This kind of discussions can go on forever until it gets a pain in the ass. The point is, wizards would win battles but the muggles would win the war.

 

On the issue of whether magic is "logical", it is quite that it follows some sorts of laws from the mere fact that magical effects are reproducible from well-defined formulae, with deviations from them going awry. That's how potion-brewing works, and to a lesser extent every magical spell seen in canon--mispronunciations and such mean that the spell does not work as desired, regardless of intention; magical effects are reproducible by these formulaic means even if the wizard has little to no knowledge of what the effect would actually be.

It also means that magic is more limited than the imagination or the will of the wizard, as magic follows it own laws. It's simply that those laws are not those of known muggle physics. By 'more limited', I mean that the right frame of mind will not suddenly give `unlimited power' of any sort--there should be some sort of upper limit for each wizard no matter what his or her mental state is. Not necessarily that magic 'itself' is thus limited (whatever that might mean), but some levels of effects are beyond any actual wizard.

It is very likely that a typical wizard vs. armed muggle fight will end with the wizard victorious. It is, however, not completely determined whether a wizard could be overtaken by a muggle combat unit. It's certainly not fair to simply say that magic 'trumps' physics and therefore the wizards would win--that would be a classic no-limits fallacy. As an analogy, electromagnetism can overcome gravity (as demonstrated by everything from refrigerator magnets to the fact that we're even capable of standing on the ground), but this does not mean that some limited amount of electromagnetic force automatically overcomes any gravity whatsoever.

 

So, so true

You can't win a war when you are outnumbered 1000+ to 1

 

I think that, both on a small scale and on a larger scale, the muggle(s) would win. Before I go into why, I'd like to point out first off that I'm mainly addressing this at Taure's concept of a total split between the wizards and the muggles, with all wizards on one side, all muggles on the other, regardless of family, politics or friendships. Neither likely nor plausible, I know, but it's a nice clear-cut setting for our hypothetical war.

The short answer to why the Muggles win in nearly all circumstances is this: Wizards have fuck-all idea what muggle technology is capable of. Allow me to clarify this; in PoA the Daily Prophet report on Sirius Black's escape says that:

What does this tell us? That the average wizard in the street has so little knowledge of muggle technology that even that most basic description, which in no way gives the wizard any hints as to how firearms work, other than implying that they require line of sight, is still increasing their knowledge.
"But surely," you say, "Surely the law enforcement officials in charge of dealing with this and likely leading any sort of military campaign have a better working knowledge of guns than this?"
No. No, they don't. What? Oh, you want proof for that too? Fine...

I'll happily admit that, given the context for this quote the research times mean nothing; one of Kingsley's main jobs in the Order is slowing down the search for Sirius Black. What is important is that the case required a special report at all. This tells us that the Auror department does not have resources relating to firearms at it's disposal, and that the average Auror does not appear to have any sort of training regarding guns. "But," I hear you cry again, "Surely simply requesting the report at all could be a delaying tactic of it's own?" I say unlikely, since the Order's conspiracy doesn't go any further up the DMLE than Kingsley, thus he can't risk going directly against standard procedure, lest he be removed from the case and someone who actually wants to find Black takes over.

So, given that even the Aurors would have a hard time telling a handgun from a laser pointer, how exactly are wizards supposed to come up with ANY sort of counter for modern weapons; missiles traveling at hundreds of mph, bombs with blast radii measured in tens of meters, gases that can make you cough up your lungs and drown in your own blood?

