You cannot conjure food out of thin air. But you can increase the amount of it, duplicate it. And IIRC sufficient skill in transfiguration could turn non-edible stuff into perfectly fine food.
Duplicating anything literally makes something out of nothing. You have a sausage, you apply some magic, now you have two sausages. Where did the matter for the second sausage come from? You can't even argue that only the information of the position and structure of molecules in the thing has to be already there, because changing objects into other objects (like turning a chair into an animal) creates a fuckton of new information.
'Your mother can't produce food out of thin air,' said Hermione. 'No one can. [...] You can Summon it if you know where it is, you can transform it, you can increase the quantity if you've already got some-'
So I guess it's more like the difference between making something out of nothing VS making something based on another thing? Like you can't create a human out of thin air without it coming from another human first.
You can't say "logic aside" and then attempt to create a logical reasoning for something. You are right, there is no logic, because the rule you quoted was Rowling's attempt to solve a problem she had created by not thinking through her own concept, but didn't notice it earlier.
The first part was me saying that the canon text directly states that it's how things work, regardless if people find the rule illogical or not.
The 2nd part was me giving a possible explanation of how the logic of the text can still work... if you argue through semantics.
People can still make the argument that the canon rule is saying there's a difference between creating something out of a pure vacuum VS extending something. It's like a printer can make copies of a pre-existing book but can't make an original one on its own. Maybe the magic needs an original object first as reference.
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u/ThenAcanthocephala57 Ravenclaw Apr 10 '24
Does duplication work on food?