Talk:Aura

Canon vs Real life
It is the practice of this wikia to describe concepts based on the context in which they appeared in canon sources, not an overall definition from the Oxford dictionary. And in canon, "aura" was described the traces of magical energy left behind by magical use/activity. Ninclow (talk) 12:01, April 7, 2017 (UTC)


 * There are a handful of uses of the term aura in JKR canon that I had found, but only one gives any indication of a definition
 * - “You’ll forgive me for saying so, my dear, but I perceive very little aura around you. Very little receptivity to the resonances of the future.”
 * So according to Trelawney, aura has to do with ability in seeing the future? Any other definition comes from an outside source, which the Oxford English Dictionary tends to be the definitive choice (Google uses it when you ask to define a word). Just because it's been several months since someone create their own definition and attributed it sources that don't quite line up, doesn't make it true or immune from needing clarification.
 * But I'll let Seth weigh in on this - I'm sure he loves having to step in repeatedly as you refuse to acknowledge all other editors' input. --Ironyak1 (talk) 12:33, April 7, 2017 (UTC)


 * My opinion? Ban Ninclow's IP permanently. It'd be a lot easier on this wiki, then! I agree with Ironyak. :D --HarryPotterRules1 (talk) 14:04, April 7, 2017 (UTC)
 * Are you an administrator, HarryPotterRules1? If not, I'd be much obliged if you could be so kind as to keep those snide, disrespectful comments/threats to yourself. This section, based on the turn communication took, is dedicated to determine what aura is and/or what other uses/meanings. If you are going to contribute to this discussion, the least you can do is to do so productivity.
 * When I argue against a movie prop from said film, I'm naive and ignorant, but when I support another one from the same movie and ties it into already established canon lore, I should be banned for life... Objectively, it's kind of funny how we switched the perspective on the canoncy of the movie props, and I'm still not only in the wrong, but also a heavy weight to carry for the HP community as well... At least I'm laughing at it.
 * According to Trewalany, half the students she taught shouldn't live to see the graduation ceremony. :-P
 * According to Trewalany, half the students she taught shouldn't live to see the graduation ceremony. :-P
 * According to Trewalany, half the students she taught shouldn't live to see the graduation ceremony. :-P
 * According to Trewalany, half the students she taught shouldn't live to see the graduation ceremony. :-P


 * But seriously, though, Professor Trewalany's use of the word can be taken with a pinch of salt, as that kind of "aura" is generically used in relations to predicting the future, not to mention that she is notorious for saying  just about anything to shock and impress her students... THAT, and there is nothing that suggest that "aura" can't also be used for Divination. Or do you suggest that the Master Aurologists from Korea arrived in the US with a rampant Obscurus to check, not the traces of magic left behind by whatever causes the troubles, but the potency of North American Seers? Also, it IS used in another source canonically: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.


 * But you said something about "a handful uses", but I can't remember any other than Trewalany's denouncing of Hermione's abilities as a Seer? If you find them, we might be able to expand the page!:-D
 * Ninclow (talk) 15:26, April 7, 2017 (UTC)

As for other uses of the term aura:
 * - "“You are blinded,” said Dumbledore, his voice rising now, the aura of power around him palpable, his eyes blazing once more, “by the love of the office you hold, Cornelius!"
 * - "The girl gave off an aura of distinct dottiness. Perhaps it was the fact that she had stuck her wand behind her left ear for safekeeping, or that she had chosen to wear a necklace of butterbeer caps, or that she was reading a magazine upside down."
 * - "Ominously, there were many cob-webbed boxes piled on a table where Harry was clearly supposed to sit; they had an aura of tedious, hard, and pointless work about them. “Mr. Filch has been looking for someone to clear out these old files,” said Snape softly."
 * - "There were more dementors in here, casting their freezing aura over the place; they stood like faceless sentinels in the corners farthest from the high, raised platform."
 * - "Hermione sighed and set to work, muttering under her breath as she transformed various aspects of Ron’s appearance. He was to be given a completely fake identity, and they were trusting to the malevolent aura cast by Bellatrix to protect him."
 * - "Non-magic children born to witches and wizards occasionally have some small, residual aura of magic about them due to their parents, but once their parents' magic has worn off them it becomes clear that they will never have the ability to perform spells."
 * - Slytherin introduction - "We like to feel that our hangout has the aura of a mysterious, underwater shipwreck."

