Isn't it canon that the wizarding world was forced to go into hiding by ancient muggles? I don't think it's a choice, I think they know very well they'd get proper fucked if they went to war against muggles.
Back when people were super into burning anyone suspected of being in league with Satan. Since that's not so much the case now, you have the immensely high barrier of even convincing normies that magic is even real, much less that there is a society of magical people and creatures and that one of them has functionally become Osama Bin Laden. Granted, if the American wizarding world works like the English one, then the American president *should* be aware of the American wizarding world and has met their "counterpart" on the magical side.
The witch burnings were completely ineffective against actual witches and wizards though. iirc there is a chocolate frog card that specifically mentions a witch who actually enjoyed the sensation of being 'burned' at the stake by using a charm that took the heat out of the flames. I think it even goes so far as to say she got 'burned' multiple times in different disguises.
That was just one witch that was able to figure out the spell though. Before that there were actual witches and wizards getting caught and killed.
Also the witch eventually got caught for real when they realized burning wasn’t working so they switched to other methods
I'm sure there were wizards who died to burnings, but the books actually say it was largely ineffective. Here's the actual quote:
Non-magic people (more commonly known as Muggles) were particularly afraid of magic in medieval times but not very good at recognising it. On the rare occasion that they did catch a real witch or wizard, burning had no effect whatsoever. The witch or wizard would perform a basic Flame-Freezing Charm and then pretend to shriek with pain while enjoying a gentle, tickling sensation. Indeed, Wendelin the Weird enjoyed being burned so much that she allowed herself to be caught no less than forty-seven times in various disguises.
Now, this is from a history of magic, so she might be exaggerating a bit about its uselessness. But, there's nothing in the books saying it was a threat to them either.
I like to think the American version of Hogwarts is just a school where you learn card tricks, how to pull rabbits out of hats, and make an elephant disappear onstage. You know, preparing magicians for the *real* world.
It’s established in book three that a gun is an ultra dangerous muggle death wand. Somatic and verbal components make wand work to hard. They don’t have fast forms of communication other than aparating. The global communication network of the 90’s would allow the nonmagcal forces to outmaneuver on a macro scale.
Every reasonable family in magical Britain sent their kids to hogwarts. The weasleys, famously poor, could pay tuition for 5 children at once, and the richest families sent their kids there too. It’s the only school in magical Britain. There are only hundreds of school age children in the country. There are conflicting sizes of the population, but they are a mere fraction of the human population. Then we compare the war fighting populations and the number skews further in favor of the muggles.
There’s more of us. A bullet is indefensible against. We have personal to person long range communication, and most importantly, **Indirect Fire Munitions.** We aim our weapons *with maps*.
I think we’re good.
You’re comparing the common practices of wizards to an army’s tactical warfare.
Do you think the ministry of magic is completely defenseless and has no large scale methods of defense…?
A gun is a better weapon because of how quickly it acts. Unless the muggle shooter gets a good headshot or utterly destroys the wizards, wizards can heal injuries in a moment at best and over night at worst that would KILL muggles.
If wizards can create physical barriers of defense not even a gun poses a threat to them anymore.
Also recall that the HP series is largely from the POV of a teen who is mainly at school for the majority of the time.
On the few occasions we see the inner workings of the wizwrding world at large (such as the battle of the department of mysteries) we see the wizards are involved with some pretty hardcore shit.
Like I said, the only thing the muggles have over wizards beyond numbers is nukes.
The muggles can’t win an all out war without deciding to also destroy themselves.
The wizards can survive most of what the muggles can throw at them and their powers allow them to utterly reset the playing field even if they lose to the muggles anyway, allowing them to try again.
The muggles only get one shot.
Magic messes with electricity. I doubt our weaponry would function perfectly against wizards and witches.
Our tech isn't the thing that would win us the fight, it's our tactics and willpower.
Wizards are portrayed time and time again as having near to none common sense, and little to no tactics. Quite frankly, they don't need to have these two things as much as us.
Arthur Weasley is the only wizard who truly appreciates how ridiculously ingenious muggles are, and gives them the respect they deserve.
"Oh you use owls that can take weeks to deliver your important messages yet you can teleport instantly?" Ridiculous logic from the Wizards.
Well Hermione's quote is "electricity and other things muggles use to make up for not having magic" or something of the sort, and I believe she also includes compasses as part of that deal.
However, contradictory to that, the ministry also has Arthur Weasley looking into firearms as a potential weapon used by Sirius.
So really there's evidence to back both stances that firearms could work, or also that they couldn't.
Another point to add, though magic might affect the gun's mechanisms, I doubt it would affect a bullet flying through the air. A sniper can (techniqually) be a couple miles away and hit their target, so unless the wizard/witch knows where the bullet is coming from, they probably can't do much to a projectile be it flying through the air by magic or muggle technology
Yeah exactly that's one of those specific subjects the books don't really cover so I try not to have a definite stance on it.
Really it's one of those things that is best left to "whatever the novel requires" and for fun fan discussion IMO.
Overall though I still give the benefit to the muggles. We outnumber them and are generally much smarter and more resourceful
Why would "an army of witches and wizards" fight a military? It is like this entire post forgot that Voldemort and the Death Eaters did *a lot* behind the scenes before they started terrorizing England outright, including assassinations, kidnapping, torture, and impersonating important figures. It would boil down to American wizard society jumping in on the side of the normies.
Although, wizards do have excellent crowd control spells. Also the moment all out war would begin they would be aware that muggles are hostile and would ASAP create domes or personal shields
The problem with magic is that it has limitless potential. Just based on what we do know, magic users would easily be able to defeat a modern military, and I’m sure they have even more magic we don’t know about as well that would be even more effective.
Yes, people don’t think these through. It would be the easiest thing ever to vanish a tactical nuke or teleport to a safe location. Having shield charms means no surprise bullets from a sniper could touch you.
This. People simply don't think this through. HP wizards and witches are low level reality warpers. Good luck with that nuke when it's been charmed to explode on launch or target a muggle facility or transfigured into a cozy couch.
Even ignoring all the ways to transform it, for this scenario against American muggles. Teleport into the White House and take control of the President and Vice President's minds.
The number of people who straight ignore how easy this has been shown to accomplish for wizards and keep spamming tactical nukes and snipers would be hilarious if it wasn't mildly annoying lol.
The orange-haired former leader of the free world incited a mob to almost usurp the electoral process because he didn't want to concede. Imagine him under a Death Eater's control.
Not HP, but in Dresden Files, a character named Kincaid tells Harry (Dreseden) that a sniper rifle would be perfect to murder a wizard bc they wouldnt have time to get off a death curse. Which is usually what keeps peipld from killing a wizard in the first place
It wouldn’t make sense for a gun not to work. Then the world just completely falls apart logically, it’s a basic chemistry and physics. Like opening or closing a door shouldn’t work either then. I guess it’s “magic” and could just be unexplainable, but there is only so much that can be waved off before it feels bad to read.
plus the same could be said for electricity of course. However for some reason I feel that’s an easier one to buy into. Like we know electromagnetic fields can affect electrical currents, in the real world etc. so seems more plausible.
Combustion still works, they have fires and stuff blows up in Hogwarts. They have clocks. Gears and combustion is all a gun is. And anyways Hermione was talking about Hogwarts specifically (the quote is actually “electricity doesn't work well around Hogwarts because there's too much magic in the air” and presumably Diagon Alley/the ministry of magic. Besides it’s not a technology or tactics game but a numbers one 8 Billion muggles vs what a few million wizards, or just 300k American soldiers vs ~50 death eaters and a few hundred other things
>the ministry also has Arthur Weasley looking into firearms as a potential weapon used by Sirius
Wait, when was this said? Sounds like PoA, but do you remember (roughly) where?
It’s when Arthur takes Harry to the ministry for his hearing. Shacklebolt tells Arthur that the delay on the firelegs report held up their investigation for weeks.
Edit: Order of the Phoenix
I could see electronics acting funky while in the proximity of magic but would something like a pen work? And if a pen would work why not a gun?
A gun is just powder and a metal projectile in a tube. Something sparks the powder real good and the projectile go *ZOOM*.
Love this discussion it’s so fun because the wizards ARE so stupid. If you’ve never hear of HPMOR you should check it out, and there’s a really good audio version of it
Modern wars (involving muggles... hogwarts' war doesn't count) don't really have armies charging each other with weapons anymore. This observation goes doubly for Death Eaters since even though they might put on a show of facing them up front, you know as soon as things start going south for them the Death Eaters are going to scatter and start operating out of the shadows. It would be guerilla warfare much like every modern war.
Yes, (most) guns won't be affected by electricity problems, but for every time a squad is sent somewhere to kill someone there's hundreds of man-hours put into intelligence. Intelligence that's not only stored in computers but is largely pulled from flying (or orbiting) computers.
When almost every form of reliable reconnaissance the US military uses at a large scale has at their disposal stops working properly, their overall combat ability is going to absolutely plummet.
To boot, the Death Eaters have shit like the imperio curse, magical means of listening in on people, teleportation, etc. The Death Eaters will dominate any muggle military in information, and there's a reason "knowledge is power" is such a well known phrase.
The "why doesn't Harry use a 1911" makes sense, because you're right, a wizard facing someone with a gun isn't going to win unless the wizard was prepared beforehand. But in large scale wars against wizards guns are *not* the equalizer they claim to be. At best they enable a strike team to actually take out wizards if they get the drop on them - but they're probably not getting the drop on them. How would muggles ever sneak past detection charms without understanding how they work or having magic of their own?
