Talk: Articles to be merged/Anti-vanishing charm and Anti-conjuration charm

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Anti-vanishing charm and Anti-conjuration charm

They're two different spells, merging them makes about as much sense as merging the Anti-Apparition Charm and the Anti-Disapparition Jinx. WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 15:05, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

They're not referred to separately in canon, unless you can provide another quote that does so? The quote you put on the page says "We've charms in place to enforce that", but doesn't say that there're only two charms that can be divided cleanly into an anti-vanishment charm and an anti-conjuration charm. Separating them makes little sense encyclopaedia-wise, just like we don't split Sallow siblings' parents into "Sallow siblings' mother" and "Sallow siblings' father". MalchonC (talk) 05:28, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes, they are referred to separately in canon. When Matilda Weasley talks about how it is strictly forbidden to conjure or vanish things around the castle, what she says is that there are "charms in place to enforce this". Charms, plural. Moreover, even though the anti-vanishing charm are in effect around the basin in the horcrux cave in book 6, this doesn't stop Dumbledore from conjuring a goblet to drink the potion from, does it? WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 14:49, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Plural, yes, but not necessarily only two. What's also not necessary is that one of the two is specifically for anti-conjuration while the other is for anti-vanishment. There could be spells that each do both things, but when cast together produce a stronger effect that the professors want. And that thing from book 6 - we don't know what it is, so stop speculating that might be the same anti-vanishment spell that's mentioned in the game. The text actually suggests the inability to vanish the potion is a property of the potion itself, among other properties that Dumbledore mentions. MalchonC (talk) 04:52, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

How can somebody with as many edits under their belt as you have be this green about how magic works in the HP universe? And stop arguing with the Canon Policy, MalchonC. WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 09:15, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

"There could be spells that each do both things, but when cast together produce a stronger effect that the professors want". Yeah, for the nth time, if we could just stick to what canon says without making stuff up, that'd be great. WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 04:00, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, but what canon says is that there're charms that, when cast, achieve the effects of anti-conjuration and anti-vanishment. It doesn't say that there're precisely one anti-conjuration charm and one anti-vanishment charm.

And in what way am I arguing with the canon policy? The most direct interpretation of that section in book 6 is that the Emerald Potion itself can't be vanished, not that an anti-vanishment charm is cast in the surrounding area. MalchonC (talk) 04:16, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

1. Correction: It doesn't explicitly say precisely one anti-conjuration charm and one anti-vanishment charm, but that is what that sentence actually means, though, in the relevant context. In all of canon, in order to achieve a specific outcome, you use a specific spell with a specific function/effect to accomplish it. You don't want people to Disapparate from an area? You cast a spell to prevent it. You don't want people to Apparate to a location either? There's a spell for that too. One spell that prevents people from vanishing into thin air, and one spell that prevents them from appearing out of thin air. Well, the same goes for those who wants to prevent people from making other things vanish or appear out of thin air on a location too.
2. In the way that when a new piece of lore is introduced into canon, unless it is contradicted by a higher source, it's valid, and you're ignoring it. When Matilda Weasley says that there are charms in place to prevent people from conjuring and vanishing things around the castle, then there are charms in place to prevent people from conjuring and vanishing things around the castle. You, or I, or any other editor(s) on this wiki for that matter, don't get to say that "nothing suggests the same charm is still in place during the original HP books", because it's not for us to decide. Canon say the charms are there, which means that they are in effect at the school until such time that canon, not us, but canon, states that it isn't further down the timeline.
3. Whatever gave you that idea? You said further up that "the text actually suggests the inability to vanish the potion is a property of the potion itself," and - no it does nothing of the kind. All it says is that Dumbledore examined the potion, and noted that it can't be vanished. That says nothing about why or how, so until now, why you couldn't vanish it was what we call an unanswered question. An answer as to how something is rendered un-vanishable, however, was given in HL. That's the one anti-vanish magic that exists in canon, which means that by default, it quite literally can't be any other way, because that charm is the sum total of the anti-vanishing magic that exists within the fictional universe of the wizarding world to date. WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 22:36, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

All these three points are precisely the kind of things you've been persistently arguing with the community and which the community is tired of.

1. Canon doesn't explicitly say it, there could be other explanations, so no, we do not assert any single explanation is the truth.
2. Those are different times, different centuries even, so no, we do not take anything from one time and assert it must still be true in another.
3. Linking different things from different times together, providing an interpretation of your own and asserting it must be true - that just sounds like the first two combined.

As such, I'm not going to continue this discussion either. I'll ask others for their opinion just for the sake of deciding whether to merge, and see what they think. MalchonC (talk) 04:26, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

I will advocate a merger given the dialogue seen. Plus too, I am too extremely tired of the endless arguing based on extremely shaky conceptions of what canon is, according to one lone voice. Also I would like to clarify that no exact spell name was given in dialogue so in no way should an official title be decided for such spells. RedWizard98 (talk) 05:42, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

MalchonC:

• If the community is tired of the fact that I've elevated canon to the status of an editorial axiom, then I'm afraid they need to find something else to complain about, because last I checked, the articles here are supposed to comport to canon.

• That's not how confirmation works. The fact that something isn't explicitly stated doesn't mean that it's not stated. In the first potion class in the scene, for instance, Sharp has Amit Thakkar recite the use of the Wiggenwield Potion, and when he replies that it can "heal a wide variety of injuries", Sharp laments that it "it heals some injuries, but not all," and a focus is given to his limp. This is the game implicitly stating that his leg-injury can't be cured with said potion. If a piece of lore is not explicitly orimplicitly stated, MalchonC, then, and only then, can we say we don't know something, so there "there could be other explanations"- In this case, however, the existence of two charms is implicitly stated as true by virtue of the fact that that's the sum total of how magic has ever been established to work in canon. The magic system in the HP universe doesn't just stop working the way it does, and indeed has always worked, simply because new spells are introduced.
• That's ridiculous: Time is only relevant to the question of whether or not a specific spell exists yet, it doesn't constitute an argument about how spells and magic itself works, or might have worked in the past. By that logic, if we take a random spell as an example, if Godric Gryffindor pointed his wand at somebody and said "Stupefy", the jet of light might be a different colour than red, and the spell might do something other than Stunning the target, simply because it's the Middle Ages, and "things might have been different back then". Do you see how flawed your reasoning is?
• Which might very well result in the side-lining of canon at the behest of a fallacious appeal to majority. Again. Great...

RedWizard:

Wait - what? You're seeking to jump on the bandwagon for no identifiable reason beyond the fact that it's diametrically opposed to what I'm trying to get across? I'm shocked... Well, if you're so awfully tired of these discussions, RedWizard, you're free to stop making deliberate decisions about inserting yourself into them anytime you like. The fact that a voice is "lone" doesn't magically make it factually wrong, and also - it's not an "official title", the "conjecture" tag is there for a reason. WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 08:51, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

I agree to the merger. Hogwarts Legacy says "Conjuring and Vanishing is strictly forbidden elsewhere in the castle. We've charms in place to enforce that". What these charms are is unknown. Other than preventing Conjuring and Vanishing, there are no further details on how they achieve that. Are there two charms, one for each? Are there several charms? Are these charms already named in other sources? Can a single charm prevent both Conjuring and Vanishing? Having a single page for both "Conjuring and Vanishing charms" makes more sense in my opinion and will cover more possibilities/unknowns. - Kates39 (talk) 12:45, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Kates39:

"What these charms are is unknown"

No, they're not. What these spells do was quite unambiguously stated in the quote you just presented.

