Polyjuice Question

[leahsm2]

Frankly, I'm not sure where the indignation or dissatisfaction with the discussion comes from.

Really? I'm sorry but the way that last question was incorporated was unsettling to me. She started her point by saying that given the confines of the argument are "this", my point arises from "that". This isn't the first time i've seen this happen. No. I'm not being specific to this thread at this time because my "indignation or dissatifaction" and more than likely both, arise from the fact that it makes me extremely tired, yep worn out, in fact, that it is practically impossible to have any sort of discussion anywhere on this forum without being met with some sort of attitude that stops any other ideas dead in their tracks. It's boring. And I'm sorry I bothered to answer. I no longer will. So have at it. Who Cares? I don't. Bye.

[Inverarity]

But what do you all think about my theory for tumours and the mind? Do you agree? Disagree? Both? I'm certainly not tired of this topic, it's very interesting and I love seeing how others interpret the theories presented in here.

I think of Polyjuice as basically reshaping your flesh to make it as close to the subject's form as possible. It's got to have limits -- it obviously does not clone every cell, or you would also wind up with the subject's brain, and be the subject for all practical purposes.

I think, like pregnancies, you'd have "fake" tumors -- they'd outwardly (or even internally, if you used an X-ray) look like the subject's tumors, but I don't think they'd actually be cancerous.

[Sapphire at Dawn]

New question/wondering.

What do people suppose happens to the body during the time you are the other person, biologically? Magic cannot create new life, but would this include meiosis and mitosis? I would have thought it would, but is there the posibility that it isn't classed as new life? If it is classed as creating life, then mitosis and meiosis can't take place, so what happens to the body? Is this why the potion needs to be drank every hour, so the cells can have time to replenish, and new hairs need to be added so that this can happen and prevent organ faliure?

Also, why do you think that the potion isn't supposed to be used on animals, or half-giants? Is it to do with their biological make up?

I really think JKR, as brilliant a storyteller as she is, did not think of these things when creating Polyjuice Potion.

EDIT:: I really need to read my sentances propterly before I post....

[the opaleye]

New question/wondering.

What do people suppose happens to the body during the time you are the other person, biologically? Magic cannot create new life, but would this include meiosis and mitosis? I would have thought it would, but is there the posibility that it isn't classed as new life? If it is classed as creating life, then mitosis and meiosis can't take place, so what happens to the body? Is this why the potion needs to be drank every hour, so the cells can have time to replenish, and new hairs need to be added so that this can happen and prevent organ faliure?

Also, why do you think that the potion isn't supposed to be used on animals, or half-giants? Is it to do with their biological make up?

I really think JKR, as brilliant a storyteller as she is, did not think of these things when creating Polyjuice Potion.

EDIT:: I really need to read my sentances propterly before I post....

I will try not to be restrictive in my reasoning this time round I consider Polyjuice potion to be a form of human transfiguration so if this is true then when you use it and change, you are not creating new life (because you yourself are already alive) but changing it into another form. I think, along that side of the argument, biological functions such as meiosis and mitosis must still occur. I think the reasoning behind drinking the potion every hour would be more due to the fact that like any sort of medicine, it does not last in the bloodstream forever. If meiosis and mitosis and other biological functions were to stop during the period of transformation then you would probably need to be on a constant drip of PJ as the body would not last the full hour.

The thing with JKR is that in her world, she did not need to deal with these situations. I'm sure she would have come up with similar explanations if the need arose.

Remember, this is just my opinion. I won't be mad if you disagree with me. In fact, I love seeing other peoples theories and reasonings

[Inverarity]

I'd tend to agree -- when you're Polyjuiced, you're still in your body. If you get hurt while in Polyjuiced form, you'll still be hurt when you change back. Likewise, you're still going to age while you're in another body, and get hungry, etc.

