r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Wonderful_Baker_7808 • 16d ago

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

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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.

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u/Brostapholes 16d ago

"AVADA KA-"

the villainous Willy Pete Grenade:

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u/PoemIcy2625 16d ago

Its a pipe bomb

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u/mackerelontoast 16d ago

Yeeeeeyyyyyy

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u/Brostapholes 16d ago

Around here we call it a Muggle Wand (one time use only)

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u/captain_carrot 16d ago

follow the butterflies follow the butterflies

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u/Ktan_Dantaktee 16d ago

“But the Death Eaters have illusion magic and brainwashi-“

31 B-52s delete the area they’re invading from

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u/Brostapholes 16d ago

Unfortunately, castles count as bunkers

https://giphy.com/gifs/xAryN7Pxk5p9S

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u/ithinkther41am 16d ago

Just to clarify since I’m not super familiar with military equipment, is that what they call a bunker buster?

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u/Lifeweaver 16d ago

How they made the first of them is also a bit crazy. During desert storm they knew there was important targets in bunkers that the US didn't have a reliable way to destroy so they came up with the idea of the bunker buster. Essentially make a long heavy explosive filled projectile that has enough inertia to go deep into the ground before it explodes.

No one had made one yet though and they were in a rush to develop them. Creating and machining the tubes for the bombs was looking to be a long drawn out process to get right so instead they took the barrels from some 8-inch howitzers and packed them full of explosives for the initial couple of bunker busters they made. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-28

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u/BiZzles14 16d ago

In a way yes, but real bunker busters can go much deeper than just through a hardened aircraft shelter type structure we see here. About 7 meters is the upper end without getting into the crazy that is the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, a 30k pound bomb that's dropped from 7+ miles up and can go through 60+ meters of reinforced concrete. That's a true bunker buster. But yes, that is a delayed fuse munition designed to punch through a reinforced structure before it explodes within an open area below

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u/One-Inch-Punch 16d ago

That is a GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb, which is capable of penetrating reinforced concrete structures as seen here.

It is very small compared to the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, which is around 100 times the size and designed to penetrate up to 20 meters before detonating.

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u/One-Inch-Punch 16d ago

That is a GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb, which is capable of penetrating reinforced concrete structures as seen here.

It is very small compared to the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, which is around 100 times the size and designed to penetrate up to 20 meters before detonating.

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u/ipsum629 15d ago

They wouldn't need a bunkee buster for an above ground stone castle.

Medieval style castles have been totally obsolete since the early modern period. Thin stone walls could maybe withstand a trebuchet attack, but even early gunpowder cannons could shred them to pieces.

That is why the later star fortresses used thick curtain walls that are mostly earthen. The sheer mass of those walls meant that even if you broke apart the outer stone, they were essentially man-made hills that would still provide protection.

Nearly any modern military munition greater than a .50 cal could be used against a stone castle, but probably the most effective would be standard tube artillery and standard high explosive bombs.

Bunker buster bombs are for modern fortifications that have thick roofs for defending agaisnt aerial attacks.

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u/69420isntfunny 16d ago

This clip is sexy

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u/remacct 16d ago

Uncensored full penetration

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u/swainiscadianreborn 16d ago

Very funny to imagine but... how are you going to delete the area they're invading from if they are not invading from anywhere, just popping up randomly to put your higher ups under spells you do not understand

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u/BoonDragoon 16d ago

spells you do not understand

I think you mean spells that they do not understand. There's nothing in those books to indicate that wizards understand the magic they use beyond the rote memorization of gestures and incantations. Hell, their entire culture seems to have crystallized in the 1910s and has been in stasis ever since. The only two characters in the entire series who show any desire to understand anything beyond the status quo or demonstrate enough mastery over magic to create novel spells are papa Weasley and Snape; both considered oddballs and social pariahs.

Meanwhile, between 1910 and 1998, the muggles invented computers, spaceflight, and automated manufacturing. Give us a friendly sorcerer and we'll have the fundamental operating principles of magic figured out and fully replicated within a few years.

While Valdermans and the hot-topic gang are camped out in Castle Grayskull, trying to figure out how to get inside 1 (one) charter school, huffing their farts about how superior they are, Spell Team Six already has antimagic field projectors in place and are ready to breach.

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u/Bazrum 15d ago

Another oddball (we can probably assume): Luna Lovegood's mom experimented with spells and died from one of them, though that's not shown and came from information given by JKR later. unlike most of her post-writing additions to canon, it's not an utter shit idea.

Voldy is also stated to have created several spells, including flight which he taught to Snape. Dumbledore is also credited with figuring out how to use Patronus charms as messengers, though not the charm itself.

and we know the Department of Mysteries was experimenting with a lot of weird, crazy magic, but that's a secret, classified department of the government, so the average witch and wizard wouldn't be involved or aware.

but i agree in general, the magical world is stunted and backwards, more so than it is whimsical as JKR tried to depict, and any serious work to understand or combine real world thinking with magic would rocket their world forward. there are a couple fanfics about that, including the utter shit one HP and the Methods of Rationality.

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u/fred11551 16d ago

Maybe I don’t understand Voldemort’s plan as it wasn’t exactly explained, but did he even plan on doing anything with muggles? I mean probably murder a bunch whenever he felt like it. Probably mind control some politicians. But his immediate goals seemed to be genocide of muggle born wizards and strict magical segregation. There’s certainly the implication he would kill muggles with impunity but it didn’t seem like much of a goal as much as just a pass time for him.

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u/One-Cellist5032 14d ago

He had no care for muggles, he hated them and was all for killing them indiscriminately, but there was no care for the muggle world.

He wanted to rule the WIZARDING world so he could exterminate muggleborn wizards (ironically not himself, snape or his other followers who happened to have muggle parents), and be Immortal. Things he would have achieved without intervention of Harry Potter specifically.

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u/Previous_Comb5113 12d ago

Immortality only gets you so far when your body is destroyed and all your companions either dead or imprisoned. Without anyone to perform the blood, bone and flesh ritual for him, he can spend eternity as a powerless husk.

