Skip to main content

harry potter - When did Voldemort lift the Taboo spell?


Related: Could Voldemort have gotten into Hogwarts if someone inside had said his name?



The last time I see the Taboo spell in action is when Fenrir Greyback and a band of Snatchers used it to find Harry, Ron, and Hermione, and subsequently took the trio to Malfoy Manor to be interrogated.


Is there any instance later than this that the Taboo spell is seen in canon? It would have behooved Voldemort to have kept it in place, because Harry says "Voldemort" several times during the Battle of Hogwarts without Snatchers, Death Eaters, or Voldemort coming after him.


When did Voldemort lift the Taboo spell? Why did he do this?


I'm looking for a canon-based answer.



Answer



I don't think the Taboo was disabled. My case for the Taboo spell still being active is the following.



  • The Taboo spell is used to identify the location someone said a specific word

  • The Taboo spell did not necessarily identify who the speaker was. Nothing specifically mentioned this. The arriving Death Eaters didn't say anything indicating they knew who the person was before arrival.

  • The use of the word almost certainly was directed to notify the Death Eaters instead of Voldemort himself. It seems unlikely that he would personally track down every person speaking his name. He never showed up, and it seems unlikely people would show up so quickly if Voldemort had to direct people to go search an area.


  • While Ron mentioned that the Taboo could break through some protections, it was not able to break through the Fidelius charm on 12 Grimmauld Place.

  • You cannot Apparate into Hogwarts. The Death Eaters did not Apparate into the castle after the name was used. So the Taboo spell was not stronger than Hogwart's protections.

  • Hogwarts had at least 3 Death Eaters on staff (Snape and both Carrows), and probably more close by.

    • If a student spoke the name 'Voldemort' at Hogwarts, you would expect the Death Eaters in residence to handle the problem, since the Taboo was apparently not strong enough to break the anti-Apparition spells.




So when Harry, and/or other people used the name when he arrived at Hogwarts it certainly could/would have notified the people responsible for monitoring the spell. But after he arrived on scene he was pretty quickly joined by a lot of backup.


Once the battle began it really wouldn't have made a lot of difference if he said the name. All the death eaters were there, or on the way to join the battle. Speaking the name again certainly wouldn't make people try to show up any faster.



At best saying the name might reveal the specific location of Harry at that specific point in time he said the name, but since everyone was prevented from Apparating, that wouldn't really help the Death Eaters much, since they would have had to fight their way to that location.


Given the facts, and conjectures, the Taboo spell would not have needed to be disabled to explain a lack of immediate response in conjunction with any uses of Voldemort's name after Harry returned to Hogwarts.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...
Post a Comment
Read more

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.
Post a Comment
Read more

Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...
Post a Comment
Read more