JKR most often uses aura in the the broad sense given by the OED - "The distinctive atmosphere or quality that seems to surround and be generated by a person, thing, or place." It is not said to be defined as "traces of magical energy left behind by magical use/activity" as you put it, nor ever connected to Dumbledore's abilities in the Horcrux cave. --Ironyak1 (talk) 17:13, April 7, 2017 (UTC)


 * Ah, yes, it seems you are right. Aura is,  typically, used to describe a particular atmosphere. In the books. However, that is not the manner it was used in Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them. Let me try with a little comparison then:


 * From the sixth book:

Dumbledore was standing in the middle of the cave, his wand held high as he turned slowly on the spot, examining the walls and ceiling. "Yes, this is the place," said Dumbledore.

"How can you tell?" Harry spoke in a whisper.

"It has known magic," said Dumbledore simply.

..............

Dumbledore continued to revolve on the spot, evidently concentrating on things Harry could not see. "This is merely the antechamber, the entrance hall," said Dumbledore after a moment or two. "We need to penetrate the inner place. . . . Now it is Lord Voldemort's obstacles that stand in our way, rather than those nature made. . . ." Dumbledore approached the wall of the cave and caressed it with his blackened fingertips, murmuring words in a strange tongue that Harry did not understand. Twice Dumbledore walked right around the cave, touching as much of the rough rock as he could, occasionally pausing, running his fingers backward and for-ward over a particular spot, until finally he stopped, his hand pressed flat against the wall. "Here," he said. "We go on through here. The entrance is concealed." Harry did not ask how Dumbledore knew. He had never seen a wizard work things out like this, simply by looking and touching; but Harry had long since learned that bangs and smoke were more often the marks of ineptitude than expertise.

.......

- but simply stood there staring at it intently, as though something extremely interesting was written on it. Harry stayed quite still; he did not want to break Dumbledores concentration. Then, after two solid minutes, Dumbledore said quietly, "Oh, surely not. So crude."

"What is it, Professor?"

"I rather think," said Dumbledore, putting his uninjured hand inside his robes and drawing out a short silver knife of the kind Harry used to chop potion ingredients, "that we are required to make payment to pass."

"Pyment?" said Harry. "You've got to give the door something?"

"Yes," said Dumbledore. "Blood, if I am not much mistaken."

..............

"Aha," said Dumbledore, and he stopped again; this time, Harry really did walk into him; for a moment he toppled on the edge of the dark water, and Dumbledore's uninjured hand closed tightly around his upper arm, pulling him back. "So sorry, Harry, I should have given warning. Stand back against the wall, please; I think I have found the place."

Harry had no idea what Dumbledore meant; this patch of dark bank was exactly like every other bit as far as he could tell, but Dumbledore seemed to have detected something special about it. This time he was running his hand, not over the rocky wall, but t hrough the thin air, as though expecting to find and grip some-thing invisible.

"Oho," said Dumbledore happily, seconds later. His hand had closed in midair upon something Harry could not see. Dumble-dore moved closer to the water; Harry watched nervously as the tips of Dumbledore's buckled shoes found the utmost edge of the rock rim. Keeping his hand clenched in midair, Dumbledore raised his wand with the other and tapped his fist with the point.

Immediately a thick coppery green chain appeared out of thin air, extending from the depths of the water into Dumbledore's clenched hand. Dumbledore tapped the chain, which began to slide through his fist like a snake, coiling itself on the ground with a clinking sound that echoed noisily off the rocky walls, pulling something from the depths of the black water. Harry gasped as the ghostly prow of a tiny boat broke the surface, glowing as green as the chain, and floated, with barely a ripple, toward the place on the bank where Harry and Dumbledore stood.

"How did you know that was there?" Harry asked in astonishment.

.....
 * What was Dumbledore's reply?


 * "Magic always leaves traces."