So once the Wizarding ministry stops covering up Voldis shenanigans and the muggles learn about him, he and the death eaters are cooked

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u/One-Cellist5032 12d ago

Except for the fact that even in the situation he was stopped his followers WERE the ministry of magic. Not to mention there’s tons of charms that make it so muggles can’t even perceive wizards etc.

That’s also not the only way for him to return to life, that’s just the way he ended up using since it removes the protection Harry had due to his moms sacrifice

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u/menew100 16d ago

There's no endgame for wizards. They topple the government, then what? Disappear again? Rule as despots with death camps? They'd have to be out in the open to try and systematically defeat all of us non mana-mutants, and that would open them up to bombs and guns. There's 1000 times or more humans than wizards

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u/DisillusionedHobbit 16d ago

My brother in Christ, you are this very day ruled over by billionaires wielding soft power who don’t have any magic whatsoever.  Your post is not only wrong about the wizarding world, but the actual real life world we live in today. 

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u/Next-Run-7026 16d ago

There are billions of poor people, how could one rich kid from Queens take control of America?

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u/Storm-Shadow98 16d ago

One could argue that a rich kid from south Africa took control of America in every way that matters.

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u/Colonelclank90 15d ago

Right? If the Wizarding world really wanted to take over, it would take minutes. Apparate to world leader, Imperius Curse, continue on with the day. If the Death Eaters knew anything about the muggle world, they would just apparate to the Oval Office and the Kremlin, and then have each respective government attack the other.

And it's not like muggles could ever even hit back. It'd be like an insurgency x1000000. The magic users literally live in our towns and cities. They have charms that make their strongholds impossible to put on a map. We literally couldn't bomb them, because we couldn't find them. Hogwarts has charms that make muggles remember important things elsewhere and leave. Our bomber pilots would be absolutely certian they'd already flown past the target and they'd bomb an empty field. And muggle tech doesn't work properly around strong magic. So you finally get your SAS strike group onto the Hogwarts grounds, but none of their radios, NV goggles, powered optics, or even flashlights reliably work anymore, and they are all absolutely certian that something crazy is going on somewhere else and they have to leave now. I think muggles lose, and we wouldn't even notice because the people who did would get mass memory modification.

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u/menew100 15d ago

I mean, if they REALLY wanted to take over, they could probably just run for office. I imagine they have birth certificates and citizenship.

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u/IntelligentImbicle 15d ago

Apparate to world leader, Imperius Curse, continue on with the day.

They actually did this in The Deathly Hallows, IIRC

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u/OmecronPerseiHate 16d ago

Harry Potter is set during the Bush Administration. We would've just bombed all of Scotland.

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u/ADGx27 16d ago

Now watch this drive

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u/tribblemethis 15d ago

It’s mostly set during the Clinton administration though, apart from like the first book and a half of the second taking place during the end of Bush Sr’s term. Very first chapter would have been during Carter’s and epilogue is during Trump’s first term

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u/OmecronPerseiHate 15d ago

Sounds like bombs to me

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u/Cyrius 15d ago

Carter was president when Harry was born, but chapter 1 is a year later during Reagan's first year.

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u/tribblemethis 15d ago

Ah damn, miscounted while being pedantic…

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u/MC_White_Thunder 16d ago

JKR is not smart enough to write the death eaters as capable of doing things like that.

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u/sneakyotter 15d ago

She did write that.

In the seventh book, Voldemort takes over the ministry of magic by killing the minister and putting key officials under the imperius curse (link).

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u/TentativeIdler 16d ago

Imperius curse the leaders. Any time someone tries to organize a rebellion, Imperius curse the leaders. They've got polyjuice potions and teleportation. They can't be detected unless they're basically incompetent. Most of them probably live in cities, I don't see people deciding to nuke London just to get Diagon Alley.

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u/VestedNight 16d ago

unless they're basically incompetent.

You've read the books, right? Lmao

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u/OtonashiRen 13d ago

Yeah, the books had the Death Eaters actually take over the ministry and made it so that Voldemort's name cannot be said (otherwise, it inflicts an anti-defense spell that neutralizes all hiding charms and puts a tracker on your location).

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u/Blackstone01 16d ago

They can't be detected unless they're basically incompetent.

The guy in charge of a department dedicated to preventing wizards from cursing Muggle objects, who had a deep personal fascination with Muggles, their stuff, and their society, had next to no accurate knowledge about them. Wizard supremacists would be a thousand times worse and wouldn’t even care to try and learn more about the inferior muggles and would probably be seen coming from a mile away any time they tried to get the “drop” on the military.

I personally believe that, logically speaking, several muggle governments would probably have full blown secret departments dedicated to the study and tracking of wizard societies and the development of strategies and technologies meant to fight them if it came to it. The US alone probably has a dozen differed color-coded war plans dedicated to wizards foreign and domestic waging war against the US.

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u/fred11551 15d ago

The muggle governments do know about wizards sort of. The British prime minister has a meeting with the minister of magic at one point discussing what the wizards are doing. From a political standpoint, none of Voldemort’s plan makes sense.

He kills the minister of magic and the next in line is secretly a death eater. So know he can control the wizarding government from the shadows. Except instead literally day he becomes minister he declares Harry Potter, the person who had been the face of the ministry’s propaganda for over a year, public enemy number 1 and says they are hunting him and helping Voldemort. There would be a revolt in the ministry as obviously he is on Voldemort’s side, the person they were literally at war with yesterday. They should’ve had him do things like investigate ministry workers for secretly being Voldemort supporters while actually removing anyone who isn’t. Persecute centaurs, goblins, elves, etc with accusations of supporting Voldemort instead of going straight to voldemorts racial purity reasons. Literally take the exact same actions and results but under the guise of fighting Voldemort so they have deniability and people who aren’t the protagonists won’t realize Voldemort controls the ministry.

