this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2024
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Harry Potter and the Military Industrial Complex

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[–] Gullible@sh.itjust.works 106 points 4 months ago (3 children)

This is explored at length in the books. The wizard supremacists are an allegory for race supremacists, and it’s pointed out repeatedly that they’re delusional, broadly impotent, and small-minded. The death eaters believe so completely in their godhead and his divine right to rule that they neglect to consider even the most basic countermeasures or alternatives. There’s some “death of Stalin” paranoia but it’s overwhelmingly unforced incompetence.

Voldemort, likewise, blocks out even the potential for his lessers to outdo him. He is utterly infallible and his insecurities as an incest orphan to a fallen house will not allow him to feel any differently. Meanwhile, he’s been repeatedly circumvented and beaten by a group of teenagers, and his brewing plans will lead to the complete genocide of wizardkind upon reaching the world stage. It perfectly encapsulates the way race supremacists view the world and why they fail so frequently. The enemy is both strong and weak.

Darn shame rowling’s turned into what she hates. She wasn’t terrible at writing populism 101.

[–] MindTraveller@lemmy.ca 31 points 4 months ago (1 children)

She just wrote what she actually believes and it ended up being biting satire by accident.

Fun fact: Rowling thinks Lolita is a beautiful and tragic love story

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[–] atro_city@fedia.io 60 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Wizards would be rounded up and experimented on to try and find out how to make it an injection to make super soldiers. There's absolutely no way wizards and magical beings wouldn't end up in test tubes.

[–] Lodra@programming.dev 15 points 4 months ago

Well this was oddly nostalgic for me to read. You immediately reminded of FFVI

[–] MindTraveller@lemmy.ca 52 points 4 months ago (13 children)

I had trouble believing Harry Potter as a kid. The whole house elf thing seemed unrealistic. Then when I grew up, I realised English people really are that racist.

[–] Johanno 42 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I remember seeing a meme of Harry Potter, but I can't find it anymore. Basically a conversation between Harry and dumbledore.

Harry says to dumbledore:

We are wizards, we could cure cancer. Fix world hunger and end all wars. Why we don't do it?

Dumbledore says:

Harry you forgot the most important reason: we are British

[–] pyre@lemmy.world 14 points 4 months ago (4 children)

you don't enjoy a little decorating decapitated slave heads for some wholesome Christmas joy?

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[–] dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net 43 points 4 months ago

Harry Potter and the poorly-constructed magic ruleset.

[–] FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io 41 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Harry Potter and the Mysterious Ticking Sound

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 14 points 4 months ago

Harry Potter and the infrared Laser designator spot

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[–] Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 40 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Imagine the IRA, except they can fly, go invisible, or simply step into a phone booth or fireplace and vanish, and had an entire other dimension they could disappear into where they could be self sufficient.

Technology means nothing if you don't even know who you enemy is.

[–] absentbird@lemm.ee 19 points 4 months ago

Heck, they can mind control people, wipe their memories, or take a potion and assume their identity. It would be like fighting the Face Dancers from Dune if they were all trained in The Voice.

[–] meep_launcher@lemm.ee 36 points 4 months ago

The reason Hermione is sworn to secrecy about the wizarding world is that they know if muggles found out there was a deep state, the revolution would be swift.

[–] nednobbins@lemm.ee 36 points 4 months ago (7 children)

That's one of many many plot holes in Harry Potter.

There's really no depth to the world building beyond, "What if British public schools taught magic?"

It doesn't make sense in any context beyond that because the author never considered it from any context beyond that. Whenever you run into some crazy crap in HP and wonder, "Why TF would anyone do it that way?" The answer is almost always, "Because that's how they do it in British public schools.

[–] Ultraviolet@lemmy.world 15 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

It's also a bit odd that the spell so dangerous it was the absolute peak of the Dark Arts was a spell that just killed one person, and not even reliably. Where are the spells to call down meteors and cause earthquakes?

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[–] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 33 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It comes down to how powerful static wards are, and how much technology just gets corrupted by magic. The real power of the wizards is memory and time manipulation. Close range is definitely in favor of wizards, you can't surprise them unless they are intentionally careless. They can always go back a few hours and ambush you back. Chaos would ensue if they deleted every memory before 5 of a handful of leaders.

The tech killing thing is poorly defined, but hogwarts seems to disable electronic devices within a radius. If it's similar to an emp, it may have countermeasures, but it's hard to say they also work on magic. Operating within the radius of somewhere like that would be difficult.

There's also the animagus issue. Every dog, cat, bird, or bug is a potential spy or assassin that is practically undetectable.

The big question is can spells stop a large bomb/nuke. Even if they couldn't, it would be possible for wizards to escape the blast zone pretty easily, unless they couldn't detect the attack.

I think the big weakness would be sniper fire that may be fast enough to prevent reactions at the borders of wards.

[–] morrowind@lemmy.ml 19 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Ah yes, the good old solution of every contemporary fantasy world.

"modern technology just doesn't work"

[–] octopus_ink@lemmy.ml 11 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I mean, depending on the book, you have already accepted a number of ridiculous premises by real-world standards. It's surprising to me that "and by the way, it interferes with or can be used to disable various kinds of technology" is where you would decide to roll your eyes.

