Correct.

Invading what?

Here you have touched upon the fundamental issue with this thread. This question is akin to saying: 'I am imagining a shape. Describe it to me.'

The simple fact is, the appearance of wars are shaped by that which causes them. The Second World War, was primarily caused by Anschluss, Lebensraum and the capture of Alsace and Lorraine. In other words, Germany's desire for expansion. This was reflected in the sheer scale of warfare. The Vietnam war was one of liberation, conflicting political ideology on an enormous scale and civil opposition. That was reflected in the fact that it was neatly contained in a single geographical location but with enormously far-reaching consequences. The Second Gulf War centered around the pursuit of natural resources, opposing religious and cultural ideology, ongoing tensions from the First Gulf War and revenge for the perceived attack on American soil. This has all been echoed in the fact that it's been a war of insurgency, fought by people who passionately believe in what it is that they're doing to the point of killing themselves and others just to die in a state of grace.

Wars are firmly and inextricably tied up with the climate that they are fought in and the factors that influence the war to begin with. It is my opinion, based on the magic of canon, that you cannot fight anything akin to a traditional war, or indeed anything like any conflict we've ever seen. The objectives do not correlate, the forces do not correlate, the logistics, tactics and outcomes cannot possibly correlate with anything like a war. Indeed, canon is just as plausible as anything I've read in fanfiction as to how a conflict might work; a series of mini-skirmishes, abductions, murders and terrorism, culminating in a coup or single larger battle and ending the moment that one of the major players dies and their side's fervor drops away.

Going back to my original question; what exactly is it that is being invaded? Wizards do not (or should not) value land beyond that upon which their house is built and that shouldn't really mean much as they can apparently occupy as much or as little space as they desire. If you mean they're attempting to overthrow the government and establish themselves in charge of wizarding Britain, the question has to be why? Like you pointed out, even Voldemort didn't want to rule. He just wanted the freedom to act exactly however he pleased. Grindlewald and Dumbledore wanted to rule the muggles and as far as I'm aware, the magical world wouldn't have been mightily fussed if they'd done so, provided they didn't expose the wizarding world in the process.

I'm sorry we've not given you the answer you were looking for, but that's just how it is. That said, I get the impression from your last post that we're coming at this from very different angles. For example, you're looking at how cool it would be for wizards to fight a war and I'm thinking about how logically unsound and impractical such an endeavor would be.

For the record, I'd just like to quickly drop a note here to say just how awkward and painful your 'Treatise' was to read. Most of it is pretty illogical or based upon incoherent fanon nonsense.

Anyway, cheerio.

 

Fair enough.

I was aiming for a Rorschach Blot test, but if that's what you see, fair enough.

Thank you for the history lesson, I do appreciate the small effort you made to eludicate me, but please, I was trying to keep this as simple as possible because I'm trying to find a baseline for how wizards fight an extended engagement. I'm looking at what are the most basic things Wizards need to keep a fight going, what the bottom-line problems they're going to face are. Muggles have their problems to surmount; wizards do as well.

Generally speaking, war is an impractical situation. Strategy is how to handle that impractical situation. But yes, I do suppose we are approaching it from different directions.

Okay, this is what I was looking for. What are the problems with it and how can I fix it? (Aside from improving my prose, which is crap of course)

Pip, pip.

 

I've grouped your points for easy reference.


The Fanon:

"Wandwood groves"

"potions ingredient farms"

The Confundus Charm is pretty key here- it's actually better than the Imperius because it doesn't require as much concentration.

If they think they're gonna lose, it will affect their spellcasting and they will lose.

"Imperio'd Dragons"

Sure, you can channel your magic through any object

Anti-Theft charms are shit- either too expensive to do right or too weak. Don't bother with them. Too fucking easy to get around: Imperio.


The Illogical:

Never, ever field wizards alone.

magical animal preserves are pretty important

When fighting a bunch of wizards all in one big ball- run if you can. If you can't, stealth, speed, and surprise are your best tools. Next you want to split them up and confuse them so they don't know their arse from breakfast time.

Wizards work well in groups of three or more. One shields, one fires off offensive spells, and one keeps any fodder you've got alive. The rest double up, which is damn nice. Stick pretty close together too.