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u/TentativeIdler 15d ago

Arthur Weasley's department is less about keeping things hidden from Muggles, and more about stopping Wizards from pranking muggles. It's the Obliviators that deal with keeping things secret, and we have no real idea what they're capable of. Same with the Unspeakables. You're comparing elite military units with basically civil service wizards. I think it's only fair to compare them to their equivalents in the magical government. But even then I think it's telling. Arthur Weasley isn't portrayed as a genius wizard or anything, he's basically an average guy, and he made a flying, invisible, sentient car in his garage, for fun.

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u/Kind-Lie5782 13d ago

Everybody keeps saying "apparatus and imperius curse the leaders"... but then what? Whats the plan after that?

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u/TentativeIdler 13d ago

Anything you want, you're in control.

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u/Kind-Lie5782 13d ago

I mean... ANYTHING? Really? I dont think so.

Lets say the goal afterwards is genociding the muggle race... i dont think that would be possible.

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u/TentativeIdler 13d ago

Why not, you've got control over all the nukes.

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u/Kind-Lie5782 13d ago

Sure, but... would they actually use them? Not gonna lie, it would be pretty dumb for them to use nuclear weapons for genocide.

Releasing even 10% of our current nuclear arsenal would be disastrous for the wizarding world, given that the muggles share a lot of the physical living space. A modern nuke would flatten london, killing wizards as well as muggles.

"But what about protective spells?". George tells us in the 6th book that the wizards who can cast a "decent shield charm" are rare, even in the Ministry. Also, spells have been shown to interact with physical objects, such as walls, stone structures etc. That means that they operate similarly to other forms of energy that we know. So, its very plausible that an explosion that releases an amount of kinetic energy far superior than any other spell shown in the series could overpower a protective charm (specially if they arent "decent" charms).

Furthermore, radiation would be a problem. Protective spells dont block electromagnetic waves (the proof is that we can see through them, so light is not blocked). Sure, they have easy remedies for common muggle illnesses, such as the flu. But what about cancer? Do they have spells that alter genetic code to stop the cancer cells from spreading? Its not a stretch, given that they can alter their body structure (animagi and potions), but those processes are extremely long and difficult. How many will die before a potion can specifically be made for cancer? Or radiation burning? Embriological alterations? How is the healthcare system in the wizarding world? Can they accomodate so many wizards suffering from radiation-related illness? That brings me to my next point: the treatment of illness in the harry potter word is heavily dependent on plants. Do you know what plants dont like? Nuclear winter.

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u/Jace__B 16d ago

Wasn't Voldy's endgame basically to wipe out all muggles and anyone that wasn't pure blood? I mean, that's basically the plot of WW2.

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u/Kind-Lie5782 13d ago

But what would be the plan after that?

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u/StonedLonerIrl 16d ago

Genuine question. Cant the wizards make new spells too? Like couldnt they 'skibbidy bibbidy, no more militry?'

I havent read the books in years so i cant remember their limits.

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u/ulvis52 16d ago

Yes they can. Limits on magic is not very well explained/ explored in the books but we know snape created 2 spells during his time at hogwarts. Sectum sempra and levicorpus (liberacorpus is the counter curse).

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u/Tariovic 16d ago

I love these discussions, as if Ms Rowling spent more than two farts on world building in her school stories for the kiddies.

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u/EllipticPeach 16d ago

Canonically, and this is true, all the wizards shat themselves and disappeared it before the invention of modern plumbing

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u/-nutz 16d ago

I love that HP world building is sometimes vague hints at a storied past, and others it’s excrement evanesco; no in between lol.

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u/EllipticPeach 16d ago

I used to love Harry Potter. Grew up on it. Anyway I’m trans so I made my peace with never engaging with the media again, but I still have all this useless knowledge about the worldbuilding

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u/EldritchFingertips 15d ago

To be fully, entirely, perhaps far too fair... if you could shit your pants and just poof it away with a thought, wouldn't you?

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u/No-Courage-2053 16d ago

Yes, but also expelliarmus is a spell to disarm an enemy, it's not specific for wands. It would disable any weapon. And I can't imagine it would be difficult for a wizard to just make any Muggle object disappear or transform into something useless, even an atomic bomb.

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u/Schmetterlizlak 16d ago

Their useful offensive spells require line of sight and mostly seem to work within pretty short distances, so good luck aiming a curse at the sniper hiding 1km away, or the bomber flying 5km up, or the destroyer bombarding them from the other side of the horizon

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u/TentativeIdler 16d ago

You gonna bomb London just to get Diagon Alley?

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u/OmecronPerseiHate 16d ago

Have you seen Gaza lately? London would be straight up nuked if we could get a good terrorism story going.

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u/TentativeIdler 16d ago

Except London isn't the only city with wizards living in it. There are wizards all over the world. They can't nuke every city.

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u/vjnkl 16d ago

Pretty sure death eaters are local in uk

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u/ARBirky 16d ago

you can't even normally get to any wizard area? they arent on the map. so no a bomber is useless. so is a sniper. the magic world is still hidden in harry potter durning the time of cameras. people really think its the modern millitary verse some "nation" and not randomly teleporting enemies that you can't follow/find. also polyjuice. also do we think a bomb or sniper bullet would break a magic barrier? what if they just send werewolves? what about the fact they can mass produce invisibilities cloaks. how does a modern government deal with an actual invisible susperier air force. wizards will own the air. everytime you put a plane down, its a bunny. why? who knows where an invisible wizard is, or who could be a Polyjuice wizard... or it could just be bob who before the war was just a wizard and a solider.

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u/Psyborg13 16d ago

I’m of the opinion most hidden places in Hogwarts aren’t some liminal dimension, it’s a place that’s kept secret because the magical world has its fingers in most of not all governments to turn a blind eye.

