On Human Sacrfice and Dark Magic

[annoni_no]

I've spent some time archive binging recently and got to thinking about what the new conclusions meant for old issues that weren't directly addressed.  In particular, I was reminded of all the old complaints about Lily's sacrifice being held up as exceptional even though most parents would die for their children.  And if sacrificial magic is as

Comments

[annoni_no]

I don't think the 3 offers acted like a true ritual in any way; it was more of a proto-ritual than anything. But it did add pressure to Lily's resolve making her sacrifice more difficult. It called to mind the blood-letting practices in Meso-America where it wasn't enough to simply pierce an organ and let the blood flow out naturally: a string with thorns or bits of obsidian or something else would often be pulled through the wound to increase the blood and the pain and thus intensify the power in the offering.

Making it more difficult to tell what's significant and what's not is that Rowling never clearly defined her magical system. What we do know is that Dark magic is unstructured and chaotic, Wizardry is highly formalized with set incantations and wand movements for each spell which activate regardless of the caster's state of mind, arithmancy is a formal field of study at Hogwarts, and 3 is widely considered to be a powerful number across multiple religions and cultures.

It's impossible to say exactly how these factors would interact with such Dark magic as a human sacrifice, but we do know from DD's expertise that it is possible to channel such sacrificial magic formally to achieve specific (and at least relatively consist) results.

Mostly I'm trying to figure out how sacrificial magic works in general principle, why so few people know about it in-universe, and why Harry seems disproportionately affected by it. I'm not trying to deny Snape any credit, just trying to look dispassionately at what's in the text, what can be reasonably inferred from it, and how it might relate to real world traditions and practices. Of course, no one is required to agree with my interpretation, but I would be interested in hearing where you think the weaknesses are in my theory.

I have some broader thoughts about how wizardry and witchcraft work in the Potterverse but I think they belong in their own post.