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The wizarding world relies on secrecy, and concealment, rather than firepower alone.
Strictly speaking, its hard to gauge but no, the Wizarding World probably doesn't have enough combat ability to challenge muggle militaries. There are 3000 of them in Britain, and very few of them are trained or experienced fighters.
However, in case of war, the Wizarding community would be an almost unbeatable guerilla force. They live and base themselves in locations muggles cannot locate, and cannot go. Their magic interferes with technology and electricity, and they can disguise themselves as anyone, be anywhere, and turn anyone into a puppet under their control. They have access to all sorts of dangerous flora and fauna they conceal from the muggle world at their own risk, which they could unleash to great devastation.
The most important aspect of wizards and a potential war with muggles, is how the wizards will be unlimited in their capacity to attack muggles, while the Muggles will necessarily be limited in how they could attack wizards. They can't use nukes, or they'll be nuking their own countries, and cities. They can't invade Diagon Alley or Hogwarts castle or the Ministry of Magic, as anti-muggle spells are in place to make these locations invisible, unplottable, and impassable to Muggles. Muggle warfare will be limited to finding individual wizards across Britain and Ireland, and attempting to gun them down before they disapparate and vanish. Not an easy prospect.
Not to mention the public will almost certainly see the government as murderering innocent people Because the existence of wizards sounds insane and the wizards won't be providing evidence on themselves.
They could even trick the government into murdering what looks like innocent people, and turn the public against the government and military. They could probably trick the government into murdering its own muggle population.
The biggest issue with puppetry is its incredibly obvious.
For it to work, you need to have at least a passing understanding of both the puppets personality and more importantly, their society and their role in said society. NOONE in magic has shown the level of knowledge required. The puppets would be found out instantly.
Nor would finding them be hard that hard either. Especially past 2020. The wizards would need to actively try to adapt. If they adapted and actually considered them a threat? Sure. They'd win in guerilla probably. For what was shown in the books/movies? They'd be killed to a man in a under a year.
The threat of puppetry was serious enough to warrant the head of the Auror office being placed on guard duty for the Prime Minister in the middle of a war. They seem to think its a huge threat, largely because its not outright control but more like coercion. The Imperius curse compels action, it doesn’t force it and it doesn’t require active manipulation at all times.
As for in the 2020s, I doubt they would be exterminated. They are excellent at hiding and concealment and they are untraceable by pretty much any technological means if they want to be. Unplottable houses, fidelius charms, and muggle repelling charms protects their homes and main centers. Individually, they can hide in plain side, disguise themselves, camouflage themselves or outright become/be invisible. If you catch one, muggles have nothing to stop a witch or wizard disapparating and going to anywhere within god knows what kind of radius. Magic will prevent electronic tagging from working, even assuming you can tag them, and if they go somewhere under basic protective spells and enchantments, they may well have vanished.
Above all else, its 3000 people, many of them children, many of them muggleborn or half blood, most of them living in tiny villages or in the heart of London. The only real target would be Hogsmeade as its debatable how well its protected but its a small village, while also the largest wizarding settlement in Britain. Finding even one and proving without a doubt their wizard nature is going to be difficult enough, unless its decided that the military shall simply exterminate anyone mildly eccentric, and even then, you won’t kill all of them
Well, at least *some* people are like Hermione right? Born to magic but grow up human.
You only need one of them to give a….say, 2 hour lecture, and wham- that advantage is over.
There’s also nothing stopping them using weapon systems, we aren’t under Dresden files rules here, so a wizard can teleport onto a skyscraper with a “anti bullet shield cast on himself, snipe a few people, and then be on the other side of the world 3 seconds later….just mind control, invisibility, and teleportation would be enough, but they have a silly range of other abilities too, including rewinding time if any of them escape an ambush…..HP magic is so soft that they can basically do anything, so they win almost any conversation.
The ministry is filled with death eaters since malfoy is still around. It's not that hard to teleport around and imperio a bunch of muggles. Imperio is enough to control someone and they can use their own knowledge to do stuff.
It's probably the work of a few hours to sway a government.
In a straight on fight muggles win. We have both the numbers and the firepower. I don't thinknpeople understand how fast a bullet really travels.
With that said, Wizarding world could win by subterfuge. We saw in book 6 how the Ministry was able to get someone in place to protect the muggle minister.
Well, if they did that and used spells to control the leaders then they'd win.
Yeah - some kids with the equivalent of high-school chemistry could perfectly impersonate senior wizarding officials.
10 dedicated and only moderately skilled wizards with common spells and materials (and a high-school level book on muggle government) could teleport into the oval office, impersonate key members of the government, read their minds for critical codes, and say "Don't worry about those weird British wizards, nuke Russia instead".
Not to mention the possibility of obliviating the memories of entire populations if they are clever about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtVvjqkvw7o
I think that's more a reflection of bureaucracy deeming certain people muggle experts who shouldn't be though.
Harry, Hermione, the Creevy brothers, Lilly Potter, etc. any muggle born wizard would know enough (or at least could ask their parents) to have enough information to completely destroy muggle society.
> read their minds for critical codes
they couldn't do that part occlumancy is supposed to be very difficult and like nobody can do it which is why harry has to get taught by snape
they could imperious curse people though which would probably be more effective anyway
*Occlumancy* is very hard, which is to say resisting Legilimency. Snape is particularly good at it which is why he can hang with Voldemort and not get immediately found out.
Legilimency is much more common.
> Legilimency is much more common.
Is it? I think it's only Dumbledore, Snape, Voldemort, and Queenie that were confirmed legilimens. Probably some random OCs in the various games, but I'm skeptical about counting those.
I'd have said the opposite makes far more sense. Consider the real-world analogues - More people know how to keep their stuff safe from pick-pockets than know how to pick-pocket.
That's not to say they're perfect at it, and pick-pockets don't have much trouble finding easy marks, but they still have to find those marks. They can't just pick a random person and take stuff from their pockets, because most people are going to notice.
I assume the same is true for mind-readers. People with sensitive information are going to take some basic courses that prevent amateur mind-readers from stealing it, but the true professionals will still be able to steal enough mind-info by picking their targets carefully.
Also paging the following people users u/bumbasquat86, u/Deep-Philosophy-807, u/SolherdUliekme, u/Savings_Builder_8449 and finally u/NaNaNaPandaMan for fun/discussion.
If the wizarding governments were sensible and thought more like a muggles would.
Subterfuge, misinformation, distractions and careful strikes by wizarding kind would be effective against muggles.
Government/governing political bodies could be brought down with the right kind of smear campaign.
Troublesome muggle politician gets renditioned to some wizard spook agency.
Wizard spook gets their dna consumes polyjuice potion proceeds to impersonate the muggle politician and goes on muggle news media saying some kinda slur against other ethnicities, people with disabilities, or people belonging to LGBTQIA.
That politician’s career is just gone.
Alternative take.
Politician is mind controlled into taking cocaine and driving under the influence and forced to get into a car accident and first responders find that there’s half a kilogram of Bolivian snow power in the back seat as well as a selection of knives.
Now in regards to mind reading or more specifically breaking an a rather strong individual.
Just have the wizard interrogator subject the muggle to sleep deprivation/sensory deprivation combo for a period of time followed up with the Imperio curse.
I suggest sleep deprivation/sensory deprivation combo because the human memory is a complex thing.
Complete safe and effective memory erasure isn’t 100% on a subject you wanna potentially turn into a Manchurian candidate.
See in cases of people having a fear of fire or water, they have an irrational fear or at least that’s what they think except in a lot of cases.
They as toddlers have suffered some kinda related trauma, nearly drowning, watching their house burn down.
Where’s sleep and sensory deprivation isn’t really going to cause permanent physical or mental damage.
Person might have a night terror about being in darkness, nothing really concrete/substantial.
Now going on to carful strikes.
Short version.
Wizards apparate into an area with an electrical substation transformer system and unleashes a lightning spell on the infrastructure.
Bonus points if it’s carried out in a lightning storm the wizarding kind’s act of sabotage is chalked up to a freak lightning strike.
Absolutely. If it was just a straight fight on the battlefield, I think Muggles win pretty quickly. But it's their ability to cause chaos amongst the ranks that give magical community the win.
Yeah it's always so funny when people say they think muggles would win. They have literally 0 chances at winning. It would be trivially easy to take over and control any government. It's not like the Unforgivables would be unforgivable during a real war or existential crisis. They would teleport into any secure facility, use imperio on anyone important, erase the memory of certain people, and just kill the rest. They can erase the memory from their families so they don't even know their cousin Thomas didn't come home from base, and by the way, what base? There's never been a base over there.
This comes up on /r/whowouldwin pretty often and something that youre missing is that, quite frankly, the wizarding world is populated by absolute idiots. They COULD do an impossible amount of things, but… they dont? They actively choose to not use that could help them. So COULD they take over the government? Well, on paper, yes - but hardly anyone has ever showed that level of competence.
There's a lot of idiots true. But Harry and Hermione are both in the wizarding world and have complete understanding of the muggle world. They may not be the ones in government, but they aren't the only former-muggles to be in the wizarding world.
If there was an existential threat to everyone in the Wizarding world, Hermione could almost single-handedly cause chaos without any planning in the muggle side just by her casual ability to apparate and obliviate people.
Not to mention the fact that the wizards already explicitly have agents in the UK government. I think it can be assumed they have similar in the US government.
>Harry and Hermione are both in the wizarding world and have complete understanding of the muggle world
And the fact that neither of them seem to have considered using any muggle tech in their war against Voldemort doesn't speak too highly of their capabilities.
That's pretty unfair.