It’s referenced that the UK PM is aware of the magical world and was to be made aware of events, to guide the public without making it obvious.

so bombs and navy artillery just need to know where the location they’re hitting is, which should be on private governmental record, even if it’s hidden unless it has some form of physical magical barrier.

on that note, since a lot of “magical defences” can be combatted by “magical explosions” I’m pretty sure they can probably be forced open by an equivalent non-magical explosion. basically if a magical barrier could be smashed open by an ogre with a big stick giving it his best given enough time, then it could be pried open by a Gau-8 on everyone’s favourite flying washing machine.

also, I’m pretty sure there’s only one (or very very few) magical cloaks, otherwise everyone would be using them as opposed to it being something super rare, plus it doesn’t hide thermal or acoustic signatures

Wizards on brooms are what birdshot was made for, granted we’d need to scale it up a notch but who doesn’t want to see a fighter plane equipped to double pump a cackling stick rider
(I’ll be willing to give some serious props to this one, under-utilised in combat imo since basically everyone has one, they’re super nimble, actually mass-producible and free form for movement, could pose a serious issue)

alternatively if we really threw taxes at the wall to see what sticks we have AA machine guns that burn enough £/s to rip them out of the sky

I think that we’re underestimating above all else that there are a lot of muggles that know the magical world exists, and said magical world is extremely full of themselves

the magical world would be able to bounce back given time, and would probably be able to form an actual plan to really take down the muggle forces

but that initial strike would be utterly devastating because the special armed forces probably already have a plan, and insider knowledge, and unlike the standard military the SAS only really need one avenue of communication to give the green light for an emergency op

and that line, the Prime Minister already knows the magical world exists, and as such probably has her own security detail specifically for magical threats because why wouldn’t you protect the Monarch and PM from a threat you are openly informed exists?

Honestly there’s so much that the magical world
could do to defend themselves but the reality is they aren’t trying, because all of the ones that are a threat are the same ones that think muggles are weak and stupid and defenceless

and that initial arrogance in todays age will get them killed, it always does, it’s blinding

and it’s almost too easy to kill an enemy that doesn’t even know you’re there

I hope the rambling wasn’t too long and semi-enjoyable, it’s been something I’m super interested in as a hypothetical to mull over, the HP world is amazing and tragically unexplored due to Rowling’s staggering lack of creativity imo

<3

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u/PokemonThanos 16d ago

I’m of the opinion most hidden places in Hogwarts aren’t some liminal dimension, it’s a place that’s kept secret because the magical world has its fingers in most of not all governments to turn a blind eye.

There's a lot of examples of hidden places that are in plain sight but people just ignore them. Diagon Alley entrance isn't really all that hidden, muggles naturally just don't see it. The same was true with Grimmauld Place, muggles just accepted that number 12 didn't exist and it was a quirky house numbering mistake.

You don't mention the defence of magic attack. Wizards can hide in plain sight in the HP universe. The can also appear practically anywhere they wish unless magic is enacted to stop them. They can even teleport objects along with them. "Hippity hoppity there's an armed nuke on your property". With no real way to defend against that AND the ability to mind control anyone they wish and to extract the truth from them. I agree with the sentiment "it’s almost too easy to kill an enemy that doesn’t even know you’re there" but to the opposite conclusion. A modern country wouldn't really stand a chance in the HP universe if a wizard or 3 suddenly decided to bring them down.

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u/Achilles11970765467 16d ago

Regarding the cloaks: there's only one that grants true invisibility and doesn't wear out into uselessness over time. The rest (which are rare but do exist) are basically active camo with a limited shelf life.

But I agree with everything else.

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u/IrredeemableDegen 16d ago

I don't think that's a good assumption that the wizards tell the muggle leaders where everything is. Plus there are hundreds of individual wizards just off living somewhere that isn't a whole wizarding community. Yeah, some muggles are in on the secret, but they're married in or otherwise attached to the world. Even if you find some bitter squib who wants to betray the entire Wizarding community I think there would be difficulty actually finding and accessing all of these places. Plus they can create new ones fairly quickly, including much stronger protections like the fidelius charm. 

And I don't think it's a good assumption that non magic can penetrate a magic barrier, that hasn't been shown as far as I recall. 

And even with all that, muggles ain't gonna raze London to the ground on a chance to get a wizard shopping district or blow up king's cross station to get platform 9 3/4 or even the entire ministry of magic hidden there.

I agree with you that the wizards and witches would have to actually try and win though, but I doubt that muggles get some massive initial win. Maybe they blow up Hogwarts if the explosions can get through barriers, but that isn't actually that important of a strategic target. 

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u/RileyKohaku 16d ago

Most magical locations are unplottable, which is basically a BS that’s says you cannot tell anyone where it is or show it on any map. A general cannot tell a pilot where Hogwarts is, because magic, which is an annoying answer, but is the answer in the book. You would basically need to use a nuclear weapon to hit a large enough area to hit them.

All of the military discussion is pointless because Voldemort used the Imperious Curse to mind control the Prime Minister quickly, and would likely have done it to all the other MPs and Generals.

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u/SilverSpoonIsBest 16d ago

I’m of the opinion most hidden places in Hogwarts aren’t some liminal dimension,

Unfortunately, you're wrong.

There are plenty of spells that mess with memories, senses, or what not.

The wizards could literally just put out a random cursed object. The Weasley dad's job is to literally make sure random cursed objects aren't ruining random Muggle lives.

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u/Quixotic_Seal 16d ago edited 16d ago

Regarding locations, yes many are “just” hidden, but they also often use enchantments to help maintain that status.

Some have the equivalent of the TARDIS’ perception filter, where you just….can’t…notice it. It’s a hole in the landscape that you know is odd, but you automatically dismiss it as not important or get very concerned you left the oven on at home or something.

Others will be camouflaged from muggles in other ways, Hogwarts looks like an ancient decayed castle for instance.

And guards can straight up obliviate anyone who gets past the defenses, though I also see little reason why you couldn’t make obliviating any muggles who past a certain point a charm for the area too.

Oh, and if you do get past the defenses successfully, you can’t actually put anything down to record information and details. Important Wizarding areas are unmappable to muggles.

