SaneAmongInsane said:
Okay from the other topic, someone brought up the question about why they didn't just shoot Voldemort. Now I use to watch these movies with my ex and drive her up the wall with all my questions cause really a LOT of what the magic community does doesn't make sense and is overly pretentios, but this question I investigated in earnest.
Arguments the dim-witted harry potter fan gives as to why the gun wouldn't work...
1. Muggle technology doesn't work around magic.
2. Voldemort would just be able to stop the bullet with magic
3. Voldemort will keep regenerating until the horcruxes are destroyed
4. If they did that there wouldn't be a story.
well... heres my counter argument,
1. You tell me some sort of electronic device doesn't work, I get it. Theres no telling what a magical aura could do to electricity. However a gun is mechanical and chemical. I have to assume if a pully and rope can work in Harry's universe a revolver would work to. Maybe you could argue that the gun powder wouldn't combust... But an obvious solution to that would be just use the wizard-chemical-equalvelent of gun power. Then you got yourself a magic gun!
2. Bullshit. First off, most of the spells require either saying a two syllable word and making a motion with the wand and I doubt Volde could do that against a bullet. Secondly, Voldemort being the racist that he is wouldn't know what a gun is/does if he saw one so he wouldn't have anyway of anticipating the impending bullet.
3. So Voldemort comes back... Just keep shooting everytime he resurrects. It's not like it's instantaneous, and you could probably do it several times before he actually could come up with an effective counter... and even then, just have hermione snipe him from across the pond. The time granted (instead of being wasted fighting him with magic) would be invaluable in finding the remain horcruxes.
4. NO! I freaking hate this response, because all it is trying to cover up how poor the story really is. Hey, I get a kick out the series, but this is a glaring serious plot hole. The whole reason the stakes are high is because the magic world assumes that unless Harry stops volde the muggles wouldn't stand a chance... Truth of the matter is, and JK Rowling said so herself, that in a straight up war with the magical realm the muggles would win. We have vastly superior technology and armor, not to mention numbers.
The only reason, the only GOOD reason why they didn't shoot Voldemort is because Harry just plain didn't think of doing it... and seeing as how both he and hermione both came from the muggle world and never once even lampshaded it I see is a major flaw in the whole series.
The stories take place in the UK with a much lower availibility of guns and much tighter gun control. Getting your hands on a gun is pretty difficult. The Wizarding World also maintains "The Ministry Of Magic" which in the books enforces a strict seperation of the magical world and "muggle world" to the point of there being a surprising amount of ignorance about what muggles have and what they can do.
By the time Harry got to the point where he probably would have decided to go for a gun, and had the magic to obtain one, there was no real point to getting his hands on one. After all he could point a wand at someone and take them down with energy rather easily, which was at least as good as a handgun, so why bother? I'd imagine deflecting a bullet (to be fair) would be no more difficult than deflecting a spell, for it to really matter you'd need a surprise attack.
Reading between the lines I will say that the wizards being in hiding is NOT just to protect muggles from them, but to protect them and the magical creatues from the muggles. See, if someone like Voldemort won, he probably wouldn't "conquer the muggles" like he seems to think, especially seeing as the pureblood wizards he uses are interntionally ignorant (as a result of arrogance). He'd probably do a lot of damage by surprise, but there really aren't that many wizards between all their scattered "shadow communities" existing between the cracks. He probably doesn't realize that the muggles could unleash tens of thousands or millions of dudes with guns that are doing the same damage as your average "curse" not to mention bombs, planes, and other assorted things that perform on a very high level. It would be bloody, but numbers would tell, and it probably wouldn't even be close in the end. Most of the major spells (memory charms, etc..) seem to involve acting on an individual level, which is why it takes something like the Ministry of Magic a huge amount of effort (enough to slot them off) to control witnesses to things like a flying car, because they need to find the witnesses and wipe their minds one at a time.
To be honest the books also try and justify the lack of muggle involvement simply though the Prime Minister being an idiot. There is one bit where the Minister Of Magic, meets the so called "Minister Of Muggles" and it's revealed that the Prime Minister is basically freaked out by meeting this guy and feels he's borderline hallucinating, etc... (it's been a while) relations with other countries outside of Britan are kind of glossed over. The point being that there was SUPPOSED to be communicatin between the worlds at a very high level, but at some point it broke down other than the Minister Of Magic occasionally showing up to rant and rave. This incidently also explains why there wasn't a division in The British Goverment dealing with relations (at least not anymore) and why when things were getting really hairy the British Goverment didn't send a bunch of British Royal Marine Commandos, or James Bond MI-6 types to intervene.
Of course there is another point to consider beyond all of this. Voldemort is unkillable due to the way his soul is divided, this is a central plot point. In a personal, direct confrontation, you could probably shoott him thousands of times, and if you hadn't gotten all his horcruxs he would be hurt, but continue to live. It's also noteworthy that Voldemort in addition to being unkillable is the second most powerful wizard in the series. Dumbledore is more powerful (as was proven during their throw down in the ministery of magic... which explained why Dumbledore was "the only one he ever feared"). A point about Dumbledore is also that he could very easily have been Voldemort, since he was nearly as bad when he was younger which is apparently part of why he had such insights into him. Dumbledore's old friend (and now lover I guess) was the previous Dark Lord prior to Voldemort whom he defeated, and it affected him greatly. The point being that guns and soldiers might ave helped to an extent with the battles, but in the end you weren't going to get Voldemort himself without taking out the Macguffins... err Horcruxs. While Dumbledore had more power in a direct confrontation when he was at full strength (though it was very close) even he couldn't actually kill Voldemort.... though the events leading to his death were based around him getting the Horcruxs (when he died he was all messed up from drinking poison, and magicking his way through a giant defensive trap to get to where he thought one was...).
Ahh well, enough HP rambling, these are my thoughts on the subject having seen the movies, and read all the books. The books have a surprising amount of detail for children's books, and what seem to be amusing Acedotes, do tend to wind up filling in details. The bit between the minsters for example kind of sets the tone for why there isn't any kind of intervention by muggle authorities, and also shows that there was intended to be more interaction between the sides at a high level (as I mentioned).