Fodder is good as a distraction by itself, but it doesn't pack a lot of punch without support. Fiendfyre can wipe out hordes of Fodder, but leaves the caster vulnerable to any shite you throw at him. If you've got fodder, make sure you can get it fucking cheap because it will die fast.

Best thing about fire is that if the fire doesn't kill you, the smoke will. So if you get caught by muggles and they try to burn you, don't forget your Bubblehead Charm, you wanker.


The Good (But Obvious):

Cast silently, you felchbag!

Get them to fight themselves, and half of your work is done.

Morale is a big part of ... Warfare... Anything you can do to keep your troops confidence at a reasonable level is your best strategy.

Apparation is fucking key.

Just because your opponent can't see you, doesn't mean he can't kill you or doesn't know you're there.

Turning somebody's robes to lead is ... stupid.

Casting spells while falling is a pain in the ass.

a wand versus a stick is no contest at all


The Good:

It's all about the secrets you know, and the ones your enemies don't.

There are few places that are actually strategically important, and for the most part it's about maintaining a certain amount of wands ... one-of-a-kind shit like Hogwarts is important ... but otherwise magic can replace almost anything you'd care to lose. The major resource in Wizarding War is far and away the wizards themselves.

 

Not actually fanon at all.

 

Thank you! <3

Okay. Where do Wizards get wand wood? Is it just mundane wood? Same slant of question for potion ingredients.

Okay.

Well, these three are in fact canon. Emotion and memory do appear to have a lot to do with the power and effect of magic. Also, as the lovely Ashaya pointed out, Ollivander explains why technically speaking you don't need wands and Harry does in fact put a Dragon under the Imperius- both of which happen in Book 7. Apparently, casting the Imperius tingles.

Okay.

To my thinking, one wizard is capable of casting one spell at a time, and thus is a bit of a liability by themselves. They can be overwhelmed comparatively easily. Wizards appear to get exponentially more effective the more of them you get in the same place. Or maybe you thought I meant "Never field Wizards without supporting units?" which quite frankly still sounds like pretty solid advice, since it gives them a lot of raw material to manipulate with magic, especially once the supporting forces die.

So not having the material to make wands and potions, and not having creatures to throw at your opponent are unimportant, then?

Uh... how exactly is this illogical? The running part?

This probably ties into how we view wizards. I view them as muggles who can do magic. I'm guessing you're more in the camp of "Wizards can bend the world to their whim! How can they be defeated?"

I was under the impression that Fiendfyre requires mental control and concentration. Am I incorrect? Or is Fiendfyre yet another targeted spell, and thus relatively weak against hordes of gribblies? Also, if the enemy is casting at the fodder, they aren't casting at you- to my knowledge wizards cannot cast two spells at once.

Flame Freezing Charm makes the flames cool to the touch, but it doesn't protect you from smoke inhalation, to my knowledge. The fire is still burning, correct?

Thanks!

 

Fuck if I know the answer to either of those questions, but my first guess would not have been Wand Wood Groves or Potion Ingredient Farms.

As has been said, you're talking about a society of 3-4 thousand people. With forty new witches/wizards a year. Olivander's shop is described as having dozens and dozens (potentially hundreds) of wands already prepared and ready for service. Likewise, as serious potion brewers (if Snape is to be believed and Dumbledore's difficulty to find a replacement in Harry's sixth year taken at face value) are few and far between. This means that neither of these things will probably require an awful lot of infrastructure and are probably harvested/gathered than meticulously farmed or cultivated (When is anything in the wizarding world meticulous or industrious?)

IIRC, there's no spells ever described in canon other than the Cruciatus and Occulemency that have anything to do with emotion or memory. I'm happy to conceed the other points as Book 7 is the one I'm least acquainted with (ostensibly because it is a fucking mess).

On a side-note, if Harry Potter can cast it on a dragon and everyone was perfectly happy for the fake Moody to cast unforgivables in front of a school full of children, why don't Charlie and his friends use it before the first task, rather than risk the dragon burning their face off? Oh wait, JKR. Forget I asked.

To my eyes, this is not an argument for more wizards working in conjunction. Just merely the ability to match force for force. In the Department of Mysteries (the one decently sized conflict described in a useful amount of detail), they all operate in their individual duels and for (in my eyes) two good reasons.