[–] morrowind@lemmy.ml 13 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Because it's a cop out. You're not putting any thought into how your systems would interact with modern tech. Even if you really need a modern setting with no technology, at least be imaginative with why that happens and maybe let that reason affect your setting in some other ways as well. It's the difference between a world that feels real, messy and casual, and some hypothetical scenario you made to tell your story.

Harry potter isn't the worst world for sure. Like Rowling does a pretty good job in explaining how wizards stay invisible from regular society, with the ministry of magic, their memory erasing and multiple incidents that all make it feel very real. But for technology we get little beyond Arthur weasly having a interest in collecting electric plugs or something.

There's also no good logic or intuition about what technology does or doesn't work. An electric kettle won't work but a whole ass car will? It prevents any conflict that has technology involved from having stakes because you don't have limits or an idea of what's dangerous/important

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[–] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 30 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] Rusty@lemmy.ca 36 points 4 months ago
[–] juliebean@lemm.ee 28 points 4 months ago (2 children)

of course muggles would win a war against wizarding folk, that is why they made the international statue of secrecy (also cause jkr is a hack who never wants to bother extrapolating from the consequences of her own worldbuilding)

[–] GBU_28@lemm.ee 12 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

This is not clear cut. One teleport into a nuke silo + a brainwash spell = big problems

Edit (yes maybe one or two other brainwashes to get the proper codes forwarded)

[–] BowtiesAreCool@lemmy.world 12 points 4 months ago (5 children)

Who’s to say some governments aren’t keenly aware of the wizarding world and they have their own protections and wizards

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[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 27 points 4 months ago (1 children)

If wizards were incapable of shielding against fast moving projectiles, they would have more spells dedicated to creating fast moving projectiles against their opponents.

[–] dariusj18@lemmy.world 22 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I think part of the subtext of the wizarding world is its parallels to British sensibility. You do things the way they've always been done because that's just the way of it. You don't come up with new spells, you rely on the tried and true spells that have been around for centuries.

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[–] creditCrazy@lemmy.world 25 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'm not much of a harry potter fan but wasn't that the whole point of being in hiding

[–] Snowclone@lemmy.world 25 points 4 months ago (2 children)

They were being killed by muggles left and right, and this was way before the invention of guns, so, yeah, they weren't winning that war in any case.

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[–] ramble81@lemm.ee 21 points 4 months ago (4 children)

There’s a WP. Voldemort succeeds and then gets drunk on his own power and attempts to take over the muggle world (pure blood and all that) and he promptly gets his ass handed to him by the military.

[–] dumbass@leminal.space 14 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Nah he opens a portal that goes directly to Skid Row, he is instantly stabbed, robed and killed.

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[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 12 points 4 months ago

Expecto AGM-114

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[–] rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world 17 points 4 months ago (5 children)
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[–] dwindling7373@feddit.it 17 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (9 children)

As nonsensical as it is, giving the limit of the suspension of believe necessary to keep the world reasonably coherent, the wizard world has a solid grasp on the non-magical world while it's a given (literally a given, it makes no sense otherwise) that the people from the normal world have no idea magic exists, other than what is leaked and relegated to fairy tales (it's our world).

Wizards, their institution and governments, their own citizen are aware of what weapons are. Harry himself of course knows what a gun is and could potentially grab a number of them to prepare for war.

So it's an implied obvious implicit answer that even a limited mastery of magic vastly overpowers weapons. Which is obvious if you consider that in the magical world they are aware of the "laws" of physics AND the extra laws of magic.

They just know more about how the world works, how to inflict death and how to protect against harm.

[–] coriza@lemmy.world 12 points 4 months ago (4 children)

But IIRC that is never implied in the books and it is shown a couple of times that they know very little about technology and being very surprised by stuff like television. Which is very weird given that a non insignificant part of the wizards are from muggle families and lives among muggles.

Whilst I loved the books, as I read I always had this question in my mind about what if the wizards approached magic with a more scientific method and if they integrated with the scientific advancements of the human world.

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[–] mtpender@lemmy.world 16 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I cast "A belly full of lead".

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I think the guns would help against wizards as much as they help against oppression. They are a helpful tool, for sure, but the ability to communicate and form plans is massively superior. And wizards, like modern tech giants, can impede that.

[–] mlg@lemmy.world 15 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

*most powerful spell kills upon striking

*is also clearly visible, dodgeable, and deflectable

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[–] CptEnder@lemmy.world 14 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Three words: Close Air Support.

1 GBU-39 would dust that steam engine wiping out whole generations of wizards. AIM-9 Sidewinders piloted by someone with confirmed kills for those weird skeleton death birds. Ezpz.

[–] Gestrid@lemmy.ca 12 points 4 months ago

First, they'd have to find the steam engine, though. Seems like it's hidden even from radar.

[–] Stalinwolf@lemmy.ca 13 points 4 months ago (4 children)

I've never read the books, but I'm curious what the point even is of going to Hogwarts to hone your magic in secrecy. What is the magic applied to long-term? What do you do with it after you've graduated?

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