Accio! Gesundheit!
October 19, 2016 5:56 AM Subscribe
Hey, Harry Potter fans! Do you want to know when and how often each magic spell was cast in the Harry Potter novels? Sure you do. Link to full chart.
yer a pinball wizard, tommy
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:30 AM on October 19, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:30 AM on October 19, 2016 [4 favorites]
Neat!
So many interesting things here! Like, no spell appears in every book. Expelliarmus and Lumo both show up in Chamber of Secrets and stick around for the remainder of the series, but that's as close as it gets. I mean, according to this there only four named spells in Sorcerer's Stone! That's nuts.
And Avada Kedavra doesn't even show up (by name!) until book four, and yet when you think of the books as a whole it looms large over the whole thing - one of the fulcrums of the whole story.
Harry Potter is an amazing piece of work, and is that much more amazing when you try and decide how much of the whole thing JK Rowling held in her head from the beginning, versus how much of it was the result of an extraordinarily gifted player improvising. I tend to think it is a balance between the two, because neither one can really adequately explain all the throughlines. I'm a fan.
posted by dirtdirt at 6:42 AM on October 19, 2016 [4 favorites]
So many interesting things here! Like, no spell appears in every book. Expelliarmus and Lumo both show up in Chamber of Secrets and stick around for the remainder of the series, but that's as close as it gets. I mean, according to this there only four named spells in Sorcerer's Stone! That's nuts.
And Avada Kedavra doesn't even show up (by name!) until book four, and yet when you think of the books as a whole it looms large over the whole thing - one of the fulcrums of the whole story.
Harry Potter is an amazing piece of work, and is that much more amazing when you try and decide how much of the whole thing JK Rowling held in her head from the beginning, versus how much of it was the result of an extraordinarily gifted player improvising. I tend to think it is a balance between the two, because neither one can really adequately explain all the throughlines. I'm a fan.
posted by dirtdirt at 6:42 AM on October 19, 2016 [4 favorites]
My favorite spell is the one my son made up when he was 16 and was annoyed by either me or his father (to be fair, we can be very annoying):
Avada Keshutthehellup
posted by cooker girl at 6:45 AM on October 19, 2016 [5 favorites]
Avada Keshutthehellup
posted by cooker girl at 6:45 AM on October 19, 2016 [5 favorites]
Let's face it, in the real wizarding world, engorgio would beat avada kedavra in casts by a landslide.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:08 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:08 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
I'm fond of Erecto myself. Gets the job done in a more straightforward fashion.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 10:48 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 10:48 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
I'm currently reading Order of the Phoenix to my ten year old, and we noticed the phrase "turned on his/her/their heel" coming up noticibly frequently. So today I grabbed a copy of a text file of the book and ran a search, Rowling uses that phrase ten times in OOtP.
Per that chart this means people turn on their heel more often in OOtP than they cast spells in Sorcerer's Stone. Dang.
posted by sotonohito at 1:12 PM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
Per that chart this means people turn on their heel more often in OOtP than they cast spells in Sorcerer's Stone. Dang.
posted by sotonohito at 1:12 PM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
Yeah, that was what I found most interesting. For a series about magic I kind of thought there would be a greater amount of it (in both depth and breadth).
posted by Literaryhero at 3:13 PM on October 19, 2016
posted by Literaryhero at 3:13 PM on October 19, 2016
So "turned on [their] heel" shows up more often than "pocketed it?"
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:31 PM on October 19, 2016
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:31 PM on October 19, 2016
Good old Eat Slugs. Not as gross as Stanley, though.
posted by BiggerJ at 6:38 PM on October 19, 2016
posted by BiggerJ at 6:38 PM on October 19, 2016
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posted by drezdn at 5:58 AM on October 19, 2016 [4 favorites]