Firstly, in such a tight-knit, insular society, it is more likely that they are going to be operating with people they know and/or like. This is likely to make people take stupid risks for the wellbeing of those around them and risk ending up with everyone involved dead.

Secondly, assuming that offensive magic cannot pass out of a shield (this never happens in canon) and that your wizards are not telepathic, what happens when someone tries to shield at the precise moment and in the same direction that someone happens to be casting an offensive curse? Not to mention that sticking close together merely means that any curse that does manage to beat the guard of the one person you've got playing defense is far more likely to cause severe damage as even a poorly aimed curse fired into a group of people is more likely to hit someone.

I didn't, but it leads nicely into my next point:

Why/how on Earth would anyone use fodder in a battle of magic?

Firstly, there's no evidence in canon that there's any way of controlling any quantity of willful individuals (goblins, gnomes and the like are apparently sentient beings). Imperio can only work on a single target at a time.

Secondly, Inferi seem to be enchanted into a state of semi-living and just left to their own devices, there's no implication from canon that they're controlled in any way other than left in a specific area with vague instructions. For example: "Kill anyone who touches this water." There's absolutely no evidence that supports the idea of Inferi armies (aside from the fact that Grindlewald happened to want one from the Resurrection Stone). Indeed, there's something exceptionally useless about an army of fodder that will turn around and walk the opposite direction when exposed to fire.

Thirdly, even if you were somehow able to put an enormous number of creatures (fodder) between you and other wizards, why would anyone want to? Other than providing a literal meatshield (for one's opponents as well as whoever commanded them), all they would be good for is battlefield debris after the opposing wizards have massacred them. No goblin or gnome or inferi is going to kill a wizard with any semblance of sense or logic, because they can apparate away, shield projectiles and kill any stupid or unlucky enough to approach with a single flick of their wand.

Hate to say it, but magical combat would be about, well, magic. Anything else would be incoherent foreplay. Unless you're working under the impression that wizards have a finite quantity of magic. Which is wrong.

Well that depends. In the event of total war, which would never happen (for reasons I mentioned above), then these things might be important. But there wouldn't be any pressing need to suddenly start manufacturing an enormous quantity of wands or potions, so no, they wouldn't.

And as I said above, aside from Dragons (which are apparently easy to deal with) and Basilisks (which are as dangerous to the people fielding them as anyone) no magical could hold a candle to a competent wizard.

Stealth and speed? If I were a wizard and saw an enormous group of enemy wizards standing together I would toss the largest, most explodey curse I knew right into the middle of them and apparate away. More fool them for standing so close together. This sort of harks back to my 'Wizards operating together are retarded' point.

Not really. As I pointed out above, standing next to each other just makes you a bigger target and operating concurrently as a unit is illogical (you don't have three swordsmen; one for attacking, one for defending and one for putting his thumb up his ass). It's the reason groups of infantry span out and maintain a minimum distance from each other. So that when people drop artillery on them (or big explodey fireballs), they don't all get blown to pieces, vaporised or what have you.

Fiendfyre would be a perfectly good spell to kill a large number of unprotected things quickly. My complaint was that wizards would not need to kill large groups of unprotected things quickly, because large groups of unprotected things are not stupid enough to walk up to wizards who conjure giant animals of fire. Or if they are, it only happens once.

My complaint was with the word 'muggle' and the situation. Muggles do not fight wizards. Muggles certainly don't trap wizards and try and burn them out. Muggles run in abject terror because 'Oh holy shit that guy just cut that other guy in half with a stick and some bright light!'

EDIT: Also, why wouldn't the wizard put the fire out?

EDIT II: Of course all of this is missing the real point. Muggles, 'fodder' and magical creatures pretty much have no place in magical combat because there just wouldn't be pitched combat. Almost all objectives that either side would want to achieve would be better served by hit and run attacks and sieges are impossible as wizards can survive almost indefinitely if well enough prepared and are almost impossible to bottle up. Anyone who attempted to fight pitched battles would find themselves playing the Americans and their opponents the Vietcong.

 

You people seem to be forgetting the battle at Hogwarts. It's the only large scale fight between two organised groups of people, so it's probably our best reference point.

We see the use of magical creatures, very effectively. Voldemort has both the giants and the acromantula, both of which do a lot of damage. Grawp also does a fair bit of damage for the good side.

We see fighting in groups. The order organise a load of groups to defend different parts of the castle, so wizards don't always work alone.

