Alright, here’s the deal: It’s 2 AM. I’m tired. I’m actually feeling quite…suggestible. I’ll keep this appropriate in any case. After having a nice long conversation with our friend Nir I have made a startling discovery about the world of magic and all that thrives upon it!
Mull this over, if you please: Harry Potter and the world of magic is all fun and games. In fact, it’s quite fun to think about what it would be like if we were wizards instead of non-magic folk. I used to do it all the time! Recently, not so much. Now and again though I’ll have some thoughts on why wizards fail and muggles (that’s you and I) succeed in every possible way. If wizarding folk were all that great then they’d be able to do once simple thing. My friends, I ask you…If wizards can kill people by muttering a simple curse, then why can’t they figure out how to fix Harry’s poor vision? Why must he suffer the disability of poor sight? Heck, muggles can do it via laser eye surgery and that doesn’t involve magic at all! Well…laser’s are quite magically but that’s beside the point.
GOOD LORD!
July 5, 2008 at 10:35 am |
In many universes that employ magic (such as Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files), magic-users often cause technology in their vicinity to break down or malfunction due to the amount of magical energy that surrounds them.
This is the extension of the more widespread and eternal conflict of “magic versus science,” which is essentially the more generalized form “religion (or faith) versus science.” Although always present in society in one form or another, this theme really gained importance in the Renaissance, where modern scientific discoveries were beginning to challenge the Church’s dominance. As a result, the Church often portrayed science as anathema to religion (which is not at all the case).
There’s also the fact that magic is not a panacea. In almost every tale involving magic, the use of magic extracts a price–it is the transfer or energy, i.e., work. Work tires you out. So it may be the case that fixing vision takes too much effort to be worthwhile.
Without J.K. Rowling writing another Harry Potter book or at least writing some explanation and declaring it canon, there is no way to know for sure, of course. Now, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone out there has already written a piece of fanfiction (*shudder*) that explores this very question. If there isn’t, there should be.
July 5, 2008 at 4:10 pm |
A lot of insight there Ben. I didn’t find any fanfictions about the topic, but I did find two links on Google that perked my interest:
http://www.hp-lexicon.org/essays/essay-limits-of-magic.html
http://www.cosforums.com/archive/index.php?t-96198.html
July 5, 2008 at 6:22 pm |
To add to that; before we had “laser eye sergery”, we still have knives. Knives can kill (Obviously). My point is, it’s most likely far easier to kill someone than it is to actually perform healing of somekind, especally on something like an eye.