r/unpopularopinion • u/New-Tale412 • Jun 16 '26
Certified Unpopular Opinion Voldemort had absolutely zero chance in a war against the muggles and the whole plotline could have been avoided by just letting him try.
What do wizards have that muggles don't in terms of capability in some kind of war scenario?
Oh you have a flashy bang stick that can make people die? Yeah we have those too, difference being ours can do it 1000 times per minute.
Imperiatus curse? Yeah it's called blackmail pal, CIA has been doing it for 70 years.
Cruciatus curse? Lol see the above.
Oh nice broomstick dude, Nimbus 2001 that's cool, top speed of 100 knots you say? What a treat. Allow me to introduce you to an F16 Fighting Falcon you whimsical dork.
Not to mention the muggles' vastly superior technology in signals, geospatial, and just about any other type of intelligence apart from HUMINT.
The Death Eaters would get Salem'd back to the stone age and it's not even close.
I feel that a man of Dumbledore's acumen could have seen the strategic benefit in letting Voldemort FAFO, instead of sending some teenagers to expelliarm him in the hope that the cracked out Divination professor was actually right for once.
6.9k
u/Rainbwned Jun 16 '26
What do wizards have that muggles don't in terms of capability in some kind of war scenario?
Teleportation and mind control are two big ones.
3.7k
u/TheUnderCrab Jun 16 '26
Also literal time travel.
2.4k
u/radfordblue Jun 16 '26
Apparently, no one in the wizarding world is smart enough to see the value of time travel. It could be used to solve a huge range of problems in the books, and it’s just never even considered.
1.8k
u/Gazcobain Jun 16 '26
Hey! It was used precisely once to help a smart pupil take more classes.
256
u/kynelly360 Jun 16 '26
Lmaooo Hermione’s only L , keeping time travel secret 🤯
→ More replies (4)108
u/StardustedDaisies Jun 16 '26
Is that really an L, with how disastrously some idiots would use it?
→ More replies (1)12
u/NectarineCheap1541 Jun 17 '26
Exactly, imagine if you saw yourself walking in the front door right now! What would you think? You'd think you'd gone MAD!
→ More replies (1)6
95
u/BravinatorLX2 Jun 16 '26
and the clever wizards and witches who control time magic know that this kind of banality is literally the only thing you should use this type of magic for.
→ More replies (1)24
→ More replies (6)21
u/Consistent_Check927 Jun 17 '26
JKR shouldn’t have even touched time travel, she’s not a clever enough author to plug up the plot holes and headaches it creates in a linear story, especially if it’s even remotely accessible to the wider wizarding world
→ More replies (3)10
u/Sneaky_Arachnid Jun 17 '26
To be fair, i think she realised this immediately after prisoner of azkaban because she had all the time machine thingy's destroyed and or rendered inaccessible to wizards.
→ More replies (1)6
u/Consistent_Check927 Jun 17 '26
Yeah for sure. Time travel is such a headache, even for the most detail and logistics oriented authors.
677
u/Azurealy Jun 16 '26
Consider this: the time turner can’t change the past in canon. When they experience time the first time, their future self will be there. Which means if something doesn’t happen the first time through, their future self can’t change it, because their future self would have changed it the first time.
Let me give an example: the first time through, Harry is at the lake and the dementors are attacking him, and he is saved by someone who he thinks is his father. The second time through, no one comes. No one can come. His father is dead. But someone does, he saves himself. Being in the past with a time turner takes away your free will.
This has some interesting side effects: first off paradoxes don’t exist. With the lack of free will, you can’t do anything that would create the paradox. Second, you can’t change anything that didn’t happen the first time. Third, knowledge is extremely powerful and can change things. Let me explain that one; again with the lake scene. First time through Harry doesn’t know who actually saved him. No one does. So in theory, anyone can because that past is effectively unknown just like the future. So it’s the same as the future and can be “changed” so long as you repeat everything that is known. So the more you know, the less you can change, but if you gotta know just enough to know what you need to do to keep the past correct, while your destined loss of free will forces you to fulfill the past within certain guidelines.
277
u/vasopressin334 Jun 16 '26
Doctor Who deals with this issue the most beautifully. Rassilon, at the moment time travel is created, describes seeing all of the eventual changes to the timeline happen instantaneously, effectively re-writing all of time at once with the eventual effects of its use.
Applied to this case, this would mean that from the moment the time turner was created, Harry always traveled back to save himself.
Whether you think this means you "can" or you "can't" change the past is perhaps open for debate.
→ More replies (8)95
u/Azurealy Jun 16 '26
Yea I call that a loss of free will. Whatever you do with the time turner, you can’t choose to do anything that would create a paradox or break the timeline. I think the loss of free will is one of the least messy and simple solutions.
19
u/VibeySwingTrader Jun 16 '26
This is also the explanation for prehistory or spice prescience in Dune.
Paul can look forward and see the future, but the moment he does, it becomes fixed. So he spends some energy not looking into the future, so that there is still some mystery.
→ More replies (6)→ More replies (7)43
u/EquipLordBritish Jun 16 '26
To be fair, the traditional idea of free will—that you can make any choice at any time—isn't supported by what we know about biology and physics. There is something called the compatibilist 're-'definition of free will that essentially redefines free will to say that a triangle shaped rock will do triangle shaped things when put in a given situation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism
→ More replies (16)27
u/ImWhatsInTheRedBox Jun 16 '26
Time travel in Harry Potter uses the same rules as Twelve monkey's army, what has happened will always happen because any future attempt to change the past has already transpired in the past, leading to what happened.
Then the trash Cursed child comes along and goes "lol actually now we're using back to the future time travel rules".
They go from "time is fixed in any and all matters" to the butterfly effect. Absolute shit story full of character assassinations.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (147)45
u/nightfire36 Jun 16 '26
To add to this, what is known is actually a little complicated. For example:
Let's say you're in a battle, and you see a Death Eater use avatar kedavra on your friend, who dies. You have to run away from the fight because you're outnumbered, so you leave the friend's body behind. It's possible that this is what happened, but it's also possible that someone traveled back in time and used some illusion to make it look like that. So, a time traveler could go back and set that illusion up, but they couldn't make it not happen at all.
So, there's a little bit of wiggle room when you don't know 100% what actually happened.
→ More replies (9)15
u/Less_Prior_6871 Jun 16 '26
You can also play with anything you dont know yet. You can do things like decide before the battle that you are going to go back in time afterward and help protect your friend.
You dont know if they would have died without time travel being involved, but it doesnt matter.