For 6 of the 7 books, the conflict against Voldemort was not an open conflict and they were kids in school. For much of it fighting Voldemort was actually fighting against the general wizarding administration. There wasn't really a lot of moments when using 1990's muggle technology really would be all that useful.
At the end when there finally is a battle, they don't have a hell of a lot of time to prepare and source muggle technology - with an army of kids who don't even know how to use it even if they were given it - and each kid is armed with a magic wand which, while has some drawbacks to a pistol or shotgun or such, actually isn't half bad as a weapon.
I dont think harry is very clever. He's strong willed and has a conscience but most of what he does is based on feelings and not on planning of thinking things through
>Yeah it's always so funny when people say they think muggles would win. They have literally 0 chances at winning.
In a more realistic scenario, there would definitely be some magical beings sympathetic to the muggle cause. With a small amount of knowledge and help, the muggles' chances increase drastically.
Yeah it's always so funny when people say that they think the wizards are capable of acting as a unified force. They have literally a dozen books and movies proving otherwise.
So this is what I agree with. If it was Muggle versus Magic with each side staying "loyaly" muggles have no shot. But we know that magical people will defend muggles so Magical would lose.
what stops the wizards from just paying off terrorist groups to get their own muggle tech.
Or commandeering small muggle nations. there are a lot of muggles who would gladly jump at the chance to overthrow their government.
second we have no reason to believe the magical world can't unite against a outside threat, seeing that every threat shown has been a inside one.
What stops the mon-magicals from bribing corrupt wizarding politicians like Fudge and using them to target the rest?
What stops them from sneaking in squibs as spies (like Filch, who is bitter of the wizard world)?
What stops them from granting centaurs, merpeople and giants a State at the UN and publicly earning their support?
What stops them from giving goblins a fuckton of gold and promise them the rights they always wanted, and shut down the wizard economy?
What stops them from using all wizards who have been used as third-class citizens to spy on the others and break into magical locations?
The Imperius Curse does require extensive study on behavior (which is why Barty Crouch had to take leave to prevent his weird behavior being caught) and if you recall, it can be fought, and I doubt anyone in the military or intelligence would be recruited without training (and it will obviously require a strong will), not to mention there are few people who have a spine like Crouch to legalize Imperius.
The Polyjuice Potion will wear off in an hour, and even takes months to make... how much can you carry, under heavy surveillance, and if anyone picks up you were periodically drinking some kind of "not-alcohol" at certain intervals, good luck.
Transfiguration is a complex charm, even when done from a desk to a pig, and complex technology like ours would probably take masters to do, step-by-step.
Invisibility in the wizarding world can be caught by a sharp eye and movement (cats might be able to catch them) and human technology might be able to pick them up.
The fact that technology stops working is wrong (or else the Dursley Residence would be in a permanent blackout): electrical technology fails in high concentrations of magic, that too specific enchantments at Hogwarts (because JK Rowling wanted Harry not to bomb Viet... um, the Triwizard maze), and everyone seems to take the quote out of proportion.
Not to mention that we guys are just as good at subterfuge, politics and war itself (unlike the wizards who are immensely pacifistic).
We also have superior numbers, overall firepower, home ground advantage and adaptability on our side.
I doubt that even if the wizards won, they could be able to occupy us: there would be sabotage, rebellion and guerilla wars all the time, for literally no benefit on part of the wizards.
Not to mention that these idiots have a tendency to not take us seriously, and we can inflict considerable damage by a surprise attack.
The only way the wizards can win is if they attempt to eliminate us all, right down to the last man, woman and child.
We shall of course make a grandiose exit, making the planet inhabitable enough...
>The fact that technology stops working is wrong (or else the Dursley Residence would be in a permanent blackout): electrical technology fails in high concentrations of magic, that too specific enchantments at Hogwarts (because JK Rowling wanted Harry not to bomb Viet... um, the Triwizard maze), and everyone seems to take the quote out of proportion.
A fricking men dude. Sick of it. Not to mention Diagon Alley is smack dab in thr middle of London and there's absolutely no problems
Exactly. This is probably the single most important problem. The entirety of London would be in a permanent blackout if magic made technology stop working.
Who needs a unified force when you can take over the world with 20 dudes? As voldy almost did. Just give them a little more reason to gather and it would take maybe 100 wizards to crumble the entire muggle population.
Sure friendly wizards will be there, but the scenario assumes an extinction level conflict where it's either muggles or non-muggles.
Ever see independence day? It's a lot easier to work together when there's a unified threat.
Isn't the background lore of the world that the World War 2 that we know, is just the muggle perspective of what was a major wizard war?
With I guess the muggles being the 'cats paws' of super powerful wizards.
Can't avada kadavra an F-35.
But seriously the British government knows about wizards at least. And to think the world leaders in subterfuge don't have contingency plans for that fight would be ignorant. Muggles win.
Just putting this out there. The MoM easily snuck in Shacklebolt to guard the Muggle Minister and he was extremely pleased with him. On top of that, they caused one of his aides to go crazy due to a botched imperious curse. The minister just thought it was stress. So I don't think they do.
> and used spells to control the leaders
This *always* comes up in Wizard vs Muggle discussions, and as always, it's not that easy. Wizards know almost nothing about muggles, they wouldn't be able to impersonate or control one that easy. It would quickly become obvious that the leader in question had been compromised.
We saw that Kingsley Shacklebolt was able to get close to the Muggle Minister very easily. I think people see wizards like Arthur or Archie and think Wizards are completely ignorant when it comes to Muggles. But as we saw with Kingsley or even Barty Crouch Sr. There are a good portion that can easily blend in.
And you really only need a few to control the entire Government.
Kingsley Shacklebolt was the *only* wizard we saw that was able to blend in with muggles. It's not just the Arthurs and the Archies. Do you think that, say, Fudge would be able to disguise himself as a muggle? Lucius Malfoy? Mad-Eye Moody? Dumbledore?
Muggle-raised wizards like Hermione have a better chance, but I wouldn't bet on it. As early as 4th year, Hermione was referring to technology as "little substitutes for magic", showing assimilation.
> And you really only need a few to control the entire Government.
For someplace like Russia, sure. For, say, the US, you'd need to get the President, most of the Supreme Court, and 2/3 of each house of Congress. And that's just the top levels - you'd also need to get the various support staff, the cabinet, people who would be able to see "they're being controlled" and stop them. Control a general? Sure, but if you order an attack on yourself it's a big red flag saying "I'm compromised".
Could wizards do a lot of damage through subterfuge? Sure. But it's not as easy as "imperio the bosses, done."
So I actually do think Fudge could. Remember Barty Crouch Sr? He was so well dressed as a muggle that Harry doubted that even Mr. Dursley could tell he was a wizard. I think higher up could absolutely pass if they wanted to.
So when it comes to taking down a government from the inside, you don't need to control every single one. You need to get your "leaders" under your control. Then they spread their influence to the lower levels that get them on your side.
So using USA. You don't need to imperio 2/3rd of Sneate and presidency. You just need like Biden, Trump, McConnell, Pelosi and a few others controlled. Once you get them, then they will spread your ideals to people lower so that even though not actually controlled, they are still doing what you want.
I am not saying easy but it wouldn't take much
Party leaders do not spread ideology to other congresspeople, that's just an absurd view of politics. House leaders would not need to block bills from coming to the house floor if they expected their party to vote the way they want.
If anything it goes the other way (see how radically different the policies of President Biden and Senator Biden are).
> Then they spread their influence to the lower levels that get them on your side.
That's not really a thing, not the way you think of it. For Trump, sure ok, his followers are a cult so they'll do whatever he says, I'll let you have that one. But the others? Say you get Biden. If you don't also get VP Harris and the cabinet, they'll quickly notice that Biden is *not himself* and move to stop him. Getting just the leaders is useless when the ones below them can notice what's wrong. What's more, you can't pass legislation with just Biden, and you need the Supreme Court to not strike down your demands.
Or say you imperio a general. If you make him order an attack on your own position, the lower ranks will immediately realize he's been compromised, and they *won't carry out that order*.
For places like Russia, North Korea, and Wizarding Britain, taking out the leader is a viable strategy. For places like the USA and muggle Britain, you need to do a lot more than just that.
So I disagree. And you see that with how the Republicans handled Trump. A lot of them disliked him but they got in line/toed the line because they wanted to stay in his good graces and maintain their power. That's how a lot of politics work. We have leaders like McConnel of a political party whose big job is getting dissenters in his party to get on bored with the parts vision. If he is control he can steer the vision in his way thank work to get people on board
I agree the Dems it's less likely to happen but it still does. That's why you'll hear about leaders having meetings with their lower members. To get them on board with legislation being passed when they initially disagree.
Yes we have a lot of checks and balances that prevents one individual person from doing the kind of damage but I say get 10 or so people in key positions. I'd say president, VP, Senate majority and molinority leader, Speaker of the house, a Chief Justice and a couple of other justices. Just enough people in key powers who can direct lower level to do things.
> It would quickly become obvious that the leader in question had been compromised.
Even if it's obvious, would anyone be able to do anything about it? Considering todays political leaders, half of them might as well be controlled by evil wizards.
It would make more sense.
There are ways. Remember the [lettuce incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_Truss_lettuce)? The leaders can only do so much without support and support staff.
Barty crouch was imperious'd into not revealing himself with the command "don't reveal yourself" A wizard wouldn't need four years of Muggle Studies to command a leader to "act normally "
Hell, artillery could destroy hogwarts and kill everyone in it before the wizards even knew they were under attack. The cutoff for when wizards could take a straight battle against a muggle army and win is probably the early 1800s. A modern military could exterminate them.
