this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2025
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"The more sophisticated a magic system is, the funnier it is to pull out a gun"
Snape, probably
Sounds like something Pratchett would say
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In the American version of the books, they changed kids hexing each other in the corridors for shooting each other instead, to make it more believable.
Harry shotter and the chamber of bullets.
Their calculation was American kids are too dumb to know what a philosopher is, but they can strip an AR-15 blindfold.
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Ok, this has been driving me crazy for seven movies now, and I know you're going to roll your eyes, but hear me out: Harry Potter should have carried a 1911.
Here's why:
Think about how quickly the entire WWWIII (Wizarding-World War III) would have ended if all of the good guys had simply armed up with good ol' American hot lead.
Basilisk? Let's see how tough it is when you shoot it with a .470 Nitro Express. Worried about its Medusa-gaze? Wear night vision goggles. The image is light-amplified and re-transmitted to your eyes. You aren't looking at it--you're looking at a picture of it.
Imagine how epic the first movie would be if Harry had put a breeching charge on the bathroom wall, flash-banged the hole, and then went in wearing NVGs and a Kevlar-weave stab-vest, carrying a SPAS-12.
And have you noticed that only Europe seems to a problem with Deatheaters? Maybe it's because Americans have spent the last 200 years shooting deer, playing GTA: Vice City, and keeping an eye out for black helicopters over their compounds. Meanwhile, Brits have been cutting their steaks with spoons. Remember: gun-control means that Voldemort wins. God made wizards and God made muggles, but Samuel Colt made them equal.
Now I know what you're going to say: "But a wizard could just disarm someone with a gun!" Yeah, well they can also disarm someone with a wand (as they do many times throughout the books/movies). But which is faster: saying a spell or pulling a trigger?
Avada Kedavra, meet Avtomat Kalashnikova.
Imagine Harry out in the woods, wearing his invisibility cloak, carrying a .50bmg Barrett, turning Deatheaters into pink mist, scratching a lightning bolt into his rifle stock for each kill. I don't think Madam Pomfrey has any spells that can scrape your brains off of the trees and put you back together after something like that. Voldemort's wand may be 13.5 inches with a Phoenix-feather core, but Harry's would be 0.50 inches with a tungsten core. Let's see Voldy wave his at 3,000 feet per second. Better hope you have some Essence of Dittany for that sucking chest wound.
I can see it now...Voldemort roaring with evil laughter and boasting to Harry that he can't be killed, since he is protected by seven Horcruxes, only to have Harry give a crooked grin, flick his cigarette butt away, and deliver what would easily be the best one-liner in the entire series:
"Well then I guess it's a good thing my 1911 holds 7+1."
And that is why Harry Potter should have carried a 1911.
God made wizards and God made muggles, but Samuel Colt made them equal.
This had me in stitches
It's my favorite copypasta. I can't believe I was the first in this thread to post it.
Better hope you have some Essence of Dittany for that sucking chest wound.
IF I WENT TO HOGWARTS I WOULD USE PHYSICAL VIOLENCE
NO MAGIC SPELLS ARE GONNA WORK ON ME
I'D BE SNAPPING SOME WANDS SUPLEXING THE GOBLINS
POLYJUICE POTION?
NAH IM DRINKING CREATINE.
WENGARDIUM LEVIOSA?
HOW BOUT YOU SHUT THE HELL UP.
AVADA KEDAVRA?
AVADA THESE NUTS.
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As if they didn't have some simple hex that can protect them from physical projectiles.
They would have been killed a long time ago by arrows.
I think Buffy taught us that you'd be surprised what can be killed with a shoulder fired anti-tank weapon.
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Gotta say the words quicker than they can pull the trigger and they have mutliple sylable words try saying one of these before you can click your mouse. Yeah I know super skilled ones don't need to but you still have to react.
- Arresto Momentum
- Protego
- Protego Maxima
- Expelliarmus
- Accio
- Stupefy
Bummer jk Rowling never made sense out of dueling, or casting spells silently, or apparating sometimes is okay but mostly not. Even if she wasnt an asshole, trying to draw a logical line through the books is absurd.
Bummer jk Rowling never made sense
I think the world building in the Harry Potter series is awful. The rules don't make internally consistent sense, and the society that came up around those rules also don't make sense within the motivations of how people behave in that society.
It’s so obvious that she was coming up with shit as she went along.
The Deathly Hallows were a huge asspull. Trying to make an overarching story was a mistake, the story worked best when it was “monster of the week” standard children’s fare. That kind of format can tolerate the “I’m going to introduce something new that should have wider consequences and then forget about it immediately afterwards” problems (Time Turners, Legilimency, polyjuice potions, love potions…)
Also a bummer that she turned out as a raging anti trans hateful nutcase.
