No one is saying this. We all accept that magic is complex, to some extent rule bound, and has mechanisms of action. Hogwarts has to teach something, after all.

But there's no reason to think that magic should be explainable in terms of physical laws. Magic has the ability to overrule the laws of nature, which would imply that if one needs explaining in terms of the other, then it's physics that needs to be explained in terms of magic, not the other way around. Magic is more fundamental than physics. Trying to explain magic with concepts from physics would be like trying to explain chemistry with concepts from biology.

Magic is explainable: that's why there's magical theory. It's just that explanations of magic are explanations in terms of magic.

 

Why anybody would debate that that muggles would stand a chance against wizards in a way is beyond me. Rowling already stated that magic isn't some form of hitherto unknown of physical phenomenom, it is magic, plain and simple. Taure and the rest have covered the billions of ways that would allow wizards to curbstomp, but here's another. Felix Felicis. A potion which would allow a housewife to stand in the path of a warhead and have it literally go out of its way to avoid her, which she slings turnip-skinning charms willy-nilly. Dose a small army of mild-mannered housewives with it and they could take over the Pentagon in a matter of hours.

Even if muggle scientists could somehow manage to study magic, it wouldn't be nearly in time for it to make a significant difference. It's been decades and the best stem cell research for bone regeneration is still in its infancy and costly as heck. How long do you think it will take to engineer something like Skele-gro? We still use wigs and fake beards and colored contacts to facilitate a disguise. We are nowhere near making something like the Polyjuice potion.

tl; dr this whole debate is silly in that anyone which half a brain cell should realise there's no debate to be had in the first place - even without resorting to extrapolations about what magic is capable off and residing firmly within the realms of what we know from canon, magic trumps tech so hard it's not even a contest.

 

Problem is Taure, is that this is both possible and is done, as is the exact reverse. Because both are heavily related. Not the same with magic.

If Pro-Muggle idiots would just concede already and stop using blatantly and unforgivably retarded cop-outs that equate to flailing about helplessly, the debate wouldn't need to happen.

I mean damn, you have to take way so much shit from the Potterwizards to have something resembling a fight that it isn't funny. You basically have to do the equivalent of taking away Airpower, Artillery and Armored Fighting Vehicles such as MBT's and IFVs, and then gimp the Navy. In actual Canon, with actual demonstrated capabilities, even going by the strictest interpretation possible, as in, if we don't see or read it happen, it can't happen, which by the way, is the dumbest way to read Pottermagic, its still a horrendous stomp.

....wow.

SCP being used in anything approaching a serious debate....about something other than SCP!:facepalm

 

One way I could see Muggles gaining an upper hand is if a certain faction of wizards joined them and "revealed" their secrets and worked with government\military\scientists to actively circumvent magic.

I mean in HP it seems like the secrecy is because wizards\witches fear Muggles and also want to self-isolate from them due to Purebloods, for example, thinking of them as another race. Otherwise if magic is all that powerful\etc. then why aren't wizards and witches lording it over the entire planet? From a brief encounter with Voldemort or others of his ilk, it would seem like power and control is something they would embrace especially over puny little muggles.

The thing I was thinking about was the most recent X-men movie that was blah except that the Dinklage character managed to take mutant "powers" to make Sentinels who could effectively combat mutants.

Execution in the film was crap and for most of the series, mutants that help Styker or whichever mutant hater are either doing it because of blackmail or brainwashing but that is probably the only way the "non-magic" side could gain an upper hand (help from the magicals whether willing or unwilling).

Like imagine if the government found Hermione Granger as a child (her parents or someone noticed all that paranormal activity) and then started looking for more people like her while experimenting and convincing the Muggle born wizard\witch population that traditional magical society was a prejudiced and archaic system that needed to be overthrown...

 

If you're going to pick a representative for the entirety of wizarding kind, why on Earth would you pick Voldemort?

 

Or the Death Eaters or the Malfoys or Black family outside of Sirius, you know the respectable and powerful members of a community?

Why not Voldemort, people like him alter their societies and people like him have come into power in the real world for similar sentiments. If JK Rowling hadn't deprived him of all dimension beyond a bit of backstory he could be a counterpart to Magneto...someone with the power and intelligence as well as a skewed point of view to try to shape the world to their will.

 

Because there are more people who don't want to conquer the world for shits and giggles?

What is the point of conquering the world? Muggles don't have resources that Wizards need - it would just be a pain in the ass ruling over them for no reward.

 

And you're still missing the entire point. Mutation was a phenonemon firmly bound by scientific rules - genetics, molecular biology, etc. As such it was subject to study using what we already know, and thus its effects were replicable - a fact that led to the creation of sentinels.

Magic is a whole new ballpark. It's not bound by the laws of nature, it's bound by the laws of magic which are nothing like anything muggles have ever come across. Not even close. It's like trying to figure out how the Death Star works armed with pen and paper and a book about toy car engines. Or trying to imagine a new color. There's nothing that relates science to magic, from which a foundation of analysis could be built upon. As already mentioned the invisibility cloak doesn't render you invisibly by refracting the photons that issue from your body - it just makes you invisible because magic. The featherweight charm doesn't upend gravity, it just makes things lighter because guess what - magic! Magic isn't codified by any rules other than its own. It's not bound by physics or chemistry or biology or any of the other -logies known to muggles.

Even assuming somehow it was. There's whole wizarding schools and departments dedicated to the study of magic, and even they don't have nearly all the answers. How long it would take muggle scientists to figure out how just one charm works? Decades of tireless research at the very least. How much damage do you think it would take a concentrated wizarding force to do in that space of time?

 

While I'm the first one to jump and say that Wizards are Awesome, the reason they don't rule muggles isn't that they can't.

It's because it would be a wrong thing to do.