Those arguing in favour of Wizards say 'Flame freezing charm!', but what exactly does that do? All we know is that it is a 'basic' spell that when used by a wizard causes flames to produce a 'gentle tickling sensation'. Possibly it can be cast nonverbally. We don't know if it has associated wand movements. If it does, it's unlikely it could be cast on the spur of the moment fast enough to protect from an expanding explosion. Assuming it doesn't, I'd like to point out that, from the name 'Flame-freezing charm' it sounds, at least to me, like it has to be cast on the fire the wizard wants to be immune to in order to be effective, rather than on the wizard themselves; if it worked like that I'd imagine it would be called the Fire Resistance or Heat Resistance Charm. The brief mention in canon neither confirms not denies this, but if it can simply be cast on the wizard prior to exposure to flames, why has Charlie Weasley been described as having burns? Why, when Harry was researching 'simple' magics to use for the first task of the Tournament, didn't he try and use that. More pressingly, why didn't any of the other champions, all of whom had more tuition than him? Cedric definitely suffered burns from that challenge. If it does have to be cast at the fire/heat source to be nullified then it's unlikely a wizard could do so quickly enough in the face of an expanding explosion. I'll happily admit that I cannot think of a logical reason for how magic cast on a fire like that would only affect it's reaction with the wizard casting it, but as Taure and Cobra have pointed out, magic doesn't necessarily work logically. Similarly, it's specifically a flame freezing charm; the heat of an explosion cannot be called flames by even the loosest definition, so if the spell is as specific as it sounds, it's useless against an explosion.

Then there are magical shields. Firstly, I'd like to point out that, to the best of my knowledge, canonically there is no example of a magical shield, such as Protego, interacting with anything other than magic. If it does create a physical shield that stops solid objects as well then it renders the bubble-head charm somewhat useless, as a shield would effectively provide a full-body bubble. That said, canonically I've no evidence against magical shields working for physical objects as well as spells, so I'll leave that one up in the air. However, as has already been pointed out, sound seems capable of passing a magical shield unaided. This implies that either it has no physical presence to impede sound or that its physical presence doesn't stop vibrations making up sound waves. Either way, the noise of a close-detonating bomb would be more than sufficient to deafen you, and almost certainly concuss you if not kill. Similarly the explosion would blind you were you looking at it, meaning even a near miss would effectively cripple a wizard, even if their shields and charms had kept them alive.

I could probably waste more time on this, but I'm tired, so I'll take a break for now.

/Vayneout

 

If muggleborns go to the wizards then muggles get the squibs. Even better we get people like Hermione's parents, Petunia Dursley, the Weasleys' accountant cousin who, while not knowing the intricacies of every magic spell, could be an invaluable source of information against them. Given that the muggleborns are pretty much cut off from the muggle world at 11 years old with 2 or 3 months of vacation a year, how much information could they really give especially with regards to military training, tactics, etc?

Even if Hermione did swap sides, she could not tell the Muggles where Hogwarts or any other unplottable location is: for she doesn't herself know. Making something unplottable makes it unplottable to wizards too, which means she can't give directions to get there.[/QUOTE]It was said before, but unplottable doesn't mean it's under Fidelus. They wouldn't be able to put it on a map, but you could still tell people where it was.

Now on to the post I actually came here to make:

The pro-wizard people are saying things like nothing is impossible with magic, magic can defeat anything because it's magic and things of that nature. The thing you guys fail to realize is that most wizards just aren't very trained. Does anybody have an exact number on Tonks' auror class size? I can't imagine more than a handful, especially given Harry's class size of 40, becoming qualified aurors per year.

Hit wizards, no matter what anybody on this board says or how much "cooler" their name sounds, are NOT better trained than aurors. They require 5 OWLs (Acceptable or better) while an Auror requires 5 NEWTs (nothing below Exceeds Expectations). They're more akin to muggle policemen, in my eyes, and would be more numerous than Aurors but also less skilled.

This brings me to my next point: matchup of forces. Rowling has said the figure she has in her head of the wizarding population in the UK is about 3000 compared to a population of just over 60,500,000 for muggles. Out of those 40 students, how many people do you think can become well trained Aurors/Hit Wizards? 10 maybe, and that's giving them a 25% rate of being combat able (For the US it's about %0.7, %0.4 for the UK). That cuts your fighting force down to 750. Even then, the aurors and hit wizards aren't going to be as well trained in fighting massive wars against hundreds of thousands of troops. Factor in rotations since those 750 wizards won't be awake 24/7 for however many months/years it takes to fight against the muggles and your fighting ability is severely disadvantaged towards the muggles.

