• VerilyFemme@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    702·
    4 months ago

    Ok, this has been driving me crazy for seven movies now, and I know you’re going to roll your eyes, but hear me out: Harry Potter should have carried a 1911.

    Here’s why:

    Think about how quickly the entire WWWIII (Wizarding-World War III) would have ended if all of the good guys had simply armed up with good ol’ American hot lead.

    Basilisk? Let’s see how tough it is when you shoot it with a .470 Nitro Express. Worried about its Medusa-gaze? Wear night vision goggles. The image is light-amplified and re-transmitted to your eyes. You aren’t looking at it–you’re looking at a picture of it.

    Imagine how epic the first movie would be if Harry had put a breeching charge on the bathroom wall, flash-banged the hole, and then went in wearing NVGs and a Kevlar-weave stab-vest, carrying a SPAS-12.

    And have you noticed that only Europe seems to a problem with Deatheaters? Maybe it’s because Americans have spent the last 200 years shooting deer, playing GTA: Vice City, and keeping an eye out for black helicopters over their compounds. Meanwhile, Brits have been cutting their steaks with spoons. Remember: gun-control means that Voldemort wins. God made wizards and God made muggles, but Samuel Colt made them equal.

    Now I know what you’re going to say: “But a wizard could just disarm someone with a gun!” Yeah, well they can also disarm someone with a wand (as they do many times throughout the books/movies). But which is faster: saying a spell or pulling a trigger?

    Avada Kedavra, meet Avtomat Kalashnikova.

    Imagine Harry out in the woods, wearing his invisibility cloak, carrying a .50bmg Barrett, turning Deatheaters into pink mist, scratching a lightning bolt into his rifle stock for each kill. I don’t think Madam Pomfrey has any spells that can scrape your brains off of the trees and put you back together after something like that. Voldemort’s wand may be 13.5 inches with a Phoenix-feather core, but Harry’s would be 0.50 inches with a tungsten core. Let’s see Voldy wave his at 3,000 feet per second. Better hope you have some Essence of Dittany for that sucking chest wound.

    I can see it now.…Voldemort roaring with evil laughter and boasting to Harry that he can’t be killed, since he is protected by seven Horcruxes, only to have Harry give a crooked grin, flick his cigarette butt away, and deliver what would easily be the best one-liner in the entire series:

    “Well then I guess it’s a good thing my 1911 holds 7+1.”

    And that is why Harry Potter should have carried a 1911.

  • Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works
    28·
    4 months ago

    I’m a little bit surprised Rowling didn’t throw in something about some human technology not working in the wizarding world, like electronics and firearms. Surely this came up while the books were being written.

    • icelimit@lemmy.ml
      10·
      4 months ago

      Iirc it is mentioned electricity is finicky. But given that fire works, it stands to reason all chemical reactions work. Ergo firearms.

      • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
        3·
        4 months ago

        Also Arcanum a CRPG by troika, there’s a newspaper you can find where someone tried to put a fire enchantment on a musket took out a city block.

    • absentbird@lemmy.world
      11·
      4 months ago

      I hate JKR too, but she literally did. Wizard clothes are enchanted with protego charms which turn away any mundane attacks, and wizards really have no reason to fear muggles. During the witch trials some would allow themselves to be burned at the stake because they liked how the flames tickle. It’s very much a ‘magic must defeat magic’ setting.

      • Tuxman@sh.itjust.works
        4·
        4 months ago

        I don’t remember which book but I also have this clear memory of a quick passage saying all the magic around them was messing up with electronics.

        Also I’m pretty sure in the Deathly Hallows they use the internet to follow Death Eaters sighting while they are in hiding

        (Been a while… and I’m not bothered enough to go check 🤣)

        • starchylemming@lemmy.world
          2·
          4 months ago

          its either directly in the books refering guns specifically or… it might have been an official out of the books source.

          i used to be interested in this shit over a decade ago when the last books weren’t yet finished: there was a fancy flash based official site where lore snippets and bullshit from jk got published

    • NaibofTabr@infosec.pubEnglish
      25·
      4 months ago

      Don’t they drive a car? and ride a train? so combustion works… kind of has to work

        • NaibofTabr@infosec.pubEnglish
          5·
          4 months ago

          Explosions are combustion.