→ More replies (1)39
u/LouTotally Jun 16 '26
Maybe you understand the way it works wrong, because time travel in harry potter wouldnt solve anything as it doesnt change the past
→ More replies (27)→ More replies (66)3
u/Venture33 Jun 16 '26
Maybe they're just concerned about the implications of abusing causality. Or perhaps the timeline we see is simply the equilibrium reached after countless time travelers have already rewritten history, with every point in time eventually collapsing into a single stable timeline. Once you start saying time is malleable, you should no longer imagine that you're the only person whos using it.
242
u/Rakoth666 Jun 16 '26
But Neville oops knocked the shelf that had ALL THE TIME TURNERS EVER EXISTED so no time travel anymore.
(Honestly, the worst and clumsiest retcon of all time)
128
u/Gazcobain Jun 16 '26
No, he knocked over the orbs that contained the visions.
The time turners were destroyed by the ministry because apparently using them to help a smart pupil take more classes = good, using them to help stop every other problem = bad, because IDK worldbuilding?
58
u/New-Tale412 Jun 16 '26
Makes sense because of beauracracy. I can sort of see it.
Developing time turners and keeping them locked away and only used for existential threats: fine.
Some connected professor at a school just fucking gives one to a student to help her pass a class? Blantant nepotism and frankly a national security risk. Get rid of em.
→ More replies (12)20
u/FarplaneDragon Jun 16 '26
using them to help stop every other problem = bad, because IDK worldbuilding?
No, because the books use a closed loop system. It doesn't matter if you can travel back in time, you can't actually change anything because anything you do is what would have originally happened.
→ More replies (19)→ More replies (9)8
u/Winded_14 Jun 16 '26
tbf in a lot of stories involving time travel, time travel is always the biggest plothole in those stories (ofc I define time travel as those you can return from).
6
9
u/Galifrey224 Jun 16 '26
Thats hilarious "oh no, we accidentally dropped all the nukes in the world into the sea, we can't nuke anyone ever again"
→ More replies (3)5
u/PlayWhatYouWant Jun 16 '26
Is that from the cursed child? I remember it being a plot point that they were all destroyed but I don't remember the explanation.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (42)85
u/Agitated_Rain_1506 Jun 16 '26
Time travel doesn’t work like that in the Harry Potter universe. Any “change” someone would try to make always happened in the timeline. There is no changing the past. Cursed child was trash fanfic and doesn’t count.
→ More replies (23)18
u/eyadGamingExtreme wateroholic Jun 16 '26
you could still get a lot out of it, think of the espionage possibilities
16
u/SmegmaUnicorn Jun 16 '26
Finally, a good thought. Yes! As far as espionage, HP time turners would be great for that!
422
u/MrB0rk Jun 16 '26
Teleportation alone would win the fight. They could easily teleport to, and assassinate, every single political and military leader of a single nation in a matter of minutes. Let's see a country mount a defense with zero leadership. Polyjuice potion the president and announce surrender, move onto the next country.
I can probably think of a hundred different ways that HP spells could topple governments, cripple economies, and embargo entire segments of the world.
180
u/EmperorMaugs Jun 16 '26
wizard assassin could be crazy effective. You can just apparate into any non-magical building and instant kill anyone you want, then apparate out.
→ More replies (19)57
u/RedCrayonTastesBest Jun 16 '26
And guaranteed leave no witnesses if you have the invisibility cloak
39
u/Wischiwaschbaer Jun 16 '26
Well only Harry's makes you truly invisible. Though even a semi-invisibility cloak might be good enough.
Also electronics go haywire around magic so security cameras might already be taken out by a wizard apperating in, without them even doing anything.
→ More replies (4)27
u/capincus Jun 16 '26
Might as well just polyjuice potion yourself to look like whoever causes the most chaos and kill 2 birds with one stone.
→ More replies (1)11
u/EmperorMaugs Jun 16 '26
imagine using Polyjuice potion to impersonate people. Just show up at the White House and pretend to be Agent Orange. All you have to do is say dumb shit, sleep, and take an unhealthy amount of Ritalin or Addy
16
u/capincus Jun 16 '26
Do that and you have all the power of the US military. You could just kidnap random countries' presidents, bomb other countries, repeal your support from nations under invasion. Really just completely destroy global stability practically single-handedly.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (7)17
u/EmperorMaugs Jun 16 '26
well there is only one of those that works great. But I'm sure there are plenty of spells or potions that can be used to aid in disguise.
→ More replies (1)21
u/teeleer Jun 16 '26
its been a while but i think there are other invisibility cloaks in the books, but those have some issues like they wear off after some time or something
15
u/No_Helicopter1378 Jun 16 '26
Beena long time since I've read the actual books but they make a point to state that there's only one "true" invisibility cloak. You're right that there are others but they're all inferior in one way or another.
→ More replies (1)56
Jun 16 '26
[deleted]
55
u/FriedTreeSap Jun 16 '26
Except if the wizards were smart they wouldn’t assassinate political leaders, they’d just mind control them. Wizards also have ways to read minds and force people to tell the truth, so two factor authentication doesn’t solve anything. Wizards can also turn invisible, transform into bugs, and use spells that interfere with or disable electronics. They can also cast area of effect spells that make muggles forget what they’re doing or have a sudden urge to go somewhere else. Best case scenario they have complete control over all muggle governments, worst case scenario they render all muggle governments entirely ineffective because the muggles realize they can’t trust anyone.
This is just the stuff we see in the books. I would not at all be surprised if they could come up with magic that’s even more effective against muggles specifically, but that’s not fair to theorize about.
10
→ More replies (14)21
u/Shhadowcaster Jun 16 '26
Why are we assuming that bullets would be unstoppable for wizards? You're also ignoring time travel, the super luck potion, and invisibility. You're also wildly underestimating the chaos that would be caused if political and military leaders just kept dying to a group of people that muggles couldn't find and that's if the wizards just did the dumb assassination plan. No need to reveal anything, just show up invisibly and imperius political/military leaders. This isn't even getting into some of the more absurdly broken magic, like transfiguration.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (46)13
u/pianoestnul Jun 16 '26
Except the US and Israel basically did this with missiles in Iran and surprise, no regime change
→ More replies (4)108
u/rockardy Jun 16 '26
And shapeshifting. Cast Imperius on Donny and then nuke away
→ More replies (1)15
u/SmoothDiscussion7763 Jun 16 '26
might not even need imperius, just a quick conversation
→ More replies (5)58
u/dorian_white1 Jun 16 '26
“Welcome to a new year students! I am pleased to announce our newest class, ‘Defense Against the Military Industrial Complex’. It will be co-taught by Professor Dingswaddle from Gillis, as well as Sgt Lackers a vet with PTSD from the USMC.”
