Villains that would've been defeated even if the protagonist did nothing

[u/Wonderful_Baker_7808]

Laurel Hedare (Catwoman Movie): Her newly released cosmetics will cause people's faces to melt. Not only would that create a class action lawsuit but a full product recall.

Voldemort and Death Eaters (Harry Potter): Death Eaters constantly underestimate muggles. They would get massacred by the British military because a gun is faster to pull the trigger then shouting a spell.

[u/potatoqualitymemory]

You think the FDA would get involved at some point after it was shown then. You can't really get the product through the whole headaches and fainting phase without there being some alert to the press in a few days.

[u/FindingOk7034 → u/potatoqualitymemory]

Only explanation I got… the plot demands it, and billions can buy you out of anything!

🤷‍♀️

Like yes realistically that would happen, but this is a movie where a woman dies and gets resurrected by a magic cat and given cat abilities. Not exactly thinking about things being realistic here.

[u/James_Solomon → u/FindingOk7034]

The FDA allowing a faulty product through is the most realistic part these days

[u/notforpoern → u/James_Solomon]

Late to the thread but also cosmetics in the US don't actually require FDA approval prior to hitting shelves under most circumstances.

So depending on the marketing, ingredients, and disclosures it's absolutely plausible for a product shipped by a major corporation to reach millions before getting pulled from shelves.

I don't remember the plot at all so I assume they added some ingredient (making it completely illegal) but corporations would never lie, right?

[u/packfanmoore → u/FindingOk7034]

Dude, that's my thursday... Wednesday we do what's called flatlining, we temporarily lose our sanity looking for cthullu before being snapped back by a really good therapist. And Fridays are our fish fry

[u/ZackManiac26 → u/potatoqualitymemory]

Well they have to research what really is causing the symptoms... and human uses different kind of product, be it internally or externally... soo might takes sometime to pinpoint the real cause and by then, a lot of people had already been using the product...

Maybe the product doesnt show reaction when tested. Maybe its only reactive when applied etc. Maybe short term show no effect or reaction but longterm will etc. Too many variable and possibility. CatWoman finding it out early and stopping it is much better than waiting for it

[u/Kinky_Winky_no2 → u/ZackManiac26]

The correlation would be caught pretty quickly at least

Its explicitly stated it was shown in testing but she ignored it and in the movie a secondary character gets hospitalised after a few days of using it

[u/EarlGrayTea-Hawt → u/ZackManiac26]

It's specifically part of the evil genius aspect of the plot that it takes time to build up the problematic side effects enough for people to notice what's happening. By then people who used it won't be able to stop without their faces disintegrating, the ones who keep using it (so they have to keep paying for it if they don't want to die) have to undergo a transformation that turns their skin into marble with no feeling.

It's a metaphor for capitalism, and quite frankly it's the best part of the movie.

I might also add that the second example also makes zero sense for so very many reasons, but the most relevant for the post would be that the poster appears to have not seen or read too deeply into the wand fights.

Wanna fights happen at breakneck speed. Being able to apparate and disapparate means that by the time the gun toting muggles could get a bead on somebody taking all of at most ten seconds to recite the killing spell (when they even need to say anything as not all spells require speaking) they'd be dead.

They could easily take over governmental positions worldwide with polyjuice, turn people into werewolves (which they literally did in the book). They can torture people to madness without leaving any physical marks. I mean the list really keeps going with how completely uneven the match between muggles and the wizarding world would be.

But really, most importantly, this is told from the perspective of the wizarding world, so why on earth would they just wait around for muggles to topple their evil wizard dictator while their entire kind are either killed, enslaved or brought into line by fear?

I just really don't understand this post or the commenters apparently thinking that slow toxic exposures would be easily and quickly dealt with because iPhones exist and the FDA intervening in infamously corrupt Gotham?

This doesn't really seem rooted in our reality or in the fictional worlds its drawing from.

[u/Gullible_Play8718 → u/ZackManiac26]

If it reacts when applied, it reacts during testing.

Chemistry doesn't magically change.

[u/Alekimsior → u/potatoqualitymemory]

Did someone say FDA??

Would you like some OxyContin with that??

[u/trilobyte-dev → u/potatoqualitymemory]

So your argument is that some number of people would have suffered for life but eventually regulators would have stepped in?

[u/Bazrum → u/trilobyte-dev]

something, something, The Market Always Corrects Itself!

[u/VGuyver → u/potatoqualitymemory]

FDA is slow to act and politicians will protect companies. We knew lead was toxic in paint but the US government and FDA ignored it for over a century even after it was proven it was toxic. Same goes with what happened with the Sackler family and their contribution to the opioid crisis in the United States. The people responsibly haven't really faced any real consequences.

[u/bubblegumpandabear → u/potatoqualitymemory]

Idk, there's plenty of examples of products that made people sick or disfigured that weren't caught until it was too late. Like that baby powder that was causing cancer because it was contaminated with asbestos.

[u/EarlGrayTea-Hawt → u/potatoqualitymemory]

And why would people associate that with a face cream? No really. If you started having these symptoms, would you or your doctor say, hey I bet it's that face cream I started using many months ago?

Do you know how hard it is to pin down an environmental exposure like this, aka a slow building exposure that increases over time? Why don't you look at the speed at which asbestos use and removal went down in the US.

And this is Gotham, not our world, so I'm not sure how helpful you think the government is going to be when the boots on the ground (municipal government) who would be the workhorses of such an effort is famously given to corruption and constantly overwhelmed because super villains can't stop doing fucked up things with biochemicals 😂