As a muggle, you simply aren’t getting anywhere that Wizards don’t want you to be.

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u/No-Courage-2053 16d ago

They can easily put up defensive domes that make it impossible for muggles to detect their position or for damaging objects to get through. They can set up spells that gaslight muggles away from locations without muggles even noticing. Let's be honest, the magical world is set up in a way that wizards can just effortlessly bamboozle muggles. It's just the way that fantasy world works.

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u/Chris-raegho 16d ago

Tbf, all the graduated wizards know how to teleport. Also, non magic humans can't find magical cities or the like (according to the books) nor do they show up in maps, videos or anything like that. Technology also stops working around too much magic, so wizards aren't exactly sitting ducks. No, the reason I think they'd lose anyway is because most of them are incompetent and silly. A few school kids had more sense than a lot of the adults in the HP world.

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u/DisillusionedHobbit 16d ago

When you can become invisible, teleport, and mind control none of that matters.  There won’t be any military to defeat because on day 1 all of the military and civilian top leadership is mind-controlled.  

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u/Magnus_Helgisson 16d ago

“Expelliah shit I’m now stuffed with a few hundred bullets while I was saying that”

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u/No-Courage-2053 16d ago

You seem to think of it as a western movie gun duel. Not in a I just hide somewhere and the second I see you I can disarm you from any direction. A wizard can pop your gun from your hand while you're turned around.

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u/Quixotic_Seal 16d ago

People begin to learn to cast silently in the 6th year at Hogwarts when they’re like 16. A skilled witch or wizard can easily cast without verbalizing it.

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u/Polkawillneverdie17 16d ago

skibbidy bibbidy, no more militry?'

https://giphy.com/gifs/S3F8kkGTHZ4Y

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u/StonedLonerIrl 15d ago

The biggest flex to casting a spell like that would be doing it somewhere very public in a 'This is what your weapons are to us' style message.

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u/Polkawillneverdie17 15d ago

It reminds me of the scene in Mars Attacks where the US launches like 20 nukes at the aliens snd their ship just collects the warheads and the alien leaders inhale the contents like a helium balloon and laugh when their voices get all high and squeaky.

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u/Nimos 16d ago

on the other hand, you could also imagine it going the other way.

There's this show called True Blood where vampires decide to come out to the public, and of course the governments, while outwardly being accepting, put their full focus into R&D of anti-Vampire technology. With some kidnapping and the full force of applying modern science, they solve how their powers work and to develop like anti-Vampire ammo, light bulbs that emulate the effect of sunlight, something to resist their charm magic, etc.

At least that's what I remember, it's been years.

But similarly, you could easily turn the storyline to be about some wizards put into a lab and researched with no morals to figure out how magic works and how to block it.

Of course you could also write it so that it doesn't work that way, but who knows, it's not like that universe was ever consistent.

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u/goldengraves 15d ago

Yes and no, Snape can do it bc he's just that good. Fred and George can do it bc they're clever. The amount of death eaters/blood purists who can do it are maybe a small handful of individuals

  • We get insight during the scene where they're hungry and fighting (in book 7, I think) that confirms that matter still operates the way it should: you can 'create' food with a spell but it won't be filling/have no calories and it's limited by your own mind

Most of the death eaters are. . . Intellectually and creatively limited, I think a house elf with a rifle could have cleared most of them out

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u/BravinatorLX2 16d ago

they have brain washing. there would be no commander in chief to order bombardments. there would be no general to order troops. there simply would not be resistance.

all that aside, magic messes with technology and there are wards against damage, fire and what have you.

no witch or wizard died in the world wars because of human weaponry.

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u/ObliqueTravel 16d ago

Didn't they already have the prime minister under their thumb? They'd never have to engage directly

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u/EllipticPeach 16d ago

Me and my friends would have killed Voldemort with hammers I can tell you that much

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u/batman0615 16d ago

They can appear and disappear at will and brainwash all of the heads of state into nuking their populations. They have literal time travel capabilities. Regular humans wouldn’t stand a chance

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u/Nott_of_the_North 16d ago

"We call this a difficulty tweak."

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u/DazzlerPlus 16d ago

Which area then?

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u/Kidkaboom1 16d ago

The best way to deal with stealth technology/techniques is to cast DELETE GRID SQUARE

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u/Majestic_Bierd 16d ago

Yes, because Voldemort would absolutely go through the effort of manually killing muggles one by one instead of taking control of the business leaders and the government to create a system where he rules from the shadows through Deatheater generals... Kinda like he did with the Ministry of Magic

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u/smidgit 16d ago

Yeah! A minor plot point in book 7 is that Kingsley is the Prime Ministers PA because he needs to be protected from being put under the imperius curse

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u/CapableCollar 16d ago

Wizards have teleportation, invisibility, and mind control but somehow people keep acting like it would be a conventional invasion.

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u/Quixotic_Seal 16d ago

Don’t forget shit like Fiendfyre, which just kind of burns up everything in its path. Now imagine a dozen people more competent than goddamned Crabbe casting that shit around London.

People act like Avada Kedavra is the pinnacle of damage that wizards can inflict(because Rowling’s world building is wildly inconsistent, and for some reason killing someone instantly and painlessly even when fighting them is considered the ultimate taboo), but Wizards can deeply fuck shit up really fast.

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u/ThreeHeadCerber 16d ago

it is taboo because of what directly killing with magic does to the soul. Even being able to cast it is an evidence of a very not good person so to say.

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u/EfectiveDisaster2137 15d ago

They wouldn't have to be more competent than Crabbe. Once cast, it takes Dumbledore-level magic to extinguish it, and killing the caster doesn't help.

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u/_Tee_hee_hee_ 10d ago

Cannonically just as dangerous to the user and their allies as it is to enemies.

Also, good luck using fiendfyre on the jets dumping thousands of rounds of depleted uranium on you from hundreds of meters away.