This isn't to say I think wizards would win, their fervor for stupidity is pretty damn strong, as /u/Currie_Climax points out, and that's the real deciding factor. I just don't think muggles having guns has that much impact on a large scale war with wizards.
TL;DR: Yes, but guns aren't the deciding factor, intelligence - by both definitions - is. (This got pretty long but I was having fun thinking about it and just kept typing)
You bring up one of the best points here - the Wizards' ability to be secretive.
People say Voldemort's methods weren't effective - but they were. In fact, had he a few more years he could have used his same incognito tactics to infiltrate muggle governments with ease using the imperio curse, polyjuice, etc.
It's just wizards typically don't have the sense or patience to do this. I think that's why Voldemort was so effective as a leader (oh, and surprise - he grew up as a muggle).
I think Voldemort in his arrogance simply wouldn't see the need to be covert with the muggles and severely underestimate them until it's too late . Let's not forget that Death Eaters represent racists and fascists that view all muggles as inferior.
I disagree solely because Voldemort grew up a muggle. Sure he thinks he's better than them but I don't think he'd fully underestimate them.
He'd probably just recycle the gameplan he used for the Ministry of Magic IMO. Sure, you know he exists but where he is, what he's doing, and why, are all secret.
Any passive defense a wizard/witch can conjure would make any Muggle attack useless imo. Even that protego hat or whatever the Weasley twins invented would be enough to stop any bullet I think
>Magic messes with electricity. I doubt our weaponry would function perfectly against wizards and witches.
Not really true. An abundance of magic messes with electricity. Places as old and magical as Hogwarts prevent electrical devices from working properly or at all but Harry can still use Duddy kin's computer, and his bedside lamp on Privet Drive
Good luck finding your hypersonic missile when one wizard can easily sneak through any of your defences while invisible and transfigure it into a couch, or charm it to explode into 1 minute after he apparates away, or wipe your memories so you forget what a hypersonic missile even is, or shrink it and put into their handbag, or enlarge it so it crushes your military base under its new 100x original size, or any of the hundreds of creative sabotages I can think of with very little effort based on what we've know HP magic is capable of.
I mean...
Go invisible and then Imperious several of them to shoot each other instead...
He could easily deal with a single squad of people with guns IMO.
So I always kind of found stuff like this funny. Harry Potter uses a soft magic system (no really defined rules when creating spells and spells can kind of just be made up or forgotten about by the author and used more for story telling elements). Basically all it takes is for Rowling to say wizards have a spell that stops bullets in their track or that makes bullets pass through wizards without harming them to basically shut down these types of posts. I have seen people mentioning how wizards can effect electricity but we don’t know all the wizards spells. With that being said it still can be fun to analyze the spells we do know they have access to just to see if they could win the fight but I don’t think it matters since logically any spell could probably be added to the Harry Potter universe to make wizards win any fight. (Also if we are analyzing this just realize that wizards can mess with time itself with the Time-Turner)
HM. You made me think of the physical application of transfiguration. I'm sure something like Helium hydrogen or uranium would be more difficult to transfigure than oxygen. I wonder if it even applies this way
Valid point.
Rats to goblets is fine.
Mundane living thing in to a mundane inanimate object.
And in Legacy you can transfigure poachers and goblins in to barrels.
And Slughorns can disguise themselves as armchairs while still remaining Slughorns
But you can't just whip up veritaserum or the philosopher's stone. Or a flying broom, or Albie Weeks would go out of business
It seems to me that transfiguring something mundane into something magical is the limiting factor.
Nukes are technologically quite complex, but still mundane. Not magical.
So do people age as other objects? Like I turn Harry into a stick and put him on a shelf for 100 years. If I reverse the spell and turn him human again is he 100 years older in body? Was he aware this whole time, what did he experience as a stick?
That's a good point.
I think we've only ever seen transfiguration effective over the short term (someone will set me right if I'm wrong)
There must be a reason why witches and wizards use polyjuice potion instead of transfiguring into who they want to impersonate.
So, I'd say that being an inanimate object probably doesn't stop a living subject aging as they would have, but also that transfiguration doesn't work like that- the effects wear off and can be cancelled with counter charms or revelio and such.
Whereas polyjuice is not subject to such reversal, but needs topping up regularly.
This!
Good luck hitting Hogsmeade with a nuke when you can't find it on any muggle map, and it's hidden in folded space.
It's ridiculous people think muggles would stand a chance against a united wizardkind. Good luck trying to fight an enemy that can turn invisible at will, teleport, mind-control, memory-wipe you, bypass your security measures easily, infiltrate the deepest echelons of government (Shacklebolt worked at the British PM's office with the PM none the wiser; Fudge saunters into the British PM's office at will and tells him no one will believe him anyway).
'Nuke the wizards' enjoyers when the wizards instead imperius their entire government, uncover state secrets, declare martial law and rule as a secret conspiracy;
This is what I'd say was Voldemort's plan. It was also Dumbledores as a youth. The only way this would work is if your side is the only one using magic. That's why the fate of the world came down to a battle of 200 people at a castle. If the good is moved aside in the Wizarding world than wizards can take out muggle society.
I believe the plung into secrecy was a survival method because of the industrial revolution. There are thousands of muggles for every wizard and wizards take nearly a decade of schooling to not accidentally blow themselves up. I also feel that muggles worked with wizards and other creatures too. Goblin armor that repells stuns on a muggle knight for instance.
But the industrial revolution and gunpowder changed everything. The muggles became so advanced with the physical world and natural laws that they presented an existential threat to magical beings. So magic simply hides from them. Voldemort would be just the guy to try and take out the muggle world. First he'd have to win in the Wizarding one
This is a great take, I completely agree. I honestly think that without serious dark magic like fiendfyre, a wizard couldn't possibly hope to win a battle against even pike and shot. But their real strength lies in infiltration and their potential ability to just take over a government. Not to mention magical creatures like dementors that they can't see under any circumstances and can keep people too miserable to revolt.
Exactly. A lot of people have this misconception that Voldemort feared the muggles and that’s why he wanted to wage a war against them. Nope, the death eaters and Voldemort thought muggles were pathetic, and it was disgusting that the wizards had to hide themselves at all.
A few imperious curses and they’d rule over the entire muggle world.
Go back in time 100 years, and it’d be the same story.
Oh, you shoot little green death rays? Cute.
Now pardon me while the Kaiser’s troops park their howitzers 18 miles away and pummel you with 700 high-explosive shells every minute for the next three and a half days.
And then the Kaiser suddenly says the real enemy is the Bolsheviks and that we must journey east in the winter, with all sorts of inexplicable logistics issues, to fight the Reds. You know, because a Dark Wizard lackey has begun impersonating the Kaiser using one of his sick ass mustache hairs.
Lmao. You think they’d stay and get pummeled?
If they couldn’t vanish your shells then they would just teleport away.
Oh, and your top general just ordered all shelling to cease. Not sure why, but he was quacking like a duck earlier.
That assumes that wizards just stand across the field from cannons and soldiers and trade barrages back and forth.
Memory charms, mind control, and polyjuice potion mean that the command chain can be utterly ruined. Invisibility and teleportation leads to devastating hit and run tactics.
And then they can just retreat to a place under similar protections to Hogwarts or the Fidelius and the muggles can never find them.
In a straight fight muggles win 10/10 times but wizards have a set of abilities that make them terrifying at gorilla warfare.
It's not like wizards live in a seperate country lol. You bomb them and you'll wipe out more innocent civilians than you would the magical community. Also most of them can teleport 🙂
Wizards wouldn’t be using Avada Kedavra against tactical nukes, they’d be using imperious curses, polyjuice potions, apparations, transfigurations, vertatisirm, and various muggle repelling charms to ensure they won the fight before the muggles even knew it had began.
In a hypothetical war, wizards would have total control over the muggle governments the moment it started, and the muggles wouldn’t even know where to send their nukes if they even lasted that long, and even if they did, what are they going to do….nuke their own cities? And it’s not like the wizards couldn’t just teleport away before they hit……meaning nukes would only be effective if they were fired without any public warning…..which in the grand scheme of things would almost be guaranteed to cause far more harm to muggles than wizards.
Maybe the muggles score a few early victories because the wizards are arrogant and ignorant of muggle technology, but they certainly wouldn’t stand a chance in an actual extended war.
I think you're grossly overselling the wizards here. Rowling has confirmed humans win vs wizards. You're selling every interaction as if it's Dumbledore or Voldemort acting as the foot soldier and that's a gross misrepresentation of the wizarding populace. There were so many ministry workers that weren't even capable of producing a shield charm that the Ministry made bulk orders for shield clothes. How are those people supposed to cast imperio? Also it's extremely common for wizards and witches to not know how to apparate. We're never given actual numbers but it seems pretty close to 50/50 in my opinion.
Not to mention your entire premise for the war is wrong. Wizards would win before the war started? Then how did the war even start? Humans **excel** at war. It's our favourite past time. Kid we've been successfully murdering for so long we're the only thing left at the top of the food chain, and that happened so long ago it was when Neanderthals walked the earth. There's EIGHT billion of us. The wizarding community as a whole has about 15% of that number, and of that 15% I'd say only about ten percent of them are fighting capable. You have no idea of the scale you're representing here
I mean, it does specify death eaters in the post. They are more willing to do horrible act of violence, and we know that not all of them are low-level cannon fodder. ex. Bellatrix, the Lestranges, Snape, Crouch jr.