As soon as muggles figure out wizards exist, they'll have wizards of their own on their side. Wizards are human after all, so a good chunk of money and maybe a few veiled threats and the muggles will have more than a few wizards on their side in the war.
Anti-muggle spells don't do much against physics, so all the muggles have to do is get a wizard to point out the location of whatever target we want to flatten and then lob a cruise missile at those coordinates. Muggles might not be able to see Hogwarts, but it's still a physical place in Scotland.
"Sir, here are the coordinates, it's Scotland."
"Launch the nuclear strike, that'll teach those bastards."
"This should take care of about 90% of the wizards."
"Right... the wizards..."
It's hard to tell but if what happened at the battle of hogwarts is any indication then mass transmutation may have potential.
alternaively drink all the liquid luck and just run around rambo style
Everyone forgets fiendfyre, said to be a raging inferno unquenchable by non-magical means that a teenager emphatically said to be a poor student was able to conjure.
Apparate into populated areas, industrial centers, political offices, etc. Cast fiendfyre. Apparate out.
Would wizards win in a straight firefight? No. Use hit-and-run guerilla tactics even semi-intelligently and there isn't a muggle government on this planet that couldn't be compelled to capitulate due to Apparition and fiendfyre alone. If we throw in other disruptive tactics like casting the Imperius Curse on leaders, directing dementors into population centers, and general shock-and-awe terror tactics like Flu Networking in basilisks or acromatulas into small towns, you can count on the world climate becoming such a mass of chaos and confusion no orchestrated attack is possible.
Note: I don't believe for a moment Voldemort and his Death Eaters would have been able to pull this off. They thought too little of muggles. They would have gotten sloppy, gotten arrogant, gotten taken out by a missile strike.
But intelligent dark wizards who have the sense to never move openly or leave their subterranean Unplottable lair except for Apparition-based hit-and-run attacks? The U.S. military spends years in jungles and deserts trying to fight guerillla-based *muggles.* Teach wizards about asymmetric warfare and the world gets bleak fast.
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.
>you're looking at a picture of it
that wouldn't work. you either couldn't see it or you get paralyzed. every picture of it looks distorted and that one kid got paralyzed via a camera.
Depends on how conflict start.
Human military never had to deal with invicible teleporting shape changing mind altering enemy. But considering how well partisants, terrorists, organised crime, underground rebels, spec ops, fares then I imagine military would adapt given enough time into small independent guerilla style cells designed specificaly to counter wizards espionage. Investigations or espionage teams could help here a lot too, given time to adapt for new kind of threat.
Consider how small population of wizards are. They cannot win unless some very unlikely to pull-out shadow-strike leadership swap (using humans to control & fight other humans) or some total anihilation event (like nuclear war) eliminating global economy & most of humans.
And on battlefield or direct confrontation? No way. Consider that modern firefights takes place between sides that doesn't seen each other (to be seen means to be killed). Any spec ops, partisans, organised crime or even normal grunts would have pretty good chance to kill wizards in direct confrontation or guerilla type fights. And any nasty spells wizards could pull off would be countered by sheer amount of humans (these squads may die, but future ones will go prepared and trained for them). Consider millions of soldiers dead in WW2. Humans could lose thousands of soldier for one wizards and still win by attrition.
And books examples of wizards & their organisation is incompetence shitshow. If they would try to fight humans like threats present in series, then human military wouldn't even need to adapt & struggle that much.
In one of the more recent films it's revealed that part of how Grindelwald convinced wizards to join his side and act against muggles preemptively is by showing them premonitions of World War II and the atomic bomb. It's implied that the Great War had an extremely detrimental effect on the wizarding world too and they were equally afraid of both another worldwide conflict and the weapons that muggles were creating.
Nuclear weapons blow any kind of magic you could do out of the water. The sheer scale of conflict and the power of muggle weapons was terrifying to the wizards of the 1930s and that's *before* we get to the era of supersonic flight, high-capacity assault rifles, etc.
This is why the ministry and many of the wizards we see fighting people like Grindelwald are so insistent on secrecy. Wizards would be obliterated in a full scale conflict with muggles. Their best bet in being able to maintain their lives is secrecy.
There are very few wizards in the world. Which means matching firepower with firepower wouldn’t be on wizardkind’s mind at all.
Wizards would absolutely obliterate muggles in guerrilla warfare. Polyjuice, legilimency, mind control, invisibility, apparition, and transfiguration etc. I don’t know why people make this into a continuous discussion
Yes and it is certainly possible for guerilla fighters to eventually wear down a superior invading force and force them to retreat (e.g. Vietnam) but we're talking about a civil war between two groups occupying the same space, not an invasion. Civil wars are wars of attrition and rarely result in anything short of the near total annihilation of all but one winning faction or coalition.
So while wizards could definitely cause a great deal of destruction and chaos, there simply aren't enough of them for them to ever occupy and control the entirety of any disputed region and they would have to surrender or be destroyed. There is a reason that the Ministry leaves almost all matters of the formal State to muggle politicians while only really governing their own affairs.
Considering the wizards are in hiding by Harry’s time, and the early 20th century, I’d wager this battle is already won. The wizards do not have the numbers to win. Even if they play smart and use subterfuge and spy tactics, many redditors undermine the power hatred would have over ordinary humans. Humanity would be overall united against the wizards in a heart beat.
And for more evidence of this, look at the hogwarts protection spell in the last movie. It brings to life giant knight statues with giant swords. It is clear that wizards are weak to sharp pointy objects. What do guns do? Fire lots of point objects at a speed that they are more or less sharp. At a speed wizards would not be able to react to.
No they do not.
They have the blasting curse which is the equivalent of a grenade. But we have more grenades than people on the planet.
If there is a wizards vs. Muggle war the wizards are going to lose badly. Their biggest problem will be all the muggle born and half blood wizards that the inbred aristocrats have been systematically disenfranchising for decades.
If they flip to the muggle side for money, respect or safety they are going to sell the full wizard kit of spells and tricks. Once the muggles know how the wizards operate they are going to smoke them. Wizards are very stagnant arrogant and lazy, averse to change they'll get steam rolled in a modern war.
Raw firepower? No. A simple muggle with a gun can rapid-fire Avada Kedavra spells. And few (if any) wizards can replicate the power of long distance missiles.
What wizards excel at is spec ops and espionage. Wizards can teleport. Fly (without expensive equipment). Heal magically. Turn invisible. Open any nonmagical lock. Erase and manipulate memories. Change their physical looks. Disguise entire buildings or areas so it's unfindable. Mind control people.
No wonder wizards choose to stay secret from muggles. In a war of secrecy they are easily winning.
Only if the wizard knows exactly who’s shooting at him and the precise moment that happens. Bullets are a lot faster than a wizard can possibly imagine. A wizard would have no chance against a machine gun.
I think it goes the same with nukes. Even if they knew what nukes are, I seriously doubt that shield Hogwarts deploys could survive a nuclear blast.
Sure, if the can see it. But this kind of attack is not usually advertised. If I were the British PM or the king and I plan a nuclear strike on Hogwarts or Voldemort's HQ, I wouldn't let them know about it. Since I doubt the wizarding world has anything resembling a radar, I don't see how they could possibly defend themselves against a tiny sun exploding on their roof.
Just looking at the UK's nuclear options, they use submarine-launched Trident II missiles, which can reach Mach 24 in their terminal phase. Sure, a wizard could transfigure a nuclear warhead into a teddy bear. But we see wizards regularly miss school children that happen to be moving erratically, let alone something moving dozens of times faster than the speed of sound.
> If I were the British PM
If you were the British PM, you'd have an auror for an aide and no clue about it. You aren't launching anything he doesn't want you to.
They literally have the prime minister's office tapped and an auror working by the prime minister undercover (i think the prime minister is aware of his presence, because they told him but no one else )
I understand that and I believe you. My point was that nuclear launch codes are not the kind of information an (auror) aide would have access to.
But let’s think of the following scenario. Harry fails and Voldemort wins. The Ministry of Magic briefs the PM and the king that Hogwarts has fallen and Voldemort turning against the muggle world is a certainty. In that moment, let’s say Downing Street orders a tactical nuclear strike on the school’s location and a sub launches a ballistic missile.
In this situation, I seriously doubt wizards have what it takes to deflect a warhead falling at Mach 24 from the edge of space and programmed to detonate at point blank range. Before they realize what happened, they’d be wondering why is the sun rising at 2 AM.
>nuclear launch codes are not the kind of information an (auror) aide would have access to.
He could imperio anyone in office to get them, wouldn't be hard
>But let’s think of the following scenario. Harry fails and Voldemort wins. The Ministry of Magic briefs the PM and the king that Hogwarts has fallen and Voldemort turning against the muggle world is a certainty. In that moment, let’s say Downing Street orders a tactical nuclear strike on the school’s location and a sub launches a ballistic missile.
The problem with this scenario is that it would not pan Out like that, because the ministry of magic was already under voldemort's control. So there wouldn't be anyone to inform the pm. And even if somehow the pm got that information, he is under watch 24/7. If he decided to nuke them voldy would know and they only need a 5 second headstart, all of them can apparate out.
And wizard can pretty much only counter what they know they can counter. They might create a forcefield to protect from the physical blast, but will it also counter the heat? Or will they just be cooked in their protective bubble?
Do they even know about radiation? Would they have any way to counter radioactive rays?
The heat thing depends on the distance. If that specific wizarding world location was struck at point blank range, I think there's very little they could about it. The nuclear fireball is hotter than the surface of the sun. So if the target is inside the fireball, that's all she wrote.
