Should we tell the Muggles?
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I don't think it really matters seeing as how I can think of two series of stories where no one actively hides the existence of magic and wizardry and witches. In those cases the world gets along through mostly denial as in they don't care or don't want to believe in it.
That was my biggest problem with Harry Potter in general.Pearwood said:
Why was there no modern technology? I mean obviously storywise it made sense etc etc
However how easy it would've been for everyone if they just got Voldermort out in the open and then hired some sniper to take him out.
Right job done.
The After Hours guys on Cracked.com did a funny video about why the Harry Potter universe is terrifying and they touched on the blatant irresponsibility of a community that has a world-threatening evil power fighting against them while keeping the whole things a complete secret from the other 99% of the world's population.
It does seem like a pretty lousy thing to do. I have a hard time believing that with everything we have at our disposal, we would be no help against a guy that (let's face it) without one or two specific heroes fighting on the good side, the entire wizard community was helpless to stop. Could Voldemort stop an army of modern day soldiers? Maybe. Could he stop them AND all of the witches and wizards? I dunno... maybe. But their insular nature meant that we never get to find out, even though that would be a sweet book. Hell I'd join the military if I knew I was going to get to fight dragons and giants and crazy soul-sucking reaper motherfuckers. THERE'S a cause I can get behind.
It does seem like a pretty lousy thing to do. I have a hard time believing that with everything we have at our disposal, we would be no help against a guy that (let's face it) without one or two specific heroes fighting on the good side, the entire wizard community was helpless to stop. Could Voldemort stop an army of modern day soldiers? Maybe. Could he stop them AND all of the witches and wizards? I dunno... maybe. But their insular nature meant that we never get to find out, even though that would be a sweet book. Hell I'd join the military if I knew I was going to get to fight dragons and giants and crazy soul-sucking reaper motherfuckers. THERE'S a cause I can get behind.
While you are right, that did make me think: Does anyone int he Harry Potter books ever die from something mundane? I've read them all a couple times and I can't think of any instance where someone just like, falls and breaks their neck or something. It seems like a no-brainer that they would be ABLE to die from normal every day stuff but it never happens. Morfin Gaunt threatens Bob Ogden with a knife, and the man seems genuinely concerned by it, but it's unclear if it's because he thinks he's in danger or because the whole scene is off-putting.him over there said:
The differences in circumstance don't change a thing about the act itself. It might not involve mass killings, but you're still talking about the organised destruction of a chunk of the gene pool.Regnes said:
Well, if it's a choice between half the lifespan and none of the lifespan because of the wizards trying to drive us out of the gene pool, then yeah, damn those wizards. Also, there's no way the longer life expectancies are just a genetic thing that's glued to the genes for magic - they have better medicine, and they keep it to themselves, and there's no reason only magic-users should have access to magical medicine.
You're suggesting they start manipulating the world, controlling it from behind the scenes, in order to shape our civilization to their will. Also, they're perfectly capable of controlling the world from behind the scenes and shaping civilization to their will. So, they're not repressed.
Since witch burnings are made out to be harmless to actual witches and wizards because of the magic they can do, I'm not sure we can really say they were driven into hiding. I suspect they secluded themselves because they just didn't want to associate with their inferiors - and they still don't! The only reason they're not already doing something like this is because they don't care about the muggles enough for "the muggle question" to come up.
I wouldn't do it personally, I mean (and my huge nerdism is going to be showing here, also potential spoilers for people who never read the 7th book) look what happened to Ariana, Dumbledore's little sister, when some muggle boys caught her levitating something in her own back yard, and then beat her up cause she was a freak. This left her traumatized to the point of rendering her magical abilities unstable and uncontrollable. This prompted her father to attack the boys and be imprisoned in Azkaban, while her mother moved the family to Godric's Hollow and kept Ariana hidden away from the general population. I would hate for something like that to happen if everyone knew about what was going on. I mean kids would be getting beat up out of jealousy because they have magic, or people who just fear them. Not a good thing. =/
Mundane tech and magic don't work very well together in the Harry Potter world. They aren't mutually exclusive like some series' universes, but I doubt science would master magic.Istvan said:
Though understanding that the Mundane Plane operates in accordance to a series of principles that keep it consistent when observed, I'd try and develop a Mundane Enhancement Field, angles or not. [/reference nobody will get but I had to use anyway]
Because nothing wrong could come from that, right?Istvan said:
Plus, as far as I know in the HP world you are born a wizzard. I don't think science could change that in the HP lore.