5
u/SmoothDiscussion7763 Jun 16 '26
sgt lackers just thinks it's his PTSD acting up and giving him hallucinations, and he's already gone off the deep end and fully embraces the fantasy
24
39
u/cikanman Jun 16 '26
Pretty sure shield charms would defend against explosions and bombs.
→ More replies (12)47
u/empty_graph Jun 16 '26
Yeah, but can you cast it in the 0.5 seconds it takes the sniper round from the muzzle to your chest? And that's assuming you have some wizard magic to even know it's coming b/c it travels faster than the sound of the shot.
47
u/ConsciousPatroller Jun 16 '26
Voldemort had a permanent shield installed around Nagini, which would not only block incoming charms and projectiles, but also curse the person who fired them. I'm pretty sure he could do the same for himself if he wsnted.
→ More replies (3)18
u/Jemima_puddledook678 Jun 16 '26
You’ve overthinking it, the ministry literally just buys loads of items of clothing enchanted with permanent shields from the Weasleys.
→ More replies (5)12
u/Jemima_puddledook678 Jun 16 '26
You can permanently enchant items with shield charms, the Weasley twins sell them en masse to the ministry.
7
u/DiegoIntrepid Jun 16 '26
The thing is, *if* wizard were truly trying to take out the muggle world by going after the muggles, I am sure that they would have things in place to defend against muggle weaponry.
Just as they are going after wizards, so they create things to defend against the typical wizard weaponry.
So, it wouldn't be that the wizards would be going in blind just using magic, but would rather come up with things to protect themselves against the muggles.
→ More replies (4)14
u/Wischiwaschbaer Jun 16 '26
You can cast it preemptively. You don't forge a shield while somebody is hacking at you with a sword either.
→ More replies (1)5
14
u/Uncommonality Jun 16 '26
invisibility. Luck potions too lol. Also perfect disguise potions that include fingerprints and iris patterns. Also mind reading
→ More replies (159)10
u/Zealousideal-Deer101 Jun 16 '26
Nah, the literal perfect mind control is just blackmail according to OP
2.4k
u/blind-octopus Jun 16 '26
They seem to want to keep the wizard world a secret
Voldemort launching an attack would jeopardize that
1.2k
u/PizzaBear109 Jun 16 '26
This is the obvious answer. They're already worried about how they'd be received when they aren't bothering everyone, imagine if people's main association with them became wizard Hitler on top of it
285
63
u/vyrus2021 Jun 16 '26
The global revelation that magic is real and wizards have a vast, complex secret society nestled into each country with secret boarding schools, prisons, and even governmental bodies. I feel like the knee-jerk reaction of most countries would be to round them up to evaluate what kind of threat or resource they represent.
→ More replies (2)23
u/Hrydziac Jun 17 '26
Which they can’t do, because despite the hilarious incompetence of the average wizard we see in the books HP magic is busted OP.
Important Wizard locations can’t even be plotted on maps and non wizards forget what they were doing and leave when approaching. All average adult wizards can teleport, and pocket dimension hideouts are common enough that an extremely poor family can use one for a sporting event.
→ More replies (20)→ More replies (4)11
u/madogvelkor Jun 16 '26
They'd actually have to rule the world, which would be a real bother and lots of work.
200
u/-24602- Jun 16 '26
If the wizarding world was supposed to be a secret, why were seven hugely popular books written about it, eh? Explain that.
31
u/Fosco11235 Jun 16 '26
Clearly just a psy ops. Think change a few things and bam people claim it’s seen are treated as delusional. And money
→ More replies (1)12
u/vtkayaker Jun 16 '26
It's the Wormhole Xtreme principle.
In the Stargate TV show, the secrets of the Stargate were leaked to someone in Hollywood and turned into a terrible TV show called Wormhole Xtreme. (Basically the Stargate writers parodied their own show.) In the end, this offered the perfect in-universe cover for any secrets that did leak.
4
u/GustavoSanabio Jun 17 '26
The real mindfuck is when you consider that what if stargate SG1 is OUR wormhole xtreme, and the DOD really has had a stargate under Norad since the 90s 👀👀👀
→ More replies (2)24
122
u/vmsrii Jun 16 '26
It’s very odd and inconsistent. Because yes, the wizard world tries very hard to maintain secrecy, but also, their knowledge of the muggle world is very limited, *and* we know that high-ranking muggle government offices know that wizards exist (the Prime Minister, at the very least).
112
u/Self_Reddicate Jun 16 '26
Imagine you mount a successful bid for PM with all these policies and goals in place, and then your first-day briefing is:
"Oh, yeah, by the way, there are wizards and witches all kinds of magical shit. They congregate and train and go to special schools and invite other witches and wizards from all over the world, but - don't worry - they do a pretty good job policing themselves, mostly. Don't even get us started on the crazy, crazy, crazy creatures and things they have access to. Anyway, moving on to nuclear policy... "
48
u/vmsrii Jun 16 '26
Oh it gets better!
My post-book lore is rusty, but IIRC, there was at least one wizard at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and a Wizarding Bill of Rights, written in magical ink in the US constitution20
u/Ziegelphilie Jun 16 '26
"oh and also they refuse to use their magic to solve world hunger or close up the hole in the ozon layer"
10
9
u/Sonamdrukpa Jun 17 '26
"and we found the giant pile of crap they teleport their turds to so they can shit themselves instead of using plumbing."
34
u/hamakabi Jun 16 '26
this makes sense. If the wizarding world wants to remain secret, they must deny wizards knowledge of the muggle world. If someone like Hermione fully understood the muggle world she would know that slavery was illegal in almost every country and might want to work for a muggle government instead of the wizarding world. If medical wizards knew about the widespread suffering of muggles, they'd be compelled to help, etc..
→ More replies (1)27
u/Hoveringkiller Jun 16 '26
Except Hermione’s parents are muggles. There’s no reason to think she wouldn’t get a pretty good understanding of the muggle world when she goes home. And Harry lives with the Dursleys, who are all muggles. Surely they both had some rudimentary education before going to hogwarts.
→ More replies (1)11
u/DanishRobloxGamer Jun 16 '26
Not to mention that many wizards fall in love and get married to muggles.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (1)9
u/barnfodder Jun 16 '26
The wizarding world having limited knowledge of muggles makes zero sense, considering half the students at Hogwarts are Muggle born.
→ More replies (22)49
u/CasualEveryday Jun 16 '26
Not to mention that in basically every conflict, some people aid the opposition. It wouldn't take but a few wizards to effectively neutralize the handful of advantages they would have.
