The Muggle government doesn't know about magic, the Prime Minister knows about magic. And we know that he didn't tell anyone about it, because the narrative that told us so was from his own point of view.

Not gonna touch the possibility of countermeasures. Not now, at least.

 

The reason people are so insistent that muggles can win a war with wizards, I think, is largely because they come to the conclusion that muggles can win smaller battles and in certain situations, and then extrapolate that out to a strategic whole.

I've never held much stock on the "magic perfectly counters the non-magical" line that gets thrown around a lot, here. There is simply a dearth of evidence to suggest that this is the case; I would assume that it's something DLP has picked up through association with the Nasu fandom, in which there is more of a reason to think that.

I will just note that a lot of people who seem determined to put magic on an inviolable, specially privileged, non-scientific pedestal are also quite prone to putting a very sharp limit between that which is and is not magical; a very binary stance that I find quite hypocritical and bereft of common sense. A lot of canonical threats to wizards would no longer be such if it were the case; and if you went with the argument that "everything a magical being uses to hurt a wizard is magical" then I'm afraid you'd have a hard time proving whether anything at all in the world of Harry Potter lacks some degree of magic within it. I will note the opinions of both Dumbledore and the personal beliefs of J.K. Rowling in this regard. Consider how the Blood Wards around Privet Drive function - if there was nothing magical at all about Petunia (a seemingly normal muggle), then by the logic some would use, they should not work at all, or else be powered by Harry's perception rather than Petunia's (clearly not the case).

I would go so far as to suggest that what makes wizards and witches special is not that they are magical, but that they are gifted in witchcraft and wizardry, and I might further suggest that given how closely the magical and muggle worlds interacted with one another up 'til the Statute of Secrecy, that what is and what is not defined as magical is largely determined by wizards themselves based on their perceptions. Someone noted that there's nothing clearly magical about flobberworms; yeah, their mucus has magical properties, but so do perfectly mundane plants and metals. And even if they did have magical properties, how would muggles know with the technology of that time? I find it rather unlikely, given how prone to bureaucratic and ignorant mishaps wizards are just as prone to as muggles, that any wizard could predict how far muggle technology would eventually go.

Ultimately, we lack a lot of information on how witchcraft and wizardry really works - not just in principle (though I recall that Rowling stated that no-one has any idea where magic actually comes from) but also mechanically. How do muggles get into the Leaky Cauldron on their way to Diagon Alley to begin with? It doesn't appear as if they always have a wizardly escort. How good are anti-muggle forms of magic such as repelling charms? It is my personal suspicion that muggles are just as magical as squibs - and that being able to see Hogwarts or the Leaky Cauldron is more a matter of knowing what to look for than anything else. Essentially, working along the same principles as a Notice-Me-Not charm, except only targeting muggles, who lacking knowledge that such things exist would never even think to try and get past one.

I'm firmly of the opinion that a war would never happen. As noted, wizards have massive strategic advantages that they're already making use of that muggles can't counter. They have a death grip on the governments of the world. I vaguely suspect that America might be causing them some problems precisely because of how inanely and dysfunctional its government agencies can be, lacking, among other things, centralized oversight for its various intelligence agencies, though this is again an unsubstantiated suspicion.

Even if some kind of alien space bat divided all muggles and all wizards into two blood-lusted sides determined to exterminate one another with extreme prejudice and made all the muggles capable of ignoring illusions and mind control, wizards would probably still win, because their advantages are just that great.

A realistic conflict would look nothing like that, of course. Mind you, muggles and wizards have nothing to really compete over, anyway; muggles cannot make use of magical resources, and wizards are far too few to really impinge on muggle resources and land. If there was a conflict, I imagine it would be started by some faction of wizards or another - either seeking to subvert and truly rule muggles, or trying to weaponize them, or some other sort of manipulation. In any such case the muggles would most likely gain some form of magical assistance that helps them overcome their most crippling weaknesses to magic, whether that's in the form of little talismans that lets them overcome Muggle-Repelling wards or clothes that let them shrug off those pesky light-speed jinxes that would be annoying to a wizard, but incapacitate a muggle.

It's hard to tell how such a conflict would turn out, without going into much more depth.

The long and short of it is that wizards are extremely dominant on a strategic and logistical level, as has already been noted, though muggles do have some advantages (I would argue against a couple of points in Taure's quote on the previous page, but its overall conclusion is correct).