The siege of Hogwarts lasts about an hour before the Death Eaters got through the wards, so you certainly can't defend indefinitely. "Fodder" was used extensively, as evidenced by McGonagall animating both statues and desks. The anti apparation ward prevents the use of hit and run tactics, and also makes it difficult for the defenders to escape. It also neutralises all your points about how apparation makes fodder obsolete.

Patronus? Griphook also says something along the line of "you have to mean it", when talking about the imperius, which could be taken to mean that emotion is important.

All it takes to stop this tactic is one of them to see it coming and shield everyone. As I've said apparation isn't always possible, so you might be faced with a large number of curses coming at you at once if you attempt this. Also apparation in the heat of battle can lead to splinching, as Ron does, so it could be a risky tactic.

 

We don't know exactly how difficult it is to cast anti-apparition wards, but we know it's possible to do on short notice with a group of relatively unskilled individuals (see Snatchers in book 7).

 

Pretty interesting discussion you guys have going here. I read most of it and saw several relevant points that I thought needed to be addressed and expanded.

First point is the "Fight or flight" instinct;
We know wizards are described as being really proud. Just look at the Malfoy's with their sense of honour, prestige and wealth or the Weasley's with their integrity, solid morals and their family home the Burrow. Wizards tend to inhabit the same house or area for generations, centuries even, and would most likely not be very eager to leave at the first sign of trouble. I think it is more likely that they would stay and fight unless the situation is exceptionally bleak.
- Would they flee in situation which would only cost them their life if they stayed? Hell yes!
- Would they do the same if the family manor, in which their family had lived for generations, centuries even, was attacked? I am not so sure. At least not without some measure of resistance.

In a family of nine like the Weasley's or even in smaller families, it is not certain that fleeing is even possible. Taking into account the amount of wizards capable at apparating, their skills at side-along-apparation and the amount of children needed to be moved leaving someone behind could be a very real possibility.

But fear not! Even if offensive magic appears stronger than defensive magic, someone still hasn't managed to convince me that it holds true in every aspect of combat.
- In duels? Certainly, not every spell can be blocked and it is therefore always a good idea to be ready to jump out of the way in case something nasty your way comes. Don't rely on a partner to shield you from everything nasty thrown at you!
But choosing the battleground and having knowledge of the terrain always plays an important role of any scenario. And time and preparation always gives you and advantage. In times of strife it is only logical that you would look to ways of improving your security and it would always be focused at areas where you are most vulnerable, your family and your home. Areas can be trapped, defensive wards can be cast, fireproof charms can be used to secure the house etc.

Like many others have already stated large scale combat will probably be unusual in wizard "wars" though in no way improbable. Just like the battle at Hogwarts, it would not be hard to imagine other scenarios where it could be required.
These battles could be filled with a variety of entities. I honestly don't foresee a lot of conjured or transfigured 'fodder' as most of those are really high level spells like those Minerva, the "Transfiguration master", Headmistress of the most prestigious school of magic in Europe, does - And like a boss, might I add.

I always got the impression that while the imperio was a curse well suited for controlling people, it would be next to impossible to manage on a large number of people. Confounding would likely work well on non-magical animals and imperio could possible work well on magical animals. But dragons? really? No way in hell! most likely not on hippogriffs, basilisks, nundu's etc. either.

Spells don't take 15 minutes to cast either, nor seconds. In battle, the general rule is "blink, and you'll miss it!"

With large amount of people and fodder it sounds like you are trying to write a story taking place in the past... ??
If that is the case, having muggle 'fodder' on the battlefield can easily be explained given the right circumstances.
After all, with few capable wizards around it might be hard to find volunteers for the dangerous assignment of sneaking into the evil witch's castle to assassinate her. If you'd rather not risk your own life on this hazardous mission it might be better to try and take it with an army.
So, there are no friendly wizards in the area and you need to protect your newly acquired lands from the aggressive expansion of the neighboring wizard. Is he constantly sending small muggle raiding parties into your lands? hmm... what to do?

 

Okay, now our discussions are getting somewhere!