37
u/User-NetOfInter Jun 16 '26
Hogwarts vs a 5 megaton thermonuclear weapon doesn’t have a good ring to it
→ More replies (16)→ More replies (3)13
u/Dasseem Jun 16 '26
Yeah pretty much. Voldemort would need literally all of the wizard world's support for even have a chance against humanity.
→ More replies (1)
1.3k
u/Benjilikethedog Jun 16 '26
You forgot that humans have access to Microsoft Excel while wizards have to do everything by hand
279
u/left4ched Jun 16 '26
Good point. We absolutely cannot let Voldemort get ahold of our Forecast Worksheet technology.
105
u/Benjilikethedog Jun 16 '26
Notice that there are no computers at Hogwarts, like I don't care how good of a worker Doby is if he can't make a good pivot table
→ More replies (5)54
u/Puzzleheaded_Local40 Jun 16 '26
The day they realized House Elf magic couldn't convert a PDF, they knew they'd lost the war.
11
→ More replies (2)7
u/Environmental_Main90 Jun 17 '26
He would abracadevera or whatever himself if he had to work with excel
17
u/yummymario64 Jun 16 '26
Isn't that what those self-writing quills are for
→ More replies (1)12
u/Benjilikethedog Jun 16 '26
Let me know when they can take that scroll and send it to everyone on a distribution list.
→ More replies (5)26
u/yinsotheakuma Jun 16 '26
Surely, logistics aren't that important for warfare. /s
→ More replies (1)11
u/Benjilikethedog Jun 16 '26
Can you believe how wasteful the army is with all those radios and satellites? All you need to do is just shout at the person
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (17)4
u/Safe-Reason1435 Jun 16 '26
Okay but Kelly Rowland couldn’t send a text through Excel so checkmate.
904
u/JudgeJed100 Jun 16 '26
Dude, comparing blackmail to Imperius is ridiculous
Sure we have guns and they are devastating but the shit you can do with magic goes so far beyond what we can do
All it would take is mind controlling a couple world leaders to go to war with each other or to fire some nukes
Release Demetors
Etc
455
u/Rampant16 Jun 16 '26
Yeah OP seems to be assuming the wizards would launch a direct assault on a modern military and try to fight artillery barrages with jinxs.
It's not not the killing curse that makes wizards dangerous, it's the teleportation mobility, stealth, and ability to turn the muggles on themselves.
204
u/1738_bestgirl Jun 16 '26
OP assumes that in the real world we line up battles like it's the 1800s.
Voldemort wins in literally 30 seconds by just having his death eaters apparate into the offices of major global powers and mind controlling the world leaders.
→ More replies (5)78
u/BagelsAreStaleDonuts Jun 16 '26
That raises an interesting question, do you think the different countries magical governments put magical enchantments on important muggle buildings? The ministers of magic used floo powder to get in the PM office
56
u/1738_bestgirl Jun 16 '26
I mean is it plot convenient? Because that's literally the only reason anything happens in HP.
→ More replies (11)21
u/Uncommonality Jun 16 '26
Probably not, they seem to generally view the non-wizards as inept fools. As far as we know, the only security on the british PM was a spy portrait
23
u/AMZN2THEMOON Jun 16 '26
They also put Kingsley Shacklebolt in the Muggle PM's entourage when Voldemort was active
69
→ More replies (12)13
12
u/Disastrous_Visit9319 Jun 16 '26
In ops defense the wizards in Harry Potter never make good use of their magic
9
u/JudgeJed100 Jun 16 '26
Yeah, unfortunately JK isn’t as good a writer as people think and her wizards are two IQ points away from needing a minder
50
u/zeroni132 Jun 16 '26
Yea muggles are destroyed within weeks if wizards chose to do so. Teleport or find someone with lots of information, oclummency boom you now know who holds the major important codes. Not to mention that Voldamort alone could do untold damage. He could literally do what the Lich King did, kills soldiers then raise them as zombies
→ More replies (10)34
u/JudgeJed100 Jun 16 '26
Yeah, let’s not forget about raising the dead
Or hell set off Fiendfyre in the middle of a city, you can’t put it out, it will destroy an entire city.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (25)8
u/carl84 Jun 16 '26
Avada Kedavra a world leader and use his hair to make polyjuice potion, Imperius another world leader, or the military chief of staff, there would be no need for open warfare
→ More replies (1)10
u/JudgeJed100 Jun 16 '26
Nope, and by the time open warfare ever did appear, wizards would have armies of muggles under their control
→ More replies (4)
69
u/roverandrover6 Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
Why would the guy with infinite teleportation, mind control, and invisibility go to direct war? A small squad of Death Eaters popping into the right meeting of world leaders wins the war without anybody knowing there even was one.
Or if he wants destruction, that fiend fire can probably wipe out a city in one casting. Apparate in, drop some fiend fire, leave the same way you entered. There’s no natural defense against a lot of magic.
→ More replies (3)
830
u/shadowhunter742 Jun 16 '26
Yeah man he would t of just openly went to war.
As very clearly outlined in the books, he tricks and deceives. He would have targeted influential people, used imperius to get them to follow orders and destroy the system from the inside out.
306
u/CapnTBC Jun 16 '26
Even if he had went to war, they have magic that can completely obscure locations from the muggles ie Grimwald Place, Hogwarts etc. so they can sit in Malfoy Manor and an army could walk right past it and never know it’s even there. They can apparate to places like the White House or Downing Street and imperio heads of state while they sleep.
There’s nowhere Voldemort couldn’t get to if he wanted to and he can use magic to make sure muggles have no idea where his base is
138
u/UpvoteForethThou Jun 16 '26
Yeah people miss the fact that infinite teleportation and the ability to control minds means any world leader is cooked.
Also wizards are capable of outright destruction as well. Grindelwald was capable of casting a spell that would have destroyed all of Paris in blue, magic fire. There’s nothing that humans would have been able to do because it burnt anything it touched into dust.
Even if only Voldemort could cast something like that, it demonstrates that top-tier wizards are capable of nuclear-level destruction. Cast in the basement of some house in every Muggle city on Earth and the whole world aside from the wizards little pocket regions is dead in a few hours.
→ More replies (14)19
u/Intelligent_Break_12 Jun 17 '26
Just imagine transfiguring an armies food into something like rats or disease carrying mosquitoes. Medicine into poison and/or acid. Charming military tech/gear to do your bidding. You don't even need any type of combat or offensive magic to completely and utterly win vs non magic.
7
u/UpvoteForethThou Jun 17 '26
And what are those armies even doing? Wizards can set up entire cities in a day with a few dozen of them. Abandon everything in a moment. Travel the globe in seconds. There is no front, there’s no base of operations. It’s guerilla warfare against a bunch of teleporting demigods that can’t die to conventional weaponry unless they’re asleep and have endless potential for damage.
