically that shouting "Sectumsempra!" produced the result of slicing Draco open, even though Harry had no specific thought behind the spell? If Harry didn't know what Sectumsempra would do, then who or what did know? Who or what processed the incantation of "Sectumsempra" and interpreted its meaning to be "sever forever," if it wasn't Harry's brain?

Was it Harry's wand? Could wands be something like magical computers that are programmed to interpret Latin commands? Or was it magic itself? Is magic somehow sentient rather than simply a form of energy?

What are you thoughts?

Comments

Re: I've thought about this waaay too much (Part 2)

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think this rather works. It is canon that for many spells the exact wand movement and incantation are necessary, and apparently are all that is necessary. PS, chapter 10, "Now don't forget that nice wrist movement we've been practicing!" squeaked Professor Flitwick... "And saying the magic words propersly is very important, too--never forget Wizard Baruffio, who said 's' instead of 'f' and found himself on the floor with a buffalo on his chest."

But this may tie back to to Jodel's history of magic, that people developed these domesticated spells as a safer alternative to the Dark Arts. Certainly the magic Lily (unconsciously, we are told) worked with her sacrificial death to protect her baby wasn't an orderly function call.

So the programmer's magic might be the domesticated magic taught at Hogwarts, while the oldest magic was more a matter of raising chaotic magical energy and shaping it with one's will. I'm thinking here of community-based magic, the kinds of things the WW no longer does much of--ritual sacrifice, ritual dancing, fertility rites (okay, so I've been re-reading The Golden Bough). Perhaps the oldest magic was shamans using communally-raised energy to help the community (or harm enemies...). With the Dark Arts being in between--semi-domesticated, more predictable results than jsut generalized good luck or rain or death to enemies, but still requiring more will/intent/emotion to use.

The real problem with the function-call model is that we know of several results when the people cast spells. Success, nothing, the wrong thing (Baruffio's problem can be explained as due to his accidentally invoking a different function), and ... partial success. Something moves but doesn't come to one, or transforms partly. In fact in transfigurations that's the usual type of failure. What problem with inputs could cause partial success?

Re: I've thought about this waaay too much (Part 2)

[r-ganymede.livejournal.com]

The real problem with the function-call model is that we know of several results when the people cast spells. Success, nothing, the wrong thing (Baruffio's problem can be explained as due to his accidentally invoking a different function), and ... partial success. Something moves but doesn't come to one, or transforms partly. In fact in transfigurations that's the usual type of failure. What problem with inputs could cause partial success?

I have a few ideas about partial successes. The first is that some of them will actually fall in the did-the-wrong-thing category. Going back to the function example, let's say that my "draw_circle" function has "fill" parameter in the input. If I want my circle to be filled with red, I can set "fill" to True in the input. If I want my circle to be just an outline, with nothing in the middle, I can set "fill" to False.

If I'm trying to get a filled circle, but accidentally set "fill" to False instead of True, I'll still get a circle, just not the one I wanted. Getting an empty circle is a form of partial success.

In casting a spell, this could mean something like flicking the wand at the wrong speed/angle/direction/whatever at one point and accidentally changing only one part of what the spell does.

With functions, it's also common to set default parameters for the inputs, so that the user doesn't have to decide on and input values for 20+ possible circle attributes (radius, line thickness, line color, fill, etc.) whenever they just want a basic circle. So someone calling the "draw_circle" function without saying anything about the "fill" parameter might just get an unfilled circle by default, as opposed to having the function not run at all.

Which is kind of how I think tranfiguration failures work. One of the inputs for transfiguration spells is clearly some kind of model for the intended changes, which the caster has to visualize in their mind. To get from a matchstick to a needle, you would have to be thinking of the exact shape of a needle (pointy at one end, hole in the other), the material, the color, the shiny/reflective quality, and any number of other possible variables. And you have to be keeping all of these things in mind simultaneously through the whole process for it to come out entirely correctly.

But if someone who doesn't have much practice tries this, they might only manage one part of the visualization, like the pointy shape. The spell takes the input and does exactly what it's told, resulting in something wooden and pointy, with no other changes made.

The other possibility for partial spells is concentration failure. Say you wrote a function to print out 100 documents, but your computer crashes halfway through executing the function. Obviously, the function never completed. But you'd still have the 50 documents that it did manage to print before the computer crashed.

If the witch/wizard is responsible for maintaining the spell using willpower/focus, then some partial successes could just be because the caster was able to get the spell going initially, but not able to keep it going until the end. You can call an object and have it start moving... but then not be able to keep the spell going long enough to actually get it to come to you.

Re: I've thought about this waaay too much (Part 2)

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

---But this may tie back to to Jodel's history of magic, that people developed these domesticated spells as a safer alternative to the Dark Arts....

----So the programmer's magic might be the domesticated magic taught at Hogwarts, while the oldest magic was more a matter of raising chaotic magical energy and shaping it with one's will. I'm thinking here of community-based magic, the kinds of things the WW no longer does much of

Yes, I like this!

----In fact in transfigurations that's the usual type of failure. What problem with inputs could cause partial success?

Thinking about it, I don't believe we read very often about the kids practicing specific incantations and wand movements in their transfiguration class. Maybe Charms magic is based upon our "magical computer" and transfiguration uses a different system of magic, but there's some overlap between the two.

Re: I've thought about this waaay too much (Part 2)

[oryx_leucoryx]

IIRC Jodel placed Transfiguration as midway between Charms and Dark Arts. It is a discipline that uses more chaotic force.