I think the reason Polyjuice Potion isn't meant to be used with animals or giants is that the transformation is too great. A human turning into something radically non-human is going to go through a tremendous amount of physical and mental stress. Imagine, realistically, if you were suddenly ten feet taller, or a quadruped with completely different senses. It wouldn't be like in comic books and movies where you can just start running around in your new form as if it were perfectly natural -- you'd probably barely be able to control your new body at first.

That's no doubt why Animorphmagi are so rare and strictly controlled -- part of what makes it difficult is not just the transformation itself, but being able to function and preserve your sanity while in an animal body.

Gamp's Law Tangent:

The fact that you can't create life does not, to me, suggest that magic cannot create living cells (or pretty much any sort of transfiguration of living beings would be impossible), or at least sculpt them from other living cells, but that you can't create a new entity. So, for example, you can't conjure a squirrel out of thin air. You might be able to summon a squirrel from elsewhere and make it look like you just created it, or you might be able to turn a beetle into a squirrel... but you couldn't turn a pillow into a squirrel.

There are a few instances in the books where wizards do seem to conjure living things out of thin air or transform them from nonliving objects, like Hermione's canaries. I'd suggest either they were, as mentioned above, summoned, or else things like the canaries were magical constructs, not really alive. So maybe you could turn a pillow into something that runs around and looks like a squirrel, but it wouldn't really be alive, and it would turn back into a pillow when the spell ends.

[Sainyn Swiftfoot]

Hmm. I've been (somewhat) following this discussion... Very interesting.

I suppose one reason the person you are trying to look like should be kept alive is because if you use hair from only one stage of their life, they'd never age... That prompts interesting plot bunnies.

I have a question. Let us assume that Arthur Weasley takes Polyjuice Potion with his wife's toenail clippings in it, and looks like Molly Weasley. Now if I were to take the Arthur-now-Molly's hair, put it in polyjuice potion and drink it, would I look like Arthur, or would I like look Molly?

All this talk of husbands taking Polyjuice to look like their wives makes me think of other kinky, not-really-appropriate uses for the potion... >.>

[ahattab33]

Originally posted by BB:
I suppose one reason the person you are trying to look like should be kept alive is because if you use hair from only one stage of their life, they'd never age...

In addition, upon a reread of GOF this morning over breakfast, I realized just how well Crouch was able to impersonate Moody for so long. Which leads to another benefit of keeping the hairs form an alive person rather than a dead person. Depending on how well you know them, you'll need them alive to keep asking them questions on how to respond to new situations. And the dead person can't keep producing hairs forever - in the case of Crouch / Moody, for example, he'd want Moody to keep growing hairs if he needed to stay Moody indefinitely.

Eew.

This whole discussion is fascinating and kind of gross.

As for your new questions, BB - I have no freaking idea.

~Amanda

[OliveOil_Med]

It could also just be that Moody was kept alive just for the sake of the story. Or it could be that Barty Crouch Jr. was just a personal lacking in imagination or creativity.

[Inverarity]

It could also just be that Moody was kept alive just for the sake of the story. Or it could be that Barty Crouch Jr. was just a personal lacking in imagination or creativity.

As contrived as some of Rowling's plot devices were, I don't think she'd have had Crouch keeping Moody alive "just because."

And it wouldn't take much imagination to think of shaving someone's head and using the hair to create months worth of Polyjuice Potion, so I suspect that if you could get away with doing that, Crouch would have disposed of Moody.

Unfortunately, the theory that the (living) hair has to come directly from someone's head is belied by Millicent's cat hairs.

So maybe wizards just think you can't use dead hair (perhaps a lot of magical "recipes" have been handed down for centuries and hardly anyone dares to change them), or maybe it was partly the fact that it wasn't that fresh that made Hermione's transformation so horrific (or, alternatively, kept it from being worse). Or maybe it was fresh -- like, having been shed only minutes ago - and therefore within the time limit.

[OliveOil_Med]

So what could have been some possible reactions if Hermione has used fresh cat hairs? Under what circumstances could a person get as close to an animal tranformation with the Polyjuice Potion?

Do you think it could be possible for a Polyjuice Potion to be altered so it could be used for temporary animal transformations?