the "Why didn't they just shoot Voldemort?" thread
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Well I'm just saying the story is shallow and irrelevant, it doesn't have the significance of love nor compassion that the characters and creators want to claim. Harry Potter didn't prevail, Rowling prevailed as the "god" of this universe manufactured circumstance for victory rather than Harry's apparent free will and conscience challenging the outcome. It's a tale of fools. Intent is an excuse. What is actually written is what they actually depict. Voldemort was undone by a series of mistakes, not the "power of love".SnakeoilSage said:
Harry's allies (mostly) stuck with him, and Voldermort's allies (mostly) stuck with him as well. So what? The books make no real distinctions in outcome between Voldermorts side united by fear and greed and Harry's side.
I have read the books a long time ago and they didn't leave much of an impression on me.
Also I find it a bit shallow for her to merely claim out-of-canon that Dumbledore is gay but never write in him as EVER having a same-sex partner. If he is gay then he is by all appearances a celibate homosexual, precisely what the gay bashing Christians want. You know they "Jesus accepts homosexuals as long as they never love another man". It just comes off as a publicity stunt, intellectual cowardice and hardly breaking ground. She made this declaration after the famous gay actor Ian McKellen was perfectly cast as another wise old bearded wizard mentor to a young protagonist who's character is killed off mid story: Gandalf. Gee, the character of Gandalf sounds a LOT like Dubledore... coincidence?
Im sorry this has been corrected on several times within this thread. If you are not willing to listen to the clear explanations of other posters then im not sure what to do with you.Treblaine said:
Many wizards use magic in the potter books without a incantations. Voldermourt is shown to be able to teleport with no incantations or complicated wand use. He can do spells on instantaneous thought.
Range? Spells have been shown to be cast from miles away. Miles! Most offensive spells probably travel indefinitely until they meet a target.Treblaine said:
Wizards can teleport instantly to their destination. Much faster. Wizards could teleport to the moon and use a bubblehead charm (book 4) to breath.Treblaine said:
Whilst wizards tend to use owls they have also been shown to create objects which allow instantaneous personal communication. Dumbledores enchanted mirror would be an example. Heck in school hermione created a basic coin communicator to send cryptic messages. In school with a limited time frame! This is not beyond wizards at all.Treblaine said:
The wizards tend to be a fairly tight nit group. No doubt they find a lot of muggle entertainment foreign due to their lack of cultural reference points.Treblaine said:
Wizards have other interactive games than quidditch. The books are also set in an era slightly before internet gaming really became common in every household in britain.Treblaine said:
Id honestly like to have seen more in the line of wizarding medicine. Its never really answered why the superior wizarding techniques are not used sneakily in muggle hospitals.Treblaine said:
In the end it's a book for children-young adults, one that slowly matured as its readers matured. It reached out and caught the audience it was intended for and as for myself, I enjoyed it a bit too. I don't hold it to the same standards I do more "hard" fantasy books or video games like say, Dragon Age or Warhammer.Treblaine said:
And what does it matter if Dumbledore was gay? Neither he nor Rowling have the responsibility to carry some kind of banner about it; not every tale written these days has to be a biting satire of current events.
Love it or hate it, it is what it is. I'd rather kids read this than Twilight.
Yeah, but WHICH spells can you cast without saying incantations? If you can do this for all spells then why is it not done for all spells? I think that's because it can't be done for all spells. Throughout the series wizards and witches have NOT used insta-cast spells even when it could save their lives or the lives of others. Can you only pre load one spell at a time? Kinda impractical, what if you wait for them to cast a spell then shoot from a distance?Rylingo said:
And where in the books HAVE you actually seen a spell cast against an individual (not an area) over several miles? Many times throughout the series the protagonists or enemies are very far away and spells are not cast but rather a pursuit begins.
What is the point in casting a spell over miles if the human eye can't even see that far? It's beyond the limits of human coordination to aim without visual reference like lining up sights. Modern weapon sights can pick out the thermal signature and direct a bullet or bomb at faster than the speed of sound, they won't hear it coming. Faster than the human nervous system could even react to the muzzle flash that could itself be completely concealed by a suppressor.
