Whence Accio?

An analytical deconstruction of magic in the Harry Potter world

Despite its popularity, the Harry Potter series has faced accusations from some elements that it subtly encourages devil worship, or perhaps paganism. Certainly the word "witch," which Rowling uses as a generic descriptor for any female magician, has connotations of unseemly, even malevolent heathenism. But is the magic in Rowling's world really devil-magic? How exactly does it work? Let's take it apart, and see if we can't figure out what makes Rowling's magic system tick.

I intend to attempt a serious, rigorous discussion of that which is both fictional and supernatural. There may be some who object to such a search for wherefores, saying, "Because it's magic!" To them I reply: it is widely recognized and accepted that magic has its own laws. These laws must be as strict and universal as any other physical law if it's possible for them to be used consistently. The only difference is that the laws of magic tend to use more metaphor than math. Others may say "It's just a story! Who cares?" Well, first, to a writer it's useful to be able to create an internally consistent universe. And second, logical analysis is a useful endeavor to anyone and enjoyable to some. To those of you who enjoy it, and who can live with the bombastic tone adopted at times in this essay, please read on.

Let's consider potion-making. In all cases, this is shown to be a matter of adding the correct ingredients in the proper order and subjecting them to the proper procedures—in other words, following a recipe. This suggests that the magical effect of a potion depends solely on the properties of its ingredients and their treatment, rather than any input from the potion-maker. If there is any human element of magical control or influence, it is either so rare that we never see a case where it's necessary or so subtle that it occurs subconsciously and requires no special training. This implies that a potion could be made by anyone: by a house-elf, a non-magical human ("muggle"), or even by a machine. It seems likely that only the wizarding community’s self- imposed seclusion and willful ignorance of the rest of the world have prevented them from taking advantage of modern technology to mass-produce useful potions.

It seems significant, too, that the overwhelming majority of potion ingredients are organic: parts or products of various plants and animals, many of them supernatural. Some inorganic materials are important: silver knives, for example, which are used even though steel is stronger and better able to take and hold a sharp edge. Cauldrons seem to be important as well. Any chemist could tell you that a container adds impurities to what it holds; ceramics or other specialized materials would be safer than metal pots. So why, in a world where magic seems to require high precision and where ceramics have existed for millennia, do they use metal of poor enough quality that there is some danger of potions eating their way through thin cauldrons? One possibility is that the cauldron material is itself an ingredient rather than a contaminant. In that case, though, why would the same cauldron work for any given potion? Another possibility is that the contamination is of negligible effect. If so, this supports the theory that the organic is of far greater importance than the inorganic in Rowling's magic system.

That's not to say that everything magical comes from plants and animals: many enchanted objects are made of metal, stone or crystal. (The most dramatic example of purely organic objects is probably also the most common enchantment: wands. These will be discussed in depth, below.) Unfortunately, although Time Turners, Pensieves, Invisibility Cloaks, and a variety of other items are mentioned, we never learn how they're made. There doesn't seem to be a class in magical engineering or crafting at Hogwarts, so it seems likely that enchanting is a matter of advanced secondary study or proprietary trade secrets. We hear nothing of secondary or trade schools, however, and magicians seem to be considered fully trained (excepting specialties or rare skills, such as apparition, animagism, and so on) after seven years of primary school and passing the final "NEWTS" tests. The matter remains open for the time being.

We can gain a little insight into magical crafting from an unlikely source: Fred and George Weasley. Although depicted as so-so students (more from lack of interest in academics than from lack of intelligence or talent), they are still prolific inventors. Therefore, it seems unlikely that crafting is primarily dependent on ingredients, as potions are. If that were so, invention would require in-depth knowledge of the magical properties of matter and hundreds or thousands of man-hours of experimentation. (Consider the example of the incandescent light, which required knowledge of thermal luminescence and a warehouse of testers working under Edison.) But the twins, as middling students working alone, have neither of these.

On the other hand, we know that spell effects interact in predictable ways, as in the duel between Harry and Voldemort's wands. We know that magical effects can be attached to objects and materials, either permanently or until activated (like Floo powder, which is destroyed in use). Thus, some enchanted objects, if not all, could be made simply by combining and attaching the proper spells. With access to a single book of such combinations and their laws, and sufficient spare time to try out various combinations in, Fred and George could conceivably "invent" a range of enchantments without being overwhelmed by the costs in time or materials.