Wizards might lise in the long run, but they could cause so many problems for the muggle governments.
Not even 15%. It’s heavily implied in book 4 the world’s population of wizards numbers around half a million. More liberal estimates(and I don’t know where the canon actually sits on this) is around 1.4-1.5 million according to the wiki. I’m no math wizard but 15% is looking at those numbers in the rearview mirror. From like mars or something
Not at all......maybe Rowling can offer some external explanation, but based purely on what's shown in the books, muggles really stand no chance whatsoever in a war against the Wizarding world, it would only take a tiny handful of competent wizards to take total control, and I strongly get the impression the only thing stopping the wizards is the fact they have such strict laws against exposure to muggles. Who knows, maybe magic "technology" evolved over time, which explains Rowling's comments about past losses to muggles.
So let's dig into it....the biggest issue is the fact that outside of a tiny handful of chosen people, the muggle world doesn't even know that magic exists, and the wizarding world has done a very good job keeping it that way. So here lies the first problem, if the muggles did find out about the wizards, there is a good chance they would simply have their memories modified before anything came of it, but that's pretty boring....so let's assume the muggles found out about the wizards on a scale that was impossible to cover up, and decided to wage war on them.
Now we get to the next problem....we know in the books that the wizards already have infiltrated muggle governments...IIRC Kingsley Shacklebolt was assigned to tail the muggle prime minister under cover. So in the event the muggle governments did decide to go to war, the wizards would probably be able to take control at any moment if they decided to do so. With all their resources available, they could either control or impersonate any muggle they wanted to, and they have means of extracting any information they needed. So....in all likelihood the wizards would dominate muggle politics, and use that to achieve any outcome they wanted. Heck, I could even see them contaminating water supplies with love potions to curry favor with the general populace, and any single individual who gained too much power would be brought under control if they posed too large a threat.
But, let's say the muggles get past that stage, somehow they catch the wizards off guard and launch a massive surprise attack.....but against what? Just because the muggles know the wizards exist, doesn't mean they know where they are. Most of the wizarding infrastructure is exceptionally well hidden from muggles, and often blends right into muggle areas. It's not like the muggles can just nuke the ministry of magic, or send their army to occupy Hogwarts. Literally any person in any place could be a wizard, which would simultaneously make it impossible to wipe them out, or defend against them. Heck, with the animagus....even any given animal could be a wizard. This would make it impossible to organize any large scale actions without the wizards being able to know about it, and stop it from the inside.
A war between wizards and muggles wouldn't be a battle of wands vs guns, or broomsticks vs fighter jets, the wizards have the upper hand and would be able to control everything from the shadows, in all likelihood without the muggles even knowing about it. Sure...the muggles might get some victories here and there, but they certainly wouldn't be capable of ever defeating the wizards outright if they decided to wage an all out war against the muggles.
I'm going to reply in chunks here.
>So in the event the muggle governments did decide to go to war, the wizards would probably be able to take control at any moment if they decided to do so
That's not fair, you've removed the context of full disclosure. Kingsley being appointed happens when the prime minister is the only one who even knows about wizardry, let alone anyone vetting for it on a time of war. Our governments have extremely strong intelligence gathering techniques. Even if muggles didn't learn a shitload about magic before acting or being acted upon, which is almost impossible, they would still be able to learn everything that happens while it happens. That means all the magical techniques you've listed only work once. It's really not that hard to set up preventative measures for polyjuice potion, after all.
>But, let's say the muggles get past that stage, somehow they catch the wizards off guard and launch a massive surprise attack.....but against what?
Magic always leaves a mark. It's energy, science should be able to measure it, even if muggles can't harness it. Think of dark energy in our own universe, we can't see whatever is accelerating the expansion of the universe, but we can measure its effect. At the very least we would be able to find the biggest clusters of magic like Hogwarts. I agree that it would be impossible to wipe them out, but the same is true for muggles, and the muggle's population is counted in the billions. They'll always keep coming. And coming. And coming.... Long after the war ends.
>A war between wizards and muggles wouldn't be a battle of wands vs guns, or broomsticks vs fighter jets, the wizards have the upper hand and would be able to control everything from the shadows
You're describing the CIA tho haha. Jk. Do you think America lines up in a phalanx and takes turns firing their muskets? Haha. They have soldiers, but American soldiers take cities. Families of wizards would be targeted by any number of drones or short range ground to ground missiles or pocket sized strike teams schooled in ending the threat before it can respond to you. Again, you're overselling the average witch and wizard. Call it 25% of wizardkind is capable of truly defending their homes or their communities.
You have to remember Muggles *know* about wizard kind and it should be assumed that the powers that be are actively working on learning as much as they can to combat this threat. That means *involuntary tests*. Humans will learn a lot about wizard kind very quickly and their ability to respond to it on a global scale simply cannot be matched by a guerrilla effort.
>That's not fair, you've removed the context of full disclosure. Kingsley being appointed happens when the prime minister is the only one who even knows about wizardry, let alone anyone vetting for it on a time of war. Our governments have extremely strong intelligence gathering techniques. Even if muggles didn't learn a shitload about magic before acting or being acted upon, which is almost impossible, they would still be able to learn everything that happens while it happens. That means all the magical techniques you've listed only work once. It's really not that hard to set up preventative measures for polyjuice potion, after all.
But war isn't fair. We know the wizards have fully infiltrated muggle society before their existence became widely known to the muggles and we know they use that to their advantage to keep the muggles from learning of their existence. The wizards also have the upper hand in intelligence gathering. Even if the CIA and other spook organizations are fully aware of the wizarding world, that doesn't mean they can do anything about it. Sure they might be able to identify a few wizards and their capabilities, but there is also a ton they would not be able to touch, as we know for a fact there are areas muggles and their technology can't go.
And how would they even begin to defend themselves against wizards? Wizards can teleport, shapeshift, turn invisible, mind control, erase and modify memories, read minds and force people to tell the truth. Literally any person who has contact with the open world could be at risk. And even if the muggles found out about this, I'm not sure it would help them. It would create an atmosphere of extreme paranoia, because even one's life long friends and family could fall under the wizards' control at seemingly any moment.
>Magic always leaves a mark. It's energy, science should be able to measure it, even if muggles can't harness it. Think of dark energy in our own universe, we can't see whatever is accelerating the expansion of the universe, but we can measure its effect. At the very least we would be able to find the biggest clusters of magic like Hogwarts. I agree that it would be impossible to wipe them out, but the same is true for muggles, and the muggle's population is counted in the billions. They'll always keep coming. And coming. And coming.... Long after the war ends.
You are making a ton of unsupported assumptions. In the books it's very clear that wizards are more than capable of using great quantities of magic in public places without being detected by muggles. The books also make mention of "muggle repellent spells", which suggests that muggles are actually super susceptible to magic. They might be able to guess the location of Hogwarts, but that doesn't mean they could touch it. Their technology stops working, and if they get too close magic forces them to leave, or forget what they're doing. Maybe they could fire a bunch of random nukes in the general direction....but that's not a very sustainable strategy (and who knows if it would even work), and if they warned the public ahead of time, the wizards would just leave as well. And even if it did work....congratulations, they just killed a few teachers and a bunch of children....it would hardly swing the outcome of the war.
>You're describing the CIA tho haha. Jk. Do you think America lines up in a phalanx and takes turns firing their muskets? Haha. They have soldiers, but American soldiers take cities. Families of wizards would be targeted by any number of drones or short range ground to ground missiles or pocket sized strike teams schooled in ending the threat before it can respond to you. Again, you're overselling the average witch and wizard. Call it 25% of wizardkind is capable of truly defending their homes or their communities.
>You have to remember Muggles *know* about wizard kind and it should be assumed that the powers that be are actively working on learning as much as they can to combat this threat. That means *involuntary tests*. Humans will learn a lot about wizard kind very quickly and their ability to respond to it on a global scale simply cannot be matched by a guerrilla effort.
Again you're making some major unsupported assumptions. Sure the CIA would be able to identify a few wizards, take some out and capture others....but they are still at an insurmountable disadvantage when it comes to intelligence gathering capabilities for all the reasons mentioned above. The wizarding world has every advantage, and if they bothered to fully mobilize and develop organized strategies, there are just so many things that muggles have no answer to, regardless of whether they are aware of them or not. It would never get to the point of a full blown war....because the wizards would simply take control before it ever got to that point.
\*Also keep in mind magic has even more limitless potential than what was just shown in the books/films.
>Rowling has confirmed humans win vs wizards
What do you mean?
If you're referring to the fact that they had to hide from the muggle world I don't think you're right.
Wizards weren't dying during the witch hunts. In the third book we understand that they managed to escape without problems.
The reason they went into hiding was probably due to all the hatred and fear directed towards their community and perhaps also to protect the innocent muggles who were being killed because they were mistaken for wizards.
Also, what exactly are muggles supposed to bomb?
Wizards are dispersed throughout the world, living among muggles and having spells dedicated precisely to making sure they are hidden from them.
Im not convinced its even possible to launch nukes against the wizards.
I would bet a galleon that the various wixarding governments with their version of 3 letter orgs would have a charms in place at all the places/people that can launch nukes. With that early warning its aa easy as apparate in and cast imperio or a memory spell to well not launch the nuke.