 * Now, in the movie adaption of Fantastuc Beast and Where to Find Them, the Obscurus had been terrorizing New York for some time, and as citizen Mary Lou said in the script:

"Something is stalking our city, wreaking destruction and then disappearing without a trace . . ."

- Mary Lou.

"It’s an unstable, uncontrollable Dark force that busts out and—and attacks . . . and then vanishes . . ."

- Tina Goldstein.
 * According to the movie script, this is what happened when the President of MACUSA sent the Aurors after Credence for


 * And wouldn't such an unstoppable dark force, fueled by the supressed magic of a individual, like all other magic, leave a trace? Of course it would. As long as Credence was in his Obscurus form, the magical energy that "busted out" alongside said parasitical magical force could be traced. That is how MACUSA and their Aurors located Credence, with a map in the Major Investigation Department when, bewitched so that it registered the traces, or "aura" exuding from it. As the script says;
 * A metallic map of New York City lights up to show areas of intense magical activity. Madam Picquery, surrounded by top Aurors, looks on, aghast.


 * MADAM PICQUERY Contain this, or we are exposed and it will mean war.


 * Since the map was used to find Credence then, it is not that big of a leap for MACUSA to have detected the traces of the Obscurus prior to this, but not understood what they were looking at. And here is when the New York Ghosts comes in:


 * What is this perplexing sinister aura?


 * The pressure on the MACUSA to contain the situation due to the consistent breaches of the International Statute of Secrecy prompted them to seek help from Korean Master Aurologists, whom they Drafted In For Conjecture, hoping they could use their skills in identifying the nature of the activity they had registered by investigating the "aura", or "traces" of magic left behind in the areas where the Obscurus had been active. Seeking outside help presumably was something they were forced to do both because they deemed it necessary to figure this out, in order to appease the delegation from the International Confederation of Wizards, though that can arguably be called theorizing. And WHAT did Dumbledore do in that cave to find the secret passage and HOW did he conclude what needed to be done to get through it? Why, I'll tell you, he investigated the traces, or "aura", left behind by Voldemort's magic . THAT'S why I say Dumbledore has learned some of the teachings of Aurologists and know Aurology.


 * Why did I write that he may have learned from the Korean ones? That's the only place where the experts in said branch of magic is said to be. Of course, much may have happened in seventy years, which is roughly the number of years between the Korean Aurologists was called in, and there might be another country with better ones by the time Dumbledore became interested in their learnings - but that'd be speculative. I could just have written "Aurologists" instead of "Korean Aurologists" on Dumbledore's skill set section, but hey, if you have canon information, why not milk it?


 * Everything, from me adding Aurology to his list of skills, to my chain of reasoning and the sources that's provided, is called picking up that red thread Rowlingand Co dropped us and seeing where it lead me. If nothing else, it does indeed prove that "aura" indeed could be defined, in canonically "specific" terminology, as a "subtle field of magical energy surrounding a person, object, or place".


 * If we were to have a page for "aura" in the broad sense, we might have had a page of every word that was ever used to describe the atmosphere in every given situation throughout the seven books.
 * Ninclow (talk) 23:00, April 7, 2017 (UTC)

Ninclow - As Seth pointed out here you haven't provided proof for several points:
 * Where in canon does it say MACUSA called in the Korean Aurologists?
 * Where in canon does it say that the map detects traces left by magic? Other tools like the MACUSA Real-Time Hex Indicator map by definition don't look for traces left by magic but real-time magical activity, so why would the New York map work differently?
 * Most importantly, where in canon does it that an aura is the traces left by magic?

The OED definition covers the examples seen in canon, including The New York Ghost, so until you have proven any of the above, I will put it in back in place. --Ironyak1 (talk) 16:31, April 24, 2017 (UTC)

I have provided proof, you just keep insisting I haven't in the hope that I'll eventually go like "you're right, I'm wrong". Or, at the very least, you could have fooled me. The OED definitions covers the general use of the word, and NOTHING else. Ninclow (talk) 01:13, April 25, 2017 (UTC)
 * The New York Ghost. Article.
 * Because the script written by Rowling says so.
 * I've lost count of how many times I've answered this very question. Hint: The word is 'context'.