"Other than preventing Conjuring and Vanishing, there are no further details on how they achieve that."

As Matilda says, you achieve it through charms-work.

"Are there two charms, one for each? Are there several charms? Are these charms already named in other sources? Can a single charm prevent both Conjuring and Vanishing? "

1. Yes there are one for each, they're a parallel with the Anti-Apparition Charm and Anti-Disappartion Jinx.
2. No, there's not several charms, because that'd fly in the face of how magic in the HP universe.
3. No, they've been given no official names, hence these conjectural ones based on their respective effects and categorization as "charms" from Matilda.
4. No. If such had been the case, then there'd be a charm to enforce the rule, not charms.

"Having a single page for both "Conjuring and Vanishing charms" makes more sense in my opinion and will cover more possibilities/unknowns."

Literally the only things we don't know about these spells are the incantation and wand movement. The only "possibilities/unknowns" presented on this talk so far boils down to creative thinking. WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 13:45, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

And yet more arbitrary assertions.

RW and Kate, thank you both for your input. An idea for a better title is of course welcome. I'll merge into "Anti-Conjuration and anti-Vanishment charms" if there's none else that comes up. Though I'm still a bit uncertain about the capitalisation of "Conjuration" and "Vanishment", I can find "Vanishment" with capital "V" in the books but can't find an instance of the word "Conjuration", all I got is the verb "conjure" with lowercase "c", or "Conjuring Spells" which I'm not sure is relevant here. MalchonC (talk) 14:09, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

I like how your decision to merge this page is entirely predicated on how many people jumps on the bandwagon, nothing to do with the objective reality about the source material presented, which as usual goes straight out the window, and yet somehow you managed to convince yourself that I'm the one who's being "arbitrary"... I can't stop you from doing what's easy rather than what's right, MalchonC, but God I wish I could... WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 15:35, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

So this is basically what you said: There can only be one single charm specifically for anti-conjuration, and another single charm specifically for anti-vanishment. There's no other possibility. If that's not arbitrary, I don't know what is.

The objective reality, I'm afraid, is that there're more possible explanations than this one, and isolating and asserting any one of them is indulging fanon. There's nothing objective about drawing parallel between anti-conjuration/vanishment charms and anti-Apparition/Disapparition charms and believing they must be the same situation, and there's also nothing objective about the notion of "flying in the face" of how magic works in the HP universe. On the contrary, they're your own subjective thoughts.

You can talk about this however long you like, I can't stop you, but since there's also the matter of capitalisation, I'll raise it here again in case it goes unnoticed among all this text. Should the "C" in "Conjuration" and the "V" in "Vanishment" be capitalised? MalchonC (talk) 15:55, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

The only reference for these spells is Hogwarts Legacy where both Conjuring and Vanishing is capitalised, which is why I thought the page could be titled something like "Conjuring and Vanishing charms". I don't know why those words would be changed to "conjuration" or "Vanishment", or put the word "anti" in front of them if the reference doesn't do that. It's possible that the "charms" she is referring to are ones like the Anti-Apparition Charm anyway but whatever the name is, it will be speculative. I think copying the reference however much possible is the best way to keep it short and simple. - Kates39 (talk) 17:06, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Oh, then perhaps we could put something like "Charms that prevented Conjuring and Vanishing" to stay close to the reference. We can't just say "Conjuring and Vanishing" since the charms in question actually prevent such things from happening. That's why the "anti-" prefix is considered. Maybe "Anti-Conjuring and anti-Vanishing charms", since the name is going to be conjectural anyway, why not use something grammatically more pleasing? MalchonC (talk) 17:25, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

MalchonC:

Humour me then: A necessary entailment of your argument is that the effects of the charms Matilda Weasley referred to are canon, but that it is completely plausible for those effects to be achieved in a manner that's incompatible with how the magic system J. K. Rowling constructed for her fictional universe is established to work canonically. I'm pointing this out to you - how is that arbitrary, exactly?

Kates39:

The word "anti-" was added because it's a prefix meaning "opposed to" or "against", as it indicate what the spells actually is established to do. WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 17:41, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

MalchonC, yes I agree. Both "Charms that prevented Conjuring and Vanishing" or "Anti-Conjuring and anti-Vanishing charms" is okay with me. I think I prefer the latter. - Kates39 (talk) 18:00, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

@WIOK: by "established", do you mean the pattern that one thing is usually forbidden by another single thing? Is this shown to be some sort of "magical law", like the Fundamental Laws of Magic, that one thing can only forbid or be forbidden by another single thing? If not, then it's no more than a pattern. Whether this whole anti-Conjuring/Vanishing system follows this pattern is unknown.

@Kate: Good to know! Then the latter it is. Will merge tomorrow. MalchonC (talk) 18:36, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

MalchonC:

By "established", I mean "show (something) to be true or certain by determining the facts". That something comports to actual states of affairs. To say that canon has established to have green eyes in canon, for instance, means that it is a fact that Harry has green eyes, from an in-universe perspective. WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 19:20, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

I think I'm a bit late to the chat but I certainly agree to the merge, given the textual source that gives us absolutely no details on how these charms achieve their effects, or whether these are just two clear-cut charms. As always, assume not, err not.

Though I won't object to "Anti-Conjuring and anti-Vanishing charms", I think I would prefer "Charms to prevent Conjuring and Vanishing" both to stay closer to the source material, and because I think that makes it plainer that we don't have any inkling on how these charms actually achieve their effects (Do they prevent it by actually making it impossible to Conjure and Vanish things? By instantly reverting Conjurations and Vanishments? Through more elaborate mechanisms such as making the students seemingly lose their urge to Conjure stuff, a la Muggle-Repelling Charm? etc.) --  Seth Cooper  owl post! 21:44, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Seth Cooper

"I think I'm a bit late to the chat but I certainly agree to the merge, given the textual source that gives us absolutely no details on how these charms achieve their effects, or whether these are just two clear-cut charms."

Greetings and salutations to you. And please, by all means; do feel free to join. Though I'm obviously not going to agree with you either, it's not a private discussion, so don't feel like you're imposing or anything. :-)

That said, I'll have to correct you, though: To say that we "don't have any inkling on how these charms actually achieve their effects" is categorically false. You've painted some fairly creative mental images of how you think they supposedly "might" achieve their effect, but the correct answer is actually the first one you posited: Making it impossible to Conjure and Vanish things are indeed what the charms does, as this is the in-universe explanation for why conjuring and vanishing objects outside the Room of Requirement isn't an option in-game, just like how Phineas Nigellus Black cancelling the Quidditch Cup is the in-universe explanation for why Avalanche excluded it from the game. As for whether these are just two clear-cut charms? Yes, they are. And that's not an assumption, that's a fact that's dictated by how the magic system in J. K. Rowling's fictional universe works. WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 22:53, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Reasserting your position, that has been challenged already, is not furthering an argument; it's repetition. --  Seth Cooper  owl post! 23:14, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Nor does failing to actually contend with the argument that's being challenged. Though I must admit I'm a bit curious about your usage of that word: What "challenge", exactly? I pointed out how the magic system in HP works, and how MalchonC's "alternatives" was incompatible with it, and instead of trying to refute me, he basically did the equivalent of sticking his fingers in his ears, go "la, la, la, la, la" before turning to the rest of this merry gathering and go "You agree with me, don't you? Oh cool! Then let's just ignore WIOK89 and merge it anyway!". I don't know about you, but to me, while it's admittedly not as bad as somebody attaining the majority position and going "na, na, na, na, na!"; it doesn't really feel like much of a challenge either. WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 23:40, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Three people already have pointed out that, contrary to what you said, nowhere in the source material it is made plain exactly how these charms work apart from the fact that they prevent Conjuration and Vanishment, and that nowhere in the source material it is said that these are two spells. You merely reasserted the claims your original claims ("This is indeed what the charms does", "Yes, they are two spells") without addressing the issues that were raised, or providing concrete evidence from canon. --  Seth Cooper  owl post! 23:58, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

@WIOK, well, I didn't actually mean what the verb "establish" meant, but what the thing was that you thought was established. And then I explained how that thing was only a pattern, not a law.