The combined armed services(ready for active duty and passed basic training) for the UK is about 240,000. Do you really thing a squad of 750 fighting with little to no sleep can keep up split second accuracy and memory of spells? Not every wizard is a Moody, Dumbledore or Voldemort just like not every Muggle is a sharpshooter. The difference is that the muggles have a lot more sharpshooters, combat veterans, and strategists than the wizards have exceptional wizards.

What happens when they need reinforcements? A wizard capable of killing someone with a wand is going to be a lot harder than training a muggle to kill with a gun. Look at all the African countries where there are armies of children killing each other, you get a race war between muggles and wizards going and the muggles would defeat them due to numbers alone.

As for the animals/creatures:

A Dementor, dragon, lethifold, basilisk (which are extremely rare, let's not act like there's an army of Basilisks running around), troll, giant, centaur, werewolf and vampire would be just as likely (or more likely) to attack a wizard as they would a muggle due to the way the wizarding world has treated them for eons.

A phoenix seems to be a "good" creature, and would probably not attack an innocent. Even if they did, their numbers are so low to the point of making them negligible in a fight along with the basilisks and giants.

The giant squid may just be a "special" version of the giant squid we know today as with their owls, or it could be a special kind (along the lines of a kneazle) of squid but regardless the only one we've seen is the Hogwarts squid and it doesn't seem to be particularly violent or well suited to attacking things like submarines. Same thing with merpeople, they don't seem to be able to do any magic and since their tridents probably can't pierce the hull of a submarine they'd be useless.

Sirens aren't canon AFAIK.

If we're going to go down the line of dangerous animals and have them suddenly be tame and in the complete control of the side they "belong" to, then my muggle friends will cook up a batch of tamed weaponized anthrax and kill every wizard (all 300,000 of them) in a week or two before they ever realize what's happening.

 

Actually, if you go with the 'average wizard or witch' as shown in Diagon Alley and the Quidditch World Cup, it would be the muggle. Every time.

Why?

Lone wizard and lone muggle.

Lone muggle pulls a gun (because if you're at war, that little matter of private British citizens not being allowed firearms isn't an issue anymore). Lone wizard has no clue what that metal object in the muggle's hand is. Aren't muggles silly?

Bang! Muggle shoots the wizard. The muggle may or may not have gotten a killing shot in. If so, wizard is probably dead, magic or not.

Let's say the shot wasn't fatal. What have we seen our canon magical people do when confonted with unexpected danger, loud noise, and rude surprises? They run around screaming, and basically panic.

Wizard bleeds to death because he is too busy panicking to go to St Mungo's or apply medical charms.

Muggle wins.

Why? The 'average' wizard and witch have been shown to be easily panicked and often lacking in any sort of common sense or belief in consistancy. Of course, it would probably be different if the magical person was trained in handling dangerous creatures, criminals, or was a hunter/hitwizard/bodyguard of some sort.

 

That's assuming the Muggle isn't some Joe Schmoe.

Not everyone can just simply pull a gun and shoot someone. If the muggle is one of those who are able, then it's only fair if the wizard be able to cast the Avada Kedavra.

 

How can you equate an instant kill technique that requires real skill, power, and intent to perform, with something that must simply be pointed forward, goes off with a simple motion, has caused a great many deaths by accident, and only has a chance of killing the person right off even if the user is somewhat skilled.

There is no evidence that even very skilled wizards can use it at the drop of a hat. If they could do it with ease, would the Death Eaters use anything else?

 

Since your scenario occurs during a hypothetical war, it would be most fair to assume that both sides are aware of the general capabilities of the other. As such, the wizard may actually be capable of defending against small-arms fire, although the capability to deflect high-caliber or automatic fire is a bit more dubious. In any case, in your scenario the muggle wins primarily through surprise, but even if we assume that whoever gets the drop on the other wins the combat (plausible), the wizard is in the advantage here, since magic allows effects such as disillusionment, etc. A war wouldn't involve many formal duels, after all.

