Everything you ever wanted to know about: wizarding communication
Before I fall asleep on my keyboard, here’s another old page I’ve just finished gutting and revamping – wizarding communication. Enjoy!
Before I fall asleep on my keyboard, here’s another old page I’ve just finished gutting and revamping – wizarding communication. Enjoy!
November 10th, 2006 at 6:38 am
Nice and thoughout.
November 10th, 2006 at 7:27 am
There are others form of communication used in OotP, namely phoenix post, paper aeroplane internal memos, and portraits carrying messages (eg. Phineas Nigellus and the Prime Minister’s portrait). This is used when Arthur is injured by the snake, both to carry a message, and a warning when Umbridge was approaching Dumbledore’s office. I am not sure it is clear whether Fawkes travelled to the destination, or only sent a feather, as a warning or as a means to carry the message.
We see plenty of paper aeroplane inter-departmental memos in the lift in the Ministry, and portraits are used to carry messages to the Black house (again when Arthur was attacked), and also at the start of HBP, as a means of communication between the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Magic.
November 10th, 2006 at 7:36 am
(the first paragarph of my previous post refers to Fawkes carrying messages, which is what I was originally posting about, until I remembered the other two examples of communication). Other forms of communication are the dark mark tatoo, and the protean charmed coins used by the DA and Draco-Rosmerta.
November 10th, 2006 at 10:07 am
Thanks roonwit – I’ll work those in when I get home from work tonight. I added several that weren’t on the page before, but you’re absolutely right that those need to be there as well. Any others, anyone?
November 10th, 2006 at 1:22 pm
I see you’ve mentioned the telephone on the account of Rons attempt to use it, but you might want to mention that telephone is actually used in the wixarding world as a check-in mechanism at the Ministry of Magic.\
Evidently, Arthur hasn’t taken Ron to the ministry any time before Ron turned 12.
Othervice, Ron would’ve had a chance to see how the phone is used properly.
Also, I see a link to the “DP” page, do you plan on adding the events of the DP Newsletter to the timelines?
November 10th, 2006 at 1:41 pm
Ron could still have gone to the Ministry by floo powder. We do know however that the time he escorted Harry was the first time that Arthur had used the visiors entrance.
November 11th, 2006 at 4:03 am
You say that the quill at hogwarts is “programmed” to take down the name of each magical child born in britain – wouldn’t charmed be a better word?
November 11th, 2006 at 10:28 am
Ha ha, I guess ‘programmed’ isn’t very wizard-like, eh. The change has been made
November 11th, 2006 at 12:37 pm
In GOF preceding the Yule ball it mentions that Harry is not failiar with The Weird Sisters because he didn’t grow up with access to the WWN – so obviously they’re played on wizarding radio as well.
November 13th, 2006 at 7:17 am
Would legilimency be considered a method of communication? Harry did try to use it as such when he was trying to tell Snape about Sirius’ presumed capture by Voldemort in Umbridge’s office.
November 13th, 2006 at 1:29 pm
I enjoyed the update very much. Would it be worthwhile to mention the use of hand-delivered messages? In HBP, this seems to be the preferred means of communication, especially between Slughorn and Harry, and Dumbledore and Harry. It caught my attention in HBP, since they don’t use owls or other communication methods as frequently as these hand-delivered notes.
November 14th, 2006 at 2:26 am
What about singing Valentines? There’s a form of communication people like Harry and Ginny would much prefer to forget, I would think…
November 14th, 2006 at 2:28 am
What I am particularly interested to find out is whether or not Dumbledore has left any messages in the Pensieve…then that would have to be classed as a form of communication, wouldn’t it? Any thoughts?
November 14th, 2006 at 6:41 am
2 more suggestions: Mrs Weasley’s clock is a source of information – and presumably it is not unique in the wizarding world. And then there is also the strange link between Harry and Voldemort through the curse scar (which V used to communicate pictures of the ministry corridor) although this is not a form of communication open to other wizards!
November 14th, 2006 at 2:22 pm
Strange Dumbledore used students to deliver his messages in hbp, suppose an untrustworthy student had got one! A risk, I think. Please, don’t forget the vanishing cabinet if you planned to update the transportation-page.
November 16th, 2006 at 12:03 am
Telephones – Ron’s use was classic, but Molly Weasley braved the pay phone in the village to order taxis to take everyone to school (GOF?)
What about normal post – again Molly Weasley (she’s very brave isn’t she) sends a letter to the Dursley’s by regular post)
The Weasley Clock – I think that JKR said that the Weasley’s had the only one.
November 16th, 2006 at 12:06 am
Lots to think about here.
-Marianne, I added that reference to the WWN entry, great catch!
-Molly, it might be worth mentioning, but it’s hard to say as we don’t really have evidence as to whether it works (and Snape’s description of legilimency would seem to indicate this might not work).
More in a minute.
November 16th, 2006 at 12:15 am
The hand-delivered messages and singing valentines… I dunno, I can’t decide whether those should be included. Do you think? They’re technically forms of communiation, but not particularly interesting ones. And I didn’t include, for example, talking. I’m not sure where to draw the line.
-Kaz, leaving messages in a Pensieve isn’t canon, so it doesn’t count for us.
-Cherry, my inclination was not to include the Weasley clock because it’s not communication between two people, but I realized I painted myself into a corner by including the Hogwarts quill. As for the curse scar, it can only be used by one person, so does it count?
Muggle post is a good catch, Maureen.
The trouble is, I don’t want the page to be so extensive it’s not useful. But I need to settle on a more concrete definition of what’s to be included.
Hmmmmmmmm. Lots of thinking to do here.
November 16th, 2006 at 1:02 am
How about invisible ink? We know that it is actually used because in (CS 13)Hermione buys a revealer. A revelaer function is to make invisible ink appear.
And wasn’t the Quibbler used to pass OOP messages. Is that settled canon. I’m not sure. But it not mentioned in the Quibbler section.
November 25th, 2006 at 9:54 am
JKr said that the wizarding world has something even better than the Internet. Since muggles use the Internet for communication, then wizards probably use this device/system for communication too.