@Seth, fair thinking! Though to take another step closer to the source material, how about "Charms to forbid Conjuring and Vanishing"? The word is in the quote, I didn't propose it myself because I thought it was semantically not good to have "Charms that forbade Conjuring and Vanishing", since in the quote's context, it was the staff who forbade Conjuring and Vanishing, not the spells which were merely a tool, but "Charms to forbid Conjuring and Vanishing" seems to work. MalchonC (talk) 02:53, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Seth Cooper:

Correction: Nowhere in the source material it is made plain enough for them what exactly how these charms work apart from the fact that they prevent Conjuration and Vanishment. The fact that the clarity with which this has been conveyed doesn't meet some arbitrary standard of theirs for how plain something has to be stated before they accept it, however, doesn't mean it hasn't been stated plain enough. All right, so Avalanche don't think that we're so simple, or so unfamiliar with how magic in the HP universe works, that whacking us over the head with something this trivially true is necessary. Good on them. Now - the reason why I've yet to respond to the "issues" raised is because the burden of proof is on the one that makes the claim. My position is merely that canon is canon, the magic system in canon is structured and works a certain way as shown in the source material, and that every new spell introduced into said fictional universe will comport to it. This, however, is not a claim; it's the default position. MalchonC was the one who put up the merger tags, and started this recurring trend of positing creative takes on how these charms achieve the desired outcome, and which flies in the face of how magic in Harry Potter is established to actually work, yet still want to argue that it's "possible". I'm still waiting for MalchonC to meet the burden. WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 11:39, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Then I'm afraid you would have to wait forever. We think differently, it's simple as that. To me, other possibilities exist no matter what anyone thinks. I can't explain that any more than I already have. MalchonC (talk) 12:46, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

In that case, the question then becomes whether or not canon has ever set a precedent with which to underpin one or more of these possibilities? WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 13:58, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

It does not need to set a precedent. Even if every individual in the wizarding world who has their eye colour known had green eyes, it still doesn't mean someone who doesn't have their eye colour known couldn't have blue eyes. We don't try to assert what the colour of their eyes is. MalchonC (talk) 14:06, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Have you read the Septimus Heap series by Angie Sage by any chance? It could be purely coincidental example that you took from Harry's eye-colour, obviously; but in I've been reading it to my nephew when babysitting/visiting, and in that series, the eye-colour of those with magical ability change from whatever it was to emerald green during their youth, when their magic first manifests. Sounds familiar?

Back to the point, though: I'm afraid that's a false equivalence fallacy: How spells achieve a certain result in the HP universe is static; it's pre-determined, and based on a magic system that's established in-universe to work a certain way. So in the context of spells in HP, precedent are a determining factor in whether a perceived possibility ought to be lent any credence or not. Eye-colour is determined by a multitude of variable factors linked to genetics, they're not really comparable. WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 15:54, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

But again, it's no more than a general pattern. Nowhere is it "established" to be a law or something. MalchonC (talk) 16:40, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Could you define "law" for me? In what sense are you using the word? WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 17:45, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

We've repeated this sufficient times now that you, WeaseleyIsOurKing89, should already understand that positing that a conclusion must be true because there's no evidence against it is faulty reasoning, and that providing possible alternative scenarios to assert that other possibilities exist is not the same as asserting we know any of them to be true. Quite simply, when one says "These might be more than two spells" one is not saying "We know for a fact these are more than two spells" — but saying "We don't know for a fact whether these are just two spells".

As the discussion has gone around in circles long enough (as they do), one fact remains: from the sentence "Conjuring and Vanishing is strictly forbidden elsewhere in the castle. We've charms in place to enforce that", which is all the information we are given on the subject, one cannot neither deduce how many charms we are talking about, nor what they do specifically, so we mustn't presume to know. --  Seth Cooper  owl post! 23:37, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Well said Seth, the quote is indeed all we know about the subject. This could only not be the case if there were laws that covered the subject, and by "law" I mean either in-universe magical law, or other words from Rowling or other canon creators that talk about this in a definitive manner. There are no magical laws that talk about "one single thing being forbidden by one single thing", and there are no definitive words about this from creators either. Some of Rowling's writings, such as the Anti-Apparition Charm and the Anti-Disapparition Jinx, only present us with a pattern that indicates "one single thing being forbidden by one single thing", but that's not nearly enough to be a confirmation on a fundamental or theoretical level. As such, using anything else to try to affect how we understand anti-Conjuring/Vanishing charms is farfetched.

Also Seth, what do you think about my suggestion of "Charms to forbid Conjuring and Vanishing" somewhere above? The "forbid" word is from the quote. MalchonC (talk) 04:04, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Seth Cooper

Yes, that would have been faulty reasoning, Cooper, if that was indeed what I was doing. As I'm not positing that my conclusion "must be true because there's no evidence against it", and thereby not committing the appeal to ignorance you seem to be alluding to, that's neither here nor there. What I'm actually doing is that I'm pointing out that the handful of so-called "other possibilities" that you and MalchonC invented isn't compatible with how the magic system in canon works, so they're invalid. Quite simply, when one says that "these might be more than two spells" and that "we mustn't presume to know", what this actually boils down to is the use of fanon ideas to justify the exclusion of canon concepts solely because - I don't know, it's more fun to be "creative", I guess? I mean, I already pointed out the link between the in-universe game mechanical impossibility of being unable to cast conjuring and vanishing spells outside said Room, and how these charms are the in-universe explanation for why it is so, what more do you need than that? WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 17:27, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

MalchonC:

Ignoring for a moment that the Anti-Apparition Charm, the Anti-Disapparition Jinx and the charms that Matilda Weasley alluded to are pretty much variations of the same spells, (which is necessarily the case, as vanishing and conjuring inanimate objects is the same basic process as apparition since both entails making matter disappearing in and/or appearing out of thin air by magical means. The only difference between them are what matter is prevented from disappearing and (re)appearing, so charms are actually both equivalent to and direct parallels to one another, but setting that fact aside, your position is still problematic in the sense that yes, if - and I'm saying if - it had been the case that only some of Rowling's writings indicated that there's a single outcome of single spells, then sure, it would've been merely a pattern, but when it's true of every single spell in the entirety of canon, we're not talking about a mere pattern anymore, then we're talking about a definitive framework for how the magic system works. So no, we may not have been given an in-universe magical law stating that "one single thing being forbidden by one single thing", but from an out-of-universe perspective, we're absolutely told canonically that there's one spell per desired outcome. By the logic of the "what if there are more than two clear-cut charms" argument, the magic system Rowling made shouldn't have allowed for somebody to light a fireplace with one spell, for instance, as if you need multiple spell to achieve an outcome, it'd require that to light a fireplace, a witch or wizard would have to cast six spells in quick succession to produce/affect carbon dioxide, water vapor, oxygen and nitrogen individually, a sixth spell to make them interact in such a way to produce gas, then a seventh to make the heat needed to produce plasma. WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 00:58, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

"Pretty much variations of the same spells"? You're continuing to make stuff up. Apparition or Disapparition cannot happen without the other and involves the change of a person's location. Conjuring and Vanishing are done separately and involves the change of an object's specific form (everything to something, or something to everything). They're definitively not the "same basic process", and so the charms that prevent them are not likely to be variations of the same spells.