The amount of training required to effectively point a gun and shoot it at person is relatively minuscule compared to the amount of training required to do high-level spells like the Avada Kedavra--the former can even be performed by children (not to make light of heinously evil events, but there were many child soldiers in active combat even in this century), while the latter requires a more substantial magical experience as a prerequisite. Even on a purely psychological level, the AK requires much more commitment from the user, as it needs a special malice and focus on the wish to kill, rather than simply a will to survive by getting the other guy before he gets you.

But you have a good point overall. If the muggle is capable of undergoing combat, the wizard should be as well, so this hypothetical wizard wouldn't run out like a chicken with its head cut off if he gets shot and does not die. It's just that the level of using AK under such conditions is quite a bit higher than that; it is more analogous to a highly trained and experienced member of the military.

 

Muggles would win. Why?

Muggles + Atom Bomb = Death of Wizards.

I'm sorry, but no magic would destroy a atom bomb. Stop it maybe, but not destroy.

 

^ ^
It's been said. Also, it wouldn't work considering that the bomb would have to blow up hundreds of muggles to get even a few wizards, unless it was aimed at a heavy magic area (and considering that Atomic bombs need electricity to explode, that wouldn't work).

The argument is over, anyway.

 

Also Ryzen, even if it was aimed at a magic heavy area like Diagon Alley, think of the blast radius of a nuke. A single one devastated a city during WW2. Now a days they're even bigger. Do you think anyone would drop a nuke in London. Thats like dropping a nuke in New York, if you fail to comprehend just how important London is. London is almost as important to the world economy as New York, some even say it will take over as the centre of the world economy. Why, would anyone drop a bomb let alone a nuke there.

And if you're thinking Hogwarts. Would anyone in the world stand for a nuke being dropped on a school. A childrens school. There is enough grief given to the US army in Iraq on the rare occasion that a child is killed either by accident or because s/he was running at the soldiers with a bomb strapped on. If the international community gets up in arms about a single child dead when they are trying to kill the soldier, how would they react to several hundred being utterly destroyed, when they are clear non-combatants?

 

Well, not really. No doubt many warheads have electronic triggers, but since atomic bombs need only a conventional explosion to detonate, this is quite easily bypassed, e.g., with a volatile conventional explosive that would trigger with sufficient shock, such as being dropped from some height or being struck by a spring-loaded trigger (this allows time delay). That's ignoring the very likely possibility that electronic triggers may be simple enough not to be overly affected by magic--we know at least some electric impulses work in those areas, since all biological life depends on that fact.

Some are a lot bigger, and some are a lot smaller. They didn't just develop nukes for blast size--the W54 warheads go down to ~50lbm in mass with a blast size of ~10 tons. That is actually lower than the largest (airplane-deployable) conventional bomb ever built. In other words, there are atomic bombs small enough to be used for demolition work.

He could be thinking that, yes, but considering that there are many other (relatively) densely-populated wizarding places (there is a whole town, in fact), why would you conclude that his target was Hogwarts? If the school is just a school, it has very little relevance as far as a war is concerned. If the school is also a (para-)military base during an all-out war of extermination (one of the scenarios considered in this thread), then of course there will be plenty of muggles more than willing to nuke it, and nuked it will be.

Do you think that when the US and the SU developed detailed plans of nuking each other out of existence, the fact that there will be children's schools destroyed along the way stopped them? If one side believes that the other is out to exterminate them (as the scenario posits), then there will be very little hesitation to respond in kind.

Why would anyone think otherwise? Nations put their survival first, their reputation second (if not much further down the line).