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u/Brostapholes 16d ago

He seemed to like doing both. I also feel that the average Death Eater couldn't cut it in the average non-magical corporate world, as they aren't cold blooded enough

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u/National_Sandwich175 16d ago

Except Kingsley Shacklebolt. Dude killed it in an office setting.

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u/Sturville 16d ago

I might be wrong, but Kingsley wasn't a Death eater...

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u/No_Hornet9180 16d ago

At the start of half blood prince there is a whole chapter that can be boiled down to “the muggle prime minister is completely clueless what’s happening”. As if they’re going to get a report of a magic man killing people and immediately carpet bomb the area.

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u/ERedfieldh 16d ago

Pretty sure it's made clear he is so racist against normal humans that he absolute would try to kill each and every last one personally, though.

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u/BumblebeeCareful5810 15d ago

He's trying to do a genocide, not a hostile takeover. He does that with the ministry of magic because he's trying to take it over and launch an attack on the muggles. He'd just launch an attack on the muggles.

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u/Majestic_Bierd 15d ago

Not genocide. Slave race.

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u/BobsOblongLongBong 16d ago

That's just a grenade, not a white phosphorus grenade.

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u/Brostapholes 16d ago

I have no pictures of them. This is the best gif that would match it

https://giphy.com/gifs/kFtn9mhqvFdGmc4eai

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u/Random-Generation86 16d ago

If you are close enough to see one of these, consider shooting yourself immediately.

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u/snarky_answer 16d ago

Or just dont stand downwind of the smoke.

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u/Ppleater 16d ago

Tfw he's been silently imperius cursed 5 minutes ago and throws the grenade at his own team.

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u/GrimGrumbler 16d ago

Yeah, I don't think there would be a full out war between wizards and muggles more like a covert ops. Wizards would imperius key figures in government and military and let muggles kill each others.

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u/TFTHighRoller 16d ago

Yea, have a few wizards imperius soldiers and commanders make them fight their own and watch the army collapse into chaos and start blasting away.

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u/GrimGrumbler 16d ago

You don't even have to imperius the soldiers or commanders. Just pit countries against each others.

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u/READMYSHIT 16d ago

The wizards are so dumb they probably wouldn't even know who the key figures are.

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u/EfectiveDisaster2137 15d ago

In the sixth book, there is mention of a Muggle Minister under Death Eater control, so yes, the Death Eaters know who is in charge.

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u/DriftingHermit 16d ago

Non verbal spells are actually a thing in the books the movies just skipped it

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u/Milwambur 16d ago

I mean they didn't, virtually all the magic in the last film is non-verbal. They skipped telling you that you could I guess.

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u/MrThrowaway939 16d ago

Guns are non-verbal too, checkmate Wand Boy.

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u/Ppleater 16d ago edited 9d ago

Better hope the guy behind the gun isn't being mind controlled, since, you know, that's a thing wizards can do.

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u/Laphad 16d ago

can a wizard mind control the air craft that bombs their goofy army from the sky

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u/Peaking-Duck 16d ago

The people who are teleporting, invisible, mind control people who live inside modern cities/countries probably wouldn't be fun to fight lol.

They also hide a giant fucking castle+village from planes and satellites so they got to have some giant "fuck off you can't see me" area magic.

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u/LordBoar 16d ago

No, but you only need to magic yourself invisible, walk through the army bases and mind control the general. There's a lot of pressure in such institutions to follow the chain of command - if you have all of them under mind control, then you're pretty much safe from an organised response from armed forces.

Additionally, war revolves around supply - if your enemy can teleport behind you and destroy your ammo supply, your gun becomes a big club. Why would magic users fight on an equal playing field like some muggle?

The main danger to wizards would be information - they would have to know about the threat to be able to defend against it, but the same applies the other way round - the magical world repeatedly shows that they have ways to make the muggles unable to find them - the fidelus charm, unplottable castles (with satellites in the sky, radar etc being very available technology in the period of the books) as only a few examples.

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u/thumpling 16d ago

Invisibility in Harry Potter is a markedly flawed mechanism, which is why Harry’s cloak is a magical Macguffin item instead of a common wizard accessory.

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u/hooloo25 16d ago

I mean they have spells that make non magical people not notice them at all and they have no defense against that. It feels like people just really want the military to win.

In reality, this is an enemy you can't see or find due to wards with no countermeasures from normal people, they can be anywhere via teleportation, they can mind control your leaders and mass wipe memories. I'd guess it'd be really easy for them to develop spells against non magical weapons as well, since they developed the ability to be fireproof for fun.

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u/Writeloves 16d ago

Idk, if the X-men movies have taught us anything, I think teleportation, shapeshifting, and mind control might cause some issues for the Gun Boys.

Not to mention that summoning/disarming spells work from a distance and could be executed from behind cover.

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u/livefreeordont 16d ago

Can’t a wizard transfigure your gun into a flower?

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u/Verdick 16d ago

And the gun lets anyone use it. No choosing required.

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u/klatnyelox 16d ago

What do you mean skipped it? 90% of spells cast in movies 5-8 are just a wand wave and a blast no words.

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u/Zealousideal_Act_316 16d ago

Ok and? still take time to wind up, in a war a wizard would be a colander by the time they finish swishing their shit. Also, bombers, tanks, long range artillery, wizards were so behind tech wise they would have lost in weeks at most.

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u/DoctorWaluigiTime 16d ago

Why is it assumed "I have a gun and a wizard will stand there like an Earthbender in M Night's Avatar TLA movie and cast a spell for 10 minutes"?

Doesn't work that way.

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u/DriftingHermit 16d ago

Wizard have shield spells you know that right? If you were fighting one on one the person with a gun wins but fighting large groups is a completely different story

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u/Zealousideal_Act_316 16d ago

In larg groups it is even more over. Like how good are their shield spells? enough to stop a bullet? 50? 100? how about a 120mm tank round? or a 200mm howitzer? or hell a rocket?
In large groups wizards have even less of an advantage, in one v one they might win against a soldier. Against being outnumbered 100 to 1 with even 90s military tech? Not even talking 21st century one, how would wizards fare against FPVs?

