system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
What gives certain sayings, phrases, or "Incantations" their power?

From things like Harry Potter's expecto pertonum, to a generic wizards with things like "Vorpo invisiupe" for invisibility, why do they need to recite these little sayings? when they can do other spells without the use of words? Moreover, couldn't i hold up a wand,(Granted if i had the powers, or if a wand is even needed) spout random nonsense and various mixed language words until something magical happened?
gpt
Well, a lot of that depends on the universe we're talking about, but as a *general* rule...

So, imagine that you're a wizard. What does this mean? It means that there's a direct link between your consciousness and reality. It can be mediated through an energy field, come from outside of reality or many other things, depending on the setting. The important thing is that you can make things happen with *just your thoughts alone*.

So let's say that you want to create a fireball. How do you accomplish that? Well, it involves a variety of techniques and disciplines, but what they invariably have in common is that you're almost always going to *imagine* the effect you're trying to bring into reality.

There's a catch, however. If you start training yourself so that *imagining* fire *causes* fire... Well then, you're going to have a problem. At some point, you'll no longer be capable of imagining fire without *actually* setting things on fire.

Thus, most wizards add another step - a trigger. They train themselves so that it takes *more* than just their thoughts alone to make something happen in reality. For example, an incantation or a gesture.

These incantations are usually nonsense words or phrases you'd almost never use in any normal conversation(if you want to avoid accidentally setting things on fire, your incantation can't just be "Fire!" or whatever, it'd defeat the entire point) but are not, in and of themselves, magical. The magic is in the wizard, not in the words.

In short, incantations like that exist for one primary reason - the capability to *not* use your magic is just as important as actually using it.

Of course, depending on the universe, a lot of that can change. In some settings, wizards are effectively programming reality and the incantations are programs. In others, particular incantations are like carved pathways into reality - the universe responds to the intent of wizards so that a particular effect is associated with a particular action. Etc.

Still, the above is the general rule.