Your argument boils down to the fact that nuking Hogwarts is unethical. This is perfectly true, but it doesn't mean that it wouldn't be done. It also ignores the larger picture: the entire war of extermination posited in this thread is unethical. That is also true, but again it has very little relevance to the question of who would win such a war.

 

Are we still talking about this?

*Sigh*


Okay everybody, let's all agree that nukes are the ultimate "pwn!". So, we all agree. There's nothing that stop it or rival it's sheer destructive power. But the wizards would still win. You gotta know where your targets are before you can launch a nuke at it.

Unplottable anybody? Fidellius anybody?

As such, Hogsmeade and Hogwarts, which are implied to be in the Scotland plains or something, would be fairly safe because as an all-magical place, wouldn't be on any maps. (GoF- Hogwarts area is unplottable- And since Hogsmeade is so close to Hogwarts, it may also be unplottable as well. If it's not, it can be made)

Muggles have sheer deadliness and destructive power. Wizards are the ultimate guerllia fighters. Shove an invisibility cloak on one of them, apparate them into a busy street, and blast away with curses. (On another note, do we ever find out what curse Wormtail uses to frame Sirius- I think it could work well here)

Muggles would have problems just hunting Wizards and Witches down. A smart wizard, especially muggleborns, can blend in with thier non-magical counterparts, knows the lingo and knows the weaknesses. One wizard, a disillusionment charm and a wand enters a powerplant and just generally blasts things apart in the ten-fifteen minutes it would take for police or soldiers to get there, and an entire city may be affected.

Do the same for food. Burn crops with an Incendio, set a giant on your livestock. Use dragons to sink incoming cargo ships, or giant squids to pull down battleships. Starve them out.

Use Imperius on muggles with powerful positions. Better yet, Oblivate them of all of thier memories and do the same with anybody who replaces them. Assasinate major figures with an invisibility cloak and Avada Kedavra or use the Imperius Curse on a nearby security guard to do it for you. Use Portkey's to trap the Generals and Admirals and whoever and capture them for interrogation. A few drops of Veritserum and they'll be telling you everything.

Anybody order chaos, confusion and terror?

Sure, there might be a few locations that could be nuked, but only a few. The rest of them, provided that the muggles could actually find these locations, would have to rooted out with troops. A few muggle-repelling wards and whola, you may have an impenetrable fortress.

In terms of sheer destruction, in a giant field with all of the wizards, witches and their weapons on one side and the muggles and their weapons on the other, Muggles would win. But wars haven't been fought like that for a hundred years. With proper tactics, wizards would win with their ability to strike anywhere (Apparition, Portkey) and their ability to influence others to do thier dirty work.


Edit: How about swarms of Inferi on the streets of London?
Edit 2: How about Dementors? I've been reading some of the last posts and some have asked why the Dementors would just stick to one side? Well, for one, ease. Why go and hunt a kangaroo when you can go and get one free from the supermarket? (Yes, we do eat kangaroo's in Australia- although it's not very common. Hey, it's just an anology....get over it!)
If Dementor's actually can get full, well, aura of fear + a freeway at peak hour traffic = distraction and car accidents.

 

Yes.....yes!

Very well, so shall it be. The only true answer to this arguement will be, as Jon so kindly pointed out, a Wizard VS Muggle Sexoff.


Bring out the hottest women of the Muggle world: Hot!Actress, such as Jessica Alba, Kate Beckinsale. Srewable!Singer, such as Christina whoever nd Brittany Spears (Before she got married and preg-fat)

Bring out the hottest women of the Wizarding World: Hot!Veela, such as Fleur Delacour and Bulgarian!Veela Mascots. Screwable Slytherin's (Because it's apparent with all the fics that they are the hottest of the hot) such as Jon's bitch, Daphne Greengrass, and the DLP Fem!Blaise (With a 'S' people, not a 'Z'...use a Z and thou shalt be smited)

Bring out the muggle weapons: Collagen, Silicon, plastic, and the Weapon Master- the Surgeons!