And "definitive framework" - do you see where it is actually defined, formally as a principle? If not, then it is not "definitive", it's summative and can't be used to assert something we don't know is true. We see Hagrid lighting a fireplace with one single spell so we know it is the case, but if we didn't see it, it would absolutely be possible to involve multiple spells. Maybe in a vacuum where there're no nitrogen, oxygen, etc, one does have to produce them first before lighting a fire.

But that's a digression here. The point is, it is not good practice to let your own trains of thoughts affect how canon is recorded in an encyclopaedia. Canon says there're charms to forbid Conjuring and Vanishing, then all right, we create a page for those charms. There's just no need to explain further how those charms work. Anything else is unconfirmed and not going to help anyone but the editor who adds it.

And what happened to your conceding the point? You originally added a reply in which you already conceded but changed it to more paragraphs of arguments. Not everyone has the patience of always replying to those, mind you. I would seriously suggest that you give up on this meaningless interaction if you're not going to help us think of the best title for the merged article. Four people have already disagreed with you and it's not likely going to change any time soon. MalchonC (talk) 03:44, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm afraid you won't get very far by projecting your own faults onto those who do not share them, MalchonC. In order for me to continue to make stuff up, I'd have to have been making stuff up in the first place. What I've done, however, is merely to describe; and to draw a comparison between two near-identical phenomenon. Nothing more, and nothing less. And while I can see where you're coming from, this distinction you're trying to draw, the whole point about how "Apparition or Disapparition cannot happen without the other" while "Conjuring and Vanishing are done separately", are completely illusionary:

What happens to things that vanish? Because what happens to things that vanish? Well, as McGonagall tells us in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 30 (The Sacking of Severus Snape), "they go into non-being, which is to say, everything". In other words: All solid objects are made up of atoms or molecules which hover in very close proximity to one another. Though never touching, they give the item a sense of shape and weight. When an item is “vanished”, the arrangement of those molecules is altered. The distance between them expands so greatly that viewers can actually move between them, thus the object seems to disappear. It is, in essence, everywhere and nowhere. Now consider this: Even though they don't require someone to cast a conjuring spell to rematerialise, an Apparating witch or wizard do vanish when they go from point A to B. Apparition uses the same methodology. A witch or wizard expands the distance between their own molecules, and then, having achieved “everywhereness’, reduces that distance but with a new centre-point; namely, their location. That's the sum total of the difference between the two. The idea the two differ in this way is the impression you've gotten by the fact that one is usually done for transit, and the other isn't. The fact that a witch or wizard normally will vanish and conjure objects with the same centre-point in mind; however, doesn't mean that they have to have the same centre-point when one conjures something out of thin air: In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 3 (Will and Won't), we see Dumbledore wave his wand, and Harry's trunk, Hedwig's cage, and Hedwig herself, vanished from Harry's room at Privet Drive and rematerialised, as in were conjured out of thin air, at the Burrow.

As for whether or not I can see where the "definitive framework" is defined? Yes, I can. In the published works of J. K. Rowling on the wizarding world. Asking me for "a principle" in this context is a category error, I'm not talking about the fictional concept of laws of magic as they appear in an in-universe perspective, I'm talking about the magic system Rowling constructed as a literary device for her novels from an out-of-universe perspective as a whole.

And again: You won't get very far by projecting your own faults onto those who do not share them. There are indeed people who has let their own trains of thoughts affect how canon is recorded in this encyclopaedia, but I'm not one of them.

As for what happened to me conceding the point? I changed my mind. That's to say, I've changed my mind for the time being. If I can't convince you that there's only two charms, that's what it is, and you've pretty much said that you're going to merge the pages anyway. That said, Cooper insisted further up that we don't know how these spells work, ("do they actually make it impossible to Conjure and Vanish things? Do they instantly revert Conjurations and Vanishments? Do they use a more elaborate mechanisms, such as making the students seemingly lose their urge to Conjure stuff, a la Muggle-Repelling Charm? etc.)"; and I explained the these charms were the in-universe explanation for why Conjuring and Vanishing things outside the Room of Requirements wasn't an option in the game, so they do indeed make it impossible to Conjure or Vanish things where they're in effect. I might have missed the response, but skimming through previous posts, I don't think I ever got one, and the discussion continued as though the effect of said charms was still a mystery even after the mystery was solved. I figured that at the very least I should try to get one of my points across before conceding proper. WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 05:26, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Interesting… did you perhaps mistake what is said about Apparition in the James Potter fanfiction series to be canonical? There's a section in the first book of the series dedicated to how Apparition is when the person's molecules become greatly apart from one another and then re-gather at another spot, but I don't recall seeing this explanation in actual canon? When I read that part, I thought it was pretty inconsistent with canon, since Apparition (in the films at least) is often depicted as the person shrinking down to one spot and materialising from another spot, rather than expanding and contracting.

As for the point you're trying to get across to Seth, I suppose you're right, since the gameplay does disallow Conjuring and Vanishing outside of the Room of Requirement entirely. But I'm still not agreeing with this conclusion you've drawn regarding how the magic system works, because like I said, it's summative, not definitive. This is, I'm afraid, something we won't be able to convince each other, since we simply think differently. MalchonC (talk) 05:46, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

MalchonC:

• As it happens, yes, that is where this particular choice of words are derived from, but no, I did not "mistake what is said about Apparition in the James Potter fanfiction series to be canonical", I'm acknowledging that George N. Lippert did a bang-up job rewording what McGonagall, and by extension Rowling, said about Apparition in the seventh book. Now, I will grant you that what he wrote in his story is (arguably) inconsistent with the films, and video games like Hogwarts Legacy, who portrays Apparition differently than Rowling described it in the books because it looked cool on screen, but it comports 100% to what we know about Apparition in the what this wiki described as "Tier-One" canon. Rowling, after all, was the one who said that when something vanish, it "goes into non-being, which is to say, everything", so when Lippert says describing Apparating witches and wizards as being "in essence, everywhere and nowhere" while between point A and B, that's just him paraphrasing what J. K. Rowling said in the seventh book, because movie/game portrayal aside, In the books, Disapparition is depicted as an individual vanishing in thin air and then they re-materialise themselves elsewhere, which is what we'd call a "conjuration", if one made it happen with a wand and incantation.

And look, I hear you, J. K. Rowling has not told us that "the distance between a person's molecules expands to the point where you can move between them, being in effect everywhere and nowhere, then re-gather at another centre-point" in as many words, but there's a very good reason for that: When done right, like in let's say Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings, magic is something that mystifies, intrigues and dazzles; because readers buy into ideas more when they see them in action rather than when they are told about them, but the absence of one character explaining magic comprehensively to another, does not mean that the magic system is unexplained. In fact, it's a common maxim of good writing to show rather than to tell, and if there's one thing we can say with certainty about the Harry Potter books, it is that J. K. Rowling cooperated her magic system into the stories under a single, guiding principle: "Explain by allusion, and only as needed". In the HP books we see a lot of magic, hear characters discussing magic, and witness the results of magic on the social structure of the wizarding world, and all these scenes give clues that the attentive reader can piece together to gain insights into the surprising depth of the HP magic system. The information is there, you just need to be a bit methodical and academic to find them, since they're only conveyed indirectly in the form of clues rather than directly through dialogue. Lippert said nothing about Apparition in his story that Rowling didn't establish as true in hers, he just pieced together the explanation from the clues before inserting it into the story, as copying-and-pasting what Rowling said and leaving it at that would be lazy writing.

