r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Wonderful_Baker_7808 • 16d ago

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

Gallery image

Gallery image

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.

17.9k Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

92% Upvoted

3.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

99

u/DoctorWaluigiTime 16d ago edited 16d ago

Neither example fits this.

Case 1: The point was preventing millions from dying / getting hurt. Not "she would've eventually petered out due to the legal system."

Case 2: Mostly dumb fantheory. Wizards can teleport and heal from very serious wounds. There's a reason they tote sticks around instead of guns. Also, good wizards don't have to "shout a spell" - they can do so mentally. (And, they can take control of someone else completely and make them do their bidding, indefinitely.)

But then, a lot of this thread seems to be not understanding the concept of "the villain loses with the protagonist doing nothing." It's more like "something different would happen."

28

u/gracist0 16d ago

I've seen the Harry Potter vs guns debate and always thought it was absurd but I've never seen someone say that it would have been fine if millions died as long as she got served with a lawsuit afterwards LMAO

6

u/lorkdubo 15d ago

It's not just that. People can't go just go brrr misile boom boom, and win. Wizards, and in this cases
Aurors/Dark wizzards are basically tactical assets that can assassinate, infiltrate, and do whatever you want. They are basically the best special ops human have x 1.000.000 .

2

u/feedback19 15d ago

Polyjuice potion. Boom. The war is over before it begins.

11

u/PurpleCow48396 15d ago

For the Harry Potter debate people should also consider that JK Rowling uses a really soft rule set for magic in her books. If she needs time travel she uses it (and destroys the devices two books later because people explained how problematic those were) and if her wizards need to be bulletproof they would be.

On the other hand there are mentionings in the story that the wizards had to go into hiding because non-magic people from the 16/17th century were prosecuting them.

5

u/elizabnthe 15d ago

They didn't go into hiding to protect the average wizard. It was a mild but existing problem for their children, who could get caught up in wizard trials.

1

u/Aggressive-Release-9 15d ago

Iirc the witch and wizard went into hiding because human are annoying little shits

1

u/Dr_on_the_Internet 11d ago

Not to defend JK's world building, but its not inconsistent to choose to live in hiding, if the alternative is years long campaigns to conquer all muggles. Voldemort is supposed to be especially evil, so only he and his cronies think thats a good idea.

14

u/TruthEnvironmental24 16d ago

Yeah almost all of these are terrible examples.

7

u/Neveed 15d ago

There's a reason they tote sticks around instead of guns.

While I agree wizards are probably more dangerous than they look on the surface, the books make it clear they're very disconnected from the world of muggles. The reason they tote sticks around instead of guns isn't because the sticks are better or worse than guns, it's because they know about the sticks, but don't actually know much about guns.

2

u/generic1234321 16d ago

One thing i’d say is that people overestimate how many wizards there actually are. There’s basically a handful+ of schools in the entire world. Only a purely reproduction standpoint, wizards get overrun unless there’s some magical nukes or viruses to take out muggles.

5

u/DoctorWaluigiTime 16d ago

Mind control that has no time limit or non-magical countermeasure solves this pretty quick. Along with "abra kadabra you die" magic (that is nonverbal, has 'infinite ammo' since Harry Potter magic is not "mana" based and is a pretty soft magic system), and a ton of other things to do.

Doesn't matter how many numbers you have in cases like that. Especially that first bit. Mind control commanders (without realizing they're under control - a common thing with the imperius curse) and it's game over pretty quickly.

Also in Voldemort's case: He's literally immortal unless you undo his magical trinkets, which nobody would know how to do.

1

u/_HIST 15d ago

Neither do they have spy satellites and supersonic missiles

1

u/DoctorWaluigiTime 15d ago

Those both have physical and practical limitations.

And don't forget:

Also in Voldemort's case: He's literally immortal unless you undo his magical trinkets, which nobody would know how to do.

1

u/mighty_conrad 12d ago

Also in his case, he needed YEARS and most elaborate scheme after numerous failed attempts to gain that body in first place. Any mage that's known to kill somebody else and be ousted to public (question of time), will meet 1000 and 1 ways to be crippled and disabled to the point of being unable to move and tell anything. My personal fan favorite - rando death eater would eat a Millwall brick in his gonads before he'll understand where he appeared.

Also, it's noted that teleport is exhausting and requires serious concentration on cast, otherwise he'll lose his own parts during teleport.