I was thinking more along the lines of a grove, with say a twenty or thirty trees with wand-quality wood, and maybe ten similar sized groves throughout magical Britain. I will admit the potion ingredient farms may be a bit overdeveloped though. Perhaps a better model would be a fair percentage of the families to have a small pen for a couple magical creatures, a small plot for for some specific magical plants, and then they sell their extra supplies to the potion ingredient store. It would also help explain how the economy of Wizarding Britain might work.

Well, it's not like Potions Masters are the only people who brew potions. Aurors do, Medical personel do, and I'd bet dollars to donuts that Molly Weasley and her ilk aren't going to end up going to a potions master for Boil Cream.

Wow, I think we read different books. Bill Door did an admirable job of pointing out a couple more spells, but he missed what I perceive as the clincher: Accidental Magic. It happens when young wizards have strong emotions. Harry displays it when he feels strongly enough about his godfather waltzing into the veil of death.

Also, Legilimency appears to be entirely about reading other peoples memories, pensieves are made to view memories, Obliviate, muggle repelling wards (they work by triggering a false memory about something important a muggle needs to be doing elsewhere).

Oh, and furthermore, the entirety of canon is a fucking mess. Often times, so is real life.

I kind of assumed they did, which was why the dragons weren't rampaging all over the spectators. They simply weren't skilled enough with the Imperius to turn a dragon into a glorified puppet. Also Barty Crouch did mention that the Unforgivables only carried jail time if you cast them on a human. Frankly, it does explain how Voldemort broke into Gringotts during Book 1 rather neatly- he just cast the Imperius on any given goblin, and then Obliviated them.

What a load of crap. Seriously. First of all, Harry's basic Protego isn't even that terribly large, so I don't think I'm going out on a limb here by saying the caster has control over the size of the shield. Second the person who cast Protego can almost certainly chose what direction they are facing and where they are standing, which in turn means that they have some control over where they have their shield appear. Third, it's not like a spell is the only way to block a curse from hitting you. Dumbledore and Voldemort seemed to prefer conjuring physical shields. That's probably way out of the average magic user's reach, but carrying a couple of shrunken shields in your pocket wouldn't be a terrible idea, especially if you can cast something as technically advanced as Flitwicks flying keys.

Magically, of course.

But you could cast it on something, order them obey your every command, and the move onto the next creature. Also, who said fodder had to only be magical creatures? Animated statues, animated suits of armor, animated keys... the list goes on.

Unless you had A. Something that prevented them from perceiving the fire, or B. Something that prevented any fires from igniting within a certain radius. And to be entirely fair, we have no idea exactly how Inferi are commanded. That said, you've hit on the two major logistical issues in using Inferi.

Well, see its this thing called basic tactical positioning, some magic called apparation wards, and the fact that the meatshields' controllers probably have wands as well that provides some logic to it. Fodder is aptly named, and will be quickly destroyed by any competent magic user if its unsupported by other wizards, but it makes a fine distraction and a way to overload their targeted spells with threat density. Plus, they do allow you to use enchanted items

It's kind of funny; the thing I see as pretty much the weakest aspect of being a wizard (direct targeted curse and hex work in the heat of combat) you see as the strongest. My reasoning has nothing to do with a 'mana pool' if you will, but the speed at which spells appear to be cast and how easily they appear to be blocked. The best way to use that sort of magic in my eyes would be from behind cover, while your target is looking the other way.

I think you may need to reread canon again.

As has been pointed out, this is simply incorrect.

And your 'Wizards operating together are retarded point' is... ill conceived and poorly thought out. It assumes that your average wizard is physically faster than every other creature out there.

It also gives you more eyes to spot you, more mouths to shout warnings, and more wands cast shield spells and attack spells. This is one of the areas where magical combat doesn't resemble muggle combat, but good job on the vast oversimplification of squad based tactics. Also, what big explodey fireballs? Fiendfyre and conjured fire are the only two major possibilities for what your describing, and neither works in the manner you describe. To my knowledge, the simply aren't any 'big, explody curses' because engagements are of a limited scale. Even Dumbledore doesn't use that sort of thing- he conjures three lumps of silver and beats all of the ministry workers into unconsciousness with them in Book 5.

And it appears to be one of the very few ways wizards can control numbers, while also maintaining some element of risk. It also gets you hit by a blasting curse in the chest, since you can't shield yourself from incoming magic.

So, you didn't read book 1, when they're talking about Wendolyn the Weird? Or the other witch burnings? It wasn't common, but it did happen.