          And really we’re just talking about oxidation. If oxidation works (which it must, because the characters are breathing) then chemically-propelled projectiles must also work.

            • Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works
              1·
              4 months ago

              No, they’re a combustion event. An actual explosion (detonation, pre ignition) is really bad news for an engine.

              Firearms use a self oxidising propellant, so it would be quite easy to say that just doesn’t work.

              • rtxn@lemmy.world
                5·
                4 months ago

                What, pray tell, do you think is in gunpowder? It’s not magic dust that goes bang. It’s a pre-mixed, pre-compressed mixture of fuel and oxidiser. When used in a gun, whether it’s a muzzle-loader or a cartridge, the confined combustion of the mixture generates thermal energy and expanding gases that impart kinetic energy on a moving component (the piston or a projectile). The only difference is that the combustion event in an ICE is subsonic (deflagration) while the combustion in a gun is supersonic (detonation).

                • Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works
                  3·
                  4 months ago

                  The only difference is that the combustion event in an ICE is subsonic (deflagration) while the combustion in a gun is supersonic (detonation).

                  So what you’re saying is there’s a fundamental difference between the two?

                • dohpaz42@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  2·
                  4 months ago

                  @Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works is correct.

                  I should’ve done my homework before going all “well akshullay 🤓” on them (sorry!).

                  The only similarities between the two is that they both are chemical reactions that produce a rapid release of energy. But past that, they are much different in how they get to that point.

          • Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works
            2·
            4 months ago

            Nope, there’s a fundamental difference between a fuel/air mixture burning and something like gunpowder, which is a self oxidising propellant. Most explosives are in the latter category.

      • zaphod@sopuli.xyz
        14·
        4 months ago

        For all we know the hogwarts express runs on magic and so does the car, after all it flies.

      • L3ft_F13ld!@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        18·
        4 months ago

        Pretty sure wizards are familiar with old technology like trains and cars. But like another comment said, muggles are advancing while wizards stagnate in their old ways and traditions and shit since they keep themselves so separated.

        • NaibofTabr@infosec.pubEnglish
          13·
          4 months ago

          Combustion is very old technology. Putting it inside a different machine (e.g. a gun or a car engine) doesn’t change the chemistry. If you want to get right down to it, we’re just talking about oxidation - which means that in any sort of world where rapid oxidation doesn’t work (i.e. explosives), your lungs also don’t work because you need that oxygen bonding with the iron in your hemoglobin or you die.

          If you can light a fire, you can make an explosion. If you can make an explosion, you can use it to launch a projectile.

          There’s no world in which fire exists but guns are impossible. Even if you don’t have the metalworking sophistication for a modern gun, you could still make a Chinese-style gunpowder rocket.

          • Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works
            6·
            4 months ago

            This is a world with flying broomsticks and cars, teleportation, and even time travel.

            Of course you can get away with saying gunpowder just doesn’t explode here.

            • icelimit@lemmy.ml
              21·
              4 months ago

              Gunpowder is just fire propagating at the speed of sound through solid (powder). As long as sound exists, the magical world can’t contain the angry dust.

          • LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works
            9·
            4 months ago

            Or just straight up bombs. The beauty is that an IED can catch even a master wizard off guard. No need for metalworking, and since they use cars, well… surely there is some character with Irish roots, right?

    • F/15/Cali@threads.net@sh.itjust.works
      49·
      4 months ago

      She all but stated that humanity is advancing beyond the wizarding world. There’s really no explanation beyond “wizards are actually very stupid and stagnating within their intellectually, and very literally, incestuous society.”