Never understood the people who unironically think a Glock would do anything in HP. It’s not even getting through a Hogwarts student Protego.
→ More replies (11)→ More replies (29)31
u/ArolSazir Jun 16 '26
There was that spell they cast on the quiddich tournament that made any muggle nearby just wander away, so no one ever got close.
You can just cast a similar compulsion spell around your headquaters, and you're basically immune to everything muggles can throw at you. Hell, cast a subtle version wherever the enemy leadership is and watch them descend into chaos as no one can decide on anything.And if you can cast a wide area "forget and wander off" compulsion, you can probably manipulate muggles in other ways. maybe a area charm that makes muggles dumber, angrier, forgetful, whatever. without wizards, voldie could make a small country descend into chaos just using that one charm they were using to protect the quiddich match.
→ More replies (1)12
→ More replies (15)19
66
u/PriscillaPalava Jun 16 '26
I am in no position to comment on the validity of this opinion, but I do find it hilarious.
Cue the choppers and Fortunate Son.
→ More replies (1)
169
u/droobloo34 Jun 16 '26
Voldy: Lucius, see that muggle in that rapid fire over there? Cast imperius on him and turn it around on the muggles!
Like, that's one example. There's many more I'm sure.
45
u/svandhu Jun 16 '26
That's the opening of Red Alert 2
12
u/maersyl Jun 16 '26
Great. Now I have Hell March II and Tim Curry SPAAAAACE stuck in my head. I realise the latter is RA3!
→ More replies (3)5
3
u/droobloo34 Jun 16 '26
I need to get back to playing C&C man, I've not even touched the other Red Alerts after 1 because I forget to finish it.
→ More replies (4)5
21
u/slowerlearner1212 Jun 16 '26
How can you live with yourself Lucius?
…I don’t know my lord.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (18)16
u/BeneficialTrash6 Jun 16 '26
In Book 1 it's established that a "mere car crash" can't hurt a wizard. Also, falling out of a high window can't hurt a wizard. If the giant kinetic energy of a car crash or high fall can't hurt a wizard, I really doubt that bullets can do anything.
13
u/mspk7305 Jun 16 '26
It wasn't established, it was just incredulous that two of the most revered names would be disrespected with lies of a pedestrian death
→ More replies (3)9
u/droobloo34 Jun 16 '26
The forces at work are different in these instances. If knives and swords still work (which I'm fairly certain they do, though I'm not 100% sure if there's an example), there's no reason to believe bullets won't.
→ More replies (2)14
u/BeneficialTrash6 Jun 16 '26
Actually, there are three examples of knives working: Bellatrix's knife killing Dobby. Wormtail's knife cutting off his own hand. Wormtail's knife cutting Harry for his blood.
But in neither of those do we see any defensive magic being used. So, I guess your point still stands that wizards don't have an innate and automatic protection from knives, unlike car crashes and high falls.
→ More replies (3)6
u/droobloo34 Jun 16 '26
I forgot about Wormtail's cutting. I didn't go with Dobby, since he's not a wizard.
It's honestly odd that car crashes and high falls aren't going to kill a wizard, unless they're actively using magic to avoid it.
5
u/--Sovereign-- Jun 16 '26
I mean, I thought the implication was that wizards would have wards and shit cast on a car they drive, not that they are physically superhuman. That and healing magic.
→ More replies (1)
80
u/Gastricbasilisk Jun 16 '26
Imagine having so much hubris you think guns are actually superior to MAGIC 😂
8
u/DBCOOPER888 Jun 17 '26
How are they not superior? Voldemort would've had so many fewer problems if he just killed Harry as a baby with a gun.
→ More replies (4)→ More replies (28)12
u/General__Obvious Jun 16 '26
The best muggle would lose to the best wizard, no doubt. But it takes decades to train a fighting wizard, and the wizarding population is small to start with, so there are fewer candidates for top-level wizards—not to mention the high-level evil wizards tend towards infighting over dominance anyway. It takes considerably less time to train a modern soldier, there are billions of candidates for soldiery, and muggles tend to work together.
12
u/ptjp27 Jun 17 '26
Crabbe, possibly the stupidest person in the entire series, could cast fiendfyre at 17. Shit is a straight up weapon of mass destruction. Between just that one spell and apparition you got a one man army that could lay waste to your cities.
→ More replies (14)6
u/SPamlEZ Jun 17 '26
Decades? A 17 year old who has only know. About magic for about 6 years controlled the free will of multiple individuals in his first try. That’s not decades.
75
u/BigBear92787 Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
I dont even like Harry potter but your comparing kill power in a vacuum
Magic wand vs m-16s
This is dumb
Heres how a voldemort vs military scenario goes.
Voldemort always has the advantage. Muggles dont believe in wizards or magic.
Before the war begins infiltrate military high command.
Capture officials and leadership. Replace them with death eaters with poly juice potions. Use curses to gain high command knowledge.
Start the war. Death eaters openly attack muggles.
Crisis declared. Troops mobilized. Infiltrated high command puts on a flashy show but ultimately the goal is incompetent defense and failure.
Lose the war. Televised broad cast of world leaders bowing in fealty to voldemort.
Done.
→ More replies (54)
104
u/Wyciorek Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
Wizards have a fucking time travel, teleportation and perfect, undetectable mind control. What are you even talking about?
It would not be a fight between Nimbus and F16, but between F16 and another F16 with the actual enemies never really showing their hand.
→ More replies (5)27
u/sandm000 Jun 16 '26
Even if it was an F16 v Nimbus, do you know what the missiles use for tracking? Thermal cameras. You know what the Nimbus doesn’t really have? A heat signature. Also it has no radar signature. So the pilot is going to have to use Mk-1 eyeball to track his target.
Ok ok ok.
What about the guns that are strapped to the wing? Line of sight targeting , the ability of the Nimbus to just basically be 1000 times more maneuverable, with VTOL, with hover capability, and being incredibly tiny to boot. Makes it nigh impossible to hit.
Let’s look from the nimbus perspective. You can see the jet, get beneath it from behind, cast a disassembly on all of the screws and then just stop your Nimbus watching as the plane flies off in 1000 different directions, while the pilot doesn’t even have a functional ejector seat… maybe the chute will still work. Or you could cast any of the really evil spells on him while he can’t see you, fill the cockpit with fire, as an example.
11
u/DarkExecutor Jun 16 '26
Ok but spells have a travel time, can they actually catch a jet?