To fake his/her death so the muggles don't go bothering him/her during the move to somewhere the neighbors are hospitable?

And you have missed the point entirely. Pitched battles would be quite a stupid way to fight a magical war. Most magical battles will be defined by surprise; as in "Surprise! You were walking down the street and apparation is suddenly jammed, your emergency portkey just flew out of your pocket, ominous green glowing spells are flying at you, and you're surrounded by a hundred advancing statues with flaming swords and giant shields!" The rest of your points are mostly fanon, as far as I can tell.

-------

Edit

@Sesc: Good point. It seems to me that the only real answer to that is secrecy, making your base into one giant trap for the unwary, and crossing your fingers. Honestly, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense that wizards would mostly use proxies to fight their wars.

 

It's actually pointless to argue this with you as you just invent bullshit to support your flawed incoherence.
​

 

Wow. We feel exactly the same way about each other.

Good day, sir.

 

Err, yeah. Roughly half of that is canon and most of the rest could very well be supported in a fanfic.

 

Name one thing I invented to support my arguments.

 

JKR's writing style was so fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants that the idea of sitting down and trying to logically suss out the logical rules of the system of magic in Harry Potter is ridiculous. You basically have to build them up yourself from the ground up and fit in what you can of canon. In Harry Potter canon, there only seems to be one rule about what magic can and cannot do; what does JKR need it to do for the plot? Given that, arguing about what is and isn't possible with a given piece of magic seems a little silly and also means that there's probably no way for us to come up with a canon compliant answer that isn't basically summarized as 'what happened in Deathly Hallows'. We should strive not to question whether a certain spell can work a specific way, but rather what would drive a plot forward. It's probably a better discussion (more fruitful and more entertaining, at least) to discuss the various ways in which it could work, given certain conditions so long as they comply with what little we know from canon, or being very clear in how they deviate from said.

With that said, I'm not so sure you wouldn't have pitched battles, but it depends on how resources are managed in the magical world. If people tend to grow their own ingredients/wand wood/magical animals/etc then no you probably wouldn't have pitched battles anything like, well like pitched battles in history. If instead things are gathered from the forest/lakes/etc then you could actually have pitched battles, or at least something that resembles as close as you get to pitched battles in modern warfare.

Of course there's also magical artefacts. Things like, say; the Sorting Hat, the veil thing in the DoM, Hogwarts and various other places or objects seeped in magic. These would create scenarios for pitched battles because they either cannot be moved easily, or are heavily guarded enough to necessitate controlling the actual physical location of them in a meaningful way. Any pitched battles, or close approximation of, are complicated by thing like apparition. We know that it's possible to block apparition somehow, but the questions of how it's done and how difficult it is are somewhat up in the air.

Ultimately my thought is that most conflicts would be either fairly small (in other words a massive battle would be something on the order of 15 people) or just chaotic melees where everyone is basically fighting to make sure they don't wind up dead at the end of the day without clear organization or recognizable non-combatants.

 

First of all, welcome to DLP!

Second of all:

This is the topic. Obviously, everything this thread will produce is conjecture.

These are all good points, and they have been brought up before. Yes, pitched battles are going to occur in any war- what they are not, is ideal. Especially in magical warfare which really is all about the number of wands and wizards you have at your disposal.

The thing about magic, is that it can in fact allow massive battles to occur even though only 15 or so wizards are fighting. Between the Imperius, constructs, and the undead, it's not hard to have a lot of warm (or cold, as the case may be) bodies. The best way to handle wizards is to throw a lot of stuff at them, from a lot of directions, and pitched battles are great for that. Sadly, it works both ways. It's a pretty big risk to commit that many trained wizards to a battle, since there probably around 2000 (out of a total population of about 3000) trained wizards in England as of 1994.

 

Thanks.

I was only reiterating it, in my own words, because it seemed that things were veering towards an argument of more 'you're wrong!' 'no you're wrong and here's why you're a stupid idiot' nature. As for the topic, I sort of latched onto the 'as portrayed in Canon', which to me means, basically that you have to largely make it up as you go along and keep the major facts in line. I think so long as an idea doesn't violate some major portion of Canon it's perfectly valid to me (you know so long as it's not otherwise blatantly stupid, etc).