How useful would a gun be in a fight against a wizard? I have no idea. I doubt it'd be useless, as some would think. Even if a perfectly-cast shield charm can theoretically ward off anything, I would argue that there is no such thing as a perfectly-cast spell, even for someone like Dumbledore wielding the Elder Wand. In canon, most charms appear to wear off or lose effectiveness over time - invisibility cloaks fade, and making use of a bubblehead charm for too long a period of time (several hours, IIRC?) has been noted to result in a weird smell within it.

The best way for a muggle to fight a wizard would be with proper magical support, I think. I'm not sure what that would look like, exactly.

In the end, it's simply the case that without magical support, a real fight will never happen. The worst that might happen is an armed muggle getting the drop on a wizard every now and then. In every other realistic scenario, muggles and wizards will be interacting in a much more complex fashion than simply "us versus them."

(Once upon a fairly recent time, I may or may not have contemplated writing an SI-like fic where the protagonist is actually an adult muggle, for once. This has led to some extensive thought on the matter. And, perhaps a bit pridefully, I must say I'm not so prone to self-aggrandizement and flanderization of those perceived as enemies as most are.)

 

It's late, but one thing to pick up on that's relatively self-contained: there's a difference between a thing having magical significance and it being magical.

There's a lot of things that have magical significance in HP, from stellar movements to non-magical plants (people always seem to forget that the vast majority of potions ingredients are from non-magical plants and animals). It seems to me that in the HP world, essentially everything in the universe has magical significance - some "meaning" which can be utilised in and manipulated by magic.

But that's not the same thing as everything having magic. Being magical in HP, unlike magical significance, is very much binary. Not only is this a belief manifested by the characters, it's also word of god: JKR said "you are either magical or you are not" on her old website when discussing Squibs.

 

So are Squibs magical or not, then? Because they can see dementors, which sets them apart from muggles, but they can't cast spells...

Edit: I guess Squibs would pretty obviously be magical, like centaurs, but they'd just lack spellcasting abilities, like centaurs.

 

They can't see Dementors. Mrs Figg was lying when she said that she could. For all intents and purposes, squibs are muggles born to wizard parents.

 

I just looked it up, and...yeah. Wow.

...If that's the case, though, shouldn't it be super easy to figure out if your child's a squib? Just see if they're affected by muggle-repelling charms?

And, back on topic, if there are such things as muggle-repelling charms, then it seems like magic can differentiate pretty easily between magical and nonmagical things. If that's the case, then shouldn't it be possible to do something like a magical age line, where nobody without magic can physically enter an area? Not just something where muggles remember important appointments and are distracted away?

 

But they're not Muggles, they're Squibs.

Which is to say, they may be "physically" identical but they're not socially identical. A different word is used to describe them. Though they have the same amount of magic as Muggles - none - they occupy a different social category. Magic can curse job positions, enchant words and even measure how good a student you are (Goblet of Fire). It can surely tell the difference between a Squib and a Muggle.

 

You're killing me, here.

Let me get this all straight: Squibs are basically muggles in all but name, but since names are important in magic (beetles to buttons and all that), the spell can still differentiate between them. Does that sound about right?

Edit: Seems like you edited agreeing with that. Yay! I'm right! Kind of!

 

Someone is going to set up a task force? What, do you think that the Prime Minister can just magically conjure up a taskforce with the task of... figuring out ways to win a war against wizards? Stop and think about this. The sort of task force you've imagining - how do you think it would have been in the oh, middle ages? Renaissance? The task force you're imagining would only be possible after the second World War, I'd say. If he tried to create a task force to combat a potential wizard threat, if he tried to tell people that yes magic is real, he'd be thought insane. And creating a task force against magical threats wouldn't be accomplish much of anything if they didn't know they'd be preparing against magic, yeah? And how would you explain that to the muggle government?

Furthemore, the Prime Minister doesn't know any details about magic. At all. A wizard shows up and tells that yes, magic is real, and pretty much leaves it at that. It's not like any muggle is even remotedly aware of the full potential of magic. Remember, we know that magic is real, but your average muggle? Would you seriously believe that? Hell no.

The Prime Minister is the Ministry of Magic's only official muggle leak. Do you really think that they're not observing him carefully? If he did try to tell people that magic is real, and convinced some people, maybe generals or something, do you really think that it would stay a secret?