Are Wizards now by some unwritten rule also superhuman in their mental capacity to identify a bullet speeding through the air at 2'500 kilometres per hour and then deploy a spell against it? Also their dexterity to aim that their wands don't need aiming sights?
Wizard teleportation is rare and the commonly available magic is only from point to point as Weaselys' Diagon-Ally glitch. Why is it Wizards use other forms of transport if teleportation really was as easy and common as you describe?
An oversized enchanted mirror or magic coin is no where near as deep and flexible a form of communication as a smartphone that can:
-take pictures
-play games
-browse the internet
-communicate by text or voice or teleconference
-record voice
-take notes
-store manuals
-play back music, movies
-install apps that can do almost anything with the hardware integrated.
Wizarding folk might not be interested in Muggle media? The success of the Harry Potter books show we are interested in their lives, have they not seen what insight and entertainment that is on offer? Or they could make their own? I think this is just Rowling being a snobbish luddite with the idea that all these people would dismiss all aspects of the modern world as trivial with their old folksy Amish-like world embellished with a bit of magic for trivial matters.
It's kind of a double standard. They will use muggle inventions of cars, busses, trains and so on but draw the line at phones to spite their convenience. Maybe it's because Rowling needed paired transport in Chamber of secrets that could conceivably hover and a Car was the only one she could think of.
"Wizards have other interactive games than quidditch."
Like what? Wizarding chess? That is just Chess with a visual gimmick. In 1997 when the first Harry Potter book came out QuakeCom was in full swing, it was right in parallel with the online gaming revolution. Within the first 3 books online gaming had hit big on home consoles. I'd like to see their answer to Call of Duty or Team Fortress 2.
PS: if Wizard did teleport to the moon and use a Bubblehead charm (that I assume contains the air molecules around their head) their chest would explode from the necessary air pressure in their lungs. If the bubble was extended around their body even then they would be screwed as their body and this small pocket of air would soon freeze to 3-degrees above absolute zero. So cold that the nitrogen in their air around them would turn to liquid. And if that doesn't get them the solar radiation will. Even if protected from all that This bubble they'd soon suffocate as the CO2 they exhale would quickly build up... it would be like putting a plastic bag over your head, you'd die quickly. See you actually have to STOP AND THINK rather than just say "hurr, magic solves it". You'd have to cast a dozen different spells, OR you could wear one space suit designed for the job.
See, not even children that the Harry Potter books were initially targeted to should be exposed to such anti-scientific bullshit.
I can accept magic in Harry Potter, as Rowling has made that part of the natural world, so it's not really magic. What I cannot accept is how she throws out all knowledge of material science along with the introduction of magic. This is BAD mode of thinking to put into children's minds. Again, I am OK with hypothesising of "what if you could magically impart force-X with what we'll call magic for now" but the premise from that then seems to be that physics, chemistry and biology as well as communication technology and other sciences are somehow irrelevant.
The biggest reason for the lack of guns is that in the UK only people with a licence (such as farmers/hunters) or armed forces can legally have guns and since everything in the magic world is covered up by the wizards the general public or army wouldnt know about this.
Voldemort would be able to reflect/disintegrate most physical attacks as more powerful wizards do not need to say the incantation or even use the wand (wands just focus inherent magical powers they do not provide them) also he has an elite guard that can be summoned at any time in an instant and usually has a few of those with him at most times.
As far as i see guns would work in Hogwarts but the above reasons prevent them working on him, and my own theory is that he also has some sort of protective aura surrounding him at most times though thats merely speculation.
Guns are mentioned in the 3rd book but it is made clear that most wizards do not know what they are (described as a muggle equivalent of a wand used for killing people).
(To the second person in the thread) Also nukes wouldn't work on Hogwarts because it cannot be plotted on a map so near impossible to find, the electric charge needed to trigger the explosion would fail and as soon as the plane was spotted im pretty sure they would be given plenty of advance notice and time to prepared a counter attack.
Voldemort would be able to reflect/disintegrate most physical attacks as more powerful wizards do not need to say the incantation or even use the wand (wands just focus inherent magical powers they do not provide them) also he has an elite guard that can be summoned at any time in an instant and usually has a few of those with him at most times.