      • Log in | Sign up@lemmy.worldEnglish
        12·
        4 months ago

        Mr Weasley is seen as a weird oddball for engaging in studying muggle technology. The wizarding world sees it all as a bunch of pointless nonsense that muggles have to go through just because they don’t have magic. Clever in its own way, but utterly futile.

        Why spend hundreds of people’s effort, lots of money and enormous amounts of time to design, make and use a vehicle to go somewhere when you can hop in a fireplace and think about where you want to go, or simply apparate there?

        Why carry a complicated muggle weapon around and spend time and effort learning how to use it well, when you can kill someone with two words you’ve known since you were a child?

        Voldemort isn’t just protected by being a powerful wizard, he’s also protected by the bully’s standard protections of surrounding themselves with sycophants who unquestioningly support them (by ruthlessly turning against people who question their authority or judgment), having no moral hesitancy whatsoever and avoiding like the plague fair fights wherever there’s a chance they’d not win.

        So because of Voldemort’s followers who will turn up in an instant and his horcruxes, you have to be prepared to sacrifice your life to have a chance of opposing him openly, which is of course what Lily Potter did.

        Strange that JKR, who clearly didn’t like bullies, would choose to bully trans people and use her money and influence against them. Admittedly she clearly had a bit of a problem with blonde people before she wrote book 1, so not exactly completely free from prejudice.

        • F/15/Cali@threads.net@sh.itjust.works
          10·
          4 months ago

          If I could offer an additional perspective, one of the most fundamentally interesting aspects in the study of Paleolithic peoples to me is its occupants’ intense desire to choose the best tools. The best tools for fighting, the best tools for crafting, the best tools for presenting, the best tools for fucking, etc…

          You’ll often find items from far and wide in their caches. Stones and gems and shells and bones, and yes I encourage you to make the joke, from a hundred miles away, all brought painstakingly back despite local resources being nearly comparable. It’s a fundamentally human characteristic to aggregate useful peculiarities, and neglecting them is new.

          The wizards are losing touch with their humanity, if we take this story written by a troubled schoolteacher literally.

  • Honytawk@lemmy.zipEnglish
    40·
    4 months ago

    As if they didn’t have some simple hex that can protect them from physical projectiles.

    They would have been killed a long time ago by arrows.

    • Thorry84@feddit.nl
      49·
      4 months ago

      I think Buffy taught us that you’d be surprised what can be killed with a shoulder fired anti-tank weapon.

    • Auli@lemmy.caEnglish
      7·
      4 months ago

      Guns are a lot faster then arrows. There wouldn’t be enough reaction time.

      • absentbird@lemmy.world
        5·
        4 months ago

        In the books it explains that wizard robes have charms against physical attacks woven into the threads. They’re wearing full body bulletproof vests.

          • absentbird@lemmy.world
            2·
            4 months ago

            I mean yeah, one Bayonetta could take on the entire wizarding world with both hands behind her back.

            • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
              2·
              4 months ago

              with both hands behind her back.

              … a gun in each of them, killing two targets at once, mid-backflip, while delivering innuendo.

          • PuddleOfKittens@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            2·
            4 months ago

            There’s no reason wizard hats can’t shield the face from bullets. In fact, in the later books there might be a hat that does basically that IIRC.

            Besides which, wizard hats have wide brims. And they have scarves.

            • Harbinger01173430@lemmy.world
              31·
              4 months ago

              In the face. Where there is no cloth. Also, just shoot them with a shotgun. That’s gonna hurt like hell and bruise the shit out of them if the threads manage to stop the bullets.

              Just keep shooting at it until it dies. Doom advice.

              • PuddleOfKittens@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                1·
                29 days ago

                Shooting in the face where there isn’t cloth won’t necessarily help - if the hat just stop bullets aimed for the head (like a magical forcefield) then it’s pointless.