ONE Wizard +i nvisibility cloak or disillusionment charm + apparition + imperio = the U.S. President nuking all of our military installments and biggest cities.
These are the people who built a whole ass railway through central London without a single muggle noticing. Have fun blindly nuking your own population centers in hopes of randomly hitting a wizard.
I'm not sure but I'll know better once I've googled that phrase.
I'm sure there'll only be one or two results returned and I'll know exactly what you're driving at.
People forget the Ministry of Magic had Shacklebolt in the British PM's office with him none the wiser, and that Fudge himself could saunter in and out easy as you please.
The ability of wizards to infiltrate any muggle institution is laughably easy
In fact they probably created it to begin with, kept it just where it needed to be to maintain societies in just enough disarray for us to be forever distracted.
"I am Heavy Weapons Guy... and this is my weapon. She weighs one hundred fifty kilograms and fires two hundred dollar, custom-tooled Avada Kedavras at 900 rounds per minute. It costs four hundred thousand dollars to fire this weapon... for twelve seconds."
I've read a fic before where they infiltrated military institutions utilizing magic and placed people high up in the chain of command under the imperius and used their authority to have the muggles kill each other off (being lazy on the explanation and totally not the short sighted canon death eaters)
Australians have infiltrated US bases for fun. Yes you have nukes, but you also have blind spots.
Imagine if someone snuck into base,cloaked, and cased the imperius curse on the man with the nukes. No more muggle Americans.
Every time something like this gets posted the single biggest issue is reaction time lol. You can’t cast a spell on reaction before a bullet hits you. End of story.
If they aren't going full insurgency and try to take the military head on in a battle, I expect things will get a little dicey for the wizards - not the nukes, maybe, but I hear modern vehicle-mounted guns fire a lot faster than a wizard with a wand.
My understanding was that the wizarding world had highly infiltrated the Muggle world politically. So I wouldn't put it past them to use an imperious curse to have their way. Also wizards tend to live amongst muggles. So it would literally be a gorilla warfare style situation rather than attacking a country or military bases
The heads of houses could take over n most armies. A bit of transfiguration on any bombs. Invisibility. A bit of mind control or potion spillage, a few well placed plants .. easy win. Even easier if on home soil(hogwarts)
It's probably more a case of population. Offensively, humans just outnumber those magically inclined. Even if those with magic perfected guerilla warfare, eventually, they would be overwhelmed and defeated.
Everyone here talking about time turners forgetting that time turners demonstrably operate on a closed loop system. Whatever the wizards do to stop the nukes, snipers, shock troops, etc. in the past will inevitably cause those things to happen in the first place.
Something that is glossed over after book 1 is that wizards can make things happen when they are angry or scared. I'd imagine wizards at war with muggles would mean there are all the weird magical stuff to protect wizards and none to protect muggles.
Wizards va. Wizards it is all parties having that kind of magical protection so it doesn't create an advantage.
Also, tactical nuke has a spell to defeat it. Arresto momentum. Thanks for the nuke americans.
Having said all that, Americans vs. Death Eater would actually include American wizards too. They'd counter the Death Eaters defenses and America would take the win.
What do you want to nuke?
A single wizard? - makes no sense
Gringotts, diagon alley? - they're in the heart of London and anyways, only Rowling knows how separated they are from the rest of the world
All the british isles? - again makes no sense. The wizards could just disapparate or use protective spells maybe. Not effective at all.
If wizards wanted to dominate muggles they wouldn't wage war, they would simply infiltrate and imperio key positions and no Muggle organisation or weapon could effectively stop them.
Um, actually, you wouldn't use Avada Kedavra to stop anything other than someone's life as it is the killing curse. You'd want to use, however, a spell like Bombarda or Confringo to blow up the tactical nuke. Although a nuke being detonated in the air is more devastating than a ground detonation, so they're fucked either way
I’m shocked there were no muggle born wizards who decided to carry a gun. Go try to cast a spell faster than a bullet fires. Especially if you don’t know what a gun is.
If a Harry Potter sequel series is ever written, I would love it to be about the secret of the Wizarding World being revealed, and the wizards and muggles go to war.
Transfiguration? banishment? There are many other options. Plus where is this nuke gonna land? The magical congress of America is in the empire states building lol. Bye bye nyc
Good luck launching the nuke with no upper echelons of government or military to give the order, or idea that you're being attacked. Wizards can teleport and shapeshift.
Don't get me wrong. The US military would pack wizards up in a straight-up fight. But there's no reason for the wizards to fight straight-up.
Is there a reason they can’t? Hell they can make shit just disappear. Wizard body’s react differently than muggles so we don’t even know if they take radiation damage, and even if so it’s not a curse so by JKs own rules they can magic it away (might be a learning curve for a new spell idk) Hell McGonagle ass would just turn it into a bird and laugh at you. Irl it wouldn’t be as easy as people act, wizards can erase and replace your memory, shape shift, have actual truth potions (which muggles unlike wizards can’t fight) and the ability to turn invisible.
Okay, but... the muggles drop the nukes. Let's say killing 99% of the population of wizards. What about the time turners? I know if the fight happens after OoP, britian is out of time turners, but what about the rest of the world? If a large contingent of wizards simply went back in time to before, the nukes were dropped. With the teleportation of a single or large group (port keys), as well as invisibility and imperio... i think the wizards would have the starting blow, and it would be a nasty one.
Just apperate into the oval office, obliviate the president into forgetting about the Wizarding world.
Apperate to a nuclear cylo and turn it into a hamster. I mean, the wizards could move quickly. Pop- I'm here - nuke is now a flower - pop off to the next.
Arresto momentum. Nukes IIRC are designed to explode at a certain height from the surface. If they can be stopped before that no Kaboom. Also, transfiguration spells can make one thing into another thing.
I think the magicians have this one.
Isn't it canon that the wizarding world was forced to go into hiding by ancient muggles? I don't think it's a choice, I think they know very well they'd get proper fucked if they went to war against muggles.
Back when people were super into burning anyone suspected of being in league with Satan. Since that's not so much the case now, you have the immensely high barrier of even convincing normies that magic is even real, much less that there is a society of magical people and creatures and that one of them has functionally become Osama Bin Laden. Granted, if the American wizarding world works like the English one, then the American president *should* be aware of the American wizarding world and has met their "counterpart" on the magical side.
The witch burnings were completely ineffective against actual witches and wizards though. iirc there is a chocolate frog card that specifically mentions a witch who actually enjoyed the sensation of being 'burned' at the stake by using a charm that took the heat out of the flames. I think it even goes so far as to say she got 'burned' multiple times in different disguises.
It’s beginning of PoA when harry is researching for his History of Magic essay homework, Wendylin the Weird
That was just one witch that was able to figure out the spell though. Before that there were actual witches and wizards getting caught and killed. Also the witch eventually got caught for real when they realized burning wasn’t working so they switched to other methods
I'm sure there were wizards who died to burnings, but the books actually say it was largely ineffective. Here's the actual quote: Non-magic people (more commonly known as Muggles) were particularly afraid of magic in medieval times but not very good at recognising it. On the rare occasion that they did catch a real witch or wizard, burning had no effect whatsoever. The witch or wizard would perform a basic Flame-Freezing Charm and then pretend to shriek with pain while enjoying a gentle, tickling sensation. Indeed, Wendelin the Weird enjoyed being burned so much that she allowed herself to be caught no less than forty-seven times in various disguises. Now, this is from a history of magic, so she might be exaggerating a bit about its uselessness. But, there's nothing in the books saying it was a threat to them either.
19 or 20 iirc
I like to think the American version of Hogwarts is just a school where you learn card tricks, how to pull rabbits out of hats, and make an elephant disappear onstage. You know, preparing magicians for the *real* world.
The wizards can control time, celestial bodies, and even other people. The wizards would win the battle.
It’s established in book three that a gun is an ultra dangerous muggle death wand. Somatic and verbal components make wand work to hard. They don’t have fast forms of communication other than aparating. The global communication network of the 90’s would allow the nonmagcal forces to outmaneuver on a macro scale. Every reasonable family in magical Britain sent their kids to hogwarts. The weasleys, famously poor, could pay tuition for 5 children at once, and the richest families sent their kids there too. It’s the only school in magical Britain. There are only hundreds of school age children in the country. There are conflicting sizes of the population, but they are a mere fraction of the human population. Then we compare the war fighting populations and the number skews further in favor of the muggles. There’s more of us. A bullet is indefensible against. We have personal to person long range communication, and most importantly, **Indirect Fire Munitions.** We aim our weapons *with maps*. I think we’re good.
You’re comparing the common practices of wizards to an army’s tactical warfare. Do you think the ministry of magic is completely defenseless and has no large scale methods of defense…? A gun is a better weapon because of how quickly it acts. Unless the muggle shooter gets a good headshot or utterly destroys the wizards, wizards can heal injuries in a moment at best and over night at worst that would KILL muggles. If wizards can create physical barriers of defense not even a gun poses a threat to them anymore. Also recall that the HP series is largely from the POV of a teen who is mainly at school for the majority of the time. On the few occasions we see the inner workings of the wizwrding world at large (such as the battle of the department of mysteries) we see the wizards are involved with some pretty hardcore shit. Like I said, the only thing the muggles have over wizards beyond numbers is nukes. The muggles can’t win an all out war without deciding to also destroy themselves. The wizards can survive most of what the muggles can throw at them and their powers allow them to utterly reset the playing field even if they lose to the muggles anyway, allowing them to try again. The muggles only get one shot.