From what I remember of the battle of Hogwarts (which isn't much given I only sort of read the last two books in the series) Things like magical constructs don't seem to pose too much of problem for a Wizard, and don't seem to be capable of much in terms of independent action. So like you say, they'd be useful but mostly as distractions and spell soakage. So Fodder.

I like to stay away from trying to trying to figure out any sort of sensable population number for Wizards, because the information we have is all contradictory and makes little sense even on its own. Of course, since we're talking about warfare, it does kind of come up doesn't it. That's where things get sticky though, because depending on your inclination there are all sorts of arguments to be made about what constitutes a realistic figure for the population without any real way to get at an answer that we could say is objectively true. There are the facts as they're given in teh books which lead to a rather small figure, but there are also things that just don't make sense with a population that small, certain functions of society which just aren't present in similarly sized communities that aren't part of larger social structures. Which leads to questions about the size and interconnectedness of the rest of the wizarding world (literally). And, and, and...

You see obviously where we get stuck with too many unknowns.

Anyways, with a figure of 2000 trained wizards, your reasoning makes quite a bit of sense. But if the numbers are expanded some, and you go into larger populations I don't know that the sheer number of wands is necessarily as important as the capability of those wielding the wand. Take Voldemort and Dumbledore for instance, who have demonstrated capability to take on multiple opponents without much issue, obviously they're outliers and not the norm, but others have also demonstrated the ability to at least deal reasonably well with multiple opponenets (Snape comes to mind, I think, my memories of DH are fuzzy and not very reliable IMO).

This actually leads me to an idea which sort of figures nicely into my remembrence of Canon. Perhaps Wizarding warfare isn't really all that similar to warfare as it has been historically experienced in terms of settled hierarchical civilizations but more akin to the internal political struggles of Hunter-Gatherer peoples and Nomadic tribes.

This would mean that most of the 'fighting' is done quietly, and non-violently in the attempts to garner support of particular blocs of people or specific powerful individuals, and then the opposing sides duke it out and whoever comes out the winner takes the reins. It could explain why there was never widespread involvement of people in terms of opposition or blatant support for/against Voldemort and also why though mention is made of Death Eaters bribing/lying their way out of Azkaban sentences nothing is ever really made out of it.

Basically, warfare among wizards may involve less out and out fighting and more behind the scenes political/social dealings.

I think I've rambled.

 

Ashaya: If you read the first sentence with context from the second, third and fourth, it's pretty obvious that the 'instrument' Ollivander is talking about is still a wand. He's just setting a wizard's affinity to all wands on a scale. Yes, any trained wizard should be able to use any wand they get their hands on, but some are better attuned than others.

This has nothing to do with picking up a brick and casting spells with it.

 

Wand vs. brick is a bit of a false dichotomy, it seems to me.

It seems perfectly reasonable to say that Ollivander was recognising that there are instruments other than wands that can be used to channel magic without going so far as to say any object could be used in that way.

Anyway, a bit late in replying, but better late than never...

It was actually a biblical reference. I was implying that I'm Jesus.

I'm not so sure about some of these. Hogwarts has sentimental value, but it would actually be pretty easy to move to another location. The loss of the library would suck, but the library is not essential.

Floo network we know nothing about. It may be that it's just individual fireplaces in a network without any kind of central "server".

Department of Mysteries is the big one. Lots of one-of-a-kind magical objects. However, I'm not sure if many wizards would notice of the DoM ceased to exist overnight.

In a certain sense, nuclear bombs have made other weapons obsolete. Not in the sense that they cease to work, but in the sense that the possession of nuclear weapons completely changes the game.

You can't ignore wizards like Dumbledore and Voldemort just because they're outliers. That's exactly the point. They're the linchpins of wizarding affairs. Think back to canon: Voldemort disappears, the Death Eaters fail. Dumbledore dies, Voldemort takes over. They were the Russia and America of the magical world. In many senses, the wizarding war depicted in canon isn't the clash of two armies, it's the clash of two men. Everyone else is trivial.

Both the Marauder's Map and the shield hats were touted as amazing items. Especially the Map. I don't think saying "even school age children can make them" means much in the magical world - talented children are often far ahead of even highly advanced adults. Hermione's jar is somewhat different to the others, in that it's not a special creation that took creativity. It's just a well-known spell she learnt from a book on a jar.

...which is why it's so important.