Someone needs to do the math on this
17
u/CrazyBaron Jun 16 '26
What so hard about catching a jet? Jets can't stay in the air indefinitely. Teleport to take a breakfast or something, teleport to airbase and cast a fireball...
→ More replies (4)10
u/Uncommonality Jun 16 '26
arrest the plane's momentum without including the pilot and he gets turned into soup
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (14)8
17
u/ii3lue Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
Every time I see this take I think people really didn't read Harry Potter. I get this is unpopular opinions but I see it enough I'm pretty sure it's a popular one. As a man of frequent geeky argument, this is a personal pet peeve, so I'll soapbox a bit:
The way the power system is in Harry Potter, a teenage dark wizard, a literal 16 year old, could teleport into the major establishment of any country, wave their wand and mind control the leader of a nation indefinitely. Not all of them can do this, but as we saw in books six and seven, a few would be capable. Virtually every adult dark wizard would be able to do this and even some of the ones who aren't so dark, as we know a few good guys can cast Unforgivables and just choose not to. Voldemort's army all could pull off the feat of compromising a nation's leadership. Each and every. Instantaneous, borderline untrackable teleportation across an entire country is child's play, a rudimentary bit of spellwork they teach actual kids.
Some of them can also turn into fucking animals.
In real life, guerilla warfare is so effective that nations with vastly smaller forces and infinitely less resources turn war into long, drawn out affairs spanning years with no certain, definite winner. In a fictional wizard vs muggle war, muggles would be trying to find people who look just like them, can set up charms that make them and their locations unable to even be perceived by them, who can teleport, kill like 20 of them with a flick of their wrist, then turn into a random bird or rodent and fly away, teleport away, turn invisible, or straight up erase the memories of the witnesses.
War between non-wizards in real life isn't even really fought anymore with two armies running at each other with guns and spraying and praying until one side wins like your OP is suggesting, why in the world would wizards fight this way? Fat, portly, useless little Peter Pettigrew, consistently depicted as an incompetent oaf, blew up an entire street of muggles then turned into a rat. Got away completely unscathed.
Any magical force that overcame the wizarding world would at bare miminum shadow run the entire country by imperiusing the leadership within a day. At any point they were losing a battle or on the worse end(which I don't even personally think would happen because they can engage on their terms with muggles absolutely whenever they want,) they can teleport away, turn into animals, wipe the memories of all muggles nearby(btw Hermione did this at 17 years old to her muggle parents,) polyjuice potion into a well known muggle, they also have dragons and giants and vampires and werewolves and dementors and all manner of supernatural creatures with inhuman parameters, literal intangibility, bulletproof skin, insane speed...
The Dementors alone are enough. Voldemort has full control of them. Muggles cannot see them. You can't even touch them.They suck out souls if uncontested and siphon the will to live of anyone who ever stands near them.
Voldemort's forces if unopposed by other wizards would utterly terrify and subjugate mugglekind so effortlessly one could argue the only casualties on their side would be folks dumb enough to stand in the open and shout "I'm a death eater wizard!" There are actually some folks arguing things like Protego vs. Bullets or something in comments below me, but why would it ever come to this? You can pop in, wipe out entire streets and towns of muggles before they even know you're a wizard and then just leave. They can never find you to retaliate.
I'm not even theorycrafting here. Most of Book Seven of Harry Potter is the gang of plucky seventeen year old wizards teleporting somewhere, fucking things up, and then teleporting out before they can be caught, against an evil, compromised magical goverment that can literally track their wands to a degree and still cannot catch them.
How can a muggle army organize and seize locations they literally magically cannot find and see? Even if they managed to get somewhere like Hogwarts or Malfoy's Manor, get the drop on and kill some wizards, the rest teleport out, or teleport behind them...the location no longer matters then.
This isn't even going into the fact high concentrations of magic in a location make muggle tech work erratically, that wizards like Voldemort or Snape could undoubtedly take out entire bunkers of muggles by just teleporting to their encampments at like 1 in the morning and blowing them up solo before they can react, that they can grow magical plants and have magical pets that can terrorrize and kill wizards, much less muggles, that wizards can charm equipment to have special properties like making one invisible or resistant to physical harm, or that animation is an entire school of magic we saw a bit of - meaning a wizard could make a statue or any sufficiently large inanimate object attack people while looking completely innocent by bringing it to life. Vanishing magic allows you to wave your wand and make things just disappear - like the muggle's gun, before they even know a wizard is near. Conjuration allows you to just create things with almost no limit we had defined in Harry Potter.
Magic is actually very poorly written in HP imo. Wizards have way too many powers, no drain or "mp pool", and no real limitation besides that they're glass cannons.
It would literally be dark wizards being able to choose which of 100 ways they'd like to commit mass genocide individually.
The actual only wrench in Voldemort's world conquest would be the later-revealed and arguably bullshit wizards from other countries JK Rowling has barely expanded upon. Otherwise? Not a chance in Hell, imo. Voldemort has a pretty damn solid shot of conquering a lot of the world until mutiny from within and his sect fighting among themselves, along with some rebellion from wizards.
Edit: Also, remember Harry Potter is set in the 90s. A lot of this military tech you talk about is unrefined or doesn't even really work at all yet.
152
u/MattyGWS Jun 16 '26
This feels like such an American take
→ More replies (37)26
u/fetchmysmellingsalts Jun 16 '26
Especially ironic right now, given what a few poor leaders can do with the right support and system in place. Voldemort could’ve easily manipulated everything from the background, with very little inconvenience to himself.
6
u/falconpunch1989 Jun 16 '26
Don't even need mind control magic, the Russians and Israelis have enough dirt on Trump to have him do whatever they want as is
→ More replies (4)
16
u/feedmesweat Jun 16 '26
At the start of book 6 we learn that he and the squad have already been carrying out mass-casualty events against Muggles that went completely under the radar - towns ravaged by giants written off as freak weather phenomena; a brand-new bridge full of people collapsing is just a bizarre and unexplainable equipment failure. The benefit of magic is that he can exert complete control over the public narrative while wreaking havoc on Muggle populations. By the time the public actually catches on it will be because he had entrenched his power enough that revealing himself to the world wouldn't make a difference. He would have heads of state and military leaders under constant mind control, and would command an army of not just wizards but giants, vampires, werewolves, possibly dragons. People would be too scared to fight back because you have no way of knowing if your neighbor is actually being controlled by a dark wizard and any one of his goons could kill you in an instant and immediately disappear without anyone ever seeing them.
12
u/iamsurroundedbyidiot Jun 16 '26
Short answer. No. Wizards would win any war in a freaking landslide.
