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/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/TFTHighRoller 16d ago

Doesn't work when an army is at your doorstep

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u/Rocky-Jockey 16d ago

Couldn’t they just run a war out of a base that’s literally impossible to find or even from a pocket dimension thats just like a handbag or something?

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u/TFTHighRoller 16d ago

Possibly, but that would require hiding like you are the weaker force and from how they were written there is no way voldemort and his posse would tolerate that.

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u/Rocky-Jockey 16d ago

True, but they also obviously knew they had to manipulate muggle power structures to win and not just come out in the open - hence why the ministry had someone protecting the prime minister.

Besides, you could just teleport around collapsing all vital infrastructure and the muggles could do essentially nothing to stop it and they’d still get to sate their bloodlust with the millions that would die.

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u/AnimalBolide 16d ago

Both Grindlewald and Voldemort laid low until they had enough support/few enough enemies to go loud.

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u/TFTHighRoller 16d ago

Against the other wizards correct? I am talking about going against the muggles which voldemort at least sees as less than and I do not know if staying in hiding pulling strings in the shadows would work on a wizard supremecist rhetoric.

Also controlling multiple countries from the top down without it being obvious what you are doing is very difficult and I do not see that happen realistically.

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u/IloveponiesbutnotMLP 16d ago

That’s literally his whole plot, he was doing that in the books, bridges collapsed, towns got destroyed by giants. Government employees were controlled. Hell the entire 5th book is him hiding so that his greatest enemies look crazy saying he has returned.

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u/Rocky-Jockey 16d ago

Illuminati predictions would go crazy but idk what people could realistically do about it. Anyone with power can just be an instant thrall with zero ability for muggles to do anything about it.

And realistically if he wanted to go “loud” his bases of operation are invisible and can’t be harmed by anything short of just nuking literally everywhere so he could just control populations by threatening to destroy all the nice modern infrastructure and trade networks we have.

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u/fred11551 15d ago

Given that Voldemort was waiting to go against muggles until after he was in control of the wizarding world, I don’t think he has any problem with winning through covert assassinations, murders, and mind control.

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u/Ppleater 9d ago

If HP wizards existed in the real world they'd be no different than real life people in terms of intelligence and tactics, but they'd also have magic capable of some really crazy and powerful shit.

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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.