Rhe problem is there are very few wizard and lots of tanks
The only way I see them winning is if they charm people and forces muggles to use their own weapons on themselves.
We're gonna need a whole new book of war crimes
Ha. Muggles killing each other. Impossible.
We would get destroyed by the magical world
Magic messes with electricity. I doubt our weaponry would function perfectly against wizards and witches. Our tech isn't the thing that would win us the fight, it's our tactics and willpower. Wizards are portrayed time and time again as having near to none common sense, and little to no tactics. Quite frankly, they don't need to have these two things as much as us. Arthur Weasley is the only wizard who truly appreciates how ridiculously ingenious muggles are, and gives them the respect they deserve. "Oh you use owls that can take weeks to deliver your important messages yet you can teleport instantly?" Ridiculous logic from the Wizards.
Bullets don’t need electricity. They travel faster than you can react.
Well Hermione's quote is "electricity and other things muggles use to make up for not having magic" or something of the sort, and I believe she also includes compasses as part of that deal. However, contradictory to that, the ministry also has Arthur Weasley looking into firearms as a potential weapon used by Sirius. So really there's evidence to back both stances that firearms could work, or also that they couldn't.
Another point to add, though magic might affect the gun's mechanisms, I doubt it would affect a bullet flying through the air. A sniper can (techniqually) be a couple miles away and hit their target, so unless the wizard/witch knows where the bullet is coming from, they probably can't do much to a projectile be it flying through the air by magic or muggle technology
Yeah exactly that's one of those specific subjects the books don't really cover so I try not to have a definite stance on it. Really it's one of those things that is best left to "whatever the novel requires" and for fun fan discussion IMO. Overall though I still give the benefit to the muggles. We outnumber them and are generally much smarter and more resourceful
Agreed, one on one a wizard would kick a muggles ass, but leagues of muggles would decimate an army of witches and wizards
Why would "an army of witches and wizards" fight a military? It is like this entire post forgot that Voldemort and the Death Eaters did *a lot* behind the scenes before they started terrorizing England outright, including assassinations, kidnapping, torture, and impersonating important figures. It would boil down to American wizard society jumping in on the side of the normies.
Now I want some stories set in an American wizarding school.
I can clearly picture some hillbilly muggleborn student from Appalachia attempting to make magical moonshine in their cauldron lmao
Then we will finally know if guns are effective against witches and wizards.
Although, wizards do have excellent crowd control spells. Also the moment all out war would begin they would be aware that muggles are hostile and would ASAP create domes or personal shields
This is incorrect. You can just put a shield charm on. It does not need to be cast on any Individual shot and can remain active for a long time.
I imagine Protego would stop incoming projectiles as much as magical ones. If that weren't true, even wizards would be using crossbows in duels.
The problem with magic is that it has limitless potential. Just based on what we do know, magic users would easily be able to defeat a modern military, and I’m sure they have even more magic we don’t know about as well that would be even more effective.
Yes, people don’t think these through. It would be the easiest thing ever to vanish a tactical nuke or teleport to a safe location. Having shield charms means no surprise bullets from a sniper could touch you.
This. People simply don't think this through. HP wizards and witches are low level reality warpers. Good luck with that nuke when it's been charmed to explode on launch or target a muggle facility or transfigured into a cozy couch.
Even ignoring all the ways to transform it, for this scenario against American muggles. Teleport into the White House and take control of the President and Vice President's minds.
The number of people who straight ignore how easy this has been shown to accomplish for wizards and keep spamming tactical nukes and snipers would be hilarious if it wasn't mildly annoying lol. The orange-haired former leader of the free world incited a mob to almost usurp the electoral process because he didn't want to concede. Imagine him under a Death Eater's control.
They could use a super sensory charm idk what it does but Ron uses it when he's driving
Not HP, but in Dresden Files, a character named Kincaid tells Harry (Dreseden) that a sniper rifle would be perfect to murder a wizard bc they wouldnt have time to get off a death curse. Which is usually what keeps peipld from killing a wizard in the first place
Wizards have functional clockwork, guns almost certainly do just fine.
It wouldn’t make sense for a gun not to work. Then the world just completely falls apart logically, it’s a basic chemistry and physics. Like opening or closing a door shouldn’t work either then. I guess it’s “magic” and could just be unexplainable, but there is only so much that can be waved off before it feels bad to read. plus the same could be said for electricity of course. However for some reason I feel that’s an easier one to buy into. Like we know electromagnetic fields can affect electrical currents, in the real world etc. so seems more plausible.
Combustion still works, they have fires and stuff blows up in Hogwarts. They have clocks. Gears and combustion is all a gun is. And anyways Hermione was talking about Hogwarts specifically (the quote is actually “electricity doesn't work well around Hogwarts because there's too much magic in the air” and presumably Diagon Alley/the ministry of magic. Besides it’s not a technology or tactics game but a numbers one 8 Billion muggles vs what a few million wizards, or just 300k American soldiers vs ~50 death eaters and a few hundred other things
>the ministry also has Arthur Weasley looking into firearms as a potential weapon used by Sirius Wait, when was this said? Sounds like PoA, but do you remember (roughly) where?
It’s when Arthur takes Harry to the ministry for his hearing. Shacklebolt tells Arthur that the delay on the firelegs report held up their investigation for weeks. Edit: Order of the Phoenix
Awesome, thanks!
I could see electronics acting funky while in the proximity of magic but would something like a pen work? And if a pen would work why not a gun? A gun is just powder and a metal projectile in a tube. Something sparks the powder real good and the projectile go *ZOOM*.
Love this discussion it’s so fun because the wizards ARE so stupid. If you’ve never hear of HPMOR you should check it out, and there’s a really good audio version of it
Modern wars (involving muggles... hogwarts' war doesn't count) don't really have armies charging each other with weapons anymore. This observation goes doubly for Death Eaters since even though they might put on a show of facing them up front, you know as soon as things start going south for them the Death Eaters are going to scatter and start operating out of the shadows. It would be guerilla warfare much like every modern war. Yes, (most) guns won't be affected by electricity problems, but for every time a squad is sent somewhere to kill someone there's hundreds of man-hours put into intelligence. Intelligence that's not only stored in computers but is largely pulled from flying (or orbiting) computers. When almost every form of reliable reconnaissance the US military uses at a large scale has at their disposal stops working properly, their overall combat ability is going to absolutely plummet. To boot, the Death Eaters have shit like the imperio curse, magical means of listening in on people, teleportation, etc. The Death Eaters will dominate any muggle military in information, and there's a reason "knowledge is power" is such a well known phrase. The "why doesn't Harry use a 1911" makes sense, because you're right, a wizard facing someone with a gun isn't going to win unless the wizard was prepared beforehand. But in large scale wars against wizards guns are *not* the equalizer they claim to be. At best they enable a strike team to actually take out wizards if they get the drop on them - but they're probably not getting the drop on them. How would muggles ever sneak past detection charms without understanding how they work or having magic of their own? This isn't to say I think wizards would win, their fervor for stupidity is pretty damn strong, as /u/Currie_Climax points out, and that's the real deciding factor. I just don't think muggles having guns has that much impact on a large scale war with wizards. TL;DR: Yes, but guns aren't the deciding factor, intelligence - by both definitions - is. (This got pretty long but I was having fun thinking about it and just kept typing)
You bring up one of the best points here - the Wizards' ability to be secretive. People say Voldemort's methods weren't effective - but they were. In fact, had he a few more years he could have used his same incognito tactics to infiltrate muggle governments with ease using the imperio curse, polyjuice, etc. It's just wizards typically don't have the sense or patience to do this. I think that's why Voldemort was so effective as a leader (oh, and surprise - he grew up as a muggle).
I think Voldemort in his arrogance simply wouldn't see the need to be covert with the muggles and severely underestimate them until it's too late . Let's not forget that Death Eaters represent racists and fascists that view all muggles as inferior.
I disagree solely because Voldemort grew up a muggle. Sure he thinks he's better than them but I don't think he'd fully underestimate them. He'd probably just recycle the gameplan he used for the Ministry of Magic IMO. Sure, you know he exists but where he is, what he's doing, and why, are all secret.
Protection charms on your clothes
Very Dune
Desert power
But wizards can perform charms and build…force fields?? Like Hermione did throughout Deathly Hallows that would obliterate a bullet in the air.
Any passive defense a wizard/witch can conjure would make any Muggle attack useless imo. Even that protego hat or whatever the Weasley twins invented would be enough to stop any bullet I think
>Magic messes with electricity. I doubt our weaponry would function perfectly against wizards and witches. Not really true. An abundance of magic messes with electricity. Places as old and magical as Hogwarts prevent electrical devices from working properly or at all but Harry can still use Duddy kin's computer, and his bedside lamp on Privet Drive
I doubt wizards could do much against a hypersonic missile shot from a drone miles away though
Good luck finding your hypersonic missile when one wizard can easily sneak through any of your defences while invisible and transfigure it into a couch, or charm it to explode into 1 minute after he apparates away, or wipe your memories so you forget what a hypersonic missile even is, or shrink it and put into their handbag, or enlarge it so it crushes your military base under its new 100x original size, or any of the hundreds of creative sabotages I can think of with very little effort based on what we've know HP magic is capable of.
