IC Prospective: Matilda Wormwood

[nailsandglass]

Character: Matilda Wormwood
Mun: Emely
Plot related: N

What is it about words that gives them so much weight when it comes to magic? I've been doing some reading and perhaps I am simply looking in the wrong places but I have yet to find anything that directly addresses this in any of the theory books I've picked up from the library.

Wordless magic is something we're all capable of, yet assigning a phrase to each spell makes it significantly easier. Why is that? What was it that came first, the word or the spell itself, and if the latter who thought up that saying something might make it easier? The more I think about it the more I can't help but feel it's a trick of the mind. By concentrating on a word that expounds the effect we desire, the more focused we become on said desire and isn't that what really brings about the magic?

If that is the case it really brings into question the necessity of even wands.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on this?

((ooc; pardon the icons, I mostly only have ones of her when she is 6 but I am slowly gathering more))

Comments

[mysterytwin]

Well they do say the pen is mightier than the sword, so words might have been a way of harnessing the magic and making it stronger, rather than letting it run wild. It probably made it easier to deal with Muggles in that regard, since untamed magic was most likely sporadic.

There's a theory that we build walls around our inhibitions as we grow older and as we become more logical we're less likely to believe in things like faeries and the like, which would definitely make it more difficult to draw on our latent magical abilities if that's the case.

I've still got my notes on the source material. Did you want to borrow it?

[nailsandglass]

That's a good point. I suppose fear of Muggles existed even back then, though it is a little hard to imagine. But then again it's a little hard to imagine how anything must have been way back before people began to keep historical records.

It makes sense. When we are younger and don't have those walls we are able to believe in something fully--even in a sense, passionately. In ways we can't when we're older. With such self-imposed constraints it is no wonder things become so much more difficult to do.

I would like to very much.