I conclude, then, that enchantments are most likely spells attached alone or in combination to physical objects, released when the object is destroyed (burned, dispersed, eaten, etc.) or activated any number of times by appropriate manipulation (e.g., putting on an invisibility cloak). It would be interesting to know whether brooms are enchantments in this sense, or whether they are more like wands: both are organically based and both produce a range of precise responses to manipulation by the user, although brooms are more limited and simpler to control. This is not made clear in the books, though.

Another thing that catches the attention is the use of language in spells. Unlike most magic systems historical and fictional, Rowling's needs lengthy chants or invocations rarely, if at all. No spirits, demonic or otherwise, are ever explicitly called upon; no gods small or great are supplicated; nothing is named or referred to. Each spell's verbal aspect consists of a single word (arguably, in some cases two words or a brief phrase), in a language with a distinctly Latinesque sound.

This raises the question of whether magic in Rowling's world is language-sensitive. Would spells work just as well in English, or any other vernacular? Or do magicians from, say, Korea or the Kalahari Desert need to learn a completely foreign sound-set to work their craft? If so, would magicians from foreign countries stand out as being especially good at learning European languages (due to familiarity with the sounds of magical invocation)? How does Fleur Delacour's autreyjous Frensch akzent affect her ability to cast spells? For that matter, do the English have trouble? Given that a significant amount of the students' time is spent practicing spellcasting, that's not outside the grounds of possibility.

I suspect that Rowling's magic system is language-sensitive. One of the benefits mentioned for casting silently is to catch an opponent off-guard with an unknown spell; think of the benefits of learning bits of a different language and using that instead. But this is never brought up in the texts. Going back to the problem of Korea and the Vocalization Gap, it's possible that different parts of the world have different magical systems, more compatible with their own languages and cultures than the Eurocentric one we see in the Harry Potter books. The problem with this idea is that there are several characters, such as Cho Chang and the Patil sisters, with foreign backgrounds, yet they never mention such a thing. Nor does anyone else who might be professionally or academically interested in alternate magics: Dumbledore, Voldemort, and shopkeepers, for example.

Since magic does seem to be language-sensitive, we next ask—why is it so? If magic were an internal act, powered only by the will of its wielder, then magic would use whatever sounds—words or otherwise—seemed appropriate to the individual magician. In that case, training would consist of more light-handed, generalized guidance for young magicians to find their own best styles, rather than memorization-dependent regimented schooling such as we see. If magic were external, on the other hand, then use of a specific language would make sense. One would supplicate the relevant external force in its own language. This raises the question, though, of why wands, when not interfered with by an outside source, work with 100% reliability. Is the relationship of this external power with humanity perfectly frictionless? And if so, why does it impartially serve all wizards, instead of taking sides?

It's possible that spirits are involved, but coerced into their service by some higher power; in other words, God. Alternatively, the use of Latinesque sounds could imply that all magic in Rowling’s world calls directly on the divine for its power. But I think that any hands-on involvement by God can be safely ruled out. Except for general staff-mandated celebration of Christmas (which must make the non-Christian students at Hogwarts, if there are any, a bit uncomfortable), Hogwarts seems to be a completely secular institution. Religious magic, on the other hand, has a long tradition of close ties to ritual and cultic practices, and is usually discussed in theological terms. As mentioned above, too, one would hope that God would be a bit less free-handed in granting power to Voldemort and his followers. And finally, one should also expect Hebrew to be a valid alternate language for spells. After all, God is well-documented as speaking in Hebrew before Rome even existed.

The final option is that there's some special quality to the Latinesque sound-set itself. It could be argued that discovery and use of a magically powerful language is what allowed the Romans, and later the Catholics, to conquer essentially all of Europe and portions of all other habitable continents. In that case, Rowling's magic system could be a semi-internal practice, in which certain sound and motions sets activate particular effects due to some unseen correspondence with fundamental "magical" laws of nature.

However, there are several cases in which magic use seems not to be language-sensitive. Two of these are plainly red herrings, but the third is more complicated.