It has to do with the suspension of disbelief: Rowling didn't give us an exposition dump about the intestacies of her magic system for the same reason magicians never reveals the trick: It'd kill the magic. You need to remember that to Rowling, Harry Potter was her bread and butter, and when writing works of fiction intended for publication, over-explaining the magic system is a rookie mistake. By and large, readers don't care how the magic works, all they need to know is what it can and cannot do, it's a literary device to move the story forward, it doesn't need to be anything more than that. So the wording comes from a non-canon source, the concept that those words describe, however, is derived from a tier-one source, just like how "Stupefy" doesn't become a fanon spell simply for being depicted in a fanon work of writing. Now, I'm not very familiar with the word "summative" means, however, so I'll have to ask you to explain what that means so avoid confusion. WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 13:43, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

I have reservations too as to whether the vanishment and "conjuration" mean the same thing as the Vanishing and Conjuring of objects, but I'll not get into that as it's not one of the centres of this discussion. As for "summative", I just mean your idea of how magic works is the product of summarisation of multiple things instead of being from a clear definition, which is what being "definitive" would require. MalchonC (talk) 14:17, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

The point isn't that Apparition and Conjuration is the same thing, the point is that they're equivalent to one another, as both necessarily entails matter being magically converted in such a way that it goes "into non-being, which is to say, everywhere". As for the other bit, thanks for clarifying. :-)

Quick question, though: You said that "my" idea of how magic works is the product of summarisation of multiple things instead of being from a clear definition; would the argument still be "summative" if we were to acknowledge that what can be said of "multiple things", in this case spells, are in fact true of ALL of them? WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 19:07, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes. The idea is still a product of summarisation regardless of how many things are involved. MalchonC (talk) 04:31, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

And the fact that an argument is "summative" means that it's false because...? WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 08:27, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

It's not false, it's just not definitively true. The way you prove it to be true is based on how you think Rowling purposefully didn't make it clear, but alas, this kind of stuff is not written anywhere, so is irrelevant to our purposes. We only deal with her published works. MalchonC (talk) 08:41, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

I don't suppose you're familiar with the Principle of Bivalence? The Law of Non-Contradiction? The Law of Excluded Middle? WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 09:30, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Not with those exact names at least, but if you're thinking along the line of something like "either it's true or it's false" then I could reword my last statement to follow it - it is false to think that something put together through summarisation is unequivocally true if the summarisation does not exhaust everything under the topic, since that something is not definitively proven. And by exhausting everything, in this particular situation, I mean considering all spells to have ever existed, which isn't possible since the anti-Conjuring/Vanishing system is precisely what you can't use as a part of the summarisation due to it already being the thing you want to prove. So you see where I'm getting at? If there isn't an overarching magical law that covers absolutely all spells, it would not be convincing to conjecture the properties of a certain spell or spells (let's just say x for simplicity) just from other spells, since the one thing that you can do - summarisation - should already have covered x before you even get to know about x. And even if we decide to exclude x from the summarisation, there're still potentially other unknown spells that don't follow the pattern, since nowhere is it said that we've seen all spells that have ever existed in the wizarding world. MalchonC (talk) 10:04, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Certainly you could reword it, but then you would just be contradicting yourself. As for whether I see "where you're getting at"; yes, Ithink so? You are essentially arguing that I'm begging the question, aren't you? WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 10:53, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

How did I contradict myself? First I said it is not definitively true, and then I said the idea that it is definitively true is false. Or did you mean contradiction in some other parts?

The "begging the question" phrase is new to me, but yeah, I suppose that can describe what I was saying. MalchonC (talk) 12:12, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I hope I don't come across as if I'm trying to talk over your head or anything. Most people who don't engage in or actively in moderated discussions aren't familiar with logical fallacies and the laws of thought; but I was a moderator on a debate server on Discord for two years, but being on those sort of platforms can be very addictive, so I decided to delete my user for the sake of my own health. Now, I use them without thinking about them. Still... You're wrong, though. The fallacy of begging the question occurs when an argument's premises assume the truth of the conclusion, instead of supporting it. In other words, one assume the truth of a position that is in question without proof. But I do have proof, so it's not an assumption, it's an observation. Here's the argument:

Premise 1: In the fictional universe of Harry Potter, wizardkind use individual spells to achieve individual effects/goals.

Premise 2: The charms in question are used to achieve two individual effects/goals. (prevent conjuring and vanishing respectively).

Conclusion: The charms in question are individual spells.

What's wrong with this argument? WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 12:51, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

That's quite all right, I never imagined it that way, and if anything, I'm glad that I get to learn about these things. Still, even if I don't continue to argue about whether you are begging the question, your first premise involves subjective concepts - what is "individual" exactly? You can consider conjuration an individual goal, but the way I see it, it is a collection of individual goals - the real individual goals being like "conjuration of snakes" and "conjuration of birds". There are after all two individual spells for those goals, aren't there - Serpensortia and Avis. And so, the prevention of those goals can also be two individual goals. Therefore, I can draw another conclusion based on the same premise - there're two spells needed to prevent the conjuration of snakes and birds respectively. Same for other creatures and inanimate objects. This is also an important reason why I can't easily accept there're only two charms, one of which is for anti-conjuration and another of which is for anti-vanishment. MalchonC (talk) 14:38, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Well, that's a relief! I do get carried away in the heat of the moment and all but forget my courtesies now and again, and often catch myself having, on a second reading, phrased things with more of an edge to it than I meant it to have when writing it, and I just wanted to make sure you didn't mistake this for being one such thing. Jaded and annoyed, I can be, but I like to think that I've yet to be overtly condescending towards people. Would you, incidentally, be interested in a link to a webpage where you can read up on these fallacies?

As far as addressing your point goes; I'm not quite convinced that my argument do contain subjective concepts, but suppose that it did: So what? Subjective concepts can still have objective entailments. Take pain, for instance. Both of us could go to a bar with friends and ran afoul of a drunk looking to pick a fight, who decides he hates our guts and proceeds to punch us on the nose. If, for the sake of the argument, we can agree that we were punched by the same man, in the same way, with the same amount of force, we can quibble of how hard the punch was afterwards, because our subjective experiences of being punched will differ depending on which of us has the higher threshold for pain, yet it's still objectively the case that he punched us hard enough to do the same amount of physical damage, i.e. break our nose. So I'm afraid that's not quite the defeater you seem to have thought it is.

I'm sorry, I don't follow - what made you think that individual charms are needed to prevent the conjuration of snakes and birds respectively, if the goal is to prevent conjuration altogether? That's like suggesting Flitwick should have had to use individual Locomotion Charms for the goal of moving each individual piece of luggage Sybill Trelawney when escorting her back to her quarters from the Great Hall after Dumbledore stepped in when Umbridge had tried to banish her from the castle; instead of charming all of them at once when the goal was to bring all of them to her tower room anyway. The point Matilda Weasley was making was that students weren't, for obvious reasons, allowed to conjure things out of thin air or, for that matter, to vanish them, just anywhere and without supervision, so there there were charms in effect at the castle to prevent them from doing either. That's referring to two individual spells for two individual goals: Stopping students from conjuring things out of thin air, and stopping them from vanishing things.