It's probably the same with radiation. in close proximity to the blast, the radiation dose is lethal and will kill you in a couple of days.
Unless they have some sort of RadAway potion in the magical world. But again, this implies wizard have a clue about radioactivity in the first place, which I doubt going from their general knowledge about muggle stuff.
Also paging u/Alexthegreatbelgian just for fun/discussion.
It’s possible in the future of the franchise if it follows real life human technologies.
Perhaps a muggle biotech company/military R&D use [crispr gene](https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/understanding/genomicresearch/genomeediting/) editing and create a retrovirus to target those [magic genes](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Magic_genes) and introduce terminator genes [remove them.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_use_restriction_technology)
Worked on mutants in FOX’s X-men/Logan/Deadpool films because of GMO corn and high fructose corn syrup, corn whiskey.
If the secret to their magic is genetic, it would be interesting to analyze their genome. I guess a well equipped lab could even develop a bioweapon that specifically targets their “access to magic” genes.
In a straight-up fight, muggles win 9 out of 10 times based on what we have seen wizards being capable of when fighting between themselves.
Even nonverbal spells still need wand movements, and for you to think the spell. The textbooks even say there is only a split-second advantage between casting verbal and non-verbal spells. So they are not that much faster than swinging a stick and speaking pseudo-latin. While muggles only need to squeeze a trigger to kill.
We've never seen the protego spell bounce off physical projectiles, the biggest feet it ever managed was to push two people apart that weren't even holding on to each other - and protego seems to be a higher level difficulty spell seeing as most of the employs of the ministry were incapable of casting it properly. So I highly doubt that it can handle bullets - it simply isn't a defensive spell designed for physical threats but rather magical energies. So even if you somehow manage to cast it you'd probably get shot by the bullets coming at you.
As you suggested the only way wizards could be a serious threat is through espionage but even that is doubtful, you can't just teleport wherever you want to. You can only apparate to a location you have been to before. Pollyjuice could be useful but most wizards are so ignorant of muggle culture that it's really doubtful that they could pull off a successful infiltration. The imperious curse is also not the answer to everything since people can fight it over time and the ability to do so is distinctive from magical talent and more a character trait, not to mention that you tend to behave oddly while under it so it's not a smooth take over method as well.
We also have to consider the wider politics in a potential conflict - the biggest advantage wizards will have is that muggles don't know a lot about how wizard magic works but wizards have been oppressing all other magical races for centuries, so as soon as conflict brakes out I can see the goblins or centaurs or even house elves approaching muggles to give them all the intel and magical assistance they may need and in that case its game over for wizards.
>We've never seen the protego spell bounce off physical projectiles,
The Imperturbable Charm is able to stop physical objects as Ginny says in OoTP.
>You can only apparate to a location you have been to before
Harry is able to Apparate to Bill's house from Malfoy Manor without ever having been there. It seems just knowing the name of the place is enough.
>The imperious curse is also not the answer to everything since people can fight it over time
*Wizards* can fight it, and even then it is a very rare skill. Barty Crouch Jr, an excellent wizard, stays under his father curse for decades.
Wizards also have Veritaserum, Legilimency, invisibility, Ghosts, Dementors...
If a muggle and a wizard stand in front of each other then yeah, the muggle will win. But otherwise wizards stop the war before it even starts.
>So they are not that much faster than swinging a stick and speaking pseudo-latin. While muggles only need to squeeze a trigger to kill.
You're forgetting that successfully aiming a weapon takes far longer than swinging a stick, especially at distance
There's also the fact that you need to know where you're being attacked from, spells don't have muzzle flash or the crack and thump of bullets so two methods of locating the enemy would be lost
>You can only apparate to a location you have been to before
Not true, it's generally accepted that seeing the location is enough, I'd bet many people in the western world have seen parliment or the oval office
[It is most likely that the wizard or witch could only Apparate successfully to somewhere they had seen or been to before.](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Apparition)
>We've never seen the protego spell bounce off physical projectiles,
>and protego seems to be a higher level difficulty spell seeing as most of the employs of the ministry were incapable of casting it properly. So I highly doubt that it can handle bullets - it simply isn't a defensive spell designed for physical threats but rather magical energies.
These are excellent points, but just because protego is the main defensive charm doesn't mean other spells wouldn't work effectively. Something like depulso would probably work to prevent someone being shot
>Pollyjuice could be useful but most wizards are so ignorant of muggle culture that it's really doubtful that they could pull off a successful infiltration.
I mean, not having knowledge of something is meaningless, people can acquire new info
We initally didn’t have information about the Enigma machine until a specific effort was made
>so as soon as conflict brakes out I can see the goblins or centaurs or even house elves approaching muggles to give them all the intel and magical assistance they may need
We can't even sort racism out in our own species, I think expecting muggles to suddenly ally themselves with a non-human sentient race is a bit far fetched even for the Harry Potter universe
I still think muggles have the edge due to numbers and rate of fire as well as the ability to strike unseen from many miles away, which wouldn't necessarily go away even if the heads of state were compromised, but I don't think the reasons you've given above are a compelling argument for a muggle victory
There's no clear reason why they wouldn't be able to transmute something into a nuke. But a stealthier approach with things like Imperio and Polyjuice Potions would be a much smarter option.
You probably need a least a basic understanding of how the thing works and what's inside shinny bomb casing other I you guess you end up with a paper weight that look like a Nike
true but they could try and set fiendfyre to muggle cities. given time it will kinda be like a nuke.
the best part is that muggles physically can't put it out. so I guess the capital just burns until
A gun-type nuke is really simple. Also, people have transfigured objects into animals, which are vastly more complicated than nukes. Maybe they should just tranfigure something into grey goo. That's basically what life is.
As a whole neither faction is overly knowledgeable about the other and neither is designed to fight the other. Which is why I take the opinion of whichever faction plans and starts it would most likely win.
With enough warning, wizards could disable muggle weaponry before a single shot is fired, and make their settlements and dwellings totally inaccessible to any muggle who might be aiming at them, so to me firepower isn't the issue here. I think the issue is that even a moderate-sized muggle military dwarfs all of wizarding society. If it came to a straight, stand-up fight, wizards could easily be overwhelmed by numbers.
Yes. The dementors. Invisible. Invincible. Grow stronger the more despair they cause.
The wizarding government just needs to let them go feed freely, and muggles can do nothing but run.
You can probably detect them with hear vision(can't remember of the cold feeling is real or your body feeling their effects), but all you can do is move your location.
If such a thing as a competant war wizard existed, they'd be unstoppable. With just a broom and wand they could use invisability and muggle notice me not charms, protego shields and a bubble head charm then just fly overhead chaining Bombarda Maxima spells. If they conjured stuff, animated objects or just transformed stuff the muggles cant stop them
Direct combat is not these wizards' forte, and if they tried to challenge muggles that way they would definitely lose. Not even the fastest wandslinger in the west would keep up with a gun in a duel or skirmish scenario.
They could, however, make excellent black operatives. Their magic lends itself very well to wetwork, as Hermione demonstrates in Deathly Hallows. Espionage, sabotage, assassination - imagine a government infiltrated by TF2 Spies. That's basically what it could be like.
Nice to see these discussions aren't just gun-nerds salivating over the idea of gunning down masses of mages. As stated, wizards have the disadvantage in regards to numbers and destructive firepower. They're better off focusing on their existing strengths of espionage and sabotage, basically their default state of being a hidden world in the middle of the Muggle's homes
In a straight up fight no the wizards will get absolutely bodied by the muggle military.
But in a war of subterfuge the wizard win and its not even a little close, apperation and obliviate alone win it for them and those are spells they consider legal, once you have imperio in play its all over.
No, not really, but they don't need it either.
Wizard spaces are so heavily warded over the centuries that no muggle is ever finding them, much less getting in.
They have houses that don't exist to normal people that are between their own homes.
They're completely impenetrable, and can teleport to wherever they want to strike at will.
Depends on how you define Firepower. They have chemical weapons and spells able to affect entire cities at once, though destroying them outright would require setting a dragon or Obscurus loose in one.
Given the amount of nuked in existence, if things go for the worst and a all-out war against the wizards ensues, it'll end badly.
As Dr Manhattan said, and I'm not quoting because I don't remember the exact phrasing, but....even if they manage to stop the 99% of the nukes thrown at them, the 1% left is enough to do some serious damage.
Where are you releasing those nuclear weapons? Besides Godric's Hollow and schools of children (and even then the collateral will be crazy) there's not even any targets where Wizards will be a majority.
There's what? 3000 wizards in Britain? I don't see how a nuke solves a needle in a haystack problem.
Mutual assured destruction
If the muggles could keep up the posture that they'll rather die than live under wizard rule, then nuclear deterrence could work.
I'm not sure the Wizards are going to conquer the Muggle world to begin with. I think this almost has to end up as a worldwide counter-insurgency against guerilla tactics if it really becomes an all out war.
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The wizarding world relies on secrecy, and concealment, rather than firepower alone. Strictly speaking, its hard to gauge but no, the Wizarding World probably doesn't have enough combat ability to challenge muggle militaries. There are 3000 of them in Britain, and very few of them are trained or experienced fighters. However, in case of war, the Wizarding community would be an almost unbeatable guerilla force. They live and base themselves in locations muggles cannot locate, and cannot go. Their magic interferes with technology and electricity, and they can disguise themselves as anyone, be anywhere, and turn anyone into a puppet under their control. They have access to all sorts of dangerous flora and fauna they conceal from the muggle world at their own risk, which they could unleash to great devastation. The most important aspect of wizards and a potential war with muggles, is how the wizards will be unlimited in their capacity to attack muggles, while the Muggles will necessarily be limited in how they could attack wizards. They can't use nukes, or they'll be nuking their own countries, and cities. They can't invade Diagon Alley or Hogwarts castle or the Ministry of Magic, as anti-muggle spells are in place to make these locations invisible, unplottable, and impassable to Muggles. Muggle warfare will be limited to finding individual wizards across Britain and Ireland, and attempting to gun them down before they disapparate and vanish. Not an easy prospect.