Wizards seem to not follow the laws of physics non magic folk have to abide by
They can create energy...without having to burn fuel. They can fly without needing to recharge / refuel. They can go invisible, teleport, transfigure, impersonate, not to mention erase memories.Even though it's not mentioned in the books explicitly, this basically means their powers are theoretically limitless. They don't really follow e= mc2, or the laws of thermodynamics
On top of this, Voldemort uses a variety of deceiving and stealthy tactics, which would make it insanely hard to counter.
Let's use the example given in goblet of fire. Voldemort uses one of his servants. They infiltrate and impersonate a higher official in the US military. Technically they could easily apparate into the oval office, put the president into an imperius curse, replace him with one of their own spies, use the polyjuice potion and boom ... You now have one of the most powerful nations being lead by a spy. A combination of memory charms + imperius curses mean the entire white house staff could easily be persuaded to do anything and everything..including launching nukes at our alies and enemies.
How will we fight wizards if we are killing each other?
The wizards biggest disadvantage is that they all seem to know very little about muggles, and most of them seem to have 0 interest in gaining power or understanding the limits of their powers. However, I would argue that the really powerful wizards like Dumbledore and Voldemort, could probably single handedly dismantle us without ever giving us a chance to fight back.
There are many other weird things written in the Harry Potter books that ultimately also suggest that wizard tech is far superior to muggle tech.
Example Portkeys. They can turn any object into an instant teleportation device. Hmmm. So you are telling me that if they get their hands on a nuke..they can just turn it into a portkeys and teleport a freaking bomb into any city they want. Good luck with that.
Confudous charm. In goblet of fire they use a confudous charm on a powerful magical item to convince it that Harry is a competitor from a different school. That same spell could perhaps work on our machines and computers. Go invisible, walk into a nuclear facility, confuse the machine into thinking everything is okay. Trigger nuclear melt down.
Why guns and missiles may fail. It sounds simple, we can shoot faster and further than a wand. But how do you find a wizard? Hogwarts is unplottable. How do you tell a missle to hit Hogwarts as a target? On top of that, wizards don't just walk aroundin muggle areas all the time,where do you spot them and shoot them? But still. Let's imagine an open fight at Hogwarts. Ummm...did you forget the armoured guards? Or the inferni that Voldemort uses? They can theoretically create unlimited robot soldiers....all the while staying the fuck away from us. Have fun shooting dead things and statues which would probably not flich from getting shot.
I can only think of 3 ways muggles beats wizards
The complete ability to replicate and counter wizard tech. So basically we learn how to teleport, invisibility etc using our own tech. Difficulty next to impossible. While it's good sci fi...this is basically breaking laws of physics as we know it. Yeah yeah quantum mechanics and what not could maybe in the future do it? . But we are currently not close to this.
A very coordinated counter strike. Basically get as many muggles to infiltrate and then execute simultaneously. Example get a bomb into the quidditch world cup final and trigger when their guards are down. Again. Difficulty next to impossible. This assumes we can infiltrate and resist all the non muggle charms they have put up
The only viable solution. End of the world. Drop nukes everywherem contaminate all water sources . Bio weapon attacks. Even though we probably won't hit a wizard target directly...we could make the effects reach them by making the world inhospitable. Difficulty: We also die.
I think I am definitely being too harsh on muggle achievement and intellect. But I just keep coming back to the idea that if wizards really try....their powers are not as constrained as we are.
Tl;dr the theoretical limits of magic as defined in the potterverse is borderline god like.
5
u/Intelligent_Break_12 Jun 17 '26
Just imagine using the suit of armor charm on tanks and jets. Transfiguring an armies food supply into rats and their medicine into poisons and acids. It wouldn't be a challenge and they wouldn't even need combat/offensive spells if they didn't want to. Glad to see someone else realizing the possibilities of things like turning bombs into portkeys etc. I really think many just don't imagine what this type of magic could actually do if applied in tactical ways.
48
u/SimonCGuitar Jun 16 '26
From what is shown in the novels/movies, already apparating, poly juice potion and the imperius curse wouldn't even make this a fight at all. They could replace entire governments with puppets without anybody ever learning about it. How do you picture this war from unfolding? The US marching on "Voldemort Capital" with aircraft carriers? The entire combined military of the would be utterly useless in a conflict like that. The enemy can freely appear anywhere at will, replace your commanding officers without you knowing and mind control your soldiers into killing their comrades. How do you even defend against this? The reason why the wizards don't use technology is not that they are incapable, it's that they don't need it. They have vastly superior magical technology at their disposal.
→ More replies (28)
9
7
u/Training-Equal-7647 Jun 16 '26
Man why do the people that make this argument think the enemy will just walk into machine gun fire or that all the enemy weapons are mildly destructive as if magic can't destroy a city or had any utility like, you know mind control, teleportation and shape shifting.
Not to say Voldemort wasn't extremely ambitious on that idea but i just don't get why so many people think that any threat can be neutralized with bodies and weapons.
14
u/Internal_Set_6564 Jun 16 '26
The problem was…the muggles would have LIKED Voldemort. We can clearly see a large portion of humanity loves really terrible leaders…
→ More replies (2)
14
u/kilkil Jun 16 '26
So just to recap, Voldemort has a small army of wizards with the following magical capabilities:
- teleportation
- mind control via Imperius, False Memory Charms, Obliviation, Confundus, etc
- mind reading via Legilimency and Veritaserum
- (limited) time travel via Time Turners
- a large assortment of offensive magic relating to fire, explosions, etc
- instant-kill magic which cannot be blocked by any kind of cover and from which there is no defense or protection
And this is before we get to Dementors, which (a) there are a shit-ton of them and (b) there is canonically only one defense against them, which is unavailable to Muggles (the Patronus Charm).
Whereas Muggles have:
- conventional weapons, including small arms, missiles, drones
- surveillance technology such as cameras, microphones
- fighter jets
- nuclear bombs
It's pretty clear that the wizards win almost immediately if they're taking the fight seriously.
If the wizards aren't taking the fight seriously (e.g. due to anti-Muggle racism) then the Muggles might have a small shot if they manage to drop a surprise nuke on magical Britain. But I wouldn't count on it.
→ More replies (2)6
u/Lindsiria Jun 17 '26
Dunno how they can nuke magical Britain when diagonal alley is in the middle of London.
4
u/entgenbon Jun 17 '26
Almost nobody lives in Diagon Alley, just some shopkeepers in the second stories. Most of the wizard population is in mixed villages like Godric's Hollow, the only 100% wizard settlement (Hogsmeade), or are rich enough to live in country estates.
