663
Anon learns a new spell
(sh.itjust.works)
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.
Classic copypasta.
this is basically Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.
Beautiful
Also remember mine friend 9mm kills the body .45 ACP kills the soul. By the power of John Moses Browning those horcrux bullshit aint gonna survive the invention of one of the only respectable Mormons.
“I got 57 more goddamn rounds in this 4 rounds magazine”
“Alakablam”
Holy fucking shit, amazing. Saved and sent that to a few of my friends. Thank you for improving my day.
"The more sophisticated a magic system is, the funnier it is to pull out a gun"
Snape, probably
Sounds like something Pratchett would say
Broke: Guy with a wand
Woke: Guy with a gun
Bespoke: Guy with an ACME industrial magnet to reflect all the bullets back at the people firing them
What about testis tortius?
I laughed out loud at this. I know the Reddit sub always makes this joke. Does it have origins before that?
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
It’s over Miss Granger. What do you say?
I cast ICBM
Sometimes I feel like these stories are just generated content or made up, like a fairy tale. Well, if they're posted too often, maybe they are. I'll probably pass by because I can make up a story about another anon myself lol.
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
For all we know the hogwarts express runs on magic and so does the car, after all it flies.
For all we know the hogwarts express runs on magic
It makes steam.
Aesthetic is more important than practicality.
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.
Or just straight up bombs. The beauty is that an IED can catch even a master wizard off guard. No need for metalworking, and since they use cars, well... surely there is some character with Irish roots, right?
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This is a world with flying broomsticks and cars, teleportation, and even time travel.
Of course you can get away with saying gunpowder just doesn't explode here.
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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.
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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I cast Volley of Lead!
If you get to the point where a gun is required, you have already lost something.
Yeah, use land mines and claymores instead far more indirect and I don't there's magic that can reverse being turned into chunky salsa. Also never have just a gun have multiple preferably in multiple directions so the ones using the guns can't be taken out in one fell swoop.
Might as well nuke the zone at that point.
I feelime theres artillery and high yield explosives in between land mines and nukes.
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this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2025
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