Think about how Rowling described charms and transfiguration spells: "Charms differ from Transfiguring Spells in the following manner: a charm adds certain properties to an object or creature, whereas a transfiguring spell will change it into something utterly different". Now think back to how Matilda Weasley worded their use of said charms, and to the Horcrux cave in book six: After they got through the hidden passage from the antechamber to the "inner place", Dumbledore noted that "''Now it is Lord Voldemort's obstacles that stand in our way, rather than those nature made. Upon reaching the basin, Dumbledore tried several muttered spells, and determined that ""This potion cannot be penetrated by hand, Vanished, parted, scooped up, or siphoned away, nor can it be Transfigured, Charmed, or otherwise made to change its nature." Did you see that? He listed "Vanished" and "Transfigured" as separate prohibitions for what Voldemort had disallowed somebody to do to the potion magically. Two distinct, individual goals, which would have required two distinct, individual spells to accomplish. A charm to add the property that something is made impervious to going into non-being, and one to add the property to make it impervious to being changed into something utterly different, respectively. WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 16:23, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

A webpage like that could be useful to me, though I doubt I'll immediately remember all of the fallicies without encountering those myself like how I got to know what "begging the question" means. They're a bit like those Quidditch fouls, aren't they - without playing Quidditch myself, I can never remember these fancy names of fouls easily.

As for what made I think individual charms are needed to prevent different conjurations - only those things that we both agree are canon. 1st premise: different spells are used for different conjurations; 2nd premise: spells and anti-spells usually have a one-to-one relationship; therefore conclusion: there're probably different spells for preventing different conjurations.

Yes, a charm adds certain properties, but what's to say the property an anti-conjuration charm adds can only be the prohibition of all conjurations, not only one or some of them? Same for the Emerald Potion - even if I assume that the inability to vanish is due to a spell and not a property of the potion itself, there's still no proof that the spell prohibits all vanishments instead of only the vanishment of the potion. This goes back to the subjectiveness of "individual" - you may count anti-conjuration and anti- vanishment to be two big individual goals that can't be further divided, but there's no necessity for others to think the same. MalchonC (talk) 02:17, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

MalchonC:

"A webpage like that could be useful to me, -"

Say no more! Here you go, friend. :-)

"Premise 1: Different spells are used for different conjurations.

Premise 2: Spells and anti-spells usually have a one-to-one relationship.

Conclusion:' There are different spells for preventing different conjurations.'"

I take it that you're thinking of counter-spells? Well, a counter-spell is supposed to counter, as in reverse the effect another spell. The only way I can think of that can reverse the act of conjuring an animal or inanimate object out of thin air would, at least on the face of it, be to vanish it, making the Vanishing Spell the counter-spell for any number of different conjuration spells. To counter a spell, however, is very different from preventing its use, however. Hence, if I were to try and refute your conclusion, I would look something like this.

Premise 1: Counter-spells reverse the effect of a previously used spell, whether it's a general or a specific one.

Premise 2: The anti-conjuration and anti-vanishment charms does not reverse the effects of a previously used spell.

'Conclusion: The anti-conjuration and anti-vanishment charms are not counter-spells.

"Yes, a charm adds certain properties, but what's to say the property an anti-conjuration charm adds can only be the prohibition of all conjurations, not only one or some of them?"

Matilda Weasley's to say that. Okay, she didn't go into detail about the intricacies of how these charms worked because a simple explanation of what they did got her point across just fine, even without lengthy anecdote about how they did what they did, but if you look at the "we've charms in place to enforce that" in the context of the prohibition of conjuring and vanishing things around the castle, she's specifically stating that students were prohibited from conjuring anything out of thin air elsewhere in the castle, (an obvious exaggeration, as conjuration is part of her own lesson plans, thereby tying it to the rule against using magic in the corridors by default, as they obviously are allowed to conjure things out of thin air in lessons under the supervision of a teacher, but I digress,) so whatever gave you the idea that she was referring to a charm that prevented only some conjurations, when she's saying that there are charms in place to prevent all conjuration and all vanishment?

"Same for the Emerald Potion - even if I assume that the inability to vanish is due to a spell and not a property of the potion itself, there's still no proof that the spell prohibits all vanishments instead of only the vanishment of the potion."

Could you rephrase that? The charm in question would add to the target of it the property of being impervious to the Vanishing Spell. What exactly is it that you're objecting to in that regard?

"You may count anti-conjuration and anti- vanishment to be two big individual goals that can't be further divided, but there's no necessity for others to think the same"

True, but then again, accuracy of my position doesn't hinge on whether "others necessarily think the same way" or not. What it really comes down if the statement "canonically speaking, the magic used by witches and wizards in the HP universe is one where individual spells are used to achieve individual goals, which preventing the conjuration of things out of thin air, and preventing the vanishment of things, are two seperate examples of" is true and comports to canon or not. And it is/does. WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 03:46, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

True, they aren't counter-spells, but the word I used is "anti-spells", which is a made-up word that I thought would be obvious to mean that the spells prohibit other spells. But now that I thought about it more, it would appear that my second premise is not entirely true, such as the relationship of Apparition vs. anti-Apparition and anti-Disapparition is already one-to-two. Instead, it actually shows that the whole anti-spell system is more indeterminate than the counter-spell system. Your assertion, which is that there is a single anti-conjuration charm that prevents all conjurations, is a many-to-one relationship, which is possible, but I'm saying that it could also be one-to-one (there's an anti-spell for every conjuration spell) or many-to-many (there's an anti-spell that prevents both the conjuration and vanishment of some objects).

So, moving on to the next argument, I was not saying only some conjurations are prohibited, but rather that a single anti-conjuration charm might only prevent the conjuration of some objects, which means in order to prevent all conjurations, multiple anti-conjuration charms are needed. Similarly, there's nothing that says there isn't an anti-vanishment charm that only prevents the vanishment of the Emerald Potion, which is what Voldemort may've used. Mind you, I'm still inclined to think the Emerald Potion already can't be vanished without the help of some anti-vanishment spell, but continuing to argue about that can only open another can of worms, so I'm not gonna bother.

All in all, I'm still not convinced why only the "prevention of all conjurations" is an individual goal while the "prevention of the conjuration of a certain object" cannot be. Whether a goal can be seen as individual is by itself not an objective consideration. Even if I separate the goals based on the target object rather than whether it is conjuration or vanishment, and say that the "prevention of both the conjuration and vanishment of a certain object" is an individual goal, there is nothing real in canon that actually forms a contradiction with it, since the only thing we know about the topic is that some charms can prevent both conjuration and vanishment of all things, which is a statement so general that it contains many possibilities. MalchonC (talk) 04:21, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

'MalchonC:

"True, they aren't counter-spells, but the word I used is "anti-spells", which is a made-up word that I thought would be obvious to mean that the spells prohibit other spells. But now that I thought about it more, it would appear that my second premise is not entirely true, such as the relationship of Apparition vs. anti-Apparition and anti-Disapparition is already one-to-two. Instead, it actually shows that the whole anti-spell system is more indeterminate than the counter-spell system."

Could you give some concrete examples? What exactly it is that you're alluding to escapes me, I'm afraid.

"Your assertion, which is that there is a single anti-conjuration charm that prevents all conjurations, is a many-to-one relationship,"

Which is exactly what we would expect to see based on how Transfiguration is established to work in canon. What has J. K. Rowling said about Transfiguration? Well, she's said that it's a very scientific branch of magic, and you need to get it exactly right. Imagine all the factors that are in play; all the variables to keep in mind to get the shape and weight of whatever you want to conjure out of thin air exactly right. It makes perfect sense why there would be many conjuring spells and one Vanishing Spell, as it'd help the witch or wizard isolate and more readily associate the relevant factors for conjuring specific things with specific incantations. Conversely, Vanishment is always the same process of taking whatever's been conjured and making it "go into non-being", so it's not so much an issue of getting it right as it is a matter of practice makes perfect, as the bigger and complex the target is, the more difficult it is to Vanish. In a similar vein to how vanishment is a many-to-one relationship, so are these charms; because they're not all these variables to keep tabs of and wrap one's head around going in, it's a matter of putting up a proverbial stop sign.