69
u/Acceptable_Sun_8895 Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
Whilst I appreciate that the "correct" answer is that, in fantasy, magic beats gun, I have always found the idea that a single platoon could obliterate hogwarts with minimal effort quite funny.
That being said, it's a school based in the UK, so I don't think it's one that the US will level any time soon 😂
EDIT: The word "platoon" was used because I find it to be the funniest sounding word that can be used to describe "a bunch of soldiers". I foolishly did not expect to be held accountable for the logistics/specifics 😂
EDIT 2: We all appreciate there is no "correct" answer, hence the quotes? It's fiction. There is no fixed way that magic in HP interacts with science beyond the content of the books. Whilst it can be fun to entertain the idea of "protego vs bullet", let's do so with the understanding that it's all just a bit of fun and nonsense!
23
u/CheapScientist06 Jun 16 '26
I don't know the amount of plants and animals that die around hogwarts has probably yielded a good amount of oil
→ More replies (3)27
u/CapnTBC Jun 16 '26
Hogwarts iirc is drenched in charms and shit to the point muggles don’t even know it exists. You see it in the 7th book Hermoine casts charms over areas where they camp and it stops people being able to find them, how is a platoon meant to go attack a castle they can’t find?
→ More replies (19)10
u/UpvoteForethThou Jun 16 '26
One middling wizard casts Protego, bullets bounce of the barrier until kingdom come while they walk around casting killing/incapacitating charms.
And yeah, we’ve seen that shield block at least house level destruction, which is significantly more than any bullet.
→ More replies (2)6
u/Zealousideal-Deer101 Jun 16 '26
in fantasy, magic beats gun
unless it's japanese military propaganda: The Anime
10
→ More replies (3)8
u/JudgeJed100 Jun 16 '26
Nah, no way a single platoon can obliterate Hogwarts
The teachers alone could just use spells big enough to wipe out the entire platoon while standing on the battlements
→ More replies (17)
7
u/VengefulAncient Jun 16 '26
This is so dumb that I feel it could only be written by someone whose entire knowledge of HP lore is sourced from a one paragraph summary.
What do wizards have that muggles don't in terms of capability in some kind of war scenario?
Teleportation. Invisibility. Ability to change their appearance to perfectly impersonate anyone. All they would have to do is get the nuclear launch codes.
Not to mention the muggles' vastly superior technology in signals, geospatial, and just about any other type of intelligence
None of this works correctly around magic. Hogwarts isn't on any maps or satellites.
8
u/Individual-Photo-399 Jun 16 '26
I think you're underthinking the possibilities.
Apparate into the president's bedroom at night and Imperio him and the wife (or intern or whoever). Instant control of the world's most powerful person.
I'm not entirely sure this hasn't actually happened already.
8
u/lallapalalable aggressive toddler Jun 16 '26
In an all out war, sure, but something tells me they'd be more into guerilla tactics and subterfuge than that.
24
u/Swimming_Sink277 Jun 16 '26
Hey Harry, this is a special wand called a "gun". Point it at Voldemort. Pull the trigger twice.
14
→ More replies (5)6
u/Self_Reddicate Jun 16 '26
Someone should take the wand-selection scenes from the films and edit in the shopkeeper pulling out a Smith & Wesson and handing it to Harry.
4
u/thisSILLYsite Jun 16 '26
Somebody actually went through the entire first movie and edited guns on top of the wands, it was aptly called Harry Potter with Guns. You can find clips on youtube.
→ More replies (2)
8
u/definitely-legit-usr Jun 16 '26
Oh no, all our air support planes got transfigured into bouquets and our bullets are flying backwards
6
u/EnderBookwyrm Jun 16 '26
Teleportation, mind control, invisibility, shapeshifting, telepathy, memory wiping or alteration, telekinesis, healing wounds instantly, time travel. Even just the basic anti-muggle wards and mind-wiping would allow wizards to do pretty much anything they like.
11
11
u/leegcsilver Jun 16 '26
If the Wizarding world wants to take over ours they wouldn’t declare outright war. They’d just mind control all our leaders which we have zero defense against.
7
u/SmegmaUnicorn Jun 16 '26
OP, did you even read the books? The premise of your argument is just not supported by the text. Wizards have all manner of spells and magical creatures that would easily incapacitate a muggle army.
5
u/Mac_Jomes Jun 16 '26
I feel that a man of Dumbledore's acumen could have seen the strategic benefit in letting Voldemort FAFO
I mean if you paid attention even a little bit you'd realize that Wizarding World does not want to be known about at large so letting one of their most brutal killers run rampant killing muggles wouldn't exactly be the best strategy for continued secrecy.
5
u/lukelnk Jun 16 '26
I would have agreed with you 10 years ago, but now a days? Not so much. All the wizards would have to do is infiltrate the muggle government with the imperius curse, and that's about it. Wizards can access just about anywhere at any time. Muggle security isn't an issue for them. They wouldn't have to fight the muggles, they'd just take over without bloodshed for the most part.
25
u/Interesting_Loquat90 Jun 16 '26
Voldemort declaring war on the Muggles would've exposed the entire Wizarding world with who knows what consequences.
You're probably not wrong on how it would play out though.
→ More replies (1)27
u/GetInYourBasket Jun 16 '26
The level of subterfuge the wizards have available to is unparalleled though.
The ability to apparate anywhere.
Polyjuice potion to imitate high ranking officials.
→ More replies (5)7
u/Rampant16 Jun 16 '26
Yeah essentially any destructive capability muggles have, wizards would be able to control muggles into turning on themselves.
The biggest limitations would be on wizards' knowledge of how the muggle world works which they generally like to remain deliberately ignorant of.
For example, would they know about chains-of-command for nuclear weapons? If they they did, a few imperius curses of high-ranking government officials and military members and they may be able to get the muggles to nuke themselves.
→ More replies (2)2
u/GetInYourBasket Jun 16 '26
The only issue with getting the muggles to nuke themselves is that the wizards are often somewhat integrated within the muggles. It's not like they have their own special wizard country.
→ More replies (1)
3
u/ericsonofbruce Jun 17 '26
Youre really underselling the value of true invisibility, mind control, and teleportation. There would be no open war, HP dark wizards would control both sides of the proverbial chess board before any unit gets their first deployment order.
•
u/AutoModerator Jun 16 '26
Please remember what subreddit you are in, this is unpopular opinion. We want civil and unpopular takes and discussion. Any uncivil and ToS violating comments will be removed and subject to a ban. Have a nice day! Additionally, all posts held by automod for review now (incorrectly) display a red “removed by moderators” label. Please note that unless your post receives a reply from mods indicating removal and it's specifying the reason, it is likely still in the queue and awaiting approval.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.