The first is Floo powder. The user throws the powder into a nearby fire (or fireplace), declares the destination, and steps in to be transported. The vital part here is that the declaration is in English. If the Latinesque sound set were vital to magic, one would expect that Floo users would need to learn the Latinesque "True Name" of any desired location, in the manner of LeGuin’s Earthsea series. In order to resolve the difficulty, though, we can assume that the powder itself serves as an intermediary, receiving the vernacular and translating it into the proper energy patterns.

The second case is one of the few ritual utterances seen in the series: Wormtail's declamation at the end of Goblet of Fire while recreating Voldemort's body. Again, though, there's a substantial physical component to the magic as well. It's entirely possible that what Wormtail is saying isn't a spell, but rather instructions; he's muttering the ingredients to himself as he works in order to keep from forgetting them and the order in which they should be added to the Primordial Voldemort Soup.

The final case, though, is a wand-based spell like any other: "Accio." This spell calls an object to the magician, and is distinct in that the object to be called is named in the vernacular. (I'm assuming that any other language would work just as well, in cases where we see English.) In this case, as with Floo powder, we would expect an object's True Name to be necessary for the magic to work, if magic were sensitive to the Latinesque sound set. And in this case, there is no intermediary that could act as a translator. I'll return to the issue later.

Whether or not the system is language-sensitive, it's clearly not language-dependent. One of the clear markers of skill in a Rowling magician is the ability to perform spells without speaking aloud. If this is possible, though, why is language used at all? If it's not necessary, it's not necessary, and it seems inefficient at best (potentially fatal at worst) to add unnecessary steps to a procedure used for such things as combat.

Well, there is one potential reason: as a crutch. Perhaps some magic is an act of supreme will, a fully internal act in which the mind interacts directly with the fabric of reality. But that sort of thing isn't easy, so methods were created to lessen the necessary effort. In this case, the use of words, perhaps even wands, is nothing more than a "magic feather" that can later be discarded.

Unfortunately, this doesn't explain why the crutch would be language-sensitive. What I said before about internal magic—that it would take forms personal to each magician—is still true. In fact, if words were a crutch, one would expect casters to use their mother tongue rather than an incomprehensible foreign language. Or if the foreignness itself is an important element, then again, we would expect each magician's chosen sound set to be different from the others, or at least we should see some variation across cultures.

More curious even than silent casting is the case of inadvertent or uncontrolled magical phenomena. Examples include effects produced by Harry and Tom Riddle during their childhoods and multiple independent occurrences of Parseltongue. Apparently, in some cases, no magic word or wand, or even conscious will, is necessary for magic to take place. Is this completely unrelated to normal magic use? Is it a spontaneous, subconsciously-directed eruption of the energy that normally must be shaped through precise formulae of words and movement? This must be a very rare sort of event, since no time seems to be spent on it in school. If freestyle magic were at all common, but not studied in its own class, then it would certainly be mentioned in other lessons. Defense Against the Dark Arts would especially concern itself with recognizing and dealing with situations, like Harry's inflation of his aunt or Tom Riddle's abuse of his fellow children, where strong emotions could lead to harm with little or no warning.

The case of Parseltongue is especially intriguing. It is clearly magical in nature rather than learned, because Harry possesses it without even realizing. It is also genetic, since the trait is common in the Slytherin family line. How many other magical talents are genetic? What genes are involved, and how are they expressed? Could modern DNA manipulation technology allow parents to choose magical talents for their children? What other unusual mutations like Parseltongue exist? Prognostication, which is said to run in Professor Trelawney's family, seems to be one. Propensity toward animagism might be another, although it could also be a learned skill. It could be that animagism is a lesser manifestation of werewolfism. If werewolfism is genetic, though, it raises the question of why it is not only communicable (perhaps through a retroviral effect?), but able to be passed on incompletely. By this I refer to Bill Weasley's increased fondness for raw meat after being clawed in Half-Blood Prince, although the change may have been purely psychological in nature.

Unfortunately, there isn't enough evidence to do more than speculate. If magic use is a recessive or at least non-dominant trait, it would explain why some magicians are obsessed with "purity" in their bloodlines, as well as its seemingly random expression in the general human population. On the other hand, one would expect there to be far more "squibs" in the magical community, since they would make up a statistically significant portion of the offspring of mixed marriages.