 

And what would their motive to assist the war against wizards be? The deaths of their children? It would also probably result in wizards kidnapping muggleborn children as early as they are detected - and the obliviation of their parents, further severing the muggles from information on the magical world.

Muggles can, at best, kill a few wizards. Following that, wizards would take measures to protect themselves against muggle weaponry (like the Ministry sent leaflets with instructions on protection at the beginning of HBP). They can make clothes bullet-resistant with a flick of their wand - not to mention that muggles wouldn't be able to find them in the first place. The muggles couldn't even remove the meager portrait that wizards placed in their PM's office. The notion that they could win a war against wizards is utterly ridiculous.

 

It's foolish to assume the magical government has anywhere near approached 100% obliviation rates when cover things up.

---------- Post automerged at 18:32 ---------- Previous post was at 18:30 ----------

The same could be said the other way. When faced with a government like Voldemort's, how many muggleborns and half-bloods will help out the muggle government in a war?

 

In canon we have only one case of Wizards trying to dominate over muggles, and they failed. That one example is Grindelwald.

The important thing to remember is that in any major imaginary conflict between Muggles and Wizards the muggles are going to have a significant number of wizards on their side, i.e. all muggleborns and a number of "mugglelovers". Having even small amount of wizards on the muggle side will very quickly remove all major advantages the wizards have; once you have a wizard willing to protect the muggle chain of command and help locate wizarding targets, the muggle firepower and numbers will overwhelm the wizards.

 

Yes, yes, in any realistic scenario you would have two sides each consisting of wizards and Muggles, divided down lines of ideology and self-interest.

So what? This thread is about a hypothetical wizards vs Muggles situation. It's right there in the title: wizards vs Muggles. Now, you can reject the hypothetical as unrealistic, and I think everyone will be happy to agree. But that isn't the same thing as answering the hypothetical.

If it helps, think of it as magic vs technology rather than wizards vs Muggles.

Back to the discussion: we do actually have a canonical example of the Muggle Prime Minister who tried to make government policy on the basis of wizards existing:

Pottermore.

I think there's two things to take away from this:

1. He was completely unsuccessful and was essentially laughed out of office.

2. The Muggles don't even remember the whole affair, even though it involved a motion of no confidence, a matter of public record involving the most powerful political body in the nation. Muggle histories record Lord North as being voted from office for the British defeat at Yorktown.

 

Assuming that it's a straight muggle vs wizard war (ie muggleborns are not helping the muggles) wizards have an unfair advantage. They reside in every country and can live among muggles. As far as we know, there is no nonmagical way to determine whether a human is a wizard or not. How will muggles know who to fight? You could argue that wizards are not socially competent in muggle ways, but it can be taught and learn (especially if it's a war and necessary for survival).

Wizards can infiltrate muggle society. They can read and control the minds of muggle leaders and generals. They have ways to guarantee full, 100% accurate information (veritasium). This gives them a massive advantage for intelligence and sabotage. Of course, muggles do have numbers and weapons of mass destruction. But again, how do you separate muggles from wizards to use them?

I can see Wizards utilizing guerrilla warfare: attack, apparate, and hide in wards. I can't really think of any way Muggles will defend against that, especially if they have no way of bypassing magical means of protection. Instant teleportation into the heart of muggle headquarters. Instant teleportation to escape if things go bad.

The only way muggles will survive is with inside help (a wizard), or if they somehow, miraculously found a scientific way to counter magic (a fanon explanation).

I think with time, it would be difficult to hide wizarding activities from muggles (smartphones = internet evidence), but a war where muggles win is unlikely unless they have access to wizards on their own side (ie raising muggleborns with magic abilities to fight for muggles).

 

I have a hypothetical situation I'd like to discuss.

Imagine that a dark wizard unleashed Fiendfyre in the middle of a muggle city. Say London or New York.

For this scenario, we will assume that the wizarding government is against muggles and is unwilling to help them, so the Fiendfyre rages on, destroying everything in its path.

Would the muggles be able to eventually stop it? If yes, how? If not, what happens then?

 

I doubt they could stop it. Fiendfyre is immune to water, and does not appear to require fuel, so I don't think any conventional firefighting methods would work against it. Additionally, it does not appear that killing the wizard responsible stops the flames, as evidenced by Crabbe's death in the Room of Requirement. If Fiendfyre spreads indefinitely (and there's a good chance it does), then I think that city is doomed.

 

You ever heard of the Great Fire of London? Imagine that, but in a city 100 times the size.