Limits of Animagus Transformations

[OliveOil_Med]

I was researching the Thunderbird legend for a drabble and I found that a lot of tribes actually believe their people are decendent from these creatures who are able to take on human form. It got me wonder about how the idea of Animagi could fit into this, but something has me stuck.

Can Animagi only transform into ordinary creatures or could they possibly become magical creatures too? We see that with the Patronus charm, it can be both, but what about this?

[Tim the Enchanter]

Can Animagi only transform into ordinary creatures or could they possibly become magical creatures too? We see that with the Patronus charm, it can be both, but what about this?

Animagi transform into creatures that suit their personality. This does not specify whether kind of creature it could be, but since there is no evidence of fantastic Animagus forms, I would be wary of going down this path. You can easily make a character a Sue or a Stu by giving them a really powerful, magical Animagus form.

I can see an exception in Albus Dumbledore being able to turn into a phoenix, but that's just because he's Dumbledore.

Tim the Enchanter

[Justice]

Hmm, this is a really interesting question. It now has me puzzled. I don't think there are any references to Animagi that turn into magical creatures. I think they were all real (non-magical) animals.

I don't think a witch or wizard would be able to turn into a magical creature. Although, I don't have any evidence to back this up. I keep getting a ridiculous mental image of a dark wizard turning into a big old dragon (of course an unregistered one ) and flying around scorching everything they don't like. I kind of feel like there has to be some sort of exclusions to what a witch/wizard can turn into. Maybe there is some kind of magical limitation on what witch/wizards can transform into... like the rule that food can’t be created. But like I said I have no logical evidence to back this up. So I would be curious if anyone know of anything in the books that hint at an answer.

Edit: Post 3

[AidaLuthien]

I read a very good fanfiction which answered this question with a "no" if only because you'd probably kill yourself trying.

Dragons' insides are special to prevent them from roasting themselves. A human couldn't necessarily do that. Same thing with a phoenix. And how would a werewolf animagus work?

*This is supposed to be after Tim.

[Maple_and_PheonixFeather]

I was going to mention Dumbledore and the Pheonix thing, but then I thought the Pheonix didn't quite fit him. But if Dumbledore could do it, then why not the other majorly powerful wizards too. I mean, Voldemort is powerful, and probably to the extent that Dumbledore is, just different magic, so he could probably turn into something (I could actually see him as a thestral), but imagine if he turned into a dragon or something
I agree on the Sueish thing. Plus, if it could, you could get like blast-ended skrewt people, which would just be scary...

[OliveOil_Med]

This was for my Flood legend drabble, though, so I suppose stretching canon a little to create Thunderbird Animagi could work for it being a story within the confinds of a story.

This might actually be a good exploration topic for a fanfiction!

[OliveOil_Med]

Double-posting because I wonder about the explaination Aida gives for why magical creature transformations wouldn't be possible.

Dragons' insides are special to prevent them from roasting themselves. A human couldn't necessarily do that. Same thing with a phoenix. And how would a werewolf animagus work?

But couldn't the same be said about a lot of different animals. A hummingbird heart beats five hundred times per minute. If that happened to a human, their heart would probably physically explode out of their chest. And what about creatures with gills and other such things.

Any other possible explainations about how a Animagus transformation into a magical creature might not be possible?

[Kitty]

Any other possible explainations about how a Animagus transformation into a magical creature might not be possible?

I don't know if you've ever read Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett (it's very good) - it has a go at providing an explanation for how dragons work. There are two sorts of dragons in the discworld: swamp dragons are small and their insides don't work very well - they tend to explode all over the place. But big dragons managed to get around the problem by eating magic. Lots and lots of magic, which was very difficult to find in sufficient quantities.

So maybe the animagus transformations could be similar; witches and wizards produce magic, enough to keep themselves transformed into another animal while still having their human brain, but there isn't enough for the extra magic needed continually to stop the dragon (or phoenix or whatever) from exploding/burning/... which is why all of the animagi are real animals. But perhaps if there was a witch or wizard who was very powerful and had the right kind of affinity with a magical animal, they might be able to do it... but it would be very dangerous, because they wouldn't know if they had enough magic until they tried.