Don’t they drive a car? and ride a train? so combustion works…
Comment on Anon learns a new spell
Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
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.
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 1 week ago
reseller_pledge609@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week ago
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 sice they keep themselves so separated.
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 1 week ago
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.
LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
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 have cars, well… surely there is some character with Irish roots, right?
Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
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.
zaphod@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
For all we know the hogwarts express runs on magic and so does the car, after all it flies.
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 1 week ago
For all we know the hogwarts express runs on magic
It makes steam.
Mirshe@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Aesthetic is more important than practicality.
Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
Combustion, sure, but not an explosion. Or the car is a special magic car or whatever.
dohpaz42@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Combustion, sure, but not an explosion.
I hate to do this to you, but that’s kind how explosions work (i.e. combustion).
ccryx@discuss.tchncs.de 1 week ago
More specifically, that’s how cars with a combustion engine work: lots of tiny explosions.
GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip 1 week ago
Don’t be coy, you absolutely love doing this.
Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
Nope, there’s a fundamental difference between a fuel/air mixture burning and something like gunpowder, which is a self oxidising propellant. Most explosives are in the latter category.
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 1 week ago
Explosions are combustion.
And really we’re just talking about oxidation. If oxidation works (which it must, because the characters are breathing) then chemically-propelled projectiles must also work.
Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
Look, we’re talking about a world where people fly around on broomsticks like we ride bicycles.
Of course you can just declare that firearms don’t work.
absentbird@lemmy.world 1 week ago
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.
_core@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
No one thought to make magic bullets to counter protego charms?
absentbird@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Isn’t that just the killing curse with extra steps? Magic is a lot harder to evade.
icelimit@lemmy.ml 1 week ago
Iirc it is mentioned electricity is finicky. But given that fire works, it stands to reason all chemical reactions work. Ergo firearms.
starchylemming@lemmy.world 1 week ago
but she did just what you described
I remember reading it
Tuxman@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
I don’t remember which book but I also have this clear memory of a quick passage saying all the magic around them was messing up with electronics.
Also I’m pretty sure in the Deathly Hallows they use the internet to follow Death Eaters sighting while they are in hiding
(Been a while… and I’m not bothered enough to go check 🤣)
starchylemming@lemmy.world 1 week ago
its either directly in the books refering guns specifically or… it might have been an official out of the books source.
i used to be interested in this shit over a decade ago when the last books weren’t yet finished: there was a fancy flash based official site where lore snippets and bullshit from jk got published
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 6 days ago
This is just Harry Dresden novels
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 6 days ago
Also Arcanum a CRPG by troika, there’s a newspaper you can find where someone tried to put a fire enchantment on a musket took out a city block.
Gullible@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
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.”
davidagain@lemmy.world 1 week ago
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 using 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 punishing people who question their authority), 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.
Gullible@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
If I could offer an additional perspective, one of the most fundamentally interesting aspects in the study of Paleolithic peoples to me is their 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 only slightly worse. It’s a fundamentally human characteristic to aggregate useful peculiarities.
The wizards are losing touch with their humanity, if we take this story written by a troubled schoolteacher literally.