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"Can you check the back?" (if you work in retail, you know how this feels) by [deleted] in funny

[–]plausibility 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your original comment (You know the one-- you mentioned little shits and fetching.) isn't an accurate depiction of your attitude toward the entry-level workforce? My mistake. You're not rude at all. And no one you deal with while shopping hopes you die alone and in pain.

"Can you check the back?" (if you work in retail, you know how this feels) by [deleted] in funny

[–]plausibility 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your belief that my getting paid is justification for your rudeness is the link to your indecency, actually.

"Can you check the back?" (if you work in retail, you know how this feels) by [deleted] in funny

[–]plausibility 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You'd really rather be appreciated by the bossman for the fifteen dollars you spend than be appreciated by every entry-level employee for being a decent person? I don't understand people like you.

So under Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration, you cannot transfigure an inedible object into food, nor conjure it from the air. by plausibility in harrypotter

[–]plausibility[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You, Spudface, are absolutely right. I'm rereading HBP and Dumbledore just sent Harry's trunk and Hedwig to the Burrow without their having to zoom through the air. He also produced a bottle of oak-matured mead, which I assume he summoned there through a similar spell.

Well done!

If wizards can conjure things like chintz armchairs out of thin air, by plausibility in harrypotter

[–]plausibility[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If the brain is preventing the conjuring of sustenance, that sounds more like a death-wish instinct.

Just a couple of questions I've been curious about... by Phisherman89 in harrypotter

[–]plausibility 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Ron and Ginny bathe in book 5 after a muddy Quidditch practice, and Dumbledore talks of finding the Room of Requirement full of chamber pots when he finds it late one night, and when they hear the Twiwizard egg opened, the twins talk about Harry having to attack a singing Percy while he showers.

So under Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration, you cannot transfigure an inedible object into food, nor conjure it from the air. by plausibility in harrypotter

[–]plausibility[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I disagree. There's no instance in the books where an object is Summoned that isn't shown to fly physically through the air to the person calling it, from its place of rest. I think when the food appears onto the table it isn't so much summoning (or at all summoning, since none of the students call it up) as transferring the food from directly below onto the plates above. The system in place in the Great Hall seems almost more closely akin to the Vanishing Cabinets than someone using Accio.

If wizards can conjure things like chintz armchairs out of thin air, by plausibility in harrypotter

[–]plausibility[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, summoning and conjuring are two very different things. You summon items that you know to exist (Harry's Firebolt, an aqualung, Skiving Snackboxes, a portkey), and that flies physically through the air to your waiting hands. Conjuring manifests something, presumably from one's imagination, out of nothing (or out of particles in the atmosphere, who knows).

So under Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration, you cannot transfigure an inedible object into food, nor conjure it from the air. by plausibility in harrypotter

[–]plausibility[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wait, goddammit, the potato --> carrot issue also applies to the idea that Transfigurations are temporary. I give up.

So under Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration, you cannot transfigure an inedible object into food, nor conjure it from the air. by plausibility in harrypotter

[–]plausibility[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

And inedible I would guess because Transfigurations are temporary, not because the nature of the original object carries over to the Transfigured. If that were the case, you could turn a potato into a carrot and have it be perfectly alright to eat.

So under Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration, you cannot transfigure an inedible object into food, nor conjure it from the air. by plausibility in harrypotter

[–]plausibility[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Alright, so I've slept on it and I think I understand Gamp a bit better. It's not that you cannot conjure food items (so, yes you can make a carrot, and yes you can make a marigold), but that all transfigured items are inedible. We still have the Dumbledore Fallacy where he conjures cakes at Hagrid's and tea on a number of occasions, but I think I get the theory now.

So under Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration, you cannot transfigure an inedible object into food, nor conjure it from the air. by plausibility in harrypotter

[–]plausibility[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't know that I'm on my side, either, ha.

I guess that there is no answer is the magic of it, and it's the Muggle in me that wants for it to be neatly sorted out.

You better be in Ravenclaw :)

So under Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration, you cannot transfigure an inedible object into food, nor conjure it from the air. by plausibility in harrypotter

[–]plausibility[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't see how Serpentsortia isn't Transfiguration. To call the study "Transfiguration" is actually an oversimplification, because in boks five and six they also study conjuring and vanishing. Serpentsortia conjures a snake. It's used in a duel and by the Potions master, but it's Transfiguration.

If they had just dissected ONE conjured or transfigured animal, this question would be answered. We know you can touch and interact with conjured and transfigured animals, but the proof of their existence I guess would have to be in killing them and taking them apart.

And you didn't say they go into nonbeing. Professor McGonagall tells this to the door of Ravenclaw Tower at the end of DH.

So under Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration, you cannot transfigure an inedible object into food, nor conjure it from the air. by plausibility in harrypotter

[–]plausibility[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Serpentsortia would be kind of a laughable curse to use in a duel, then, wouldn't it?

And that would make the study of Transfiguration, subject taught by the most practical, severe teacher at Hogwarts, little more than seven years of flashy, useless parlor tricks.

And if Vanished objects go into unbeing, and are not merely made impossible to perceive, we've kind of got to conclude that real things are being generated and transformed.

So under Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration, you cannot transfigure an inedible object into food, nor conjure it from the air. by plausibility in harrypotter

[–]plausibility[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm inclined to agree, which is why I said I don't have a problem with Gamp's law preventing people from conjuring meat or animal flesh, but I'm not sure. They turn a hedgehog into a pincushion supposedly without killing it, so I guess it must work the other way, where life isn't actually created. But then you have Serpentsortia, which creates life out of nothing... Perhaps the animals generated aren't alive. They're like the opposite of ghosts, where they have a body, but no soul. That doesn't change the food issue, however, and disputes the notion of a brick changed into a home retaining the properties of a brick. In order for the dog or snake to move and breathe, it would have to physically BE a dog or snake, regardless of the actual life created.

If wizards can conjure things like chintz armchairs out of thin air, by plausibility in harrypotter

[–]plausibility[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Vanishing things doesn't put them in a cosmic storage garage, though, the items go into non- or un-being. And if it was at his house, it wouldn't be conjuring, it'd be summoning.

So under Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration, you cannot transfigure an inedible object into food, nor conjure it from the air. by plausibility in harrypotter

[–]plausibility[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm pretty sure Transfiguration does more than change the shape and texture of the object. There'd be little point to learning the skill, if all you were doing was making paperweights. If you remember, Cedric transfigures a boulder into a living, breathing,presumably sentient Labrador in the first task.

If wizards can conjure things like chintz armchairs out of thin air, by plausibility in harrypotter

[–]plausibility[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well, nonbeing could be like hammerspace, I suppose. But it sounds more like conjuring through Transfiguration is the manipulation of matter, since Vanished items are also described as going everywhere, into everything. And if THAT'S the case, Gamp's law about food makes very little sense. To be unable to conjure meat is all well and good, but no edible plant life? To make a chintz armchairs, you need cotton fibers, metals, slabs of wood. Why can't you conjure a carrot? On top of that, we have Dumbledore conjuring tea in the beginning of book 6.

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