Hey everyone!
Welcome to another installment of Harry Potter Theory.
In today’s video, I’m going to to be discussing a topic that I saw requested in the comment
section below.
It’s a topic that I’ve covered before, but not very well, and today I want to do
it justice.
We’re going to be discussing spells.
But- not just any any aspect of spells, we’re going to be discussing the VISUAL component
to a spell.
Now, there are all sorts of spells and all kinds of different incantations, but one thing
is for certain, the colour of a spell always attracts a lot of attention.
Voldemort’s avada kedavra- just wouldn’t be the same without that sinister looking
jet of green light emanating from his wand, and nor would Harry’s bright red expelliarmus.
But, what I want to discuss today is- what do these different spell colours actually
mean?
Are they simply arbitrary?
Or are we able to derive some sort of a relationship between the colour of the spell and the type
of spell itself.
What is the underlying meaning behind these spell colours?
I think that the most obvious and sort of go-to answer to this relatively unaddressed
question is something like: green spells are inherently dark in nature, red spells are
inherently powerful in nature, and white spells are inherently pure, good, and passive in
nature, to name a few.
And I agree with those sentiments, for the most part.
However, I believe that there is much more to it than that, and I want to peel back the
layers and uncover what it is that makes spells these colours.
Let’s start by looking at a couple of common spell colours.
Green, throughout history, has always been regarded as having some sort of supernatural
connection.
It is also commonly associated with dark magic and is coincidentally the same colour as the
house of Slytherin, which gets a bit of a bad wrap for it’s affiliation with dark
witches and wizards.
Slytherins house colours, which are green and silver, are said to be connected to the
element that they most closely represent, which is water.
The killing curse itself is green which is pretty much as dark and sinister as you can
get, so I understand this common connection between green and evil.
Furthermore, spells cast with the intent of death or suffering almost always seem to be
green.
Green can be extremely varied depending on what shade of green you are talking about,
but across a broad sample of different greens it can still be shown as implying toxicity,
illness, jealousy and potentially envy.
Some examples of what I would consider to be typically ‘green’ spells include:
Avada kedavra: the killing curse
Imperio: which places the victim completely under the caster's control
& Morsmordre: which conjures an enormous, eerie image of the Dark Mark
Red, on the other hand, is generally regarded as being representative of energy, passion
and fire.
Red, along with gold, represents Gryffindor house - this is consistent with the houses
element which is fire.
‘Red’ spells are often powerful and bear the potential to be destructive in nature,
like green spells, but aren’t necessarily ‘evil’ or ‘sinister’.
They are more likely to be used defensively than offensively.
That is not to say that they couldn’t be used offensively if the caster wanted, but
these spells are less commonly used to kill or cause suffering to an enemy.
Harry’s signature spell, Expelliarmus, proves to be extremely useful for him, but, while
fairly powerful, it just doesn’t have the same feeling of darkness that we see in a
number of strictly offensive ‘green’ spells.
Somehow it feels as if it is cast with the best intent.
Red has an unspoken but seemingly implicit element of warmth, comfort, and security.
Some examples of what I would consider to be typically ‘red’ spells include:
expelliarmus (which forces whatever an opponent is holding to fly out of their hand.)
Stupefy: (which stuns the target, rendering them unconscious.)
Incendio which conjures a jet of flames
And Fiendfyre which is a flame of abnormal size and heat
However, Fiendfyre is the obvious exception here as it is actually quite a dark spell.
A classic example of a white spell is the Patronus, which is bright white and emphasizes
hope, purity and positivity.
It is somewhat antithetical to spells which are representative of darkness.
This explains why it is so effective at warding off dementors, as it represents the very things
that dementors aren’t.
It drives away darkness and dark things, and it’s powerful, but in most circumstances
isn’t destructive - it isn’t often used offensively and it only exists to ward off
dark and sinister things.
I think that red and green are sort of the main powerhouse spell colours in the HP universe
and that all other spell colours sort of circumvent these primary colours.