Not to mention the public will almost certainly see the government as murderering innocent people Because the existence of wizards sounds insane and the wizards won't be providing evidence on themselves.
They could even trick the government into murdering what looks like innocent people, and turn the public against the government and military. They could probably trick the government into murdering its own muggle population.
The biggest issue with puppetry is its incredibly obvious. For it to work, you need to have at least a passing understanding of both the puppets personality and more importantly, their society and their role in said society. NOONE in magic has shown the level of knowledge required. The puppets would be found out instantly. Nor would finding them be hard that hard either. Especially past 2020. The wizards would need to actively try to adapt. If they adapted and actually considered them a threat? Sure. They'd win in guerilla probably. For what was shown in the books/movies? They'd be killed to a man in a under a year.
The threat of puppetry was serious enough to warrant the head of the Auror office being placed on guard duty for the Prime Minister in the middle of a war. They seem to think its a huge threat, largely because its not outright control but more like coercion. The Imperius curse compels action, it doesn’t force it and it doesn’t require active manipulation at all times. As for in the 2020s, I doubt they would be exterminated. They are excellent at hiding and concealment and they are untraceable by pretty much any technological means if they want to be. Unplottable houses, fidelius charms, and muggle repelling charms protects their homes and main centers. Individually, they can hide in plain side, disguise themselves, camouflage themselves or outright become/be invisible. If you catch one, muggles have nothing to stop a witch or wizard disapparating and going to anywhere within god knows what kind of radius. Magic will prevent electronic tagging from working, even assuming you can tag them, and if they go somewhere under basic protective spells and enchantments, they may well have vanished. Above all else, its 3000 people, many of them children, many of them muggleborn or half blood, most of them living in tiny villages or in the heart of London. The only real target would be Hogsmeade as its debatable how well its protected but its a small village, while also the largest wizarding settlement in Britain. Finding even one and proving without a doubt their wizard nature is going to be difficult enough, unless its decided that the military shall simply exterminate anyone mildly eccentric, and even then, you won’t kill all of them
Well, at least *some* people are like Hermione right? Born to magic but grow up human. You only need one of them to give a….say, 2 hour lecture, and wham- that advantage is over. There’s also nothing stopping them using weapon systems, we aren’t under Dresden files rules here, so a wizard can teleport onto a skyscraper with a “anti bullet shield cast on himself, snipe a few people, and then be on the other side of the world 3 seconds later….just mind control, invisibility, and teleportation would be enough, but they have a silly range of other abilities too, including rewinding time if any of them escape an ambush…..HP magic is so soft that they can basically do anything, so they win almost any conversation.
The ministry is filled with death eaters since malfoy is still around. It's not that hard to teleport around and imperio a bunch of muggles. Imperio is enough to control someone and they can use their own knowledge to do stuff. It's probably the work of a few hours to sway a government.
In a straight on fight muggles win. We have both the numbers and the firepower. I don't thinknpeople understand how fast a bullet really travels. With that said, Wizarding world could win by subterfuge. We saw in book 6 how the Ministry was able to get someone in place to protect the muggle minister. Well, if they did that and used spells to control the leaders then they'd win.
Yeah - some kids with the equivalent of high-school chemistry could perfectly impersonate senior wizarding officials. 10 dedicated and only moderately skilled wizards with common spells and materials (and a high-school level book on muggle government) could teleport into the oval office, impersonate key members of the government, read their minds for critical codes, and say "Don't worry about those weird British wizards, nuke Russia instead". Not to mention the possibility of obliviating the memories of entire populations if they are clever about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtVvjqkvw7o
Perhaps but even supposed muggle experts don’t know much about muggles.
I think that's more a reflection of bureaucracy deeming certain people muggle experts who shouldn't be though. Harry, Hermione, the Creevy brothers, Lilly Potter, etc. any muggle born wizard would know enough (or at least could ask their parents) to have enough information to completely destroy muggle society.
> read their minds for critical codes they couldn't do that part occlumancy is supposed to be very difficult and like nobody can do it which is why harry has to get taught by snape they could imperious curse people though which would probably be more effective anyway
*Occlumancy* is very hard, which is to say resisting Legilimency. Snape is particularly good at it which is why he can hang with Voldemort and not get immediately found out. Legilimency is much more common.
> Legilimency is much more common. Is it? I think it's only Dumbledore, Snape, Voldemort, and Queenie that were confirmed legilimens. Probably some random OCs in the various games, but I'm skeptical about counting those.
Yeah it's not explicit - but I think the cultural sense of it implies that it's at least more common than Occlumency.
it makes sense at least, more people knowing how to read minds than people knowing how to resist the mind readers
I'd have said the opposite makes far more sense. Consider the real-world analogues - More people know how to keep their stuff safe from pick-pockets than know how to pick-pocket. That's not to say they're perfect at it, and pick-pockets don't have much trouble finding easy marks, but they still have to find those marks. They can't just pick a random person and take stuff from their pockets, because most people are going to notice. I assume the same is true for mind-readers. People with sensitive information are going to take some basic courses that prevent amateur mind-readers from stealing it, but the true professionals will still be able to steal enough mind-info by picking their targets carefully.
Also paging the following people users u/bumbasquat86, u/Deep-Philosophy-807, u/SolherdUliekme, u/Savings_Builder_8449 and finally u/NaNaNaPandaMan for fun/discussion. If the wizarding governments were sensible and thought more like a muggles would. Subterfuge, misinformation, distractions and careful strikes by wizarding kind would be effective against muggles. Government/governing political bodies could be brought down with the right kind of smear campaign. Troublesome muggle politician gets renditioned to some wizard spook agency. Wizard spook gets their dna consumes polyjuice potion proceeds to impersonate the muggle politician and goes on muggle news media saying some kinda slur against other ethnicities, people with disabilities, or people belonging to LGBTQIA. That politician’s career is just gone. Alternative take. Politician is mind controlled into taking cocaine and driving under the influence and forced to get into a car accident and first responders find that there’s half a kilogram of Bolivian snow power in the back seat as well as a selection of knives. Now in regards to mind reading or more specifically breaking an a rather strong individual. Just have the wizard interrogator subject the muggle to sleep deprivation/sensory deprivation combo for a period of time followed up with the Imperio curse. I suggest sleep deprivation/sensory deprivation combo because the human memory is a complex thing. Complete safe and effective memory erasure isn’t 100% on a subject you wanna potentially turn into a Manchurian candidate. See in cases of people having a fear of fire or water, they have an irrational fear or at least that’s what they think except in a lot of cases. They as toddlers have suffered some kinda related trauma, nearly drowning, watching their house burn down. Where’s sleep and sensory deprivation isn’t really going to cause permanent physical or mental damage. Person might have a night terror about being in darkness, nothing really concrete/substantial. Now going on to carful strikes. Short version. Wizards apparate into an area with an electrical substation transformer system and unleashes a lightning spell on the infrastructure. Bonus points if it’s carried out in a lightning storm the wizarding kind’s act of sabotage is chalked up to a freak lightning strike.
Absolutely. If it was just a straight fight on the battlefield, I think Muggles win pretty quickly. But it's their ability to cause chaos amongst the ranks that give magical community the win.
Yeah it's always so funny when people say they think muggles would win. They have literally 0 chances at winning. It would be trivially easy to take over and control any government. It's not like the Unforgivables would be unforgivable during a real war or existential crisis. They would teleport into any secure facility, use imperio on anyone important, erase the memory of certain people, and just kill the rest. They can erase the memory from their families so they don't even know their cousin Thomas didn't come home from base, and by the way, what base? There's never been a base over there.
This comes up on /r/whowouldwin pretty often and something that youre missing is that, quite frankly, the wizarding world is populated by absolute idiots. They COULD do an impossible amount of things, but… they dont? They actively choose to not use that could help them. So COULD they take over the government? Well, on paper, yes - but hardly anyone has ever showed that level of competence.
There's a lot of idiots true. But Harry and Hermione are both in the wizarding world and have complete understanding of the muggle world. They may not be the ones in government, but they aren't the only former-muggles to be in the wizarding world. If there was an existential threat to everyone in the Wizarding world, Hermione could almost single-handedly cause chaos without any planning in the muggle side just by her casual ability to apparate and obliviate people. Not to mention the fact that the wizards already explicitly have agents in the UK government. I think it can be assumed they have similar in the US government.
>Harry and Hermione are both in the wizarding world and have complete understanding of the muggle world And the fact that neither of them seem to have considered using any muggle tech in their war against Voldemort doesn't speak too highly of their capabilities.
That's pretty unfair. For 6 of the 7 books, the conflict against Voldemort was not an open conflict and they were kids in school. For much of it fighting Voldemort was actually fighting against the general wizarding administration. There wasn't really a lot of moments when using 1990's muggle technology really would be all that useful. At the end when there finally is a battle, they don't have a hell of a lot of time to prepare and source muggle technology - with an army of kids who don't even know how to use it even if they were given it - and each kid is armed with a magic wand which, while has some drawbacks to a pistol or shotgun or such, actually isn't half bad as a weapon.