 

It appears that most wizards think muggles are beneath their notice. They don't care. They have everything they could ever want - what on earth could muggles possibly offer? In canon the two examples of wizards or groups who sought to subjugate muggles wanted to do so because they had some degree of Hilter-esque ideals. They wanted to be rulers for the sake of it, or at least Voldemort did. Grindelwald thought the Statute was stupid and that muggles needed guidance which he was magnanimous and willing enough to provide.

And yes, each time they were opposed by people who thought that was the wrong thing to do (amongst other reasons).

 

Exactly though, two powerful groups did want to rule everyone. In literature, for the most part the "evil" have to lose but it doesn't always work out like that. So, if Grindelwald won or Voldemort or however many other "dark wizards" exist\existed then its possible society would be structured differently.

And of course we live in a world where people, especially those that have power because heroes are often reactionary forces anyway, have only done things because they are the right things to do. The entirety of human history is based on the principle that humans will act in their self-interest first and foremost, not what is the right thing to do.

Oh and the science in X-men is pseudoscience (it works like magic and against what we know as the laws of our universe), its not hard to extrapolate that that kind of pseudoscience could come into existence in the HP world.

 

Eh, there's a crucial difference, which is that though the powers look supernatural in X-Men they're supposed to be considered a part of the natural laws of the universe that we just don't understand yet. That is not the case with magic.

Eh, that overstates things. Most humans are generally moral. It's not the threat of punishment that stops most people from stealing and murdering and raping.

Regardless, the magical world has absolutely nothing to gain by assuming a position of direct control over the Muggles. Remember Grindelwald: he considered ruling the Muggles an unfortunate responsibility.

 

The science in X-men is not pseudoscience. It doesn't wear the trappings of science while being something else fundamentally - it is real, albeit highly advanced science in Marvelverse. It is still bound by the rules of physics and chemistry and biology. It is nothing like magic. Magneto's power is control over the force of magnetism. Wolverine's healing factor is accelerated cellular regeneration. Cyclops emits optic blasts from his eyes. All this is science.

The Killing Curse isn't a beam of green science-defined energy that causes death. It is magic that causes death, simple as that.

 

Well, the science in X-men to me is pretty much like the science in Star Wars. The rule of physics, chemistry, biology in our world at least do not explain how mutations work especially in terms of energy input\output. Cyclops and his optic blasts - what is producing the optic blast and how? Calling it science doesn't make it science, more like science fantasy.

I mean I love the little DNA symbol that shows up when in the opening to Spiderman movies but "radioactive spider bite" is pseudoscience and that too based on an era when radioactive was extremely popular way to explain away and hand wave things.

---------- Post automerged at 03:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:37 PM ----------

Just make a list of 1-1 correlations between mutant powers and magic spells.

 

Well, obviously none of it's real. That's why it's fiction. But there's a fundamental difference, in-universe, between the way mutation is presented in X-Men and the way magic is presented in HP.

In universe, mutation is ruled by natural law.

In universe, magic is not ruled by natural law.

The in-universe discussion is the only relevant one. The only out-of-universe answer to "wizards vs. Muggles" is "wizards don't exist".

 

Oh snap. All the AU fan fic writers better get rid of that shit they wrote since its not possible in the HP world.

Does it say anywhere in HP canon that science can't interact with magic (someone already mentioned the Ford Anglia)? We get a very small piece of the world and its history. We don't see most of the world or much a Muggle perspective on anything.

As I stated above I don't think Muggles could overpower wizards on their own, however with the assistance of magic users...why not?

As for why would wizards want to rule Muggles? The idea that of all wizards and witches across time, none would want to or find a reason why is just an indicator of a surprisingly limited imagination.

 

Depending on which bit of Marvel you read, it's either his mutated DNA doing stuff to his eyeballs, or his eyeballs actually being inter-dimensional portals to a non-Einstenian universe, which energy bleeds through whenever he opens his eyes. I'm fairly certain that bit has either been retconned or just quietly brushed under the carpet these days though.

Specifics aside, comic-books aren't the best comparison to help the argument, particularly given that there are various Marvel characters who sling magic around, which can't be explained in-universe either, beyond 'they did magic, and magic happened'. Helpfully, some of the magical characters are also mutants.

Edit:

Surely that changes the debate entirely though? At that stage, it's no longer Wizards vs Muggles, but two different factions of wizards. From a Wizarding perspective, it's little different to Voldemort recruiting the giants, except Muggles would be arguably less useful.

 

As Taure said before, this causes it to stop being a Muggles vs Wizards debate and turns it into Muggles+Wizards vs Wizards debate.

EDIT: fucking ninja'd...

 

Well, I was going to list them (characters from the Marvel universe who are magic users or otherwise have powers that are described as magic or even objects described as being magic talismans) but hey Marvel already has a list:

http://marvel.com/universe/Category:Magic

 

Er, AU is by definition AU, so not bound by canon.

And fanfiction is not canon anyway, even when it isn't advertised as AU, so you have the freedom to do whatever you like.

Interaction with science (by which I assume you mean technology) is not the same thing as being governed by natural law. Pulling a spell on a car does not require that the spell be governed by the same principles as the car.

If the constant wacky nature of magic (see above: conceptual magic) was not enough to cause you to think it completely separate from natural law, JKR's clearly stated on Pottermore recently that magical nature is quite distinct from mundane nature, and that wizards can control the latter:

(I knew that quote was going to be useful)

And if that isn't enough to convince you, perhaps this will: if you try to include magic as part of the natural order, wizards quickly begin to seem even more godlike. If energy is required to perform magic, and wizards can quite casually create matter as they please, then the energy that wizards have access to is extraordinary. We're talking orders of magnitude greater than the largest nuclear explosions.

If that's the case, then I don't see how it helps Muggles.