So, ever since the old Wizard vs. Muggle thread got closed, this discussion keeps popping up allover the place in unrelated threads. I thought it best to condense all of it here and free those threads to stay on topic. If the mods don't like it, then just close it again and delete with extreme prejudice.

 

Seriously, No matter how many guns the muggles have or bombs or anything, Wizards just create a physical shield and wham everything is blow backwards. That and the fact we could just apparate right to there generals and presidents and blow them to kingdom come. Or just knife em but still .

 

We? (writing to fill the character limit)

 

According to Rowling Wizards are very small population, worst comes to worse muggles win by sure numbers.
No shield will stop a nuke, that is reserved for Scifi, actually I doubt the wizards could stop a thermobaric bomb either, then you got bio warfare, nerve gas man by the time the wizards figured out what was killing them they'd be dead.
Bullets will go through physical barriers, bombs explode on contact.

 

How do you know that no shield will stop a nuke?I'm sure wizards could create something to defend against anything. Not to mention wizards can hide in plain site. They could hide there entire population on an island and no one would ever know. Then they could just portkey in to important places and kill everyone there and portkey out. Easy as pie my friend, I'm sure wizards have a spell that cleans the air also. Use nerve gas and wallah clean air a second later.


Edit::: Not to mention wizards could just send dementors in since muggles can't see em and wipe out there whole population..Ever think of that?

 

Actually we have seen in canon that Protego is also a Physical shield, when Harry uses it to separate the eternal arguing Mudblood and Weasel. Me thinks an Avada Kedavra would have worked better, but one works with what one has.

Incoming bullets could be tackled in several ways. A combination of shields, vanishing charms, protective amulets. Hell, if Protego works as a Physical shield as well, as we have seen, wizards could wear robes with a woven in Protego making them instantly bullet proof.

The nuclear bomb issue is debatable. Some say that usual ways of handling the extreme heat work since magic does not follow the laws of physics, to which I adhere, while some claim a puny flame freezing charm could not stop the awesomeness that is a nuclear bomb.

What I am curious about, though, is why do we have Muggle supporters when we are Harry Potter fans? It seems rather weird that some are rooting for the "others" in an universe dedicated to magic. I guess this sort of applies to stories as well. I read Harry Potter for the magic, not some quasi-muggle story. Therefore in universe, I am rooting for wizards. In real life I am of course not praying every day that the Dark Lord will strike down the unworthy, as that would be disadvantageous to myself even, and rather unhinged mentally.

The question is, why do we have muggle supporters on a board dedicated to Harry Potter magic?

 

Obviously, it doesn't stop all things, since photons and soundwaves still get through. Maybe it's a matter of sufficient strenght, as spells have measurable effects, even if they themselves might not be measurable, though I do think Rowling half-assed that since it doiesn't really hold true with some other things.

Because we're not self-hating.

 

Maybe Helltan is trying to play the devils advocate ?

Or not

 

I have seen this before. In Babylon 5 for example, people rooted for the humans, gushing how awesome they were and how if there was another war how they would win and other such things, even though they sucked as hell comparing to the other races, such as the Centauri.

I guess I just don't think of myself as a Muggle or anything in the HP world. Although debating is great fun, and without Muggle supporters we would not have a debate, but merely endless posts about how awesome wizards are. That would be bad, boring and not stimulate intelligence. I guess I should be glad there are Muggle supporters after all.

 

On topic: if wizards understand it, they can probably defend against it.

Also, nuke? Just move to the bikini islands, leave muggles to die.

 

I still way Wizards would win hands down if they just use the strategy that I said.

 

I would say that, like most spells we have observed, shield spells are intelligent (not sentient, but intelligent - there's a difference) and work by stopping that which is harmful.

Some may object that what counts as harmful can change from one moment to the next and so having a rule that says "Shield X stops Harmful thing Y" does not work, but this is where the unscientific, flexible and intuitive nature of magic comes into play. The rule is flexible also.

 

Ron and Hermione weren't harmful, and the shield got in their way.
I think that conception of magic as 'intelligent' is just wishful thinking--a way to make your opponents lose by definition. I refuse to accept that magic doesn't behave in a law-like fashion, because if it didn't, it couldn't ever be controlled.

 

Nerve Gas = Bubble Head Charm followed by something to increase air circulation.

There is no way for nukes to be used because no Government is going to nuke their own cities.

There is no was bombs to be used because they have to have a target.

You can't shoot someone you can't see/hear/detect in any way.

You can't beat people who can disappear with a thought, who can send to most awe inspiring creatures of myth and legend into any populated area, who control creatures that can't be seen that can deal out a fate worse than death.

 

No, but if the wizards in one country got uppity, another country's government could. Besides, you're hung up on strategic nukes. Tactical nukes are designed to have a much reduced fallout and kill radius, while maximizing the number of combatant damage.

 

Not true. If we attribute intelligence to magic (sentience, at least) it can be controlled. One might argue it'll be actually easier in that case, since your intention/emotion should have a greater chance of influencing the spells.

 

Why would we do something like that? Where is the tiniest indication of that in canon?
In fact, I'd suspect if it was sentient, it wouldn't have any interested in ebing controlled.
Not that being sentient stops one from behaving in a law-like fashion, as humans show.

 

Sentient =/= intelligent. Wands are semi-sentient. I don't think they have much of an IQ. To want to be your own master, to want to be free... that takes a lot more than being sentient.

Edit: So, magic may be sentient. But obviously it doesn't have nearly the same level of self-consciousness humans show. Also: you state that humans behave in a law-like fashion... I don't even know how to reply to this. Let's just say that I don't think they do. If we knew how everybody was going to react to each situation, there wouldn't be the concept of free will. It's our capacity to choose out of a whole bunch of options, and sometimes choosing the most improbable one, that makes being human worthwhile.

 

Again reinforcing the view that magic is intelligent. It "saw" Harry's intention and adapted and acted accordingly.

But it is supported by canon. Pretty much every spell we see cast acts in a way that corresponds to more than just the incantation and wand movement - the caster's intentions are reacted to also. For example, the Impervious cast in POA on Harry's glasses to keep the water away.

Now, if magic were not intelligent, it would act simply according to a set of rules. In this case, spell X causes specified physical objects (water) to be repelled. Yet the spells does not act in this way. If it simply repelled all water, then Harry's face would have dried out. It didn't. It responded to the caster's intention - to keep only certain types of water away.

Another example...

The Water Charm, Aguamenti. The incantation is the same, yet we've seen the spell have massively varied results. It can fill a cup like a tap, but it can also be a strong enough jet to put out a house on fire. The magic reads the intent of the caster and adapts. The magic is intelligent.

I would say the complete opposite. Magic has to behave in a flexible manner in order to be controllable at all. If it acted simply according to a set of rules, like a computer code, it would be unusable, because spells wouldn't be able to adapt to certain situations. You'd have to have a different water spell for every conceivable situation, rather than one charm that can adapt.

On the subject of Nukes:

Even if wizards couldn't protect themselves from them, even if Muggles could effectively target locations hidden by magic, even if Muggles were willing to target their own cities, they'd still be useless. Imagine that nukes have been used, and Diagon Alley, the Ministry of Magic, Hogwarts and Hogsmeade are destroyed. What real impact would this have on a Muggle/wizard war? Negligible. The wizard's strength lies in their covert, guerrilla tactics. Destroying their fixed-location infrastructure won't effect them much, because they don't really need it like Muggles do.