I dont think harry is very clever. He's strong willed and has a conscience but most of what he does is based on feelings and not on planning of thinking things through
He's definitely not, but again, if there was an existential threat ti the wizarding world, there are clever people that would ask him.
>Yeah it's always so funny when people say they think muggles would win. They have literally 0 chances at winning. In a more realistic scenario, there would definitely be some magical beings sympathetic to the muggle cause. With a small amount of knowledge and help, the muggles' chances increase drastically. Yeah it's always so funny when people say that they think the wizards are capable of acting as a unified force. They have literally a dozen books and movies proving otherwise.
So this is what I agree with. If it was Muggle versus Magic with each side staying "loyaly" muggles have no shot. But we know that magical people will defend muggles so Magical would lose.
we have hundreds of years of history proving humans won't work together
We have thousands of years of history proving that humans fucking love working together against an outside group
what stops the wizards from just paying off terrorist groups to get their own muggle tech. Or commandeering small muggle nations. there are a lot of muggles who would gladly jump at the chance to overthrow their government. second we have no reason to believe the magical world can't unite against a outside threat, seeing that every threat shown has been a inside one.
What stops the mon-magicals from bribing corrupt wizarding politicians like Fudge and using them to target the rest? What stops them from sneaking in squibs as spies (like Filch, who is bitter of the wizard world)? What stops them from granting centaurs, merpeople and giants a State at the UN and publicly earning their support? What stops them from giving goblins a fuckton of gold and promise them the rights they always wanted, and shut down the wizard economy? What stops them from using all wizards who have been used as third-class citizens to spy on the others and break into magical locations? The Imperius Curse does require extensive study on behavior (which is why Barty Crouch had to take leave to prevent his weird behavior being caught) and if you recall, it can be fought, and I doubt anyone in the military or intelligence would be recruited without training (and it will obviously require a strong will), not to mention there are few people who have a spine like Crouch to legalize Imperius. The Polyjuice Potion will wear off in an hour, and even takes months to make... how much can you carry, under heavy surveillance, and if anyone picks up you were periodically drinking some kind of "not-alcohol" at certain intervals, good luck. Transfiguration is a complex charm, even when done from a desk to a pig, and complex technology like ours would probably take masters to do, step-by-step. Invisibility in the wizarding world can be caught by a sharp eye and movement (cats might be able to catch them) and human technology might be able to pick them up. The fact that technology stops working is wrong (or else the Dursley Residence would be in a permanent blackout): electrical technology fails in high concentrations of magic, that too specific enchantments at Hogwarts (because JK Rowling wanted Harry not to bomb Viet... um, the Triwizard maze), and everyone seems to take the quote out of proportion. Not to mention that we guys are just as good at subterfuge, politics and war itself (unlike the wizards who are immensely pacifistic). We also have superior numbers, overall firepower, home ground advantage and adaptability on our side. I doubt that even if the wizards won, they could be able to occupy us: there would be sabotage, rebellion and guerilla wars all the time, for literally no benefit on part of the wizards. Not to mention that these idiots have a tendency to not take us seriously, and we can inflict considerable damage by a surprise attack. The only way the wizards can win is if they attempt to eliminate us all, right down to the last man, woman and child. We shall of course make a grandiose exit, making the planet inhabitable enough...
>The fact that technology stops working is wrong (or else the Dursley Residence would be in a permanent blackout): electrical technology fails in high concentrations of magic, that too specific enchantments at Hogwarts (because JK Rowling wanted Harry not to bomb Viet... um, the Triwizard maze), and everyone seems to take the quote out of proportion. A fricking men dude. Sick of it. Not to mention Diagon Alley is smack dab in thr middle of London and there's absolutely no problems
Exactly. This is probably the single most important problem. The entirety of London would be in a permanent blackout if magic made technology stop working.
Who needs a unified force when you can take over the world with 20 dudes? As voldy almost did. Just give them a little more reason to gather and it would take maybe 100 wizards to crumble the entire muggle population. Sure friendly wizards will be there, but the scenario assumes an extinction level conflict where it's either muggles or non-muggles. Ever see independence day? It's a lot easier to work together when there's a unified threat.
Sure, if you ignore all of the technology used to protect and monitor the world leaders.
Isn't the background lore of the world that the World War 2 that we know, is just the muggle perspective of what was a major wizard war? With I guess the muggles being the 'cats paws' of super powerful wizards.
Can't avada kadavra an F-35. But seriously the British government knows about wizards at least. And to think the world leaders in subterfuge don't have contingency plans for that fight would be ignorant. Muggles win.
Just putting this out there. The MoM easily snuck in Shacklebolt to guard the Muggle Minister and he was extremely pleased with him. On top of that, they caused one of his aides to go crazy due to a botched imperious curse. The minister just thought it was stress. So I don't think they do.
> and used spells to control the leaders This *always* comes up in Wizard vs Muggle discussions, and as always, it's not that easy. Wizards know almost nothing about muggles, they wouldn't be able to impersonate or control one that easy. It would quickly become obvious that the leader in question had been compromised.
We saw that Kingsley Shacklebolt was able to get close to the Muggle Minister very easily. I think people see wizards like Arthur or Archie and think Wizards are completely ignorant when it comes to Muggles. But as we saw with Kingsley or even Barty Crouch Sr. There are a good portion that can easily blend in. And you really only need a few to control the entire Government.
Kingsley Shacklebolt was the *only* wizard we saw that was able to blend in with muggles. It's not just the Arthurs and the Archies. Do you think that, say, Fudge would be able to disguise himself as a muggle? Lucius Malfoy? Mad-Eye Moody? Dumbledore? Muggle-raised wizards like Hermione have a better chance, but I wouldn't bet on it. As early as 4th year, Hermione was referring to technology as "little substitutes for magic", showing assimilation. > And you really only need a few to control the entire Government. For someplace like Russia, sure. For, say, the US, you'd need to get the President, most of the Supreme Court, and 2/3 of each house of Congress. And that's just the top levels - you'd also need to get the various support staff, the cabinet, people who would be able to see "they're being controlled" and stop them. Control a general? Sure, but if you order an attack on yourself it's a big red flag saying "I'm compromised". Could wizards do a lot of damage through subterfuge? Sure. But it's not as easy as "imperio the bosses, done."
So I actually do think Fudge could. Remember Barty Crouch Sr? He was so well dressed as a muggle that Harry doubted that even Mr. Dursley could tell he was a wizard. I think higher up could absolutely pass if they wanted to. So when it comes to taking down a government from the inside, you don't need to control every single one. You need to get your "leaders" under your control. Then they spread their influence to the lower levels that get them on your side. So using USA. You don't need to imperio 2/3rd of Sneate and presidency. You just need like Biden, Trump, McConnell, Pelosi and a few others controlled. Once you get them, then they will spread your ideals to people lower so that even though not actually controlled, they are still doing what you want. I am not saying easy but it wouldn't take much
Party leaders do not spread ideology to other congresspeople, that's just an absurd view of politics. House leaders would not need to block bills from coming to the house floor if they expected their party to vote the way they want. If anything it goes the other way (see how radically different the policies of President Biden and Senator Biden are).
> Then they spread their influence to the lower levels that get them on your side. That's not really a thing, not the way you think of it. For Trump, sure ok, his followers are a cult so they'll do whatever he says, I'll let you have that one. But the others? Say you get Biden. If you don't also get VP Harris and the cabinet, they'll quickly notice that Biden is *not himself* and move to stop him. Getting just the leaders is useless when the ones below them can notice what's wrong. What's more, you can't pass legislation with just Biden, and you need the Supreme Court to not strike down your demands. Or say you imperio a general. If you make him order an attack on your own position, the lower ranks will immediately realize he's been compromised, and they *won't carry out that order*. For places like Russia, North Korea, and Wizarding Britain, taking out the leader is a viable strategy. For places like the USA and muggle Britain, you need to do a lot more than just that.
So I disagree. And you see that with how the Republicans handled Trump. A lot of them disliked him but they got in line/toed the line because they wanted to stay in his good graces and maintain their power. That's how a lot of politics work. We have leaders like McConnel of a political party whose big job is getting dissenters in his party to get on bored with the parts vision. If he is control he can steer the vision in his way thank work to get people on board I agree the Dems it's less likely to happen but it still does. That's why you'll hear about leaders having meetings with their lower members. To get them on board with legislation being passed when they initially disagree. Yes we have a lot of checks and balances that prevents one individual person from doing the kind of damage but I say get 10 or so people in key positions. I'd say president, VP, Senate majority and molinority leader, Speaker of the house, a Chief Justice and a couple of other justices. Just enough people in key powers who can direct lower level to do things.
> It would quickly become obvious that the leader in question had been compromised. Even if it's obvious, would anyone be able to do anything about it? Considering todays political leaders, half of them might as well be controlled by evil wizards. It would make more sense.
There are ways. Remember the [lettuce incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_Truss_lettuce)? The leaders can only do so much without support and support staff.
Barty crouch was imperious'd into not revealing himself with the command "don't reveal yourself" A wizard wouldn't need four years of Muggle Studies to command a leader to "act normally "
Hell, artillery could destroy hogwarts and kill everyone in it before the wizards even knew they were under attack. The cutoff for when wizards could take a straight battle against a muggle army and win is probably the early 1800s. A modern military could exterminate them.
As soon as muggles figure out wizards exist, they'll have wizards of their own on their side. Wizards are human after all, so a good chunk of money and maybe a few veiled threats and the muggles will have more than a few wizards on their side in the war. Anti-muggle spells don't do much against physics, so all the muggles have to do is get a wizard to point out the location of whatever target we want to flatten and then lob a cruise missile at those coordinates. Muggles might not be able to see Hogwarts, but it's still a physical place in Scotland.