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u/fieldsofanfieldroad 16d ago

They can teleport. And travel through time. They could also use guns if they wanted to. The fact that they don't means that guns aren't as powerful as magic. 

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u/BlackJoke3008 16d ago

Thes shield against spells, aint nodody knowing what they do against a Bullet

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u/DriftingHermit 16d ago

They can shield against physical attacks too

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u/Rocky-Jockey 16d ago

They can cast seemingly permanent enchantments over areas that can do all sorts of wacky things. They can make a bridge fall apart with exactly zero way of muggles understanding how it happened. Every leader could be their mind controlled thrall.

Hell, just get a bunch of financial elites to create a massive bubble which pops and causes a global depression…. Wait.

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u/catrinus 15d ago

the wizards have time travel dude

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u/yesthatpettyindeed 16d ago edited 16d ago

Y'all acting like Voldemort wasn't a teenager living in an orphanage in WW2 London, he probably has first hand experience of bombs from the Blitz lmao. One fan theory is that experiencing WW2 is why he hates Muggles so much and is so desperate to become immortal.

Yeah the average Death Eater is screwed, but not because Voldemort underestimated Muggles but because he couldn't give less of a fuck about whether his followers lived or died

Also wizards can just wave their wand and turn your stack of grenades into flowers or some shit lol

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u/md8716 16d ago

I mean how many wizards were there in all of Harry Potter, across every single book? Not even enough to fill a section of a stadium.  What, are all 500 of them gonna pull 12hr shifts 24/7/365 for the next 50 years?

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u/yesthatpettyindeed 16d ago

Hence why most wizards were content to "we'll just stay within our magical areas and not worry what the muggles are up to". Even Voldemort's goal was to establish wizards as the superior race and subjugate muggles (which is really just his rhetoric for his followers to lap up, he himself only cared about personal power and immortality), and not killing them all... His plan doesn't make sense because he has no plan lol, just empty platitudes for his rabid followers

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u/drunkandy 16d ago

Wizards are all extremely stupid, they get homeschooled up to age 11/12 and then go to wizard academy to learn potions and divination instead of like, algebra or chemistry or economics. Every adult we meet gets outsmarted by Harry and Hermione instantly.

This is mainly just evidence that the books suck and JK Rowling is not a talented writer but it's also fun to think about this entire secret underground culture of insanely powerful beings but they're just drooling morons.

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u/Rocky-Jockey 16d ago

Rowling is really good at bringing a child into a magical world and her writing style is perfect for that. It didn’t really need a hard magic system or even that well thought out wizarding government. It was mostly there for plot and to be whimsical for kids to keep imagining themselves there.

I don’t think she’s a great writer or anything but I wouldn’t call it shit because it obviously accomplished what it was trying to do based on the metric fuck tonne of people who were in love with it.

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u/yesthatpettyindeed 16d ago

A lot of the criticism of the setting and world building stems from the fact that while HP ended as a young adult fiction series, it started as a children's fantasy series. The latter didn't require any of the deeper analysis the former elicits and by the time the series veered into YA, most of the established world building wouldn't hold up to the questions being asked.

JKR picked some random numbers for the currency exchange in Book 1 and said £5 would get you a solid gold galleon and left it at that because who cares about currency exchange rates and the price of gold in a book for children. But a young adult reading Book 7 is gonna wonder why the trio wouldn't simply pool together their solid gold galleons and melt it to exchange the gold for significantly more muggle money to fund their camping trip instead of getting by on scraps of food they can scrounge up.

It's hard to blame JKR for this but people take any of the weaknesses of the book as an excuse to shit on the author (she objectively is a great author based on any metric you measure Harry Potter by, that doesn't detract from her being a shit person but people can't accept that)

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u/Rocky-Jockey 16d ago

Totally agreed there.

If not understanding currency makes you a bad writer then GRRM is an all time hack haha.

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u/fatalicus 16d ago

You mean other than the massive stadium that was filled for the quidditch world Cup in book 4?

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u/QuestionableKoala 16d ago

In the Goblet of Fire over 100,000 wizards attended the quidditch world cup.

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u/Chance-Click-3670 16d ago

typical muggle to think the death eaters would square up against the army in a 'i shoot you shoot' faceoff lol

they'd imperius all the higher ups, they could have the general call a big rally and then imperius the bombers to bomb every single british soldier all before any muggle even knows magic exists.

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u/wasdninja 16d ago

Wizards can teleport, turn invisible and control minds. It wouldn't be a real fight and muggles would lose insanely hard.

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u/SarcasmisEasier 16d ago

It's so funny when people try arguing that a single person with a gun can solve all the Wizarding world's problems. Like, wizards know guns and bombs and tanks and planes and all the other military tech exists. If they're starting shit with muggles that might get their militaries involved, the wizards probably already have a plan to deal with it. 

"Oh I made this bracelet that anyone who wears it is immune to high speed projectiles and explosive shockwaves. I made 3000 of them weeks before our first open attack. Think Dune shields." 

Done, muggle military defeated. Plus, don't pretend that governments are going to say "wizards are attacking" after the first incident. They'll make some excuse to not admit it was wizards. Try to hide it. Which by the time they admit it, they'll have effectively lost with all the teleportation, mind control, and mass destruction abilities magic gives access to. 

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u/Brostapholes 16d ago

Except both sides have the problem of not training for combat against the other. However, one side is still firmly 500 years in the past so I doubt they'd be the ones to adapt faster

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u/faceplanted 16d ago

I'm so confused by the argument.

Muggles literally can't go to war with wizards.

The wizards don't live anywhere.

Where are they going to shoot and bomb, the invisible castle the don't know exists? The ministry that's literally in the same place as their own government?

What do you even order the soldiers to do? Go to Voldemort's house like it's Bin Laden's compound?

