random HP fanfic observation...

[ratcreature]

After reading a lot of Harry Potter fanfic with plenty of usually foul tasting potions (which of course wouldn't work with pleasant flavoring), it occurred to me that if I were a witch who had to swallow something like that, I would simply charm/spell my sense of taste/smell numb for a short time, thus avoiding the experience without altering the

Comments

[jacquez]

You'd think, wouldn't you?

[ratcreature]

I guess the foul-tasting potion became such a fanfic staple because of the Wolfsbane description, and iirc Skele-Gro wasn't tasting good either, but after coming across it again and again in fanfic for all kinds of potions, I'm starting to find it weird that people invent all kinds of spells for all situations (like the infamous lubrication spells and what not *snerk*), and I've come across numbing spells for pain, blinding hexes, night vision enhancements, and all kinds of sensory spells, but none to numb conveniently taste for such a purpose.

[dawnglider]

Hmmm, good point... although when you go to the dentist and they give you a local and your mouth goes numb, you tend to wind up drooling. On the other hand, a straw is a wonderful thing.
Plus! You could use the numbing spell/charm for icky food - and considering some of the food in the HPverse, that's a very good thing.

[ratcreature]

But the local doesn't numb the taste buds, only the pain and your feeling. So I assume if you could magically numb just the senses of smell and taste you could still control your muscles and wouldn't drool. And yeah, it'd definitely be useful for some foods too. I mean of course Snape probably enjoys administering potions more when whoever has to take it abhors the taste, so he'd never point out such solutions to students, and possibly Madame Pomfrey might see the bad taste of cures as an incentive for students to avoid future injuries, also the more paranoid and knowledgable wizards (people like Moody et al.) would *want* to taste any potion they swallow to not miss any hints of it being off or poisoned or something anyway, no matter how horrid the taste is.

[toscas_kiss]

LOL! Very good point.

BTW, could you tell me, when you say the alphabet in German do you pronounce 'z' as 'zed' or 'zee'? MTIA!

[ratcreature]

BTW, could you tell me, when you say the alphabet in German do you pronounce 'z' as 'zed' or 'zee'? MTIA!

Neither, really. Though the former is closer, but not with a soft 'd' but a hard 't', also for its pronunciation you should note that in general 'z' is a sharp sound in German which sounds more or less like 'ts', not a soft s-like sound like in English, so if say the name of the letter itself it doesn't sound like 'zed' which starts soft, but like 'tset' and the name of the letter in German is actually spelled with a double 't' i.e. 'Zett' because the 'e' sound is short.

[toscas_kiss]

Hmm. I'm asking because I want to know, if your codename is "Z", whether it's more irritating to be called Zee or Zed by English speakers. I'm assuming 'Zee' would be more annoying?

[ratcreature]

Zee would be further from what Germans would pronounce the actual codename anyhow, and as such it might be more annoying.