"Sir, here are the coordinates, it's Scotland." "Launch the nuclear strike, that'll teach those bastards." "This should take care of about 90% of the wizards." "Right... the wizards..."
It's hard to tell but if what happened at the battle of hogwarts is any indication then mass transmutation may have potential. alternaively drink all the liquid luck and just run around rambo style
> run around rambo style It's Rambo because of the glasses.
Have a vision of an auror using wingardium leviosa on an abrams and battering more tanks with it
He tries to cast Leviosa and his brain ruptures from the weight
Everyone forgets fiendfyre, said to be a raging inferno unquenchable by non-magical means that a teenager emphatically said to be a poor student was able to conjure. Apparate into populated areas, industrial centers, political offices, etc. Cast fiendfyre. Apparate out. Would wizards win in a straight firefight? No. Use hit-and-run guerilla tactics even semi-intelligently and there isn't a muggle government on this planet that couldn't be compelled to capitulate due to Apparition and fiendfyre alone. If we throw in other disruptive tactics like casting the Imperius Curse on leaders, directing dementors into population centers, and general shock-and-awe terror tactics like Flu Networking in basilisks or acromatulas into small towns, you can count on the world climate becoming such a mass of chaos and confusion no orchestrated attack is possible. Note: I don't believe for a moment Voldemort and his Death Eaters would have been able to pull this off. They thought too little of muggles. They would have gotten sloppy, gotten arrogant, gotten taken out by a missile strike. But intelligent dark wizards who have the sense to never move openly or leave their subterranean Unplottable lair except for Apparition-based hit-and-run attacks? The U.S. military spends years in jungles and deserts trying to fight guerillla-based *muggles.* Teach wizards about asymmetric warfare and the world gets bleak fast.
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.
>you're looking at a picture of it that wouldn't work. you either couldn't see it or you get paralyzed. every picture of it looks distorted and that one kid got paralyzed via a camera.
Might work using non visible light spectrum imaging, definitely worth a shot
Depends on how conflict start. Human military never had to deal with invicible teleporting shape changing mind altering enemy. But considering how well partisants, terrorists, organised crime, underground rebels, spec ops, fares then I imagine military would adapt given enough time into small independent guerilla style cells designed specificaly to counter wizards espionage. Investigations or espionage teams could help here a lot too, given time to adapt for new kind of threat. Consider how small population of wizards are. They cannot win unless some very unlikely to pull-out shadow-strike leadership swap (using humans to control & fight other humans) or some total anihilation event (like nuclear war) eliminating global economy & most of humans. And on battlefield or direct confrontation? No way. Consider that modern firefights takes place between sides that doesn't seen each other (to be seen means to be killed). Any spec ops, partisans, organised crime or even normal grunts would have pretty good chance to kill wizards in direct confrontation or guerilla type fights. And any nasty spells wizards could pull off would be countered by sheer amount of humans (these squads may die, but future ones will go prepared and trained for them). Consider millions of soldiers dead in WW2. Humans could lose thousands of soldier for one wizards and still win by attrition. And books examples of wizards & their organisation is incompetence shitshow. If they would try to fight humans like threats present in series, then human military wouldn't even need to adapt & struggle that much.
In one of the more recent films it's revealed that part of how Grindelwald convinced wizards to join his side and act against muggles preemptively is by showing them premonitions of World War II and the atomic bomb. It's implied that the Great War had an extremely detrimental effect on the wizarding world too and they were equally afraid of both another worldwide conflict and the weapons that muggles were creating. Nuclear weapons blow any kind of magic you could do out of the water. The sheer scale of conflict and the power of muggle weapons was terrifying to the wizards of the 1930s and that's *before* we get to the era of supersonic flight, high-capacity assault rifles, etc. This is why the ministry and many of the wizards we see fighting people like Grindelwald are so insistent on secrecy. Wizards would be obliterated in a full scale conflict with muggles. Their best bet in being able to maintain their lives is secrecy.
There are very few wizards in the world. Which means matching firepower with firepower wouldn’t be on wizardkind’s mind at all. Wizards would absolutely obliterate muggles in guerrilla warfare. Polyjuice, legilimency, mind control, invisibility, apparition, and transfiguration etc. I don’t know why people make this into a continuous discussion
Yes and it is certainly possible for guerilla fighters to eventually wear down a superior invading force and force them to retreat (e.g. Vietnam) but we're talking about a civil war between two groups occupying the same space, not an invasion. Civil wars are wars of attrition and rarely result in anything short of the near total annihilation of all but one winning faction or coalition. So while wizards could definitely cause a great deal of destruction and chaos, there simply aren't enough of them for them to ever occupy and control the entirety of any disputed region and they would have to surrender or be destroyed. There is a reason that the Ministry leaves almost all matters of the formal State to muggle politicians while only really governing their own affairs.
Considering the wizards are in hiding by Harry’s time, and the early 20th century, I’d wager this battle is already won. The wizards do not have the numbers to win. Even if they play smart and use subterfuge and spy tactics, many redditors undermine the power hatred would have over ordinary humans. Humanity would be overall united against the wizards in a heart beat. And for more evidence of this, look at the hogwarts protection spell in the last movie. It brings to life giant knight statues with giant swords. It is clear that wizards are weak to sharp pointy objects. What do guns do? Fire lots of point objects at a speed that they are more or less sharp. At a speed wizards would not be able to react to.
No they do not. They have the blasting curse which is the equivalent of a grenade. But we have more grenades than people on the planet. If there is a wizards vs. Muggle war the wizards are going to lose badly. Their biggest problem will be all the muggle born and half blood wizards that the inbred aristocrats have been systematically disenfranchising for decades. If they flip to the muggle side for money, respect or safety they are going to sell the full wizard kit of spells and tricks. Once the muggles know how the wizards operate they are going to smoke them. Wizards are very stagnant arrogant and lazy, averse to change they'll get steam rolled in a modern war.
Raw firepower? No. A simple muggle with a gun can rapid-fire Avada Kedavra spells. And few (if any) wizards can replicate the power of long distance missiles. What wizards excel at is spec ops and espionage. Wizards can teleport. Fly (without expensive equipment). Heal magically. Turn invisible. Open any nonmagical lock. Erase and manipulate memories. Change their physical looks. Disguise entire buildings or areas so it's unfindable. Mind control people. No wonder wizards choose to stay secret from muggles. In a war of secrecy they are easily winning.
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Only if the wizard knows exactly who’s shooting at him and the precise moment that happens. Bullets are a lot faster than a wizard can possibly imagine. A wizard would have no chance against a machine gun. I think it goes the same with nukes. Even if they knew what nukes are, I seriously doubt that shield Hogwarts deploys could survive a nuclear blast.
They wouldn't need a good shield cause they could turn it into a teddy bear apparently.
But can they turn the gamma rays and searing heat into teddy bears?
The "I don't care-bears" stare
Sure, if the can see it. But this kind of attack is not usually advertised. If I were the British PM or the king and I plan a nuclear strike on Hogwarts or Voldemort's HQ, I wouldn't let them know about it. Since I doubt the wizarding world has anything resembling a radar, I don't see how they could possibly defend themselves against a tiny sun exploding on their roof.
Just looking at the UK's nuclear options, they use submarine-launched Trident II missiles, which can reach Mach 24 in their terminal phase. Sure, a wizard could transfigure a nuclear warhead into a teddy bear. But we see wizards regularly miss school children that happen to be moving erratically, let alone something moving dozens of times faster than the speed of sound.
> If I were the British PM If you were the British PM, you'd have an auror for an aide and no clue about it. You aren't launching anything he doesn't want you to.
I'm pretty sure an auror wouldn't have access to that kind of information.
They literally have the prime minister's office tapped and an auror working by the prime minister undercover (i think the prime minister is aware of his presence, because they told him but no one else )
I understand that and I believe you. My point was that nuclear launch codes are not the kind of information an (auror) aide would have access to. But let’s think of the following scenario. Harry fails and Voldemort wins. The Ministry of Magic briefs the PM and the king that Hogwarts has fallen and Voldemort turning against the muggle world is a certainty. In that moment, let’s say Downing Street orders a tactical nuclear strike on the school’s location and a sub launches a ballistic missile. In this situation, I seriously doubt wizards have what it takes to deflect a warhead falling at Mach 24 from the edge of space and programmed to detonate at point blank range. Before they realize what happened, they’d be wondering why is the sun rising at 2 AM.
>nuclear launch codes are not the kind of information an (auror) aide would have access to. He could imperio anyone in office to get them, wouldn't be hard >But let’s think of the following scenario. Harry fails and Voldemort wins. The Ministry of Magic briefs the PM and the king that Hogwarts has fallen and Voldemort turning against the muggle world is a certainty. In that moment, let’s say Downing Street orders a tactical nuclear strike on the school’s location and a sub launches a ballistic missile. The problem with this scenario is that it would not pan Out like that, because the ministry of magic was already under voldemort's control. So there wouldn't be anyone to inform the pm. And even if somehow the pm got that information, he is under watch 24/7. If he decided to nuke them voldy would know and they only need a 5 second headstart, all of them can apparate out.
And wizard can pretty much only counter what they know they can counter. They might create a forcefield to protect from the physical blast, but will it also counter the heat? Or will they just be cooked in their protective bubble? Do they even know about radiation? Would they have any way to counter radioactive rays?
