I was idly leafing through the AD&D 2nd Ed. Players Handbook, and paused to read the specifications for the 6th-level Cleric spell Heal. "...wipe away disease and injury ... blindness ... heals all points of damage suffered due to wounds or injury. It dispels a feeblemind spell. It cures those mental disorders caused by spells or injury to the brain."
I wondered, still idly, how Doug's "I'm Alive" would stack up against that in terms of power, given that "I'm Alive" will also repair people's clothing. And then I thought again about the curing of mental disorders, and ... oh, Emperor on Earth, Neville's parents....
Doug would have to find out about them... and, honestly, how many students would get sufficiently friendly with a DADA professor to mention things about their home life?
Given that this is year 5?
He might find out about it after the escape from Azkaban. It's not likely, but it's possible.
Given that this is the year in which Arthur Weasley got bitten by Voldy's snake and taken to the same hospital where the Longbottoms are treated, the chance of Doug, as a friend of the family, visiting Arthur and bumping into Neville there, much as Harry did, goes up somewhat.
But really, I wasn't suggesting healing Neville's parents as something that had to happen. The Loon could equally well learn about their problem only when it's too late to maybe help — too late as in, a universe or three away. A reason for regret, that he didn't know, rather than another opportunity for him to amaze people. I know I'd prefer the happier version, but Reality is malevolent, so....
On the other hand, as I recall, "I'm Alive" is an area effect. If Doug decided Arthur's weird poisoning needed special treatment, he'd also be treating every ailment within range. Is the Longbottoms' ward within that range?
Well, Doug's range is generally only 33ft, but the long-term spell damage ward might be on an adjacent floor... and who knows how much space-expansion is going on inside an old wizard building anyway?
33 meters, not feet. And it's actually 33.5 meters.
And that 33 isn't arbitrary, by the way. When I created Doug, I came up with a formula -- which I don't have handy at the moment -- which calculated his radius of effect in game "inches" as a function of his Intelligence and Endurance. V&V was designed so that it was possible to play it with figures or markers on large-size graph paper or a grid-marked tabletop, ruled at 1-inch intervals. Each such interval translated to 5 feet in-universe. Anyway, Doug's radius, after rounding, came out to be 110 feet. Which is 33.528 meters.
That's a 67 meter diameter sphere. That's a lot of space.
Do you actually have to hear the song for it to affect you? I'm pretty sure the hospital would be soundproofing some sections, and the spell damage ward sounds like the sort of space that'd get that sort of treatment.
I also suspect the song wouldn't cure all forms of insanity, because otherwise he'd be trying to use it on many of his opponents, since many comic book villains seem to be motivated by one form of mental illness or another (usually in the form of mental Disadvantages).
OTOH just curing any literal brain damage could lead to major improvements in their status.
The only person who has to hear the song is Doug.
ETA: Case in point, the fight against the Knight Sabers in DW2 starts with Doug listening to one song on the helmet's internal speakers, with the helmet's external speakers playing a different one. Also the very fact that he can turn off the external speakers.
Well, I sit corrected. Thanks for clearig that uop, Bob. It does prompt (not beg) the question, how does space expansion interact with Doug's range? Is it what Doug percieves? Depend on which side of the warp he's on? If there was an (open) (fanon-y) multi-compartment trunk with an inside bigger than his AoE but the outside completely contained within it, is the whole inside also considered within the effect, or just the part that's within 33.5m of the entrance, or does the effect stop at the entrance regardless?
Oh, this is something we had to handle early on. Basically, it's like an area-effect spell in Shadowrun -- the effect doesn't "emanate" from Doug, but floods the entire volume at once. If there's a teleport gate (like Skitz') inside his radius, area effects don't propagate through it, but Doug can fire a targeted effect -- like a lightning bolt -- through it.
Oh... and the radius only applies to area effects. Stuff like lightning gets its default range from the rules.
Well, I suppose it depends on the specific interpretation of space expansion charms, which are (as ever) largely unexplained in HP canon. If they're actually a pocket dimension accessed via portal like D&D, that's one thing, but if they're actually expanded space like the name implies and most fanfic that deals with them seems to use it seems to me it would be a more complicated question.