In the HP universe witches actually let themselves get caught because the fire tickles.Rex Dark said:
FalloutJack said:
"Apparition becomes increasingly difficult with the distance to be travelled. Inter-continental Apparition should only be attempted by the most highly skilled of wizards."
The distance between the earth and the moon varies from 356400 km to 406700 km.
If inter-continental Apparation is cautioned against, then travel to the moon by that method is arbitrarily ill-advised.
Do the wizards know anything about how their magic actually works?
Sure they have recorded and passed on the gestures (arm-waving,) phrases/incantations (arcane babbling,) rituals, lore, esoteric texts , etc. But do they know what makes the sparks work?
In Harry Potter, about the practice of Occlumency and Legilimens.
"It was a sad commentary on how little human beings understood each other, how little any wizard comprehended the depths lying beneath the mind's surface, that you could fool the best human telepaths by pretending to be someone else."
-Eliezer Yudkowsky
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" - Clarke
"Any sufficiently rigorously defined magic is indistinguishable from technology." -Niven's Law
"Sufficiently advanced technology my ass" - Dresden
6. There is a hole in the ground that was once London.SecretNegative said:
Would kill him, but if you could teleport right above him, you may as well just shoot him.
OT: Would revealing to the Muggles be a bad idea... not sure.
It very well could end very badly... for the wizards. If a war was to happen, our MUCH greater numbers and our much more powerful technology would curb stomp just about anything they could throw at us. The only things that would be able to really do a lot of mass damage to us (fireflye, baskalisks, etc) are just as likely to kill the wizard's using them as they are going to kill us, not to mention illegal for any to make or use. A building that has been charmed to make Muggle's want to leave? Shouldn't effect Predator Drones. A bullet is far more effective and deadlier then any spell any wizard could throw at me.
Even if we do not have war, the wizard's could be screwed in other ways. Racism going both ways already exists in the books, just imagine that happening on a global scale. The magical economy is going to be ruined as soon as somebody notices that bronze, silver, and gold don't neatly exchange in a 29:1 and 17:1 ratio. I don't even want to think what would happen to the goblin's, vampire's, and every other sentient creature.
Hell no, you see how long it takes for people to accept anything that's even remotely different from them without going through a period of "KILL IT WITH FIRE"? Hell, we had that period. It's called witch-hunts.
Nah, that's staying a secret between me and immediate family/friends I trust with my life.
They can just keep on trying with the science.
Nah, that's staying a secret between me and immediate family/friends I trust with my life.
They can just keep on trying with the science.
First of all, they are in England where guns are quite uncommon. Second of all, shut up!Pearwood said:
But seriously, there's a ton of plot holes in the HP series that any common muggle can see through. Rowling did do one thing right though, she wrote the wizards to be completely inept about the world around them. Both Harry and Hermione were far smarter than Ron because they were both muggle-raised. It's made pretty clear that if it doesn't have to do with magic, wizards get really stupid. I remember a dude in the 4th book that was wearing woman's clothing, and refused to take it off purely on the grounds that it was official muggle clothing which he was told to wear in public. A wizard is completely incapable of noticing those little details, and so the idea of using a gun would never occur to them.
OT: if I was in a wizard family, I wouldn't mind telling my closest friends if I thought they weren't going to freak out. And if they turn into douchebags about it, I'd just wipe their memory.
Watch Gattaca. I think it gives a reasonable example of what would happen if you publicly introduced "strictly better" people, and ways to reproduce to generate said people.Regnes said:
I wouldn't tell Muggles anything about the wizarding world, but I'd sure as hell try to educate the inverse. Call me crazy, but I think a phone would be far more convenient than an owl. And obviously floo powder isn't a viable alternative, because if it were, they wouldn't be using owls to deliver things.