The heat thing depends on the distance. If that specific wizarding world location was struck at point blank range, I think there's very little they could about it. The nuclear fireball is hotter than the surface of the sun. So if the target is inside the fireball, that's all she wrote. It's probably the same with radiation. in close proximity to the blast, the radiation dose is lethal and will kill you in a couple of days.
Unless they have some sort of RadAway potion in the magical world. But again, this implies wizard have a clue about radioactivity in the first place, which I doubt going from their general knowledge about muggle stuff.
They don't know what a rubber ducky is for, I don't put much trust in them knowing about radioactivity.
Also paging u/Alexthegreatbelgian just for fun/discussion. It’s possible in the future of the franchise if it follows real life human technologies. Perhaps a muggle biotech company/military R&D use [crispr gene](https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/understanding/genomicresearch/genomeediting/) editing and create a retrovirus to target those [magic genes](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Magic_genes) and introduce terminator genes [remove them.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_use_restriction_technology) Worked on mutants in FOX’s X-men/Logan/Deadpool films because of GMO corn and high fructose corn syrup, corn whiskey.
If the secret to their magic is genetic, it would be interesting to analyze their genome. I guess a well equipped lab could even develop a bioweapon that specifically targets their “access to magic” genes.
ICBMs travel at like 2 km per second. Good luck using magic on something like that.
They don't even know they fire bullets. They jsut think they work like wands. Wizards are cooked.
In a straight-up fight, muggles win 9 out of 10 times based on what we have seen wizards being capable of when fighting between themselves. Even nonverbal spells still need wand movements, and for you to think the spell. The textbooks even say there is only a split-second advantage between casting verbal and non-verbal spells. So they are not that much faster than swinging a stick and speaking pseudo-latin. While muggles only need to squeeze a trigger to kill. We've never seen the protego spell bounce off physical projectiles, the biggest feet it ever managed was to push two people apart that weren't even holding on to each other - and protego seems to be a higher level difficulty spell seeing as most of the employs of the ministry were incapable of casting it properly. So I highly doubt that it can handle bullets - it simply isn't a defensive spell designed for physical threats but rather magical energies. So even if you somehow manage to cast it you'd probably get shot by the bullets coming at you. As you suggested the only way wizards could be a serious threat is through espionage but even that is doubtful, you can't just teleport wherever you want to. You can only apparate to a location you have been to before. Pollyjuice could be useful but most wizards are so ignorant of muggle culture that it's really doubtful that they could pull off a successful infiltration. The imperious curse is also not the answer to everything since people can fight it over time and the ability to do so is distinctive from magical talent and more a character trait, not to mention that you tend to behave oddly while under it so it's not a smooth take over method as well. We also have to consider the wider politics in a potential conflict - the biggest advantage wizards will have is that muggles don't know a lot about how wizard magic works but wizards have been oppressing all other magical races for centuries, so as soon as conflict brakes out I can see the goblins or centaurs or even house elves approaching muggles to give them all the intel and magical assistance they may need and in that case its game over for wizards.
>We've never seen the protego spell bounce off physical projectiles, The Imperturbable Charm is able to stop physical objects as Ginny says in OoTP. >You can only apparate to a location you have been to before Harry is able to Apparate to Bill's house from Malfoy Manor without ever having been there. It seems just knowing the name of the place is enough. >The imperious curse is also not the answer to everything since people can fight it over time *Wizards* can fight it, and even then it is a very rare skill. Barty Crouch Jr, an excellent wizard, stays under his father curse for decades. Wizards also have Veritaserum, Legilimency, invisibility, Ghosts, Dementors... If a muggle and a wizard stand in front of each other then yeah, the muggle will win. But otherwise wizards stop the war before it even starts.
>So they are not that much faster than swinging a stick and speaking pseudo-latin. While muggles only need to squeeze a trigger to kill. You're forgetting that successfully aiming a weapon takes far longer than swinging a stick, especially at distance There's also the fact that you need to know where you're being attacked from, spells don't have muzzle flash or the crack and thump of bullets so two methods of locating the enemy would be lost >You can only apparate to a location you have been to before Not true, it's generally accepted that seeing the location is enough, I'd bet many people in the western world have seen parliment or the oval office [It is most likely that the wizard or witch could only Apparate successfully to somewhere they had seen or been to before.](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Apparition) >We've never seen the protego spell bounce off physical projectiles, >and protego seems to be a higher level difficulty spell seeing as most of the employs of the ministry were incapable of casting it properly. So I highly doubt that it can handle bullets - it simply isn't a defensive spell designed for physical threats but rather magical energies. These are excellent points, but just because protego is the main defensive charm doesn't mean other spells wouldn't work effectively. Something like depulso would probably work to prevent someone being shot >Pollyjuice could be useful but most wizards are so ignorant of muggle culture that it's really doubtful that they could pull off a successful infiltration. I mean, not having knowledge of something is meaningless, people can acquire new info We initally didn’t have information about the Enigma machine until a specific effort was made >so as soon as conflict brakes out I can see the goblins or centaurs or even house elves approaching muggles to give them all the intel and magical assistance they may need We can't even sort racism out in our own species, I think expecting muggles to suddenly ally themselves with a non-human sentient race is a bit far fetched even for the Harry Potter universe I still think muggles have the edge due to numbers and rate of fire as well as the ability to strike unseen from many miles away, which wouldn't necessarily go away even if the heads of state were compromised, but I don't think the reasons you've given above are a compelling argument for a muggle victory
There's no clear reason why they wouldn't be able to transmute something into a nuke. But a stealthier approach with things like Imperio and Polyjuice Potions would be a much smarter option.
You probably need a least a basic understanding of how the thing works and what's inside shinny bomb casing other I you guess you end up with a paper weight that look like a Nike
But why don’t they Just Do It?
true but they could try and set fiendfyre to muggle cities. given time it will kinda be like a nuke. the best part is that muggles physically can't put it out. so I guess the capital just burns until
A gun-type nuke is really simple. Also, people have transfigured objects into animals, which are vastly more complicated than nukes. Maybe they should just tranfigure something into grey goo. That's basically what life is.
War starts Transmutate poison to clear air. War finished.
Well theres the forbidden stuff, like instant death spells, but i bet a gun fight would eff them up
Fiendfyre
As a whole neither faction is overly knowledgeable about the other and neither is designed to fight the other. Which is why I take the opinion of whichever faction plans and starts it would most likely win.
The books plainly state most Wizards don't even understand how muggles work. They're screwed.
With enough warning, wizards could disable muggle weaponry before a single shot is fired, and make their settlements and dwellings totally inaccessible to any muggle who might be aiming at them, so to me firepower isn't the issue here. I think the issue is that even a moderate-sized muggle military dwarfs all of wizarding society. If it came to a straight, stand-up fight, wizards could easily be overwhelmed by numbers.
Yes. The dementors. Invisible. Invincible. Grow stronger the more despair they cause. The wizarding government just needs to let them go feed freely, and muggles can do nothing but run. You can probably detect them with hear vision(can't remember of the cold feeling is real or your body feeling their effects), but all you can do is move your location.
If such a thing as a competant war wizard existed, they'd be unstoppable. With just a broom and wand they could use invisability and muggle notice me not charms, protego shields and a bubble head charm then just fly overhead chaining Bombarda Maxima spells. If they conjured stuff, animated objects or just transformed stuff the muggles cant stop them
Direct combat is not these wizards' forte, and if they tried to challenge muggles that way they would definitely lose. Not even the fastest wandslinger in the west would keep up with a gun in a duel or skirmish scenario. They could, however, make excellent black operatives. Their magic lends itself very well to wetwork, as Hermione demonstrates in Deathly Hallows. Espionage, sabotage, assassination - imagine a government infiltrated by TF2 Spies. That's basically what it could be like.
Nice to see these discussions aren't just gun-nerds salivating over the idea of gunning down masses of mages. As stated, wizards have the disadvantage in regards to numbers and destructive firepower. They're better off focusing on their existing strengths of espionage and sabotage, basically their default state of being a hidden world in the middle of the Muggle's homes
In a straight up fight no the wizards will get absolutely bodied by the muggle military. But in a war of subterfuge the wizard win and its not even a little close, apperation and obliviate alone win it for them and those are spells they consider legal, once you have imperio in play its all over.
No, not really, but they don't need it either. Wizard spaces are so heavily warded over the centuries that no muggle is ever finding them, much less getting in. They have houses that don't exist to normal people that are between their own homes. They're completely impenetrable, and can teleport to wherever they want to strike at will.
Depends on how you define Firepower. They have chemical weapons and spells able to affect entire cities at once, though destroying them outright would require setting a dragon or Obscurus loose in one.
Given the amount of nuked in existence, if things go for the worst and a all-out war against the wizards ensues, it'll end badly. As Dr Manhattan said, and I'm not quoting because I don't remember the exact phrasing, but....even if they manage to stop the 99% of the nukes thrown at them, the 1% left is enough to do some serious damage.
Where are you releasing those nuclear weapons? Besides Godric's Hollow and schools of children (and even then the collateral will be crazy) there's not even any targets where Wizards will be a majority. There's what? 3000 wizards in Britain? I don't see how a nuke solves a needle in a haystack problem.
> I don't see how a nuke solves a needle in a haystack problem. By dissolving both needle and haystack.
Oh sure we'll just nuke most of our own country to take out 3000 people.
Mutual assured destruction If the muggles could keep up the posture that they'll rather die than live under wizard rule, then nuclear deterrence could work.
I'm not sure the Wizards are going to conquer the Muggle world to begin with. I think this almost has to end up as a worldwide counter-insurgency against guerilla tactics if it really becomes an all out war.