Binding a witch's voice, and why names matter

Binding a witch's voice, and why names matter Zatanna gets Diana in a way that a stronger punch would not. She has already placed a binding on Diana's voice, and it takes effect when they are in each other's presence. Diana can still think and speak, but she cannot freely reach her magic. That is why the arm not disappearing bothers her. The magic has not simply ceased to exist. Someone else has taken control of access to it. Zatanna then makes Diana speak her backward commands. She uses Diana to order Giganta around, freezes Diana when she tries to punch her, and has Diana cast the spell that gets the parasite out of Zatanna. That is a very different situation from Diana voluntarily deciding to help. Once the parasite is expelled, Zatanna teleports away. Diana immediately regains movement and feels her magic again. Later, Zatanna explicitly unbinds her voice, naming Diana's identity and lineage as she does it. The names are worth paying attention to. To get the parasite out, Zatanna's formula identifies herself through titles and parentage. Diana notices that Zatanna has now handed over all those names and tells her that was a mistake. The book establishes that this knowledge matters to a witch. It does not show Diana using the names to do absolutely anything she likes, so I would not turn that warning into an unlimited true-name power. A correction about the parasites Cale's parasites are not straightforward mind control. She explicitly describes them as a death threat. They deteriorate if the people carrying them do not return, and she can make that happen faster. The victims can still make choices; Cale has made disobedience potentially fatal. Zatanna uses Diana's magic to remove that threat from herself. Later Diana does the same kind of rescue for Ara with a vial and a purge command. Those are parasite-removal scenes, not proof that Diana has a universal cure for every form of mental influence. The protective bubble is also a way to remove an opponent As soon as she has her magic back, Diana calls her armor onto herself with spoken magical glyphs and green flame. She then does something pretty practical with Doctor Poison. She holds a little glowing sphere at her fingertips, casts with the condition that Poison neither suffers harm nor causes any, and encloses her in a much larger pink bubble. Then she throws the whole thing out of the museum and across the city. It is a containment spell, but the protection works both ways. Poison cannot continue attacking from inside it, and Diana can get her away from the crowd without just throwing an unprotected person through the roof. The scene gives us the spell's intent and the visible result. It does not give a duration, a maximum impact rating or a formal spell name. Matching Giganta: the hair is part of the spell Diana does not just decide to become giant and grow. She first lets Giganta think she has won, gets hold of some of her hair, and uses it with a small prepared vial and the command to match her. The result is Diana standing at Giganta's size. When Giganta grows again, Diana has to repeat the process. We see her take another strand, use another vial, and match the larger form. There is even a last-chance moment with what she still has in her hands before they are both towering over the city. That makes this much more interesting to me than generic size-changing. There is a target, a physical piece of that target, preparation Diana can draw from, and a command that produces a matching result. We are not given the vial's recipe or proof that she can keep scaling forever. Diana is worried about the damage two giants can do, so she sends the fight toward the open ground by the water instead of treating the city like a ring. Even then, she does not spend magic on every part of the fight. When Giganta starts getting up again, Diana decides she cannot waste any more on it and puts her out with a chokehold. Afterward she adds a separate sleep spell using a glowing orange object she breaks against Giganta. The physical restraint and the magical sleep are two different steps, not one big spell doing everything. Blood magic can damage the magical arm Giovanni's arrival shows the difference between Diana being physically tough and being immune to hostile magic. He kills Priscilla and uses blood magic to strengthen himself. When Diana finds the body, she recognizes what he has done. His burning spell makes her magical arm collapse, and the pain carries on through her body and mind afterward. This is not simply a metal prosthesis being melted by an ordinary fire. Zatanna later recognizes the burning spell as her father's work. Diana will accept help undoing the voice-binding, but she does not trust Zatanna enough to let her help restore the arm. That distinction matters. Having someone else work magic on her body is not something Diana treats as harmless just because that person says they are helping.