As far as i see guns would work in Hogwarts but the above reasons prevent them working on him, and my own theory is that he also has some sort of protective aura surrounding him at most times though thats merely speculation.
Guns are mentioned in the 3rd book but it is made clear that most wizards do not know what they are (described as a muggle equivalent of a wand used for killing people).
(To the second person in the thread) Also nukes wouldn't work on Hogwarts because it cannot be plotted on a map so near impossible to find, the electric charge needed to trigger the explosion would fail and as soon as the plane was spotted im pretty sure they would be given plenty of advance notice and time to prepared a counter attack.
You are basing the entire knowledge of real life verses a very limited view to a fictional world, there have been hints to things outside of the book content (such as wizards having their own parallel to the internet) but there have not been a lot of specific things that you are obsessing over.Treblaine said:
Maybe when the encyclopaedia JKR is writing comes out we may have better answers but 90% of what we know from the HP series is things that Harry has come into direct contact with and therefore isnt specific enough for you.
Also it seems from some of your responses you are not 100% clued into the books or other media beyond the films which may also limit your own view of the series.
Well, I'll just say what I always do:
Three more things to add though:
1) What's with all the people saying that there are no guns in Britain? I mean, not legal for civilians obviously, but it's not like a group of people who can teleport and turn invisible would find it impossible to get one.
2) Why is it the moment this topic comes up people start jerking off over sniper rifles? It's not just 'A guy with a gun could kill Voldemort' it's 'A sniper from a kilometer and a half away with a flash supressor, he'd be so badass, one shot one kill, *BANG* and he's gone, tango neutralised, uhhh, UHHH, UHHH!!!'
3) Voldemort really, really doesn't just wander around in the open like that; the only times he's seen in public is when something specifcally serious has gone done and he wants to be there to angrily kill a few underlings, and I don't suppose he turns up unprepared for possible attacks.
I've yet to hear anyone get back to me on that.Geo Da Sponge said:
Three more things to add though:
1) What's with all the people saying that there are no guns in Britain? I mean, not legal for civilians obviously, but it's not like a group of people who can teleport and turn invisible would find it impossible to get one.
2) Why is it the moment this topic comes up people start jerking off over sniper rifles? It's not just 'A guy with a gun could kill Voldemort' it's 'A sniper from a kilometer and a half away with a flash supressor, he'd be so badass, one shot one kill, *BANG* and he's gone, tango neutralised, uhhh, UHHH, UHHH!!!'
3) Voldemort really, really doesn't just wander around in the open like that; the only times he's seen in public is when something specifcally serious has gone done and he wants to be there to angrily kill a few underlings, and I don't suppose he turns up unprepared for possible attacks.
Suitable for Children? How young? Four, five years old? Their contempt for scientific thought and selling of "magic solves everything" is a poor mode of thinking to sell to young adults or even older children even if it is completely a word of fiction. It conditions them to accept magical explanations and to hell with science, understanding or knowledge of the actual natural world. To spite the bible basher's fear of Harry Potter as a Warlock; Rowling's books serve Creationists when they try to sell the story to people that God simply magic'd the world, and all the species into existence, no question of how that conflicts with physics. Magic can just do EVERYTHING.SnakeoilSage said:
I know it's a work of fiction, but even a critical mind should see where a work of fiction does the impossible.
Someone suggested a wizard could just teleport themselves to The Moon and cast a bubblehead charm around their head. Well that's as worthless as putting a plastic bag over your head; your chest would explode, your skin would freeze and every molecule of your body would be irradiated. It shows utter contempt for the physics of surviving in deep space such as needed in a space suit, with the idea that just a bit of magic will do it all.
This is VERY distinct from "magic" or impossible physics used to hypothesise about the real world, like just the hypothetical proposition it was possible to impart a gravity-like force on someone - a Fus Ro DAH - what effect would that have on physics. We see this in video games that strive to have a realistic physics engine then break one aspects of the law and see what else you can do. Like in Portal and Portal 2. Wormholes are not currently possible, but lets hypothesis they are... and demonstrate conservation of momentum and what a potent force gravity is in that.
