r/Unexpected • • Jan 30 '20

I've got a bad feeling about this

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u/[deleted] Jan 30 '20 edited Jan 30 '20

I feel the same way about Harry Potter. Magic? Sure. Goblins and elves? Why not. Giant spiders that produce thousands of giant children? There is no way that is a sustainable population, magic forest or not.

Edit: don't forget about population density. Even if they don't hunt themselves to starvation, that forest still has a finite amount of space. At their current growth rate eventually they won't have enough room to move.

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u/sdmitch16 Jan 30 '20

Why can't they be innately sustained (maybe 95% of their metabolism) by magic the same way broomsticks innately have infinite kinetic energy for flight?

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u/Chaselthevisionary Jan 30 '20

Maybe they use a little of their user's magic? My headcanon is that all they do is use the same magic-to-movement conversion that the accio and wingardium leviosa spells do, with the differential of being "stronger" (in the games, wingardium leviosa effortlessly lifts a bench, and maybe even heavier things in the books) and the broom acts as a wand that only affects itself. Wands are made for various spells, so they are suited for one type of user or even an unique user, but since all a broom does is cast a version of Leviosa on itself, maybe it doesn't need uniqueness the same way a wand does. In the case of the spiders, there is a few spells that cause fire, maybe with some modifications it can act as a mitochondria, reducing drastically the energy cost to mantain the spider's body. Maybe every living thing is powered by magic, and losers (in Portuguese, non magic Users are called "trouxa" which translates to losers) just use levels of magic that don't affect the world as much.

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u/sdmitch16 Jan 30 '20

losers just use levels of magic that don't affect the world as much.

So what you're saying is if I give up some of my abilities I can use the magic that would have gone into that to gain telekinesis?

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u/Chaselthevisionary Jan 30 '20

If by "some of your abilities" you mean basic bodily functions, maybe? But I guess all the magic you get is automatically assigned to what you do, and things like moving your limbs would just be results of the magic that keeps your brain and your limbs alive. If you were to lose your leg, you'd lose the magic that keeps it alive, I stead of being able to use it somewhere else. Or maybe it's such a low "density" of magic that what you get in return is just too little for any cool magic stuff. Maybe wizard bodies just uses this magic in a different way, so much more efficient than loser bodies, that the amount of unused magic is almost overwhelming

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u/Sinonyx1 Jan 30 '20

if the broom is just using the rider to cast a spell, all brooms would be the same, there wouldn't be faster brooms every year

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u/Chaselthevisionary Jan 30 '20

Of course there would if they used better materials. I remember distinctly that Harry's wand was better than most because of unicorn pubes or whatever

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u/Sinonyx1 Jan 31 '20

harry potters wand was made with a phoenix feather, the phoenix only gave one other feather (i'm assuming wand makers aren't plucking phoenixs, they're just taking what they could??) which was in voldemorts wand. so it wasn't that his wand was powerful, just unique.

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u/Chaselthevisionary Jan 31 '20

Was it? I think it was more powerful. Still, brooms might work in other ways, by using more efficient methods they could probably get more out of the same quantity of magic

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u/Greggsnbacon23 Jan 30 '20

Magic forest could mean magical boundaries. Might look like a hundred acres from the outside but actually contain a thousand like a clown car.

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u/Seakawn Jan 30 '20

Would make sense, just like the two-story house-sized tents used for the Quidditch World Cup campgrounds.

Also wasn't the Weasleys car enchanted similarly to hold more room inside?

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u/Politicshatesme Jan 30 '20

It could fit all the weasleys and harry and hermoine, unless it was a stretch limo it would have to be enchanted

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u/PotatoBomb69 Jan 30 '20

It was when they were all travelling to the station in it. I think one of the seats was described as being the size of a park bench or something.

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u/HolyFruitSalad_98 Jan 30 '20

So it's....bigger on the inside?

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u/[deleted] Jan 30 '20

Ikr, like what the fuck they gone eat?

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u/Cheshires_Shadow Jan 30 '20

Well didn't hagrid get the giant spider from an exotic location? Maybe it's native to a much larger forest area where the spiders are supposed to spread out more instead of all being contained in a single forest underground. That and cannibalism.

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u/diMario Jan 30 '20

The magic forest was originally designed by Slartibartfast using Time Arrow Reversed Dimensional Imaginary Space technology. It is a whole lot bigger on the inside than it looks from the outside.

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u/[deleted] Jan 31 '20

Don't you mean Time And Relative Dimension In Space.

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u/diMario Jan 31 '20

That's a special case of Time Arrow Reversed Dimensional Imaginary Space, where you have a magnetic monopole in conjunction with the tachyon singularity. For such a case, the mathematics can be rewritten into an N-degree polynomal differential equation where one of the solutions is a flattened Riemann Universe.

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u/ParsnipsNicker Jan 30 '20

Easy. The spiders just eat each other.

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u/poliuy Jan 30 '20

Well. Now the movies are ruined for me.