Harry Potter and the Military Industrial Complex
This is explored at length in the books. The wizard supremacists are an allegory for race supremacists, and it’s pointed out repeatedly that they’re delusional, broadly impotent, and small-minded. The death eaters believe so completely in their godhead and his divine right to rule that they neglect to consider even the most basic countermeasures or alternatives. There’s some “death of Stalin” paranoia but it’s overwhelmingly unforced incompetence.
Voldemort, likewise, blocks out even the potential for his lessers to outdo him. He is utterly infallible and his insecurities as an incest orphan to a fallen house will not allow him to feel any differently. Meanwhile, he’s been repeatedly circumvented and beaten by a group of teenagers, and his brewing plans will lead to the complete genocide of wizardkind upon reaching the world stage. It perfectly encapsulates the way race supremacists view the world and why they fail so frequently. The enemy is both strong and weak.
Darn shame rowling’s turned into what she hates. She wasn’t terrible at writing populism 101.
She just wrote what she actually believes and it ended up being biting satire by accident.
Fun fact: Rowling thinks Lolita is a beautiful and tragic love story
If wizard supremacists are an allegory for white supremacists, are normal wizards normal white people and muggles “people of color”?
That’s one interpretation, absolutely. Or you could say Han Chinese, racist Han Chinese, and Uighurs. Or Israelis, racist israelis, and Gazans. Or white Americans, white American racists, and native Americans. Or white Brits/Irish, straight/gay, seafaring Scandinavians/prey, etc…
In group vs out group, with perceived genetic/social differences.
Well, I cannot imagine wizard dieing to a nuke. You would have to surprise them I suppose. I mean, what if they teleport the nuke to some other place?
Even if all the tech kept working, I imagine the only way you could beat a wizard as a Muggle is if they don’t see it coming.
If they see a gun, sure, the first wizard may be surprised and die, but it will not take long to find a spell that shields them. Rockets? Same story. Sure you can destroy stuff, even kill a bunch. The rest will be back though, and they can teleport, change memories, actually turn into another person or animal, turn you into an animal and whatever else.
The one plot hole in HP that always annoyed me is how Avada Kedavra is supposed to be the worst spell. In the books it is mentioned how Peter Pippeling blew up a whole street with a bunch of muggles in it. That seems way more dangerous…
That’s one of many many plot holes in Harry Potter.
There’s really no depth to the world building beyond, “What if British public schools taught magic?”
It doesn’t make sense in any context beyond that because the author never considered it from any context beyond that. Whenever you run into some crazy crap in HP and wonder, “Why TF would anyone do it that way?” The answer is almost always, "Because that’s how they do it in British public schools.
It being based off of public schools is a bit odd given that Hogwarts is a boarding school.
That’s just the name.
In the UK, “public school” just means that admissions are generally open to the public. They’re still very expensive, are often boarding schools, and tend to have a lot of castles on their campuses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_school_(United_Kingdom)
It’s also a bit odd that the spell so dangerous it was the absolute peak of the Dark Arts was a spell that just killed one person, and not even reliably. Where are the spells to call down meteors and cause earthquakes?
Finding plot holes in Harry Potter is like shooting fish in a barrel. There’s no challenge to it.
Rowling took “a wizard did it” as far as it can go.
Imagine the IRA, except they can fly, go invisible, or simply step into a phone booth or fireplace and vanish, and had an entire other dimension they could disappear into where they could be self sufficient.
Technology means nothing if you don’t even know who you enemy is.
Heck, they can mind control people, wipe their memories, or take a potion and assume their identity. It would be like fighting the Face Dancers from Dune if they were all trained in The Voice.
It comes down to how powerful static wards are, and how much technology just gets corrupted by magic. The real power of the wizards is memory and time manipulation. Close range is definitely in favor of wizards, you can’t surprise them unless they are intentionally careless. They can always go back a few hours and ambush you back. Chaos would ensue if they deleted every memory before 5 of a handful of leaders.
The tech killing thing is poorly defined, but hogwarts seems to disable electronic devices within a radius. If it’s similar to an emp, it may have countermeasures, but it’s hard to say they also work on magic. Operating within the radius of somewhere like that would be difficult.
There’s also the animagus issue. Every dog, cat, bird, or bug is a potential spy or assassin that is practically undetectable.
The big question is can spells stop a large bomb/nuke. Even if they couldn’t, it would be possible for wizards to escape the blast zone pretty easily, unless they couldn’t detect the attack.
I think the big weakness would be sniper fire that may be fast enough to prevent reactions at the borders of wards.
Ah yes, the good old solution of every contemporary fantasy world.
“modern technology just doesn’t work”
I mean, depending on the book, you have already accepted a number of ridiculous premises by real-world standards. It’s surprising to me that “and by the way, it interferes with or can be used to disable various kinds of technology” is where you would decide to roll your eyes.
I’m not much of a harry potter fan but wasn’t that the whole point of being in hiding
They were being killed by muggles left and right, and this was way before the invention of guns, so, yeah, they weren’t winning that war in any case.
Actually, at some point in the books they talk about this, and somebody comments how Muggles seldom would actually catch a real witch or wizard. And if they did, the witch or wizard would cast a spell to shield themselves from the fire and pretend to be in pain.
I had trouble believing Harry Potter as a kid. The whole house elf thing seemed unrealistic. Then when I grew up, I realised English people really are that racist.
you don’t enjoy a little decorating decapitated slave heads for some wholesome Christmas joy?
Ok, WHAT?
That’s in the book. Grimmauld Place has the preserved heads of all the Black family elves hanging by the door. During book 7 when Harry and gang are hiding there, they put Santa hats and beards on the heads for Christmas.
These are supposed to be the good guys.
I remember seeing a meme of Harry Potter, but I can’t find it anymore. Basically a conversation between Harry and dumbledore.
Harry says to dumbledore:
We are wizards, we could cure cancer. Fix world hunger and end all wars. Why we don’t do it?
Dumbledore says:
Harry you forgot the most important reason: we are British
Found it - https://existentialcomics.com/comic/391
My father grew up poor in the East End of London and got a scholarship to go to the sort of upper-class school that Hogwarts emulates. Apart from being proud of the achievement of doing so well academically there, he had very little good to say about it, especially the upper-class snobbery and, yes, the bigotry (he was Jewish) from both the students and the teachers. He told me that every morning just before school prayers, the headmaster made a big deal about excusing all the “Jews, Catholics and other heathens” (or something to that effect) to humiliate all of those kids. One of his only friends at the time was another kid there on scholarship.
Ironically, he said his favorite teacher at the school was the school’s chaplain, who was a really kind and funny man that didn’t care that my father wasn’t an Anglican, just that he was a smart kid.
My wife loves Harry Potter but I could never get into it after hearing all of my dad’s stories about his school when he was growing up.
Can you please stop stalking and harassing me?
of course muggles would win a war against wizarding folk, that is why they made the international statue of secrecy (also cause jkr is a hack who never wants to bother extrapolating from the consequences of her own worldbuilding)