                Also, it’s not gonna hurt like hell and bruise the shit out of them - you’re citing Newtonian mechanics when it’s fucking magic. Hell, maybe the forcefield just deletes the bullet instead of deflecting or blocking it.

                “Shoot at it until it dies” is great advice generally, but if you shoot a water pistol at a fish then you’ll be there til you run out of ammo.

                • Harbinger01173430@lemmy.world
                  1·
                  29 days ago

                  Then use magic bullets.

                  My god, how much skill issue…

                  Also, if you shoot the water pistol inside of the fish, it can either bloat and explode or drown.

                  See? The wizard problem has solutions. They must be erased one way or another.

      • absentbird@lemmy.world
        4·
        4 months ago

        It wouldn’t even get through a wizard’s robes, they’re enchanted with protego charms (at least according to the books)

        • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
          51·
          4 months ago

          Use white phosphorus, good old Willy Pete don’t discriminate he just incinerates. Well actually he maims but who cares wizards didn’t sign no convention or protocol.

    • Destide@feddit.ukEnglish
      11·
      4 months ago

      Gotta say the words quicker than they can pull the trigger and they have mutliple sylable words try saying one of these before you can click your mouse. Yeah I know super skilled ones don’t need to but you still have to react.

      • Arresto Momentum
      • Protego
      • Protego Maxima
      • Expelliarmus
      • Accio
      • Stupefy
      • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
        23·
        4 months ago

        Bummer jk Rowling never made sense out of dueling, or casting spells silently, or apparating sometimes is okay but mostly not. Even if she wasnt an asshole, trying to draw a logical line through the books is absurd.

        • Korhaka@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          6·
          4 months ago

          Could you continually apparate fresh ammo into your gun?

          Harry Potter, the Kalashnikov and the oil freighter.

        • exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          14·
          4 months ago

          Bummer jk Rowling never made sense

          I think the world building in the Harry Potter series is awful. The rules don’t make internally consistent sense, and the society that came up around those rules also don’t make sense within the motivations of how people behave in that society.

          • FATALRPG@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            9·
            4 months ago

            It’s so obvious that she was coming up with shit as she went along.

            The Deathly Hallows were a huge asspull. Trying to make an overarching story was a mistake, the story worked best when it was “monster of the week” standard children’s fare. That kind of format can tolerate the “I’m going to introduce something new that should have wider consequences and then forget about it immediately afterwards” problems (Time Turners, Legilimency, polyjuice potions, love potions…)

      • Honytawk@lemmy.zipEnglish
        1·
        4 months ago

        Don’t have to say any words when it is a basic protection hex. It automatically activates.

    • icelimit@lemmy.ml
      3·
      4 months ago

      Til. collecting spent casings to hold a handful of tiny pebbles. Then a magazine mount for my wand.

      Imma swish and flick death clouds into skulls.

    • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
      9·
      4 months ago

      Yeah, use land mines and claymores instead far more indirect and I don’t there’s magic that can reverse being turned into chunky salsa. Also never have just a gun have multiple preferably in multiple directions so the ones using the guns can’t be taken out in one fell swoop.

      • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
        4·
        4 months ago

        TBH I think the dark wizards are better with covert ops so letting them learn about explosive devices might be a bad move.

        • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
          2·
          4 months ago

          First they have to figure out what the fuck is killing them, depending on how it’s used an explosive doesn’t really explain what it was beyond being an explosive. A short fuse grenade duck taped to the inside a door doesn’t leave a lot after it’s gone off, sure you know Frank the evil wizard is at best screaming in agony and missing a limb after an explosion but beyond that? Also it’s kinda a trope that evil wizards are technophobic and only want to rely on their magic, the ones who don’t are often the dangerous ones though in a lot of media they are also hermits who want to commit crimes against nature in peace.

  • ohulancutash@feddit.ukEnglish
    1023·
    4 months ago

    In the American version of the books, they changed kids hexing each other in the corridors for shooting each other instead, to make it more believable.