"- but I'm saying that it could also be one-to-one (there's an anti-spell for every conjuration spell) or many-to-many (there's an anti-spell that prevents both the conjuration and vanishment of some objects)."

1. And that's what I've been trying to tell you all, MalchonC, you need to stop saying that, because it's a category error: There are no "could be"; because it's a fictional universe with a quantifiable amount of information attached to it. Canon's a long, elaborate, finite tapestry of information, not an infinite desert of uncertainties: All right, the quantity of that amount is subject to change with retcons and/or the release of new source materials to draw from, granted, but at any given point, that amount is fixed. Anyone can be creative and say that from a purely hypothetical, in-universe perspective, "pretty much anything's "possible" because it's magic", but from an out-of-universe perspective, there are no maybes. There is only what is, and what isn't. Canon or Fanon. According to Matilda Weasley, which is to say canonically speaking, there's a plurality of charms that are used at Hogwarts to enforce a prohibition. In other words, there's at least two charms in effect, one charm to stop conjuration spells, and one charm to stop vanishing spells, but we've been given no indication, canonically speaking, that there are any more than that; and any explanatory speculation into what may or may not be is just that. Explanatory speculation.

You can say "there's nothing to say that X isn't the case" all you like, but since editing a wiki has to do with what's stated to be the case, and not what hasn't been stated to not be the case, so my reply will always be the same: "A claim that has not been proven true has no more credence when discussing facts than a claim that's already been proven false". If we are to be intellectually honest in our editing, we need to work with what we actually got, not what we don't, or what we think we "could" have one day. WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 07:04, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Which is why, as I said, we simply think differently. There's a fine difference between using purely hypothetical scenarios to justify the exclusion of canon facts, such as saying the wizarding world is Harry's one big dream, and using alternative scenarios to show there're more than one ways that something in canon can be explained, such as what I'm doing. You may think the latter is wrong just like the former, but I don't, nor do many people in this community. MalchonC (talk) 07:27, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

That's a distinction without a difference. Your alternative scenarios are, while obviously less outlandish than the former, no less hypothetical than the idea that everything we know from the books is a dream Harry's having. We're still talking about a conjecture about canon, not canon in and of itself. As for how many people in the community agrees with you - that's a bandwagon fallacy. Here, I think, is the disconnect between our two positions: I said earlier that canon is a tapestry. By canon in that context, I meant the fictional universe of HP as a whole. But if we're talking about how we process and document information, I'd say that canon is more accurately described as an axiom. Without looking it up straight away if the answer is no, are you familiar with what that means? If yes, I can just make my point, but if not, I would like to explain why and how I use it conceptually with regard to canon, and then you can fact-check me afterwards. WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 14:36, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

When I refer to the community, I'm no longer talking about who is right, since obviously both sides think they're right. I'm moving on to how the disagreement should be handled, and in this case, since the majority leans towards a merge, it is going to happen. And yes, I'm familiar with the concept of axiom, or at least I suppose so, if it is what I think it means. MalchonC (talk) 14:54, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

By no longer discussing who's right when referring to community, you're basically saying that who's actually right or wrong isn't really all that important; what really matters is whatever the majority opinion is. Is that truly how you want disagreements to be solved? And while you ponder that question, just to avoid misunderstandings, what do you think the concept of an axiom means? WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 15:49, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Then how do you want to proceed? Through more paragraphs of arguments? If everything in this section here is any indication, arguments like this are not going to contribute towards resolving our disagreement more than what it already has, which is still basically nothing. And I understand an axiom to be a statement that is accepted to be the truth without the need of proof. MalchonC (talk) 16:18, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

MalchonC:

"Then how do you want to proceed? Through more paragraphs of arguments?"

You know, it's funny that you should ask. Ever since I paused to check I didn't inadvertently offend you, I for one have enjoyed this exchange far more than I did initially. There was this shift in tone, and I got it in my head that our dispute changed. As if suddenly, we were no longer merely trying to persuade one another that we had the right of it, but that it had become equally about an honest exchange of what laid behind and informed these clashing viewpoints, borne out of a genuine interest in not only what the other person thought, and more importantly, also why we thought it. It's like somebody flicked a switch in my head, and all of a sudden I went from clicking into this talk page with a sense of apprehension to getting excited to see your replies. Maybe that's just me; if I've just been gradually annoying you more and more, please accept my sincere apology. To answer your question: I did want to proceed through more paragraphs of arguments; because I felt like we'd gone from arguing to embarking on a shared journey of discovery wherein we were at long last starting to understand each other's reasoning better. If you want me to actually contribute towards resolving our disagreement, however, I do have one idea: Occam's razor. WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 20:36, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

I sensed the shift in tone too, but that was before the focus of the discussion went back to whether alternative scenarios are valid possibilities, which is something I simply don't want to argue about anymore. As for Occam's razor, I didn't know what it was either and just looked it up. If we're choosing to make the fewest assumptions and go with the simplest explanation, surely one big "Charms to forbid Conjuring and Vanishing" article is the answer? It does not assume at all what exact kind of charms they are and just note down what the game tells us. MalchonC (talk) 03:12, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

But you're not making the fewest assumptions, though. Let's look at the assumptions you've made compared to me:

Canon statement:

"Conjuring and Vanishing is strictly forbidden elsewhere in the castle. We've charms in place to enforce that"

- Matilda Weasley.

WIOK's rationale:

"Charms" implies more than one, so we know that the number of charms in question is no less than two. So we know for certain that at least two charms exist that prevents conjuration and vanishment. The statement does not imply, however, that the number of charms in question is more than two. At the same time, canonically speaking, individual spells have individual uses, at least in the original books, which are Tier-One and hence the preferable source material to draw from anyway. A direct parallel to these charms exists in the Anti-Apparition and Anti-Disapparition spells, which prevents entities from appearing out of and disappearing into thin air by magical means.

WIOK's assumptions:

1. When one or more new spells are introduced into canon, they will, broadly speaking, be consistent with how other spells work.
2. In view of the manner in which spells are utilised in the highest canon and the aforementioned parallel, it's consistent with how pre-existing spells are depicted to work for the no-less-than-two charms to cover appearing and disappearing into/out of thin air respectively.
3. There should be two articles for each of these charms, respectively.

Other rationale:

Hm... What if she meant that...

Other assumptions:

1. There are more than two charms? (Refutation: We're not told there's more than two charms).
2. There are two spells that each do both things, but when cast together produce a stronger effect that the professors want?
3. A single charm might prevent both Conjuring and Vanishing.
4. There are several charms?
5. The effect of the charms might be that they instantly revert Conjurations and Vanishments.
6. The effect of the charms might be that they make the students disinclined to Conjure stuff, a la Muggle-Repelling Charm.
7. Any number of other explanations and possibilities anyone can think of on the fly should also inform how the article(s) are written. (Meaning that the number of assumption of this list is actually undetermined).

