14

I remember something in The Deathly Hallows that Harry tries "Accio Hagrid" and the bike shoots towards Hagrid instead of the opposite thing that should occur. (Thanks Himarm for the quote)

“Hagrid!” Harry called, holding on to the bike for dear life. “Hagrid — Accio Hagrid!” The motorbike sped up, sucked toward the earth.

So what would happen if we said, let's say "Accio Eiffel tower" (Not Accio moon as it may cause death due to various factors :D ), assuming that we don't have enough power to summon such a big object. (I doubt only Dumbledore could manage that! ). Would we get sucked towards Eiffel tower as harry and the bike gets towards Hagrid. Wouldn't that then be a great way to travel? ( If we can somehow manage to prevent collisions, by putting some spell on ourselves or something?)

Prakhar Londhe
  • 3,863
  • 2
  • 19
  • 51
  • 6
    Accio doesn't care about collisions, as the broom shaped hole in Umbridges office will attest –  Jan 13 '16 at 17:06
  • No i meant to say if we could somehow put a spell on ourselves so as to prevent us from colliding with objects :) – Prakhar Londhe Jan 13 '16 at 17:07
  • It would certainly be interesting. Although if it's based on equal and opposite force, one would need a very good grip and it might be hard on the person's wand-arm. And one would have to have enough magic to reach whatever's being accioed, so the magic can pull against it. But certainly very different... yeah, I would try it. – Megha Jan 13 '16 at 17:57
  • to be fair in that scene he had also just pressed the dragon fire button to rocket towards the ground – Himarm Jan 13 '16 at 18:24
  • I guess it does not work. Else SOMEONE would have tried to cast "accio Moon" followed by a big "ups" :) – vap78 Jan 13 '16 at 19:40
  • 1
    I was just thinking as including that in the example but if it somehow worked and we passed out because of not counting air drag and no air in space and nearly zero pressure and the huge g force.. it would be hard to find the body... unless you accio it – Prakhar Londhe Jan 14 '16 at 01:26
  • NO ANSWER YET...I HAVE DONE MY WAITING!!! – Prakhar Londhe Jan 20 '16 at 14:46
  • Might just be that you can't summon people. – Misha R Jan 28 '16 at 07:08
  • @MishaRosnach can't be, if you can't, then the reverse process should not occur (the caster going towards the summoned) .... still the thing I asked isn't a living person, it can be anything big.... – Prakhar Londhe Jan 28 '16 at 12:48
  • @prakharlondhe The reverse process seems to be more of a backfire than a summoning. Things can backfire in all sorts of ways. With something like magic, it can be that unintended use of a spell can simply backfire itself onto the user. – Misha R Jan 28 '16 at 12:54
  • 4
    Possible Duplicte of http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/24713/what-are-the-rules-and-limits-of-accio-spell – Mithical Feb 19 '16 at 02:41
  • Summoning the Eiffel Tower would be pretty deadly too :,) – maguirenumber6 Apr 19 '16 at 05:45

2 Answers2

7

If we take into consideration that using Accio pulls the lighter-weight object towards the heavier object, then in the case of Accio'ing a larger object you would fly towards it.

Here's OP's example of Harry's Accio towards Hagrid:

“Hagrid!” Harry called, holding on to the bike for dear life. “Hagrid — Accio Hagrid!” The motorbike sped up, sucked toward the earth.

Other than this instance, every other instance of Accio is towards smaller objects. However there appears to be no effect on the caster due to the pull of weight from the summoned object.

Finally, the scene in which Harry appears to be dragged towards Hagrid happens immediately after this:

Somehow, Harry found his nose an inch from the dragon-fire button. He punched it with his wand-free hand and the bike shot more flames into the air, hurtling straight toward the ground.

We also know that giants, and half giants, are resistant to normal spells being cast on them. So, the chances of a basic spell, such as Accio, working on Hagrid are fairly low to begin with.

To to sum it all up, chances are that you could in theory summon large objects towards yourself.

I personally feel, however, that an extremely large object would also require an extremely large amount of magical power.

Himarm
  • 66,182
  • 33
  • 288
  • 358
3

I think that the largest-scale canonical example we have of summoning is when Gideon Flatworthy tried to summon a whole farm of livestock. In that case, everything but the objects affixed to the ground (the buildings) came to him.

All we know is that, on the eighteenth of September, 1743, Flatworthy attempted to Summon himself an entire farm complete with livestock, cosy cottage and well-stocked larder. Naturally, the buildings would not shift, but the furious farmer followed his flying cows to the cave on the hill, and discovered Flatworthy, still lying on his cushions, but crushed to death beneath a pile of hay bales and cattle.
(Wonderbook: Book of Spells - Chapter 4)

ibid
  • 93,732
  • 37
  • 488
  • 567