Parseltongue raises another host of unanswered questions. Among them, "Why snakes?" Is there a corresponding magical feature of snakes that allows them to communicate with humans? (And why?) Do snakes speak Parseltongue among themselves, and if so, why does their social behavior not show signs of advanced language use? Can Parseltongue be universally recognized by all snakes? Do different species, or snakes from different regions, speak different dialects? Are there aberrant individuals who can’t speak it? How many other reptiles understand it? The basilisk in Chamber of Secrets speaks Parseltongue, but it may be a magical breed of snake, or a sufficiently close relative.

Also, are there other animal languages? Dogs, birds, insects, sea mammals such as dolphins and whales, and any other animals with high intelligence, social characteristics, close supernatural relatives, or a long relationship with humanity would make good candidates. But we never hear of any such thing. If other animal languages do exist, they must be very rare, or occur only in places of little interest to the British, so that they're never mentioned in the books. Unfortunately, while interesting to consider and potentially useful in fanfiction, this discussion is a dead end without input from Rowling, so we now return to the question of human spellcasting.

Another prominent aspect of magic use in Rowling's system, parallel to language, is the use of physical props in the form of wands. Not surprisingly, there is a great deal of variety in the make of wands: each comprises a wooden shaft with a core made from some part of a magical beast such as a hair or feather (perhaps with the vanes stripped off to reduce bulk). We can safely assume that a wide range of parts is acceptable, although it seems that all components must be organic: we hear of no metal wands, for example, despite their greater durability. This is interesting because, as with potions, it emphasizes the idea that magic especially interacts and associates with certain organisms and species, and de-emphasizes the precious metals and other inorganic materials popularized by alchemy and other real-world magical systems. It's implied that different wand compositions have different strengths based on their component parts, which raises the question: why does each magician carry only one wand? One might expect many, Aurors especially, to carry multiple specialized wands for different situations. We never see this, though. Why not?

It could be that the use of a wand is a personal matter: that a magician becomes accustomed or attuned to a particular wand as a channel for the power he or she works with. But it can't be an exclusive relationship, since we occasionally see magicians using each others' wands with no apparent difficulties. Perhaps more advanced spellcasting requires a level of familiarity with the quirks of each particular tool, to such a degree that any advantage of situation-specific dedicated wands is nullified. It's also likely that physical aspects of the wands themselves—weight, balance, grip—play an important role in situations, like combat, where small changes can make disproportional differences in performance. None of these possibilities, however, explains why nobody carries a backup. Another option is that each magician carries only one wand at a time due to tradition. Although not impossible, I find this extremely unlikely—there are several magicians open-minded and intelligent enough that they would see the obvious advantages of carrying multiple wands, if only in case of being disarmed. The only reason I can think of for this strange exclusivity is if each wand actually contained a sentient, jealous entity that would cause trouble for a master who owned other wands.

Wand use depends heavily on the use of stylized motions. It's unclear what point of orientation is used to measure them, though. There are times, of course, when targeting is important. What would happen if the wand were held backwards? If the caster is a reference point for the beginning of the ray describing the magic's motion, would it work normally, or fail entirely? Would the spell target the caster? In that case, it would imply that spellcasting depends on motions of the wand's center of mass and/or ends relative to its own starting position. I don't recall any examples of wands being used while upside-down or similarly rotated from the wielder's usual orientation, and so can't disregard the possibility that local gravity or the Earth itself plays a role as well.

In any case, it's significant that precise wand motions are not only necessary for spellcasting, but more important to it than language is. Even Dumbledore, supposedly the most powerful wizard of his age, is virtually helpless without one. (Why no magician ever thinks to prevent him- or herself from being disarmed by means of a strap or by magic is beyond me.) Furthermore, at times idle wand motions have produced magical effects. In these cases not only is the language component missing, but even will and attention on the part of the wielder; the wand is effectively acting on its own.