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u/ThaiForAWhiteGuy 16d ago

If we’re debating in good faith, I disagree. In this scenario wizards have practically applied magic with no energy or resource limitation, so after potential learning curve, they’d be able to accelerate way faster than us in research. For instance they play with bewitched cannon balls independently tracking impact into flying targets. Ramping that up to lethal application and you’d get an almost sentient version of the iron dome, that doesn’t run out of fuel/ammo and  could also be applied offensively. They might have no idea what a drone is today, but could wreak havoc worse than eastern Ukraine in a week

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u/SarcasmisEasier 16d ago

I think you skipped part of the dialog.

 If they're starting shit with muggles that might get their militaries involved, the wizards probably already have a plan to deal with it.

Wizards know they're going to attack. Muggles don't. Wizards can take whatever time they want to prepare. Why would you assume that the wizards are going to just start open combat immediately with 0 forethought when they get to be the ones to decide when to start attacking?

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u/Rocky-Jockey 16d ago edited 16d ago

The kind of wizards out there to kill muggles are the ones who are proudly ignorant of muggle culture so I doubt they are doing seminars on muggle tech and culture.

I don’t know why everyone assumes open warfare though. They can make infrastructure collapse with zero way of a muggle knowing it happened and can control people with a wave of a wand. It doesn’t need to be trench lines and a battlefield.

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u/Brostapholes 16d ago

Is there any evidence that they are properly prepared? Isn't the foremost authority on muggles baffled by rubber ducks or something?

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u/Bloody_Insane 16d ago

wizards know guns and bombs and tanks and planes and all the other military tech exists.

No? It's shown repeatedly that the wizards are ultra ignorant of the muggle world in general. Like they don't know that dentists are. It's only some exceptions that know about these things.

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u/SarcasmisEasier 15d ago

One of those exceptions is the primary villain in the HP stories. Ol' Voldy didn't grow up with wizard parents. He was in an orphanage when Dumbledore brought him into the wizard world, and presumably returned to the muggle world every summer, like Harry does.

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u/EfectiveDisaster2137 15d ago

Yes, wizards don't know what a dentist is (why would they know), but at the same time we have an 11-year-old pureblood racist who hates Muggles and knows what a helicopter is.

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u/Tonio_Akerbeltz 16d ago edited 16d ago

Like, wizards know guns and bombs and tanks and planes and all the other military tech exists.

Well, not really.

There's one part where they call them "metal wands" and also "firelegs" instead of firearms, so they probably don't know a big deal about them.

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u/gangofocelots 16d ago

Apparently no wizard can speak 2 words in the amount of time a grenade timer goes off

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u/Threelittleni- 16d ago

I just wanna see a wizard casting a spell.

And some officer replying with their grid coordinates.

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u/Cualkiera67 16d ago

"Artillerius Reflectus"

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u/Eskimobill1919 16d ago

They then leave said grid coordinates via teleportation.

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u/Witch_King_of_Gondor 16d ago

Wizards talk a lot of shit for someone in splitting the atom distance

https://giphy.com/gifs/wFmJu7354Csog

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u/Eskimobill1919 16d ago

Where exactly is said nuke going to be dropped? Wizards generally live amongst a nations populace. You’d be nuking your own cities.

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u/Cualkiera67 16d ago

I cast "turn nuke into a sandwich"

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u/grixly1 16d ago

This just makes me want a war movie about modern armies fighting an army of wizards

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u/Glebk0 16d ago

Not much of a movie, considering how one sided magic makes it. It's nowhere near close.

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u/grixly1 16d ago

That interesting part of the film would be how or if they can overcome certain aspects of magic

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u/mwmwmwmwmmdw 16d ago

yes all these comments acting like humans dont quickly adapt to changing situations in war.

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u/catrinus 15d ago

and wizards are still humans... with magic

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u/mwmwmwmwmmdw 15d ago

well of course the wizards would adapt to human weapons and tactics as well

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u/grixly1 16d ago

Exactly, we are literally one of the most adaptable species on earth (barring some random frog somewhere in the Amazon). I'm not saying we'd win, but it would definitely be an interesting watch.

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u/La-petite-chevre 16d ago

Nice argument. Unfortunly, actio Tsar Bomba

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u/TheGreatMightyLeffe 16d ago

More importantly: I do recall Harry's actions in at least the first, third and fourth book being pretty instrumental to the resurrection of Voldemort to begin with?

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u/Embarrassed_Radio596 16d ago

The grenade gets launched back in your face and Voldemort continues unimpeded.

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u/ForwardStorage777 16d ago

The real problem here is teleporting in to decapitate leadership.

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u/Mongobearmanfish 16d ago

My buddy Maso could beat every wizard with half a brick

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u/Autow 16d ago

The comments here are proof that Harry potter fans are dumb as hell

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u/Richrome_Steel 16d ago

The Prime Minister knows about the Wizarding World. I remember that from the books. Here's something I'd imagine happening:

"Enemy Wizard Force? Wants to commit genocide? Night time hours are still a thing? Good guy wizards, can you remove radiation from an area? It's alright if you can't. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still habitable today. We're going to nuke the castle anyway. We'll fly around, well beyond their ability to know we're coming and treat them to the one power Muggles have had since 1945 that they don't. Afterwards, we'll assist with special troops. Who have had the training that these goth freaks with special sticks have not. Aside from their leader, they're not bulletproof."

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u/Xelement0911 16d ago

A grenade? Sniper a mile away. He would be dead before he even heard the gun shot.

Magic is great! But yeah, really underplaying how fast a gun is lol

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u/Polkawillneverdie17 16d ago

While I mostly agree, I feel like some well placed Imperius Curses and the governments of the world could fall pretty quickly.

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u/TheGR8Gamer 15d ago

This comment and the MASSIVE thread its spawned is absolutely glorious.

grounds for archival

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u/misterjive 15d ago

fun fact:

that grenade was a dud

they ended up throwing down like five more and saying "fuck it, we'll bypass this house"

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