Look at it this way, Voldemort wants to rule the wizards, and either enslave or massacre the muggles. The wizards decide that this a problem for the people who were born special to solve, not the smartest, or the strongest, or the most moral, just the people with special blood.
These people then set themselves up as the grand arbiters or a signifigant portion of the defence of man kind (seriously, this is pretty much nuke level danger here) and then neglect to tell us about it.
Even better, when said evil wizard dude manages to pull a coup and establish himself as pretty much the political head of the whole corrupt system, the so called good guys still don't bother to tell us that their magical world has been coopted by a guy known to his friends as the dark lord. That is on par with the polish government hiding the existence of Hitler from the jews because... all I can reasonably come up with is that they might have to use their magic in service to the rest of the human race.
Even then, while thousands of people work in shitty jobs for society, garbage men, social workers, soldiers, these 'special' people hide themselves from the world to avoid having to do their part. I mean the only differance between hogwarts and rapture is that you had to earn your way into rapture.
Of course if they spent two seconds looking at the society that they had gotten judged as unworthy of their presence, they would realise that we could solve a whole lot of their problems pretty much instantly. The average 5.56 mm round travels at 380m/s, lets see 'ol snake love respond to that.
But the thing that makes me angry is that they have the nerve to accuse humans of wanting to burn them all at the stake based on what happened hundreds of years ago. I mean not only is that really racist, assuming that all people born a certain way are violent idiots waiting for a chance to kill the poor ubermensch, it shows that the wizards have paid no real attention to what has happened in the world since before the begining of last century. Look at the scoreboard in the books, number of wizards in power who want to fuck up humanity versus the number of humans in power who want to do the same to wizards.
I would say that humanity should declare war on the wizards out of self defence, but I'm not sure that they haven't already declared war on us.
These people then set themselves up as the grand arbiters or a signifigant portion of the defence of man kind (seriously, this is pretty much nuke level danger here) and then neglect to tell us about it.
Even better, when said evil wizard dude manages to pull a coup and establish himself as pretty much the political head of the whole corrupt system, the so called good guys still don't bother to tell us that their magical world has been coopted by a guy known to his friends as the dark lord. That is on par with the polish government hiding the existence of Hitler from the jews because... all I can reasonably come up with is that they might have to use their magic in service to the rest of the human race.
Even then, while thousands of people work in shitty jobs for society, garbage men, social workers, soldiers, these 'special' people hide themselves from the world to avoid having to do their part. I mean the only differance between hogwarts and rapture is that you had to earn your way into rapture.
Of course if they spent two seconds looking at the society that they had gotten judged as unworthy of their presence, they would realise that we could solve a whole lot of their problems pretty much instantly. The average 5.56 mm round travels at 380m/s, lets see 'ol snake love respond to that.
But the thing that makes me angry is that they have the nerve to accuse humans of wanting to burn them all at the stake based on what happened hundreds of years ago. I mean not only is that really racist, assuming that all people born a certain way are violent idiots waiting for a chance to kill the poor ubermensch, it shows that the wizards have paid no real attention to what has happened in the world since before the begining of last century. Look at the scoreboard in the books, number of wizards in power who want to fuck up humanity versus the number of humans in power who want to do the same to wizards.
I would say that humanity should declare war on the wizards out of self defence, but I'm not sure that they haven't already declared war on us.
If it was revealed, the religious would? NERD RAGE! On a scale unseen for since antiquity, and planning for the fashionable revival of witch-hunts and blind persecution.
Witches and Wizards, let me personally reacquainted you with the unmagical creature known as ?The Peasant.?
?The Peasant: stupid, small-minded, xenophobic, savage (but cowardly), superstitious, gullible, and primitive.?
There is nothing else quite like magic that infuriates and drives peasants into a paranoia fuel rage.
The scientists, engineers, physicists, biologists and other professions in academics will be forever thankful for all the new enigmas you?ve provided. (And giving them a valid excuse to invent more techno babble.)
How does the broomstick fly?
Not on the principles of aerodynamics (for sure.)