My three assumptions assume that what Matilda Weasley should be taken at face value and described in accordance with pre-existing conventions. Your assumptions, however, of which there are many, is compounded into an act of intellectual dishonesty. Sure, so the article you want to merge will not make any overt claims about what the spells do, but hidden in the ambiguity of the wording, and embedded in the decision to accommodate the perceived possibility of all the assumptions above and then some, you're dealing with a myriad assumptions inserted into an article under the guise of being none. It's effectively lying. WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 13:37, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

It is a pretty definitive, objective, undeniable fact that Sebastian and Anne Sallow have two parents, a mother and a father. But these individuals share a single page. Sometimes, when the available information is so limited, it is best to do this, for the sake of simplicity if nothing else. -  MrSiriusBlack  Talk  14:28, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Agreed with MrSiriusBlack. I also think it is time to consider how productive continuing this discussion is when it is very evident nobody is changing their mind about the merge. Is it really helpful to have this giant wall of text on this page, arguing about things like fallacies, when the wiki has a process for differences of opinions like this and that means the merge is going ahead? If you'd like to continue a friendly discussion about your perspectives, personal talk-pages are probably the best place to do so, but trying to read through the back-and-forth above is a bit much. - Kates39 (talk) 14:51, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

@WIOK: Two can play in this game. If you think those are the assumptions that I've made, well, from my perspective, you've made just as many:

1. There're no more than two charms.
2. There aren't two spells that each do both things, but when cast together produce a stronger effect that the professors want.
3. A single charm cannot prevent both Conjuring and Vanishing.
4. There aren't several charms. (isn't this a duplicate of the first point though?)
5. (omitting the two that are not actually my assumptions)
6. Other explanations and possibilities anyone can think of on the fly should not also inform how the article(s) are written.

Whatever assumption that you think I made, I can always redirect its opposite at you. Also,

1. You assume that this anti-Conjuring/Vanishing system must also follow your subjective idea of how the magic system works, when there has been no magical law or creator statement that proves it applies to all spells.
2. You assume that only what you think is "individual" counts as "individual", and what others think is not correct as long as it contradicts what you think.
3. You assume that what you think has happened behind-the-scenes during the writing of the books or the game should have any kind of influence on how the wiki should be written, when the only acceptable canon sources are the published works.

I had not yet read what Kate wrote when I started this reply, but I agree that it's not the best place to continue, so this would be my last post here which doesn't concern how the merged article should be titled. To pick up where it was left off, Seth Cooper proposed "Charms to prevent Conjuring and Vanishing", and I wondered if "Charms to forbid Conjuring and Vanishing" is better since the "forbid" word is in the quote from the game. MalchonC (talk) 15:08, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

I think "forbid" is more in line with how HL described the charms to work so I would support a rename to "Charms to forbid Conjuring and Vanishing". - Kates39 (talk) 15:59, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

MrSiriusBlack

The keyword is "sometimes". Just because you made a joint page for Sebastian's parents, means that you should make this a joint page because...?

Kate39:

"Is it really helpful to have this giant wall of text on this page, arguing about things like fallacies, when the wiki has a process for differences of opinions like this and that means the merge is going ahead?"

Depends what you mean by "helpful". It might not be convenient to the prospect of merging this page, but it's objectively healthy for other sounds to penetrates the echo chamber once and a while. You have the right to be wrong, K., but if you're going to impose it editorially on the wiki, I'm still going to stand my ground.

"If you'd like to continue a friendly discussion about your perspectives, personal talk-pages are probably the best place to do so, but trying to read through the back-and-forth above is a bit much."

That's up to MalchonC, I reckon, if he was a refocused continuation of this exchange on the talk page. In any case, if reading this back-and-forth is a bit much, then don't; nobody's forcing you.

MalchonC:

"Two can play in this game. If you think those are the assumptions that I've made, well, from my perspective, you've made just as many:"

That was a compound of assumptions made by you and the others who share your positions. They share your position, hence why I lumped them all together. As for the assumptions I made... Ignoring for a moment that at best, even if I had conceded that the below were assumptions, they'd be assumptions about your assumption, not the information that's forming a basis for the article, so it's not a problem in the sense that your assumptions are inherently problematic.

Alas, however, I'm afraid you're incorrect, and here is why:

"There're no more than two charms."

That's not an assumption. Matilda Weasley spoke in plural, meaning that we know for a fact that the number of spells in question is no less than two. In the absence of any indication that the number of spells are greater two, however, I'm putting my foot down in an effort to avoid riddling an article with explanatory speculation. 

"There aren't two spells that each do both things, but when cast together produce a stronger effect that the professors want."

That's not an assumption, that's a dismissal of fanon. Not only is nothing of the kind even remotely implied by the source in question, but the goal of these spells, as Matilda tells us, is to enforce the rule that forbids students from vanishing things all willy nilly, and to conjure things all willy nilly. If one charm had been sufficient to accomplish this, casting the second would have been redundant.

A single charm cannot prevent both Conjuring and Vanishing.

Again, not an assumption. Professor said there are charms to enforce it; not a charm.

There aren't several charms. (isn't this a duplicate of the first point though?)

My bad: Seth made the same point you did above, and when I copied his assumptions to add it to the list, I accidentally added it to it instead of removing it and adding your assumption that there might more than two further down. I tried to add the assumptions in chronological order, and messed up. My bad.

Other explanations and possibilities anyone can think of on the fly should not also inform how the article(s) are written.

That's not an assumption, that's the Canon/Fanon distinction at work.

You assume that this anti-Conjuring/Vanishing system must also follow your subjective idea of how the magic system works, when there has been no magical law or creator statement that proves it applies to all spells.

That's not an assumption, that's an assertion. I assert that unless otherwise specified, new spells introduced to canon will comport to how pre-existing spells in canon work. You want a "magical law or creator statement" to doubly confirm it, but I don't need to have my hand held by the content creators. Also - the fact that you label it a "subjective idea" doesn't magically nullify the truth value of the statement.

You assume that only what you think is "individual" counts as "individual", and what others think is not correct as long as it contradicts what you think.

No, I look at what the source material depicts as individual and run with that. Then I reject what what others think as long as it contradicts what canon says.

You assume that what you think has happened behind-the-scenes during the writing of the books or the game should have any kind of influence on how the wiki should be written, when the only acceptable canon sources are the published works.

Now you're just projecting: You were the one who made assumptions about how the teachers might have wanted a special, unstated effect through the use of a larger number of spells used in conjunction with one another, not me. WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 17:09, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

"Depends what you mean by "helpful". It might not be convenient to the prospect of merging this page…" - which is why I am telling you to please continue this discussion on your personal talk-pages. This page is to discuss merging pages in a way which is focused/convenient/helpful for the whole community. Pages like this need to stay focused on the subject at hand and a resolution reached in good time. Why do you have to argue every single tiny point? Have this rather personal dispute about how things should be written elsewhere so the community can refocus on MalchonC's proposal for the page name for the merge everyone else has agreed to. - Kates39 (talk) 17:34, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Actually, please don't continue this discussion on my talk page either… I'm rather tired with it. And Kate, thanks for your agreement with the rename proposal. I'll wait for others for a few days and if there's no objection, I'll merge the two articles and archive this whole section into a separate subpage. MalchonC (talk) 17:50, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

No problem, please go ahead in a few days if possible. - Kates39 (talk) 18:05, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Kates39:

Merging pages that has no business being merged is what I'm disputing, though, so how exactly is that a "personal dispute"? WeaseleyIsOurKing89 (talk) 18:12, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Final call before the articles are merged into "Charms to forbid Conjuring and Vanishing". MalchonC (talk) 15:37, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Och aye. --  Seth Cooper  owl post! 18:43, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the confirmation. I'll merge the pages now and archive this section afterwards. MalchonC (talk) 07:22, 9 March 2023 (UTC)