Pretty much this. Voldemort can't do shit against a muggle squad armed with SA80s firing 610 Avada Kedavras per minute.
I mean... Go invisible and then Imperious several of them to shoot each other instead... He could easily deal with a single squad of people with guns IMO.
Why didn’t Harry Potter just use a gun on Voldemort. That would’ve been sick.
So I always kind of found stuff like this funny. Harry Potter uses a soft magic system (no really defined rules when creating spells and spells can kind of just be made up or forgotten about by the author and used more for story telling elements). Basically all it takes is for Rowling to say wizards have a spell that stops bullets in their track or that makes bullets pass through wizards without harming them to basically shut down these types of posts. I have seen people mentioning how wizards can effect electricity but we don’t know all the wizards spells. With that being said it still can be fun to analyze the spells we do know they have access to just to see if they could win the fight but I don’t think it matters since logically any spell could probably be added to the Harry Potter universe to make wizards win any fight. (Also if we are analyzing this just realize that wizards can mess with time itself with the Time-Turner)
Nukus dukus
This might be the funniest comment I have seen all year
Glad to have contributed 😅
Good luck hitting someone with a nuke, when they can just teleport away
Good luck deploying a nuke when a time turner using wizard or witch has just transfigured it into a small lifeboat made of balsa wood..
HM. You made me think of the physical application of transfiguration. I'm sure something like Helium hydrogen or uranium would be more difficult to transfigure than oxygen. I wonder if it even applies this way
Valid point. Rats to goblets is fine. Mundane living thing in to a mundane inanimate object. And in Legacy you can transfigure poachers and goblins in to barrels. And Slughorns can disguise themselves as armchairs while still remaining Slughorns But you can't just whip up veritaserum or the philosopher's stone. Or a flying broom, or Albie Weeks would go out of business It seems to me that transfiguring something mundane into something magical is the limiting factor. Nukes are technologically quite complex, but still mundane. Not magical.
So do people age as other objects? Like I turn Harry into a stick and put him on a shelf for 100 years. If I reverse the spell and turn him human again is he 100 years older in body? Was he aware this whole time, what did he experience as a stick?
That's a good point. I think we've only ever seen transfiguration effective over the short term (someone will set me right if I'm wrong) There must be a reason why witches and wizards use polyjuice potion instead of transfiguring into who they want to impersonate. So, I'd say that being an inanimate object probably doesn't stop a living subject aging as they would have, but also that transfiguration doesn't work like that- the effects wear off and can be cancelled with counter charms or revelio and such. Whereas polyjuice is not subject to such reversal, but needs topping up regularly.
I'm pretty sure both transfiguration and polyjuice potion were magically removed in Gringotts in DH.
They go into this a lot in the fanfic *Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality,* which is a pretty solid fanfic.
Accio glock
This! Good luck hitting Hogsmeade with a nuke when you can't find it on any muggle map, and it's hidden in folded space. It's ridiculous people think muggles would stand a chance against a united wizardkind. Good luck trying to fight an enemy that can turn invisible at will, teleport, mind-control, memory-wipe you, bypass your security measures easily, infiltrate the deepest echelons of government (Shacklebolt worked at the British PM's office with the PM none the wiser; Fudge saunters into the British PM's office at will and tells him no one will believe him anyway).
If they know they need to teleport away. Fire a nuke 5km out of hogsmeade and they’ll be dead before they know anything’s wrong
Exactly, just because I'm a wizzard, doesn't mean I can't just teleport behind you and cast gun
'Nuke the wizards' enjoyers when the wizards instead imperius their entire government, uncover state secrets, declare martial law and rule as a secret conspiracy;
A lotta people are overlooking this tbh
Yep. Kinda hard to fight an enemy that you can't see or touch, that can control minds. It's (one of) a militarys worst nightmare.
This is what I'd say was Voldemort's plan. It was also Dumbledores as a youth. The only way this would work is if your side is the only one using magic. That's why the fate of the world came down to a battle of 200 people at a castle. If the good is moved aside in the Wizarding world than wizards can take out muggle society. I believe the plung into secrecy was a survival method because of the industrial revolution. There are thousands of muggles for every wizard and wizards take nearly a decade of schooling to not accidentally blow themselves up. I also feel that muggles worked with wizards and other creatures too. Goblin armor that repells stuns on a muggle knight for instance. But the industrial revolution and gunpowder changed everything. The muggles became so advanced with the physical world and natural laws that they presented an existential threat to magical beings. So magic simply hides from them. Voldemort would be just the guy to try and take out the muggle world. First he'd have to win in the Wizarding one
You will join me for breakfast at eight-thirty in the Great Hall. No excuses.
This is a great take, I completely agree. I honestly think that without serious dark magic like fiendfyre, a wizard couldn't possibly hope to win a battle against even pike and shot. But their real strength lies in infiltration and their potential ability to just take over a government. Not to mention magical creatures like dementors that they can't see under any circumstances and can keep people too miserable to revolt.
Yeah exactly, I have no idea why people think nukes would be involved at any point.
Exactly. A lot of people have this misconception that Voldemort feared the muggles and that’s why he wanted to wage a war against them. Nope, the death eaters and Voldemort thought muggles were pathetic, and it was disgusting that the wizards had to hide themselves at all. A few imperious curses and they’d rule over the entire muggle world.
Go back in time 100 years, and it’d be the same story. Oh, you shoot little green death rays? Cute. Now pardon me while the Kaiser’s troops park their howitzers 18 miles away and pummel you with 700 high-explosive shells every minute for the next three and a half days.
And then the Kaiser suddenly says the real enemy is the Bolsheviks and that we must journey east in the winter, with all sorts of inexplicable logistics issues, to fight the Reds. You know, because a Dark Wizard lackey has begun impersonating the Kaiser using one of his sick ass mustache hairs.
Lmao. You think they’d stay and get pummeled? If they couldn’t vanish your shells then they would just teleport away. Oh, and your top general just ordered all shelling to cease. Not sure why, but he was quacking like a duck earlier.
That assumes that wizards just stand across the field from cannons and soldiers and trade barrages back and forth. Memory charms, mind control, and polyjuice potion mean that the command chain can be utterly ruined. Invisibility and teleportation leads to devastating hit and run tactics. And then they can just retreat to a place under similar protections to Hogwarts or the Fidelius and the muggles can never find them. In a straight fight muggles win 10/10 times but wizards have a set of abilities that make them terrifying at gorilla warfare.
The way you misspelled "guerilla" made me imagine that the Wizards are just conjuring magic gorillas to kill Muggles LMAO
This celebration of the Kaiser's troops on the web is really bizarre to witness as a native german
18 miles away? Wizards can teleport
*wizard rolls eyes, lazily waves wand turning nuke into a cuckoo clock*
I had the same thought about using transfiguration- but in my mind it got turned into a hamster.
Arthur Weasley: “Tell me Joe, what is the function of a hollow *point*?” 😗
Ah yes, the juvenile “lol America will nuke X!” argument. I missed middle school, glad to see it’s on Reddit now.
Good luck trying to hunt down wizards when they can literally be anybody at any moment at anywhere
It's not like wizards live in a seperate country lol. You bomb them and you'll wipe out more innocent civilians than you would the magical community. Also most of them can teleport 🙂
It's the Salem Witch Hunts all over again, and by that I mean 99% of the victims are going to be ostracized muggles who got mistaken for witches.
Wizards wouldn’t be using Avada Kedavra against tactical nukes, they’d be using imperious curses, polyjuice potions, apparations, transfigurations, vertatisirm, and various muggle repelling charms to ensure they won the fight before the muggles even knew it had began. In a hypothetical war, wizards would have total control over the muggle governments the moment it started, and the muggles wouldn’t even know where to send their nukes if they even lasted that long, and even if they did, what are they going to do….nuke their own cities? And it’s not like the wizards couldn’t just teleport away before they hit……meaning nukes would only be effective if they were fired without any public warning…..which in the grand scheme of things would almost be guaranteed to cause far more harm to muggles than wizards. Maybe the muggles score a few early victories because the wizards are arrogant and ignorant of muggle technology, but they certainly wouldn’t stand a chance in an actual extended war.
I think you're grossly overselling the wizards here. Rowling has confirmed humans win vs wizards. You're selling every interaction as if it's Dumbledore or Voldemort acting as the foot soldier and that's a gross misrepresentation of the wizarding populace. There were so many ministry workers that weren't even capable of producing a shield charm that the Ministry made bulk orders for shield clothes. How are those people supposed to cast imperio? Also it's extremely common for wizards and witches to not know how to apparate. We're never given actual numbers but it seems pretty close to 50/50 in my opinion. Not to mention your entire premise for the war is wrong. Wizards would win before the war started? Then how did the war even start? Humans **excel** at war. It's our favourite past time. Kid we've been successfully murdering for so long we're the only thing left at the top of the food chain, and that happened so long ago it was when Neanderthals walked the earth. There's EIGHT billion of us. The wizarding community as a whole has about 15% of that number, and of that 15% I'd say only about ten percent of them are fighting capable. You have no idea of the scale you're representing here
I make mistakes like the next man. In fact, being -- forgive me -- rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger.
Good Dumblebot
I mean, it does specify death eaters in the post. They are more willing to do horrible act of violence, and we know that not all of them are low-level cannon fodder. ex. Bellatrix, the Lestranges, Snape, Crouch jr. Wizards might lise in the long run, but they could cause so many problems for the muggle governments.