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I'm a little bit surprised Rowling didn't throw in something about some human technology not working in the wizarding world, like electronics and firearms. Surely this came up while the books were being written.
She all but stated that humanity is advancing beyond the wizarding world. There’s really no explanation beyond “wizards are actually very stupid and stagnating within their intellectually, and very literally, incestuous society.”
Mr Weasley is seen as a weird oddball for engaging in studying muggle technology. The wizarding world sees it all as a bunch of pointless nonsense that muggles have to go through just because they don't have magic. Clever in its own way, but utterly futile.
Why spend hundreds of people's effort, lots of money and enormous amounts of time to design, make and use a vehicle to go somewhere when you can hop in a fireplace and think about where you want to go, or simply apparate there?
Why carry a complicated muggle weapon around and spend time and effort learning how to use it well, when you can kill someone with two words you've known since you were a child?
Voldemort isn't just protected by being a powerful wizard, he's also protected by the bully's standard protections of surrounding themselves with sycophants who unquestioningly support them (by ruthlessly turning against people who question their authority or judgment), having no moral hesitancy whatsoever and avoiding like the plague fair fights wherever there's a chance they'd not win.
So because of Voldemort's followers who will turn up in an instant and his horcruxes, you have to be prepared to sacrifice your life to have a chance of opposing him openly, which is of course what Lily Potter did.
Strange that JKR, who clearly didn't like bullies, would choose to bully trans people and use her money and influence against them. Admittedly she clearly had a bit of a problem with blonde people before she wrote book 1, so not exactly completely free from prejudice.
If I could offer an additional perspective, one of the most fundamentally interesting aspects in the study of Paleolithic peoples to me is its occupants’ intense desire to choose the best tools. The best tools for fighting, the best tools for crafting, the best tools for presenting, the best tools for fucking, etc..
You’ll often find items from far and wide in their caches. Stones and gems and shells and bones, and yes I encourage you to make the joke, from a hundred miles away, all brought painstakingly back despite local resources being nearly comparable. It’s a fundamentally human characteristic to aggregate useful peculiarities, and neglecting them is new.
The wizards are losing touch with their humanity, if we take this story written by a troubled schoolteacher literally.
Don't they drive a car? and ride a train? so combustion works... kind of has to work
Pretty sure wizards are familiar with old technology like trains and cars. But like another comment said, muggles are advancing while wizards stagnate in their old ways and traditions and shit since they keep themselves so separated.
Combustion is very old technology. Putting it inside a different machine (e.g. a gun or a car engine) doesn't change the chemistry. If you want to get right down to it, we're just talking about oxidation - which means that in any sort of world where rapid oxidation doesn't work (i.e. explosives), your lungs also don't work because you need that oxygen bonding with the iron in your hemoglobin or you die.
If you can light a fire, you can make an explosion. If you can make an explosion, you can use it to launch a projectile.
There's no world in which fire exists but guns are impossible. Even if you don't have the metalworking sophistication for a modern gun, you could still make a Chinese-style gunpowder rocket.
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For all we know the hogwarts express runs on magic and so does the car, after all it flies.
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I hate JKR too, but she literally did. Wizard clothes are enchanted with protego charms which turn away any mundane attacks, and wizards really have no reason to fear muggles. During the witch trials some would allow themselves to be burned at the stake because they liked how the flames tickle. It's very much a 'magic must defeat magic' setting.
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Iirc it is mentioned electricity is finicky. But given that fire works, it stands to reason all chemical reactions work. Ergo firearms.
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That’s why us Latinos aren’t represented in the series. Jose el Mago would have walked up to the guy and just shanked him a bunch of times and taken his shoes
Probably a good thing JKR didn't include any Latin American wizards in the series. They probably would have ended up practicing a form of magic that was basically just Aztec blood sacrifice. No way it wouldn't be racist as fuck. This is Rowling we're talking about. Her goblins are thinly veiled Jewish stereotypes, she has happy house slaves, and the African wizards are literal witch doctors.
Rowling was always known to be slightly racist but people mostly dismissed it as a sort of fantastically stupid racism. As in, the "ha ha this racist stereotype is so dumb, see how ridiculous it looks when I put it in my wizard book" sort.
I don't think it was until she started going full TERF that people began to realise that she's not making fun of the stereotypes; she actually thinks casual racism is a funny and cute thing to do.
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Its been done look up "Harry potter and the deathly weapons."
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyWeapons
https://archive.org/details/harry-potter-and-the-deathly-weapons-2020-1080p
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Fun version: Harry Potter and the Deathly Weapons.
Weird version: the final chapters of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.
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I cast Volley of Lead!
It’s over Miss Granger. What do you say?
I cast ICBM
Lil magic nerds halfway through "Avada ka-" before a 5.56 round blows out the back of their skull.
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