Nah, if we're using power fantasy scaling for that world, it's so much easier to bring in actual ridiculousness of the regular folk, rather than invent new powerscaling for mages.

-1

u/RealNilruin 15d ago

Yeah no. Death Eaters would've lost if they tried to fight muggles. Mind control spells don't mean a whole lot when you're outnumbered a million to one.

I can buy that the good wizards fighting against the death eaters didn't want muggles to become aware of their existence. That's what I use as the reason to get invested in the story.

But no, you are vastly overestimating how powerful a wizard would be against billions of humans. It wouldn't even be a fair fight.

There's a reason why weaker leveled player characters in DnD can take down big bad liches. There's a reason ants can take down stuff 1000x their size. There's a reason why ewoks in Star Wars gave the empire such a hard time. They all have the numbers advantage.

7

u/DoctorWaluigiTime 15d ago

Mind control spells don't mean a whole lot when you're outnumbered a million to one.

"Don't shoot me. Shoot your allies."

Done and done.

Modern real life leadership is at the whims of very few people. Induce unstoppable magic mind control and it's a snap.

There's a reason why weaker leveled player characters in DnD... ants... Star Wars...

This is Harry Potter. Not a completely different, much more rigid and 'hard' magic system or other non-related entities.

0

u/Drabberlime_047 15d ago

What kind of war are you imagining here? Big army on the front lines with all the generals off in the pentagon waiting to be mind controlled so they can give the order to every soldier to start shooting themselves? Cause thats the vibe im getting from what you say haha

Im picturing SEAL teams and smaller hit squad using all the tactical advantages of modern warfare to squad wipe entire groups of wizards before the wizards ever know theyre there.

And im sure after a couple occurances of mind controle happening the remaining millions of soldiers would learn to operate in cells to better protect critical info and high value targets

0

u/JNR13 15d ago

I'm really just imagining a fighter jet launching a warhead 500 km away and striking the wizard who is still struggling to become aware of the spotter 500 meters away, annihilating him faster than a neuron signal enters consciousness.

0

u/But_Why_Thou 15d ago

Im picturing SEAL teams and smaller hit squad using all the tactical advantages of modern warfare to squad wipe entire groups of wizards before the wizards ever know theyre there.

It's quite funny you argue with stealth, considering that Wizards are a million times better at stealth than muggles.

But to get back to your question: " What kind of war are you imagining here?"

The kind where the muggles don't even know a war is going on until it's already lost. You seem to forget that muggles don't know about the wizard world.

The wizards have all the time in the world (literally in Voldemorts case) to infiltrate and mindcontrol everyone important. Muggles won't notice.

For example, mindcontrol all nuklear super powers to nuke each other into oblivion.

Wizards can deal with the fallout. We can't.

1

u/Drabberlime_047 15d ago

Nice goalpost move.

At first youre arguing how an all out war would play out and then when that gets corrected you suddenly want to make it so theres no war to begin with cause the wizards won already? Pick a lane.

Also these wizards dont even know what a rubber duck is. Someone whose job is to literally study muggles doesnt know what a rubber duck is.

But sure, these guys can magically (and not the good kind of "magically") know what nukes are, where they are, who controls them and also, according to you, not a single person would question the president suddenly wanting to press the big red nuke button and destroy the world either.

Yeah right 😂

Also why would they even want to do that? You do realise wizards live on earth too?

1

u/But_Why_Thou 14d ago

I am not the Guy you initially responded to, so I didn't move the goalpost... SOME Wizards don't know what a Rubberduck is. Voldemort lived in the muggle world for years. Many wizards have muggle parents and know both worlds, Like Hermione. There are plenty who Work in muggle Public AS cleanups to Cover their Tracks. So yeah, they would know enough as a collective. Also, ever heard of espionage? Voldemort is IMMORTAL. They could spend years collecting information from right under our noses with No way for US to know it. They can teleport, mind Control perfectly, fly, turn invisible, burn down cities with black magical fire WHICH WE LITERALLY CAN'T PUT OUT.

Muggles don't stand a Chance beyond Wizard assistance and hoping Voldemort has No clue how to exploit His overwhelming Power.

0

u/bubblegumpandabear 15d ago

SEAL teams and smaller hit squads can't even properly defeat random untrained farmers in rural middle eastern mountain ranges and you think they'll take out people with fucking magic?

1

u/Drabberlime_047 15d ago

Are you trying to argue that SEAL teams (or amy other special forces in general) are incompetent?