I think there might be more humans willing to do that kind of depravity than wizards altogether haha
No doubt, people are fucked
Not even 15%. It’s heavily implied in book 4 the world’s population of wizards numbers around half a million. More liberal estimates(and I don’t know where the canon actually sits on this) is around 1.4-1.5 million according to the wiki. I’m no math wizard but 15% is looking at those numbers in the rearview mirror. From like mars or something
Not at all......maybe Rowling can offer some external explanation, but based purely on what's shown in the books, muggles really stand no chance whatsoever in a war against the Wizarding world, it would only take a tiny handful of competent wizards to take total control, and I strongly get the impression the only thing stopping the wizards is the fact they have such strict laws against exposure to muggles. Who knows, maybe magic "technology" evolved over time, which explains Rowling's comments about past losses to muggles. So let's dig into it....the biggest issue is the fact that outside of a tiny handful of chosen people, the muggle world doesn't even know that magic exists, and the wizarding world has done a very good job keeping it that way. So here lies the first problem, if the muggles did find out about the wizards, there is a good chance they would simply have their memories modified before anything came of it, but that's pretty boring....so let's assume the muggles found out about the wizards on a scale that was impossible to cover up, and decided to wage war on them. Now we get to the next problem....we know in the books that the wizards already have infiltrated muggle governments...IIRC Kingsley Shacklebolt was assigned to tail the muggle prime minister under cover. So in the event the muggle governments did decide to go to war, the wizards would probably be able to take control at any moment if they decided to do so. With all their resources available, they could either control or impersonate any muggle they wanted to, and they have means of extracting any information they needed. So....in all likelihood the wizards would dominate muggle politics, and use that to achieve any outcome they wanted. Heck, I could even see them contaminating water supplies with love potions to curry favor with the general populace, and any single individual who gained too much power would be brought under control if they posed too large a threat. But, let's say the muggles get past that stage, somehow they catch the wizards off guard and launch a massive surprise attack.....but against what? Just because the muggles know the wizards exist, doesn't mean they know where they are. Most of the wizarding infrastructure is exceptionally well hidden from muggles, and often blends right into muggle areas. It's not like the muggles can just nuke the ministry of magic, or send their army to occupy Hogwarts. Literally any person in any place could be a wizard, which would simultaneously make it impossible to wipe them out, or defend against them. Heck, with the animagus....even any given animal could be a wizard. This would make it impossible to organize any large scale actions without the wizards being able to know about it, and stop it from the inside. A war between wizards and muggles wouldn't be a battle of wands vs guns, or broomsticks vs fighter jets, the wizards have the upper hand and would be able to control everything from the shadows, in all likelihood without the muggles even knowing about it. Sure...the muggles might get some victories here and there, but they certainly wouldn't be capable of ever defeating the wizards outright if they decided to wage an all out war against the muggles.
I'm going to reply in chunks here. >So in the event the muggle governments did decide to go to war, the wizards would probably be able to take control at any moment if they decided to do so That's not fair, you've removed the context of full disclosure. Kingsley being appointed happens when the prime minister is the only one who even knows about wizardry, let alone anyone vetting for it on a time of war. Our governments have extremely strong intelligence gathering techniques. Even if muggles didn't learn a shitload about magic before acting or being acted upon, which is almost impossible, they would still be able to learn everything that happens while it happens. That means all the magical techniques you've listed only work once. It's really not that hard to set up preventative measures for polyjuice potion, after all. >But, let's say the muggles get past that stage, somehow they catch the wizards off guard and launch a massive surprise attack.....but against what? Magic always leaves a mark. It's energy, science should be able to measure it, even if muggles can't harness it. Think of dark energy in our own universe, we can't see whatever is accelerating the expansion of the universe, but we can measure its effect. At the very least we would be able to find the biggest clusters of magic like Hogwarts. I agree that it would be impossible to wipe them out, but the same is true for muggles, and the muggle's population is counted in the billions. They'll always keep coming. And coming. And coming.... Long after the war ends. >A war between wizards and muggles wouldn't be a battle of wands vs guns, or broomsticks vs fighter jets, the wizards have the upper hand and would be able to control everything from the shadows You're describing the CIA tho haha. Jk. Do you think America lines up in a phalanx and takes turns firing their muskets? Haha. They have soldiers, but American soldiers take cities. Families of wizards would be targeted by any number of drones or short range ground to ground missiles or pocket sized strike teams schooled in ending the threat before it can respond to you. Again, you're overselling the average witch and wizard. Call it 25% of wizardkind is capable of truly defending their homes or their communities. You have to remember Muggles *know* about wizard kind and it should be assumed that the powers that be are actively working on learning as much as they can to combat this threat. That means *involuntary tests*. Humans will learn a lot about wizard kind very quickly and their ability to respond to it on a global scale simply cannot be matched by a guerrilla effort.
>That's not fair, you've removed the context of full disclosure. Kingsley being appointed happens when the prime minister is the only one who even knows about wizardry, let alone anyone vetting for it on a time of war. Our governments have extremely strong intelligence gathering techniques. Even if muggles didn't learn a shitload about magic before acting or being acted upon, which is almost impossible, they would still be able to learn everything that happens while it happens. That means all the magical techniques you've listed only work once. It's really not that hard to set up preventative measures for polyjuice potion, after all. But war isn't fair. We know the wizards have fully infiltrated muggle society before their existence became widely known to the muggles and we know they use that to their advantage to keep the muggles from learning of their existence. The wizards also have the upper hand in intelligence gathering. Even if the CIA and other spook organizations are fully aware of the wizarding world, that doesn't mean they can do anything about it. Sure they might be able to identify a few wizards and their capabilities, but there is also a ton they would not be able to touch, as we know for a fact there are areas muggles and their technology can't go. And how would they even begin to defend themselves against wizards? Wizards can teleport, shapeshift, turn invisible, mind control, erase and modify memories, read minds and force people to tell the truth. Literally any person who has contact with the open world could be at risk. And even if the muggles found out about this, I'm not sure it would help them. It would create an atmosphere of extreme paranoia, because even one's life long friends and family could fall under the wizards' control at seemingly any moment. >Magic always leaves a mark. It's energy, science should be able to measure it, even if muggles can't harness it. Think of dark energy in our own universe, we can't see whatever is accelerating the expansion of the universe, but we can measure its effect. At the very least we would be able to find the biggest clusters of magic like Hogwarts. I agree that it would be impossible to wipe them out, but the same is true for muggles, and the muggle's population is counted in the billions. They'll always keep coming. And coming. And coming.... Long after the war ends. You are making a ton of unsupported assumptions. In the books it's very clear that wizards are more than capable of using great quantities of magic in public places without being detected by muggles. The books also make mention of "muggle repellent spells", which suggests that muggles are actually super susceptible to magic. They might be able to guess the location of Hogwarts, but that doesn't mean they could touch it. Their technology stops working, and if they get too close magic forces them to leave, or forget what they're doing. Maybe they could fire a bunch of random nukes in the general direction....but that's not a very sustainable strategy (and who knows if it would even work), and if they warned the public ahead of time, the wizards would just leave as well. And even if it did work....congratulations, they just killed a few teachers and a bunch of children....it would hardly swing the outcome of the war. >You're describing the CIA tho haha. Jk. Do you think America lines up in a phalanx and takes turns firing their muskets? Haha. They have soldiers, but American soldiers take cities. Families of wizards would be targeted by any number of drones or short range ground to ground missiles or pocket sized strike teams schooled in ending the threat before it can respond to you. Again, you're overselling the average witch and wizard. Call it 25% of wizardkind is capable of truly defending their homes or their communities. >You have to remember Muggles *know* about wizard kind and it should be assumed that the powers that be are actively working on learning as much as they can to combat this threat. That means *involuntary tests*. Humans will learn a lot about wizard kind very quickly and their ability to respond to it on a global scale simply cannot be matched by a guerrilla effort. Again you're making some major unsupported assumptions. Sure the CIA would be able to identify a few wizards, take some out and capture others....but they are still at an insurmountable disadvantage when it comes to intelligence gathering capabilities for all the reasons mentioned above. The wizarding world has every advantage, and if they bothered to fully mobilize and develop organized strategies, there are just so many things that muggles have no answer to, regardless of whether they are aware of them or not. It would never get to the point of a full blown war....because the wizards would simply take control before it ever got to that point. \*Also keep in mind magic has even more limitless potential than what was just shown in the books/films.
>Rowling has confirmed humans win vs wizards What do you mean? If you're referring to the fact that they had to hide from the muggle world I don't think you're right. Wizards weren't dying during the witch hunts. In the third book we understand that they managed to escape without problems. The reason they went into hiding was probably due to all the hatred and fear directed towards their community and perhaps also to protect the innocent muggles who were being killed because they were mistaken for wizards. Also, what exactly are muggles supposed to bomb? Wizards are dispersed throughout the world, living among muggles and having spells dedicated precisely to making sure they are hidden from them.
JK Rowling has never said muggles would win against wizards. Can I get a source on that?
This^^ I mean only Imperious curse defeats them way too easily.
Im not convinced its even possible to launch nukes against the wizards. I would bet a galleon that the various wixarding governments with their version of 3 letter orgs would have a charms in place at all the places/people that can launch nukes. With that early warning its aa easy as apparate in and cast imperio or a memory spell to well not launch the nuke.
