Creative Ways of Stowing Wands

[bellaoc]

***Potential DH spoiler! Beware!!***

Originally posted by Lady JulietYou can repair wands, so I could imagine you could transfigure one, it would probably be really advanced magic though.

Hm. I don't think you can actually repair wands. If you could, Ron would have been able to get his repaired during COS. There is only one situation where a wand was repaired, and that was an extraordinary event.

I don't think you could transfigure one...I don't know why, but that just doesn't seem plausible in my mind. I would go with something that's been said before, like stowing it in a boot or hidden pocket/slip somewhere. I do like the wand as a hairpiece idea. I feel like Luna wore hers in her hair once...or maybe it was just behind her ear. Either way, that's creative!
--Bella

[OliveOil_Med]

But these all bring up some more discussion points, talking about the different forms wands can and can't take.

What do you think people used before wands came along, even in differnet parts of the world? Essentualy, a wands purpose is to act as a channel for magical power, and indients of uncontrolled magic prove it is not impossible to use magic without one. Surely they could not have all come up with the same design so what could have been some other methods? Did other cultures just have different designs, or did they just go without until influenced by Europe? How long do you think it took for the idea of wands to become universal? Are they even universal? What parts of the world do you think go without?

[bellaoc]

Hm. It does bring up an interesting discussion about the forms of wands.

Originally posted by OliveOil_Med:Essentualy, a wands purpose is to act as a channel for magical power, and indients of uncontrolled magic prove it is not impossible to use magic without one.

Yes, but J.K. Rowling has said in an interview that while it is possible to cast spells without a wand, most wizards have unfocused and uncontrollable results. I think that, at least in the world she has created, a wand is needed to produce real and intended results.
As far as I understand, the wands have a magical substance inside them, which helps channel the wizards magic. I think that the substance helps focus the magic into the result that the wizard desires.

Originally posted by OliveOil_Med:Surely they could not have all come up with the same design so what could have been some other methods?

Well, I think that maybe someone figured out that the best way to channel their magical powers was with a wand made out of a specific wood and with a magical substance in it. I think that its the same as with any invention, really. Word spreads, and it just takes off from there. I'm sure other people experimented with other woods/magical substances, to see which yielded the best results. That could also be where they figured out that not all wands suit everyone. Unfortunately, JKR doesn't give specific details regarding the history of wands, and we have to sort of guess it as we go along.

Originally posted by OliveOil_Med:How long do you think it took for the idea of wands to become universal? Are they even universal?

Like I said above, I think it just caught on eventually. I'm not sure how long that would take though...But again, I think they are universal. From what JKR has said regarding wands, I think that only an extremely powerful and rare wizard could do wandless magic that actually worked as well as wand magic.

Hope that helps with your questions and/or sparks an interesting discussion!
--Bella

[HARRYHARRYHARRYs_twin]

I think that the use of magical implements and devices must have developed alongside the Muggle world's use of weapons. So I think that the differences between the wands or other such devices between, say, England and Japan are as different as the gear of an English knight and a samurai are. I would say that every country or region's items would be influenced by its culture and beliefs. I could see the Asian or Middle-Eastern wizards using different materials for their wands or staffs or whatever shape they chose to use, like trees native to the country, and hairs from a sphinx's mane for a core. Greecian wizards could use any number of magical things for cores, being the home of the cyclops and sirens, and was the place of the first basilisk creation, not to mention the chimaera.

I could see the native peoples of the Americas, like the Aztecs, Mayas, Incas, and the Indians (oh no, there I go being politically incorrect) not having wands. Their way of life was so different from that of other civilizations at the time, I could see the magical people being an intergrated part of society, without having to hide everything. Medecine men existed - who is to say that they weren't magical, but just hid that fact within their own culture? I see those people being more advanced with things like the making of potions and the properties of various animals. They might not have had wands, but I could see a string of wampum being a item like a wand, but it would be strung on some sort of magical item, like a tendon of a creature, and the wampum not coming from clams but from a magical creature as well. I could see it being used in a chant, instead of a spell. Also, those people were much more in touch with nature than the people who came to take their land, so they would use every part of whatever they took. I could see the Europeans introducing their ways of using wands and spells becoming integrated into the Indian magicians' life, like the metal wares were brought into the Muggles'.

I can see the wand, in our current point of history, being mostly universal. Still people might stay with their old ways, or are so isolated where they are that they don't know of them enough to use them, but I could see most magicians of the world using wands.

I can't see the transfiguring of wands to work, not while maintaining their use. Sure, you might be able to, but they wouldn't work as wands. I could see the creation of a seeming, or a shell that consealed the wand from sight or recognition, but other than that I can't see it working at all. If my ideas about how Transfiguration works are correct, you are changing one item into a completely different or modified one. By changing it into a bottle or a flower or some such thing, you are getting rid of the magical parts of it and turning them into something different. You could, I suppose, shape the wand to something else in the first place, like a carved duck or hairbrush or some such thing. That would be up to your interpretation.