Green and red almost have a sort of yin and yang relationship, where they are both powerful
but represent very different things.
I think that other colours share common attributes, such as being representative of elements,
but despite there being powerful spells which use these colours, I think that they are less
closely tied to a sort of underlying meaning.
Some blue spells include:
Reducto which is a curse that blasts solid objects to pieces
Aguamenti which conjures a jet of clean, drinkable water
and immobulus which immobilises and stops the actions of the target
As you can see, these spells are not necessarily as closely related as say a grouping of red
spells or a grouping of green spells.
The same can be said for other spells colours, as there is a less identifiable relationship
between different spells that utilize the same colour.
This all sounds great, right?
Okay, now let’s look at exceptions to these general ‘rules’ that I’ve sort of tried
to establish.
This is where it begins to break down a little bit.
Exhibit A: Sectumsempra Sectumsempra is an extremely vicious offensive
spell that causes cuts and lacerations on the target.
It was created by Severus Snape with the intention of using it against his enemies.
By describing it, it sounds like it would fit in to the same category as avada kedavra,
as the only objective of casting it is to cause pain and suffering.
However, sectumsempra is actually white.
Exhibit B: Crucio Crucio is one of the most sinister curses
and is used to cause intense and excruciating pain upon a victim.
Once again, this sort of sounds like it fits in to the wheelhouse of ‘green’ spells
and it sounds as if it would come from the same category as avada kedavra.
Wrong, it is actually red.
This is where I’m forced to get a bit more abstract in my thinking.
I think that this is where the ‘standards’ for what spell colours represent might be
skewed.
It is my belief that the colour of the spell can be heavily influenced by the spellcaster
and that the colour is not necessarily purely determined by the spell itself.
This blurs the lines a bit, and essentially what I’m suggesting is that the relationship
between spell and spell colour is more fluid than we might have originally thought.
I think that something we need to consider is that the colour may be influenced by how
it is being used and by whom.
In almost every instance that we’ve seen avada kedavra being used, it is a green jet
of light.
I think that it is undeniably a green spell in almost every circumstance, and the spell
itself is green because of it’s inherently dark nature.
However, when Snape kills Dumbledore in the Half-blood prince, he actually uses avada
kedavra.
The unusual thing about this scene is that the jet of light that snape produces is definitely
more on the blue side, and not the shade of green that we’re used to.
This could obviously just come down to the filmmakers preference, but it definitely looks
kind of blue.
My theory is that the richer the colour, the more closely it resembles the values that
it is meant to represent in its purest form.
I.e the purer the green, the more evil, the purer the red, the more powerful.
If a typically green spell like avada kedavra is cast without intention that matches what
the spell itself represents, then it will be produced in a different colour.
Snape clearly had hesitation when killing Dumbledore and his true emotional state was
represented in the colour of the spell.
Because Snape didn’t want to kill Dumbledore, his reluctance showed in the colour of the
spell that he produced.
I want to discuss this aspect of the video further, but I’ll save it for the next one.
Obviously there are other spells besides red, green and white- I’ve just mainly mentioned
these because they seem to be most prevalent.
One interesting instance of a purple spell comes from Antonin Dolohov- who seems to be
able to produce an offensive curse in a shade of purple.
“But the Death Eater Hermione had just struck dumb made a sudden slashing movement with
his wand; a streak of what looked like purple flame passed right across Hermione’s chest.
She gave a tiny ‘Oh!’
as though of surprise and crumpled on to the floor, where she lay motionless.”
I think that it makes sense that Dolohov’s curse is purple because, like somes shades
of green, purple implies certain things- like witchcraft, deviousness, and sometimes even
toxicity.
I’ll end the video here because I think that there are so many angles that you can
look at this from.
When you’ve seemingly identified a relationship between spell colour and spell, there always
seems to be an exception to the rule, and that’s what makes this topic fairly convoluted
and difficult to discuss.
I’d love to hear what you guys have to say on this topic.
What do you think spell colours represent?
Are they bound by meaning or entirely arbitrary?
That’s it for this video, until next time
It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live