Bring out the Wizarding weapons: Love potions, sex magic (Come on, you all know it's true!) and enchanting magical aura's

Bring out the Superweapons!

Muggles: Have expierenced Pornstars ready to do anything- and I mean anything...have people seen the shit on the net today? I mean, there are a few uses for a horse, but I'm certain that God did not intend that particular use when the buxom brunette entered the stable. Double bonus for Paris Hilton and Pamela Anderson and their "expierence" with sex-tapes!

Wizarding World: Has Nymphadora Tonks! Need I say more?


Let the games commence!

 

Wizards win that, too. Because muggles have Vernon and Petunia Dursley.

 

Well, that's technically not a win, because the wizarding world has Snape. See Cervus' new Avatar and signature to see what I'm talking about.


And they have Slughorn, Draco Malfoy and many other ugly people. So I suppose they'd come a draw out in the "Most Ugliest" awards.

Beauty on the other hand......

 

Oh the pain! the PAIN!

Such wonderful thoughts till the conversation turned to the dursley's and their distant cousin slughorn

PS. I thought Draco was described as being good looking, if it weren't for the fact that he's such a prick fouling up his chances at getting anyone but crabbs... oops, I meant Crab.

of course the horse thing was a bit creepy

 

I agree, though I think muggles would win because we are more resourcful then they are. They have been using the same spells for centuries and haven't even attempted to advance. And who says the muggle-borns would
rather fight with there friends and the pureblood supremacists then go with there family and help them. Also, wizard-kind underestimate us hugely, they would probably expect us to come marching in with muskets not launching tactical missiles at coordinates given by wizard spys muggle-borns or payed informants. I think if wizards announced there presence and declared war against all muggle kind they would lose, they are outnumbered hundreds to one, i bet you could arm kids with guns and they would win against a fight of hogwarts students that were in the DA, in addition to having more people then wizards, we are easily trained you dont have to waist time learning wand movements and wanting to make people feel pain and shouting 'crucio!' while someone could be given a assault rifle, told how to use it and fire from way further then a wizard. You all are assuming they are in a duel or something, it there were 10 deatheaters and 10 armed US Army troops and they were 100 yards away from each other then the deatheaters would have to apparate and even if they apparated it would give away there position and kill them. Your all also acting like a wizard can shout avada kadavra and point a wand at someone faster then someone could pull a trigger, and once again on the range thing, the avada kadavra isn't impossible to dodge, at a distance where a soldier could shoot and give a fatal shot to a wizard it would take at least .6 seconds or more for an avada kadavra to hit a soldier, and in that time they could dodge it, and i doubt its easier to aim and hit someone with a wand then an assault rifle, hunting rifle, shotgun, or sniper rifle. Muggles have the ability to overcome any problem by overcoming it with technology, take this for example- a small group of wizards are using silencing charms on them selfs and invisibility cloaks to assassinate a well guarded figure, the muggles know of the wizards ability from information given to them and have a large knowledge of there spells, what they do and how to identify them and what its weakness is and trained there soldiers to know this, the muggles have set up infrared cameras and motion sensors that can detect the smallest movement of anything not covered by the cloak, the wizards are arrogant and clueless and march strait for the building not knowing they have been detected, soldiers armed with infrared goggles simply throw a grenade at them or snipe them out to reduce the chances of a reducto to the face, or they just surround them and if they lift there wand blow there brains out, its not like they have bombs strapped to them that we have to worry about just a stick that the soldiers are trained to know how to overcome while the ignorant wizards refuse to accept the power of technology over magic

After the wizards learn the extent of our power over them they would go into hiding and attack using gorilla tactics with the same spells as they used to while we have advance in a few years more then wizards have in centuries.

It would only be awhile until all thing magic are viewed as threats to muggle society and killed like Jewish people were in Germany during WW2- it would be a massive worldwide genocide

WE as Muggles are infinitely more powerful then anything magical! Even Dragons and Basilisks can be identified and defeated with ease with the new technology that is created and inspired by war and fear.