A lot of people point out that it doesn’t make any sense that Harry and Ron didn’t like their schoolwork. Well I figured out why:
It’s because the magic system is just as boring in-universe as out of universe. It doesn’t make any sense in universe either. Harry and Ron realised Rowling’s magic system kinda stinks way before we did, because they spent all day learning it.
If Sanderson had been writing Harry Potter, then Harry and Ron would have liked learning magic as much as Hermione did (Also, Sanderson actually DID write a book about a super-school, it’s called Skyward, it’s good)
We do, at the very least, know why Gandalf’s magic works. The universe was sung into being, and Gandalf is a divine being who can participate in that song. We know where his magic comes from. We know it’s divine in origin.
We don’t know where Harry’s magic comes from. Were wizard blessed by a god? Is it a magic gene? Is it fueled by intelligence, or imagination? There are no answers.
Take horcruxes vs the one ring. One is clearly a second rate copy of the other. But the one ring has a clear limitation for Sauron: It holds most of his power, and if it’s destroyed, he can be defeated. What limitation do horcruxes have for Voldemort? He has to split his soul into parts. What does that mean practically? Nothing. It’s not a limitation, it’s just a reason the good guys don’t use it. From the council of Elrond, we know the rules of the one ring, and we know how to use them to solve a problem. Sanderson’s first law. Its limitation for Sauron is more interesting than its power for Sauron. Its limitation for the Fellowship is more interesting than its power for the Fellowship. Sanderson’s second law.
not to compre whole books to whatever JK Rowling is doing on her tweeter this week (probably transphobia but who knows) but would it be any better if she twote one day “all magic in Harry Potter comes from the divine tree, at the beginning the tree blessed few people with its world bending power of imagination, this is how wizardry began, the tree spoke latin btw.”
Besides, the story is more or less a POV of Harry’s, a pre-teen to young adult boy who is way more excited to play sports than attend his lessons. Which to me is a good enough reason why we end up knowing fuck all about the magic of his world. If the POV was Hermione’s, i’d expect there to be an indepth 3-chapter long research project about her work on a “Origins of Magic” essay for her History of Magic class. But because of the characterisation of Harry and also the tension in the story by the end, it makes sense to me why Harry doesn’t really care about how things work, but how effective they can be. The question wasn’t “wow a horcrux? incredibly rare black magic, i must study it to understand how and why it works to one day maybe be able to undo it”, the question was “horcrux huh? and it makes voldie immortal-ish? alright lads, let’s find a way to smash it”
and to answer your question - horcruxes of all things are pretty well elaborated on. Voldemort splits his soul and attaches it to objects/people. The price? A part of his soul and another person’s life. The purpose? Ability to be recreated from each of those pieces, achieving immortality-ish, as long as he has someone living to do the ritual, and his father’s skeleton still has some bones left ig. The limitation seems to be that he looks evil after being reborn? and i think there was some implication that the process is incredibly painful on the spiritual level
i think a better example would be the sorting hat because wtf is that. is that a person turned into a hat? is it an enchanted object? it can talk in your mind, can read your soul to then sort you into a house, a sword can come out of it when it feels you’re in need and worthy of it? No explanation, no described limitations, a power to read one’s mind in later books is attributed mostly to voldemort & looking at how Harry handles it it’s incredibly emotionally exhausting. how can that hat be more powerful than the most powerful evil wizard?