This may offer the key to our difficulties with the language component and with the question of internal versus external magic. It seems that all living things possess some quality that determines the degree of their magical power. In some, such as mundane animals, this is negligible. In others, the effect is more pronounced, allowing flight (in species otherwise too heavy to support their weight aloft), invisibility, fire breath, and so on. It seems that humans are the only species in which overt magical effects are an occasional, rather than universal or nonexistent phenomenon. (Does this imply that humanity is still evolving the ability to use magic? In this case, wizardly racism is especially ironic, because somewhere down the line all humans will be magic, and "protecting" magical bloodlines does little more than expose them to inbreeding.)

In any case, a few humans are well enough attuned to magic that they can express it spontaneously: by speaking Parseltongue, for example, or by making sheets of glass vanish, as Harry does in the first book. Even this unrefined level of use seems to be beyond most magicians, though. For those on the borderline of such free expression, i.e. ordinary wizards, props (wands and words) become vital.

My theory is that each wand, due to the characteristics of its composition, attracts a certain type or personality of spirit to reside in it, or gives the spirits certain qualities of connection between their world and this. The combination of organic components must include a magically-attuned creature in order to be suitable. (This may even imply that "magical" creatures are not magical in and of themselves, but rather due to symbiotic relationships with spirits in their own bodies!) Once a magician has begun using a particular wand, he or she forms a bond, however casual, with the spirit inside. Since these spirits are jealous and attuned to their masters, it is impractical for one magician to possess multiple wands simultaneously. But aside from this jealousy, the spirits are impartial to humanity, so each wand works approximately as effectively for anyone who knows how to use it.

The spirit in the wand can’t be the sole source of magical energy; otherwise anyone could use one. Thus, the wielder provides something; I propose that they supply magical energy, from the supply that is inherent in all living things but especially pronounced in certain individuals. We see human casters become tired, but never a wand burning out from overuse, so it seems that the magician provides enough energy for each spell. The spirit probably takes some of this for itself (hence the jealousy and the willingness of the spirits to follow commands), and provides translation for the rest: it precisely directs the unformed energy taken from the caster into the desired effect. However, in order to know which shape the energy should take, the sprit needs correspondingly precise instructions. Hence, each spell corresponds to a set of motions of the spirit's contact point or home (the wand), usually accompanied by verbal notes in the spirit's language—a magically significant language discovered and used by Rome and its successors. The necessity of specific sounds and motions explains why idle movements or small errors in wording or wand motion produce odd effects.

This resolves our difficulty with Accio, as well as the targeting issue with apparition and the fact that animagi need no wands to change. With proper training or talent, magicians can create effects through their own will, without the spirits' help. Other spells use the will of the caster and the fine control of the wand-spirit in various proportions. In the case of Accio and apparition, the caster's will creates a lock on some distant target and the spirit performs the necessary operations to move things from one place to the other. It becomes clear, then, that wordless casting is actually training. It increases the magician's ability to accurately shape his or her own energies; willpower replaces some portion of the spirit's involvement on a case-by-case basis. This implies that we could tell whether attunement with a particular wand is necessary, by seeing whether wordless casting becomes more difficult when holding an unfamiliar one.

In brief, then: magic is a semi-internal practice requiring some level of input from the user. In most cases, most of the work is done by spirits neutral to humanity, who produce effects according to directions given to them through words and wand motions. These must follow a precise grammar requiring years of training; a grammar so complex that apparently even its general principles are not taught in school.

It's very unlikely, of course, that Rowling thought all this through. But it's both entertaining and useful to consider the matter scientifically: making suppositions, weighing them against available evidence, and using them to make predictions that are, theoretically, testable (at least until Rowling stops writing). Also, we can conclude that magic in Rowling's world is not demonic in nature. Instead, it involves a transaction in which magicians provide attractive homes and organic magical energy (the latter on a case-by-case basis) in return for fine control over supernatural effects which on their own they would produce only rarely and haphazardly. There are times when souls are mentioned, notably in the discussion of horcruxes in Half-Blood Prince, and any mention of the soul (or parts of it) as payment is conspicuously absent. The question is, will the religious fundamentalists who made accusations of demonic magic accept an assurance based on scientific thought? We can only hope. In the meantime, I would be happy to hear about any further evidence to support, modify, or refute my conclusions. I hope you enjoyed reading this exploration as much as I did writing it.

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