It?s simply levitates, can accelerate, decelerate and maintain its momentum.
Does it give off any peculiar readings?
Does it operate by a negative stress?energy tensor (anti-gravity?)
How does the spell "Incendio" work with no visible fuel source for the rapid oxidization to produce combustion?
The magic can be demonstrated, observed and tested.
Why the doubt that science could not master magic?
There are principles at work behind what a wizard does, even if they are not apparent they are at least consistent and observable therefore can be subjected to study by eager investigation, too the err of the wizard demonstrating the same spell for the 2,372th time so that variation can be accounted for.
Sophisticated neuroimaging methods can be used to observe the effects of memory charms directly.
And maybe they might discover what defines a witch/wizard from the mere mortal? well besides their blatant use of magic, I mean how they biochemically differ from Muggles. There both are outwardly humans. What makes them so special? and can we acquire it?
There are Wizards and Witches that regard Muggles as simply not human, sub-human even. Then again these magical folk also have mindsets that persisted from the middle ages. (Bet they couldn?t travel to the moon with their magics? and limited knowledge of the cosmos.)
Just because science would be dealing with principles that are beyond academics current understanding, this is in no way indicative that it is beyond comprehension and discovery. Remember when magnets where called magical?
How does ?Incendio? match up against propane-powered fire magics!
Do Muggles do it better?
http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Fireball_6491.jpg
The education system of Magical Britain is dubious, Harry only learned about less then a dozen spells.
Witches and Wizards, let me personally reacquainted you with the unmagical creature known as ?The Peasant.?
?The Peasant: stupid, small-minded, xenophobic, savage (but cowardly), superstitious, gullible, and primitive.?
There is nothing else quite like magic that infuriates and drives peasants into a paranoia fuel rage.
The scientists, engineers, physicists, biologists and other professions in academics will be forever thankful for all the new enigmas you?ve provided. (And giving them a valid excuse to invent more techno babble.)
How does the broomstick fly?
Not on the principles of aerodynamics (for sure.)
It?s simply levitates, can accelerate, decelerate and maintain its momentum.
Does it give off any peculiar readings?
Does it operate by a negative stress?energy tensor (anti-gravity?)
How does the spell "Incendio" work with no visible fuel source for the rapid oxidization to produce combustion?
Zachary Amaranth said:
The magic can be demonstrated, observed and tested.
Why the doubt that science could not master magic?
There are principles at work behind what a wizard does, even if they are not apparent they are at least consistent and observable therefore can be subjected to study by eager investigation, too the err of the wizard demonstrating the same spell for the 2,372th time so that variation can be accounted for.
Sophisticated neuroimaging methods can be used to observe the effects of memory charms directly.
And maybe they might discover what defines a witch/wizard from the mere mortal? well besides their blatant use of magic, I mean how they biochemically differ from Muggles. There both are outwardly humans. What makes them so special? and can we acquire it?
There are Wizards and Witches that regard Muggles as simply not human, sub-human even. Then again these magical folk also have mindsets that persisted from the middle ages. (Bet they couldn?t travel to the moon with their magics? and limited knowledge of the cosmos.)
Just because science would be dealing with principles that are beyond academics current understanding, this is in no way indicative that it is beyond comprehension and discovery. Remember when magnets where called magical?
How does ?Incendio? match up against propane-powered fire magics!
Do Muggles do it better?
http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Fireball_6491.jpg
The education system of Magical Britain is dubious, Harry only learned about less then a dozen spells.
So, you are suggesting we camp several snipers aiming at Voldemort's spawn point and kill him every time he respawn? Brilliant...Rowan93 said:
OT: I wouldn't reveal it. As much as muggles seems to have the right approach to much of the wizards war problems (shotgun to the face), I believe there would be a lot of paranoia with the realization that some people can look like anybody else, be invisible, teleport, change the space/time continuum at will, and there are flying nazguls around the world willing to eat your soul...
Yes they do. In the HP universe electronic equipment breaks near areas of high magical activity. (See Goblet of Fire). A gun would presumably work any time, and individual wizards can use electronics, but put more than a few of them together and it seems to act like an EMP.DoPo said: