0

In our world among the most common1 super powers people want will include breathing under water/without an oxygen supply. A lot of common things for ideas for spells in Harry Potter seem to come from ideas of "That would be cool to be able to do", of which breathing underwater certainly falls into.

Is there any reason why the weren't more common usage spells for breathing underwater?

1Probably not near the top but I doubt it's too far away.

Mithical
  • 38,898
  • 17
  • 178
  • 229
TheLethalCarrot
  • 143,332
  • 64
  • 808
  • 878
  • Relevant question: http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/154810/why-didnt-harry-hermione-and-ron-discover-the-bubble-head-charm-in-advance-of – tobiasvl Mar 16 '17 at 09:04
  • @tobiasvl That's what I read before asking this. – TheLethalCarrot Mar 16 '17 at 09:08
  • 1
    Because wizards and witches don't spend any more time underwater than we do? The equivalent question on Wizarding SE would be 'Muggles have invented underwater breathing equipment. Why aren't they all underwater?'. – The Dark Lord Mar 16 '17 at 09:26

1 Answers1

6

Why does there need to be?

You've got one spell - the Bubble-head charm - in addition to things like Gillyweed. It works perfectly fine. Just because Harry & Co. didn't find it doesn't mean that it's not common - in fact, by the time of The Order of the Phoenix, we see that it is common - everyone is doing it. Presumably, it's taught in the fifth or later years,and the older students taught it to the younger ones.

Community
  • 1
Mithical
  • 38,898
  • 17
  • 178
  • 229
  • In the question that @tobiasvl linked to the implication is that it is only common knowledge after it was used in the tournament. And asking why does there need to be on a spell can be asked to all of them so that point doesn't really stand. – TheLethalCarrot Mar 16 '17 at 10:00
  • @TheLethalCoder I'm saying that one spell is enough. Having more than one would be... useless. – Mithical Mar 16 '17 at 10:01
  • And my question is why aren't they more common not why aren't there more. Before the tournament it seemed that not many people knew about them... – TheLethalCarrot Mar 16 '17 at 10:11
  • @TheLethalCoder and my answer was that it's apparently taught at a later time. Remember, we mostly see a bunch of kids learning, which isn't exactly a realistic representative of what the general population knows. – Mithical Mar 16 '17 at 10:12
  • Taught later would imply that more people would know about it. Take a real world example that kids in school are aware of upcoming material. – TheLethalCarrot Mar 16 '17 at 10:22
  • @TheLethalCoder Kids may be aware of upcoming material, but they don't know how to do it. Even if a fourth-year knew that he would learn the bubble-head charm next year, he still would not know how to cast a bubble-head charm. – CHEESE Mar 16 '17 at 14:24
  • @CHEESE Right but if that was the case they'd know what to look for and the research would be simple i.e. How do I perform the bubble-head charm? – TheLethalCarrot Mar 16 '17 at 14:25
  • @TheLethalCoder If students can do that so easily, why is any other underwater charm needed? – CHEESE Mar 16 '17 at 14:27
  • @Mithical: I'd add that on top of it being taught later in detail, the tournament likely brought it to popularity. Like the Diet Coke and Mentos experiment; you might learn the principles behind it in a chemistry class, but once someone depicts it and it becomes known what the effects are, people will replicate it. But someone had to learn what candies did work, and what candies did not, first. – Alexander The 1st Sep 04 '22 at 07:04