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Sheilawisz's First Law

Queshire

Auror
Hmmm... honestly that would strike me as even more unlikely. First you'd have to convince the intelligent creatures to fight for you, an unlikely event in the case of goblins and centaurs to begin with, but nobody wants to get sent off to die in a fight not their own. The more beastial ones wouldn't fair much better. They wouldn't be able to use any form of strategy, and while they might be described as magical resistence little is made about physical resistence except for their general size and thickness of their hide. Being big just gives muggles a bigger target and their hide would get shredded in the light of armor piercing rounds.

Admittedly attacking muggle powerlines would be effective it again would require stooping to the muggle's level and admitteding that they can't win straight out with magic. A more pragmatic leader might do that, Voldemort? I don't think so.
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
Queshire, if Voldemort was orchestrating all the attack it would be a disaster and doomed to fail because, well- Voldemort was kind of ignorant and stupid about the most important things, and he would miss all the little details that would lead to a Muggle victory over the Wizarding world!!

I now prefer to think that it would be Grindelwald leading the Wizarding world in this war =)

You are right that Goblins and Centaurs would not agree to fight for the Wizards, but Dragons and Giants are less intelligent and perhaps they would. It could be a shock at first for the Muggles to have such monsters attacking their cities, but soon enough the dragons would be killed by combat helicopters while the Giants would be taken down by foot soldiers and tanks =P

This is an example that Magic (this time, in the form of magical creatures) does not need to be all-defeating always, so the Sheilawisz's First Law cannot be applied to every Fantasy story... I have another strategy now, but I'll leave it for tomorrow =)
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
The topíc of this thread is to analyze the Sheilawisz's First Law, which assumes that when Magic is used, it's supposed to be far more powerful than anything not magical and so it needs to be countered by Magic as well- My idea to talk about a fanfictional war between Wizards and Muggles in the Harry Potter world, is to discover how non-magic could fight that particular style of Magic (which I know well) and so create a test for my Law =)

Queshire, here is a part of what we know about Grindelwald:

1- He was just as talented and powerful as Dumbledore, which means that Voldemort would be scared to duel Grindelwald.
2- Grindelwald's reign of terror covered many European countries, not only one, like it happened in Britain with Voldemort.
3- He was very smart, which means that it took direct and forceful means by a Wizard equally powerful to him (Dumbledore) to take him down after an epic magical battle.
4- When Voldemort and Grindelwald met, Grindelwald showed no fear and laughed scornfully at him: He told Voldemort that he would never win, because there were so many things that he did not understand: "That wand will never, ever be yours..."
5- Grindelwald's goal was to bring the Wizards out of hiding and create a Wizarding reign over the Muggles of the entire world.

I think that Grindelwald leading this war against the Muggles is a very accurate idea =)
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
Grindelwald had been locked in an awful cell for years, he was very old, weakened and had no wand to defend himself =(
 

Queshire

Auror
Ok, fair enough, I'll admit I am not as familiar with the later books as opposed to the earlier ones, the last book in particular, I was not fond of.

I think in what has already been said, it is clear that your law is flawed. Wizards would require a decisive first strike in order to win, and needing to resort to that disproves magic's supposed inheirant superiourity.

If this was a strategy game, wizards would be expensive but powerful units. In order to be a viable combantant they require a physical wand, years of training, and there are not many of them. Muggles, on the other hand, would be cheaper and weaker, but much more numerous. With a muggle it would just take a couple months of training and a gun to be a viable threat. I am not saying muggles are superior to wizards, they could easily loose, but likewise, a wizard victory is far from certain.
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
I like your view of Wizards as expensive but powerful units, while the Muggle military would be a cheaper but way more numerous force to have in an army =)

Sure that my Law is flawed, I never intended really to mean that it would be valid for any Fantasy story- It does not work for the stories of most of my fellow writers here in Mythic Scribes, but it can work for others with stories similar to my own. Whether Magic is very superior to Non-magic or not depends on the kind of Magic, and that varies widely between different stories.

Well, this is my other strategy for the Grindelwald-led Wizarding world trying to defeat the Muggle world: Dementors!!

Wizards have certain degree of control over Dementors, and it's said that as long as they are given victims to feed from, the Dementors will cooperate to a reasonable extent. Dementors can also breed to increase their numbers (this is mentioned in the chapter The other Minister) and most importantly for this purpose, they are invisible to Muggles and invulnerable to anything except Patronus charms...

The strategy of using Dementors could backfire too, even though the Wizards would still have a way to be relatively safe from them- With Dementors everywhere in the cities, how could the Muggles fight this off??

This is a good example of how Magic is sometimes the best way to fight off Magic =)
 
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