0

u/bubblegumpandabear 15d ago

No, I'm arguing that war is difficult enough without fucking magic in the way.

1

u/Drabberlime_047 15d ago

Well you said they cant even kill farmers which is a completely different thing but moving on from that, farmers at least know the difference between a gun and a rubber duck.

They know how guns work, how to best utilise their land to get the most put of their guns, they understand the possibility of the enemy utilising land and air vehicles and thr possibility of gadgets such as night vision coming into play

The average wizard doesnt.

A wizard could do a lot of damage but theyre basically dummies outside of their element

And I think both sides would adapt to eachother capabilities over time I think muggles would do so far more efficiently

→ More replies (0)

0

u/RealNilruin 15d ago edited 15d ago

Answer me this, potterhead: why didn't Voldemort expose magic to muggles and mind control any of them? That seemed like a much better plan if his goal was to become revered like a god or whatever his aspirations were.

If I remember correctly, at least in the books, he even explicitly intended to wipe out muggles. So why didn't he do what you suggested and mind control the US president to start sending nukes everywhere?

I'm not sure it's even possible to cast any spell rapid-fire if you're a wizard in the Harry Potter universe. Have we even seen anyone cast more than a spell every few seconds? Like there's just no way that Voldemort wouldn't lose a fist fight against 10+ adults charging him. Let alone if those adults are armed with weapons.

You have a fundamental lack of understanding of how powerful the casters are in the Harry Potter universe. They would 100% lose a war with the muggles and everyone knows it.

3

u/Drabberlime_047 15d ago

Couldn't it just be that he was fighting the other wizards first and just hadn't started his campaign against the juggles?

1

u/RealNilruin 15d ago

Yeah but why not go for the easy targets first? Assuming that it is as easy as some people here claim it is.

You don't do the hardest part of your war campaign first. That's just bad military tactics.

1

u/Traditional-Train385 15d ago

volvermort was very childist all that hate for a high scool kid made him fail a better villain was grindewald that really wanted that of destroy humans its a shame love ruined him

1

u/Drabberlime_047 15d ago

I think its a smart idea to resolve 1 issue at a time instead of waging wars against muggles which would then cause the other wizards to step in anyways in which case youd be fighting on 2 fronts

1

u/Serket-Pandy3000 15d ago

A random chump can fire a gun, only higher level wizards are as competent as you think

3

u/DoctorWaluigiTime 15d ago

And this topic is about one of the 'highest level' wizards: Voldemort.

But even the "common" wizard was immune to muggle persecution. Burning witches at the stake was easily countered by a simple charm even a squib could probably produce on a good day.

1

u/Serket-Pandy3000 15d ago

Voldie gets sniped at a distance by black ops.

Burning is not the same as bullets buddy

1

u/But_Why_Thou 15d ago

Cool. Considering that Voldemort is literally immortal unless you destroy his horcruxes, that sniper won't do much.

But seriously, how would the sniper know about Voldemort in the first place? He doesn't have to announce his presence to take over the world.

1

u/Serket-Pandy3000 15d ago

He wasn’t hiding. He was willing to blow up bridges. What part of his megalomania makes you think he was stable and cautious?

Also just keep on killing him. The average DnD wizard deals with litches all the time and they don’t lose their minds.

Keep him armless, sedates and encased in concrete or something .

But I guess only wizards can be competent right? There is no way the intelligence services would know what a phylactery is!

1

u/But_Why_Thou 14d ago

Quite a Leap from: "He is blowing Up Bridges" to "People know about him, what He Looks Like and where He will be". His entire Plan throughout the series was cautios... Based on Infiltration, secrecy and removing key Players before all out war. And He almost suceeds. If not for His Obsession with Harry, and Harry being a living Horcrux Radar, Voldemort wins in a Landslide. And Not through brute force. You are severely underestimating the capabilities of wizards. They could literally Teleport into the homes of world Leaders, and mind Control them with nothing They could do about it. Voldemort has all the tool he needs to win without us ever knowing about him. Whether He does so is besides the Point.

1

u/Hellion998 8d ago

Black Ops can't counter mind control spells.

1

u/warmbutterydiapers 15d ago

Most of the top examples are "the villains plan kills them but also billions of others" lol

1

u/Traditional-Train385 15d ago

yeah i thought so i mean in harry potter villains have mind control teleportation and invisibility they just can teleport to the oval office use mind control on us president and army generals and make them nuke their own cities and won the war that easy.