~Selina

[Halgy]

In my new fic (hopefully I'll get it approved someday...), I have reasoned that there are several ways to do magic without a wand. Sorry, but I rather like this type of discussion. Be prepared for a long, rambling response:

Magic isn't--for lack of a better term--magic. There is a rhyme and reason for why magic behaves the way it does; it doesn't work just 'cause you say so (unless you're J.K., in which case I suppose it does). For this type of fiction to work, there needs to be a canon reason for why magic behaves the way it does.

Magic is a natural force that comes from everything. In it's normal state, this magic is hard to control. A wand is nothing but a tool imbued with magical properties that can be used to focus and control one's own inherit magical power. Perhaps some wands do this better (e.g. the Elder Wand) and some worse (e.g. the Blackthorn wand for Harry), but they don't make the wizard (or witch) any less gifted. As such, it should stand to reason that other mechanisms can exist for controlling magic, not just narrow strips of wood with bits of magical creature in them.

There are many types of magical cultures spread throughout the world. As such, other cultures would have to find other ways to focus their magic when they were first discovering and developing their powers.

In my fic, I have methods coming from other cultures using different techniques, mainly magically imbued runes. If you don't know what I'm talking about, think about the stereotypical pentagram. The symbols, drawn in a specific way, can help focus the magic.

I also stress the idea that English magical education is rather limited to it's own techniques. Granted, the normal, wand-using magic is very powerful, perhaps the most powerful single type. However, in some situations, other types of magic are needed (pretty much why I have Harry learning them).


However, this is only my stand on the issue. If J.K. comes out and says categorically that wandless magic isn't possible, I guess it is so. Until then, if you can reason out a way in which a different type of magic can work using the already set cannon law of Harry Potter, then go for it.

[minnabird]

This is a very interesting topic, as it has developed, and one I've given a little bit of thought to already.

I agree with Halgy that magic doesn't just work because you say so, that there has to be some sort of logic. It occurs to me that the wands, as focusers (is that a word?) of magic, have to be especially attuned to their wielders' minds to work well. Just like certain ingredients in Potions certainly have different attributes when combined by wizards as opposed to Muggles (or else someone might have discovered Felix Felicis, or some such!), different woods and animal components must have different magical properties, and these properties must mesh well with the mind of the wand's wielder.

Magical power is wild and hard to focus, but I think that certain civilzations might have survived wandless. I can see there being wizarding societies where focus and will are all-powerful, and those who cannot focus well enough to control their magic are considered weak. HARRYHARRYHARRYs_twin and Halgy raise some very interesting points about the magic of different cultures--I love this idea of different techniques.

As for focus, Harry and company did learn a little bit how hard it is to focus well, but that intent can work as well as the preset incantation. The incantation merely helps to focus it. In a larger way, the wand does the same thing as the incantation.

I also agree that wands probably haven't been around forever. I remember in Latin class our teacher told us about some sort of superstition about witches giving people the Evil Eye. That sounds very similar to Harry's bursts of temper, during which his uncontrolled magic Vanishes glass or blows his aunt up. Once upon a time, magic was probably a more restricted craft, or else it had its very great magicians and its not-very-powerful, unpredictable practitioners. I can see some of the stories of faerie activity in Ireland and elsewhere being wizard-related--maybe sometimes when Muggles thought they had offended the Fair Folk, they'd really offended the magic folk, whose powers took unusual forms.

For a basic sum-up of my ideas on magic, I'd say magic is very powerful in its unfocused form (do you think Harry could have blown up Marge on purpose? I think not), but it's also uncontrollable and often disastrous. It's safer and more predictable to use controlled, focused magic, especially if you want specific results.

[Lady Juliet]

What do you think people used before wands came along, even in differnet parts of the world?

In Ancient Egypt the magicians had something called a 'snake wand' or 'snake rod', which is basically a metal snake, that they used to do magic. If I remember correctly they had different kinds of wands as well.

The Celts, too, I believe, had wands of some sorts. At least in their legends (which really aren't very accurate) I do believe that magical sticks of some sort are mentioned, and I think they're one of the symbols of the Morrigan. But I could be terribly mislead.

Essentualy, a wands purpose is to act as a channel for magical power, and indients of uncontrolled magic prove it is not impossible to use magic without one. Surely they could not have all come up with the same design so what could have been some other methods? Did other cultures just have different designs, or did they just go without until influenced by Europe?

So, somewhat going off of my magic pants idea before.

If you had the right magical ingridents you could probably make clothing that channels magic. Or other objects. Maybe in some parts of the world, before the wand became universal different objects were used to focus power. Maybe in some warrior cultures weapons were magical, and used to focus powers, or in mining towns, maybe ordinary tools were used.

How long do you think it took for the idea of wands to become universal? Are they even universal? What parts of the world do you think go without?

I think that the beginning of the wand becoming universal probably started at the same time that the European Empires began to grow. When people began to colonize and settle foriegn continents such as North America, South America, Australia. Some places the wand may have come slower to, places like Angola, perhaps, which forcefully resisted white settlement. And perhaps some places still haven't fully adapted the wand. Perhaps some still use their traditional tools to perform magic.