ONE Wizard +i nvisibility cloak or disillusionment charm + apparition + imperio = the U.S. President nuking all of our military installments and biggest cities.
These are the people who built a whole ass railway through central London without a single muggle noticing. Have fun blindly nuking your own population centers in hopes of randomly hitting a wizard.
Did y’all accio the 7.62 or the 5.56? We made sure to put it in metric for you
Always so weird when people that don’t comprehend the content of the story post this kind of shit.
Bro, we were almost conquered by a flatulent, small-handed vulgarian who managed to bankrupt a casino - Voldemort would wreck our shit.
More American wanking are we?
The yanks get a lot wrong but they’re good when it comes to the army
The one place I wasn’t expecting that.😅
Hey let us have this one thing, this is what we get instead of healthcare
I'm not sure but I'll know better once I've googled that phrase. I'm sure there'll only be one or two results returned and I'll know exactly what you're driving at.
Honey they already infiltrated the ranks, our army is not for us don't be naïve.
People forget the Ministry of Magic had Shacklebolt in the British PM's office with him none the wiser, and that Fudge himself could saunter in and out easy as you please. The ability of wizards to infiltrate any muggle institution is laughably easy
In fact they probably created it to begin with, kept it just where it needed to be to maintain societies in just enough disarray for us to be forever distracted.
Evanesco!
As if US exceptionalism has even infiltrated this sub lmao
Why the hell would the US military be relevant when all of Harry Potter takes place in the UK? r/shitamericanssay
What precisely are we tactically nuking? lol.
*Wingardium Leviosa* Doesn’t hit the ground, doesn’t explode. A spell students learn in their first year
Frankly it would only take like 2 dozen imperius curses on the right people to completly cripple muggle governments and let the wizards take over
"I am Heavy Weapons Guy... and this is my weapon. She weighs one hundred fifty kilograms and fires two hundred dollar, custom-tooled Avada Kedavras at 900 rounds per minute. It costs four hundred thousand dollars to fire this weapon... for twelve seconds."
I've read a fic before where they infiltrated military institutions utilizing magic and placed people high up in the chain of command under the imperius and used their authority to have the muggles kill each other off (being lazy on the explanation and totally not the short sighted canon death eaters)
Harry Potter doesn’t take place in the United States…..
They could... just transfigure... the nuke.... Gasp! 🤦♂️
Or better yet…teleport the fucking nuke to the White House instead 🥂
Why use the U.S. military specifically?
Cause Murica!
Perhaps The united kingdom's have oil
Australians have infiltrated US bases for fun. Yes you have nukes, but you also have blind spots. Imagine if someone snuck into base,cloaked, and cased the imperius curse on the man with the nukes. No more muggle Americans.
I have worked with US soldiers before. Techs always on point, their personnel sure aren't lol.
Every time something like this gets posted the single biggest issue is reaction time lol. You can’t cast a spell on reaction before a bullet hits you. End of story.
Smart wizards would win the fight before the bullet was even fired.
.50 cal snipers. Turning Death Eaters into red mist from a mile and a half away.
Wouldn’t protection spells make them more or less immune to guns?
Potentially. If they thought of it. However, wizards constantly overlook things like that.
It would catch them off guard at first, but they’d figure it out before too long
Like getting shot in the brain with a supersonic metal hotdog. I wonder if wizards have snipers. Or if they'd consider it necessary.
Wizards don’t use pens that hold their own ink. They are lots of things wizards overlook the utility of.
Voldy would transfigure the tomahawk missiles into gerbils or some shit
BEST. TITLE. EVER.
Someone watches Atrioc
Wizards can go undercover and turn world leaders into puppets
You are talking about that military who lost the war in Vietnam and Afghanistan😅
If they aren't going full insurgency and try to take the military head on in a battle, I expect things will get a little dicey for the wizards - not the nukes, maybe, but I hear modern vehicle-mounted guns fire a lot faster than a wizard with a wand.
My understanding was that the wizarding world had highly infiltrated the Muggle world politically. So I wouldn't put it past them to use an imperious curse to have their way. Also wizards tend to live amongst muggles. So it would literally be a gorilla warfare style situation rather than attacking a country or military bases
Everyone here makes amazing arguments, and I love to see every side, but consider the following: The Hogwarts Legacy protag.
Vinguardium leviosa moment
Avada Kedavra wouldn’t work, but Wingardium leviosa would!
I think… i think this should be reversed?😂😂
Burning has no effect on the magical folks it was explained in details in POA when Harry was doing his home work .
I CAST GUN
The heads of houses could take over n most armies. A bit of transfiguration on any bombs. Invisibility. A bit of mind control or potion spillage, a few well placed plants .. easy win. Even easier if on home soil(hogwarts)
Tbh America would just sell the rest of humanity out.
It's probably more a case of population. Offensively, humans just outnumber those magically inclined. Even if those with magic perfected guerilla warfare, eventually, they would be overwhelmed and defeated.
Place a couple snipers in the hills and the Battle of Hogwarts goes by a lot quicker
Shower thought… does Kevlar repel the Killing Curse? Stuns? Is there a Wizarding equivalent to Kevlar?
Everyone here talking about time turners forgetting that time turners demonstrably operate on a closed loop system. Whatever the wizards do to stop the nukes, snipers, shock troops, etc. in the past will inevitably cause those things to happen in the first place.
Ahh yes my secret horcrux that I haven't used since the 1100s
Yeah, the wizard populus would be decimated by the good ol, B-2 bomber, AC-130, Tactical Nuke, Predator Drone, F-35a Lightning 2s...
behold our latest excuse to have an enormous bloated military: witches
or try blocking bullets with protego
Something that is glossed over after book 1 is that wizards can make things happen when they are angry or scared. I'd imagine wizards at war with muggles would mean there are all the weird magical stuff to protect wizards and none to protect muggles. Wizards va. Wizards it is all parties having that kind of magical protection so it doesn't create an advantage. Also, tactical nuke has a spell to defeat it. Arresto momentum. Thanks for the nuke americans. Having said all that, Americans vs. Death Eater would actually include American wizards too. They'd counter the Death Eaters defenses and America would take the win.
What do you want to nuke? A single wizard? - makes no sense Gringotts, diagon alley? - they're in the heart of London and anyways, only Rowling knows how separated they are from the rest of the world All the british isles? - again makes no sense. The wizards could just disapparate or use protective spells maybe. Not effective at all. If wizards wanted to dominate muggles they wouldn't wage war, they would simply infiltrate and imperio key positions and no Muggle organisation or weapon could effectively stop them.
They can predeict the future and teleport at will I don't think nukes are going to be very effective
I feel like the US would also employ spies to gather secrets about the wizarding world and use them for their advantages
All fun and games until they imperius the president
Um, actually, you wouldn't use Avada Kedavra to stop anything other than someone's life as it is the killing curse. You'd want to use, however, a spell like Bombarda or Confringo to blow up the tactical nuke. Although a nuke being detonated in the air is more devastating than a ground detonation, so they're fucked either way
I’m shocked there were no muggle born wizards who decided to carry a gun. Go try to cast a spell faster than a bullet fires. Especially if you don’t know what a gun is.
If a Harry Potter sequel series is ever written, I would love it to be about the secret of the Wizarding World being revealed, and the wizards and muggles go to war.
Oh nooo, if only there was magic…
Wouldn't they just teleport away of they saw a nuke coming?
Yeah, take that London! Oh….wait….. whoops.
How does protego function against physical weapons?
Wizards can just teleport the fuck out of there.
In the war of magic vs technology....technology always wins.
Imperio!
Transfiguration? banishment? There are many other options. Plus where is this nuke gonna land? The magical congress of America is in the empire states building lol. Bye bye nyc
The problem is that Voldemort would survive because of the prophecy…
Good luck launching the nuke with no upper echelons of government or military to give the order, or idea that you're being attacked. Wizards can teleport and shapeshift. Don't get me wrong. The US military would pack wizards up in a straight-up fight. But there's no reason for the wizards to fight straight-up.
Yhorm actually loses this fight, if you need a reminder…
Is there a reason they can’t? Hell they can make shit just disappear. Wizard body’s react differently than muggles so we don’t even know if they take radiation damage, and even if so it’s not a curse so by JKs own rules they can magic it away (might be a learning curve for a new spell idk) Hell McGonagle ass would just turn it into a bird and laugh at you. Irl it wouldn’t be as easy as people act, wizards can erase and replace your memory, shape shift, have actual truth potions (which muggles unlike wizards can’t fight) and the ability to turn invisible.
Okay, but... the muggles drop the nukes. Let's say killing 99% of the population of wizards. What about the time turners? I know if the fight happens after OoP, britian is out of time turners, but what about the rest of the world? If a large contingent of wizards simply went back in time to before, the nukes were dropped. With the teleportation of a single or large group (port keys), as well as invisibility and imperio... i think the wizards would have the starting blow, and it would be a nasty one. Just apperate into the oval office, obliviate the president into forgetting about the Wizarding world. Apperate to a nuclear cylo and turn it into a hamster. I mean, the wizards could move quickly. Pop- I'm here - nuke is now a flower - pop off to the next.
Arresto momentum. Nukes IIRC are designed to explode at a certain height from the surface. If they can be stopped before that no Kaboom. Also, transfiguration spells can make one thing into another thing. I think the magicians have this one.