"And what does it matter if Dumbledore was gay?"
She gets the publicity and credit for declaring that he is but doesn't have to put any commitment of actually making a convincing and relevant gay character. She writes in his brother as an important male in his life, but no male lover anywhere. She copped out of that one. It's lazy and intellectually dishonest.
I think she likes the idea of being progressive by making one of her principal characters gay but doesn't want to actually think how a homosexual relationship would operate. On any level. She brought this on herself.
And saying it's better they read Harry Potter than Twilight is like saying it's better they watch Evan Almighty than Michael Bays's Transformers.
When I was a kid I watched reruns of MacGyver. He didn't depend on magical solutions.
Harry potter is set in England where getting your hands on a gun is only possible to farmers, gangs with connections and the military and harry has access to none of them.
How the hell could Harry have not certainly encountered a Wizzarding equivalent of the internet when that would be so useful to his studies? These are fundamental technologies and physical processes.siddif said:
An Encyclopedia can only be a poor retcon for a series that Rowling didn't put much thought into from a technological or scientific aspect. It's also incredibly old fashioned and somewhat shillish in this day and age of fan-wikis that can be officially moderated and there is no need to have a big heavy hard-copy book that must sell for a price and cannot be edited nor added to after the fact.
Encyclopedias are more than obsolete they are an anachronism of 2012, the Wiki-model is far superior and more accessible and more relevant as it is based on what is actually declared in the books, not the way Rowling may want to have it with hindsight. It's like the digital revolution has completely flown over Rowling's head. Science now totally depends on online journals for how frequently things are updated and amended.
If you don't care about science, take for example game guides. How they are worthless if not only for their simple mistakes but mainly the patches, many of which fundamentally change gameplay to the point where the only reliable source of information is the free wiki rather than the fixed and premium-priced game-guide. And of course the users can discover things the publishers either didn't want you to know or didn't even know themselves! And the patches equivalent of Harry Potter would be further books in the series.
Rowling should make money of telling stories and shouldn't try to make money off what the Wiki-moderators are providing for free. All this encyclopaedia can do is waste her time writing either redundant or irrelevant information (defined by how if it is in or not in the boos) that may not even be canon anyway!
You do realize that that applies to nearly all fiction? That's why its fiction... it punches gritty reality and extreme logic in the balls and makes entertaining shit up. If you don't like it, avoid any kind of fantasy like the plague, for your sake.SaneAmongInsane said:
If you want the wiki version there is Pottermore the official interactive site run by JKR and Sony which is soon to open to the public. Its not just a lexicon of things in the books its also behind the scenes look at how the books were made and the creative process behind that including scrapped chapters, interactive games, etc?. Though when the books themselves arent due to change in content and all of the films are out a hard copy book can also be good. I dont see it as a cop out though as behind the scenes documentaries or biographies are seen as full products so why cant this book?Treblaine said:
Harry hasnt interacted with the wizard internet thing because he is in class/fighting evil wizards/hitchhiking around Britain and when not doing that hes in a muggle household with less than basic rights.
Even if i would feel inclined to make some attempt at arguing the whole gun thing, being a fan myself, you still make plenty of sense. How much technology does a gun even have anyway? Cell phones, ok, i can get that. But guns? They're not run through wireless connections.
I love that Harry looks like he is saying "BANG!"Davatehi said:Well, the main reason is probably becasue the book would be over in like five minutes.
Its a fantasy world. Guns don't exist in that world.
Find me one reference in the books to the existence of guns and I'll take back what I said.
"But its based on our world!"
Ok, let me know where the flying dragons are in our world.
Btw his snake had a constant protective shell around it. I can't imagine why he can't do the same for himself.
Find me one reference in the books to the existence of guns and I'll take back what I said.
"But its based on our world!"
Ok, let me know where the flying dragons are in our world.
Btw his snake had a constant protective shell around it. I can't imagine why he can't do the same for himself.
It's set in England...guns are illegal in England...that is why Harry doesn't shoot Voldemort...probably
In the first book, I'm pretty sure the uncle of harry has a long shaped package that turns out to be a hunting rifle, pretty sure it's featured in the movie aswell.UsefulPlayer 1 said: