the "Why didn't they just shoot Voldemort?" thread

[DoPo]

Yes, I made it up. That's because I agree with you. There's not really any good reason why it didn't happen, I'm just exploring a hypothetical train of thought as to how someone might try to justify it... and then I'm rejecting that train of thought, because it doesn't work. No need to get on my case. Harry Potter is plot-hole central.

Ah sorry...it might be time to sleep when I'm not reading well the comments before replying. Actually, the fact that I have to be up in less than six hours confirms it. Well, sorry again for the confusion. In my defence, there were people who did claim that guns don't work around magic. None of them presented evidence, though, it was really "well, duh, they don't work".

 

[Rylingo]

Also, to the person who said "nuke hogwarts". You can't using normal technology because of the unplottable spells placed on it.

So guns are useless to voldermourt. Nukes can't destroy hogwarts. Anyone care to try something a little difficult?

 

[Logic 0]

Since no one in the harry potter universe knows how to use a gun it could be explained by the fact that no one really knows how to handle a gun, fire it accurately, or how to legally purchase one.

 

[Rylingo]

Since no one in the harry potter universe knows how to use a gun it could be explained by the fact that no one really knows how to handle a gun, fire it accurately, or how to legally purchase one.

Or by many more plausible things. Like Voldemourts ability to read your mind and prepare a shield to block the bullet before you've even drawn it.

Literally the only guns that would have a hope, are snipers. Even then you'd need several hitting him repeatedly at once. Voldermourt has recreated whole limbs in the past. He sure as hell isn't beyond instantly healing himself from a whole in the chest and teleporting right to were the snipers are.
Your going to need to blow his brain into a million pieces because he could heal himself from any other damage.

I would also like to point out that voldermourt had spies. If he knew muggles were chasing him he could just keep a shield up all the time.

 

[SmegInThePants]

hand gun would be tricky, voldy could just go 'accio gun' and now he's shooting you w/your own gun. and despite how separated they are from the muggle world, i really don't see how they could unaware of such an old and ubiquitous technology as the gun. they have magic cars and clocks and other copies of mechanical muggle devices. I would think voldy would at least have a vague idea of what it could do upon seeing one.

rifle would be better, could get him from afar before he even knows you are there. what's that noise? where'd voldy's head go?

land mine would be even better, no one in this magic world of HP ever checks for land mines, and voldy's always telegraphing where he's gonna be

would he even recognize a grenade? Even if he had heard of them, they don't look particularly threatening. just leave it in the middle of a walkway you know he will pass. he'll pick it up, pull the pin out, puzzle over what its supposed to do, bam! No tripwire or anything fancy even needed.

and if they're in contact w/the muggle prime minister and voldy's army is harassing muggles - then we have access to drones, missiles, helicopters, etc... Can attack from even greater range than a sniper rifle (much greater), w/the right vehicles/weapons. Ask harry where voldy is, send a bunker buster that way, dropped from such altitude no one notices the fly-over.

but its easy to nitpick, that's why they refer to it as suspending your disbelief. You temporarily refrain from disbelieving the obvious fantasies/fictions necessary to enjoy the story. We all have our own threshold of when something is so unbelievable that we can no longer be into the story and instead find ourselves distracted and all too aware that we are watching a fiction. But to actively and deliberately narrow your threshold of disbelief is to just limit the number of stories you'll be able to enjoy. Why do that to yourself and others?

still, that being said, nitpicking itself can be fun, after the fact. But if you're gonna do it *during* the movie/show, be polite and keep it to yourself till its over.

 

[fletch_talon]

And for that matter why didn't they just use the eagles to fly the ring to Mordor?
Oops wrong book, and yet the answers remain the same:

Because magic (AKA a wizard did it)
and
Because it would lead to a very short and unfulfilling story.

Nobody says you have to like the reasoning, but in a world of magic, magic is the only explanation required. It doesn't have to be explained, it doesn't have to be logical. If the heroes in a book about magic don't take the easy way out, its because something magical prevented it from being a viable solution.

 

[Yugeky20]

Why didn't they shoot Volde (his street name)? Cause that would of been too good of a story; JK wanted to ride that series till she could afford that solid-gold limo and diamond studed swimming pool (these things don't grow on trees).

 

[launchpadmcqwak]

so what is the point of this thread?

 

[crhoades]

yeah but I think the point is that voldemort wouldn't be able to react in time to stop the bullet. wizard or not he still has human reaction speeds so by the time he figured what was happening he would be dead.

 

[Ometochtli]

3. So Voldemort comes back... Just keep shooting everytime he resurrects. It's not like it's instantaneous, and you could probably do it several times before he actually could come up with an effective counter... and even then, just have hermione snipe him from across the pond. The time granted (instead of being wasted fighting him with magic) would be invaluable in finding the remain horcruxes.

That would have been hilarious to see Hermione and Harry, spawn camping Voldermort with rifles. Gunning him down, then hanging around waiting for him to revive himself, before gunning him down again.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

**snip**

While I quite agree that your sniper plan would have worked, I'm not sure how a bunch of teenagers would have gotten a sniper rifle in Britain. The USA? Difficult, but possible. The UK? Not so much.

At best, they might have gotten a hunting rifle. Not nearly as much range or punch.

 

[janjotat]

The way I like to imagine the books is. Voldermorte wins the battle against the loyalist wizards, decides to take on the rest of the muggle world and is taken out by a sniper within 30 seconds, Tango down!

The rest of the death eaters are whisked off to gitmo.

There is only one true wizard named harry, and his name is Dresden

It would probably cost a lot of lives for muggles to figure out the extent of magic capabilities. (teleporting would confuse them and make it dificult to pinpoint his location) Rather than I sniper team I would just carpet bomb any area wizards were thought to be in.

Furthermore, there is no way to stop a bullet (unless there is a permanent ward I do not know of) The only warning is a slight flash over a mile away and now you have less than 2 seconds left to live. With a flash surpresser its even less and with the bullet traveling at supersonic it is silent for the target. With now warning Voldemort can't put up any wards to save his life. All in all impossible to survive (unless you can live your torso splattered on the nearest tree)

ON an entirely different note don't forget Molly and Ebenezer. And the Dresden's universe could destroy The Harry Potter one (imagine mab just obliterating everyone)

It would probably cost a lot of lives for muggles to figure out the extent of magic capabilities. (teleporting would confuse them and make it dificult to pinpoint his location) Rather than I sniper team I would just carpet bomb any area wizards were thought to be in.

You can't carpet bomb something when you can't even pinpoint its location. All major wizarding areas are unplottable due to wildly used wizard magic which can be performed by even weak wizards.

No muggles can enter, or find, or plot on a map a wizarding area.

Im off to bed. Ill counter anything interesting I see tomorrow. Honestly if you haven't read the (vastly superior) books then trying to pick plot holes is silly. Most of these have already been explained in the books.

It doesn't matter if they can't plot the location. Imagine WWII air raids, just launching dumb bombs where wizards(guaranteed to be some that would help muggles) told them to. Also muggles can enter wizarding areas(they see Hogwarts as an old ruin) the wards surrounding it dissuade the muggles from going there and the wizards wipe their memories if they did. I also really do like the book series though and when I read a book I generaly ignore all plot holes unless they are incredibly bad. The OP's post simply brought that one to my attention. AND it is the internet where everything can be put under debate

 

[Treblaine]

Don't you think it should of at least been lampshaded? Ya know... like Buffy.

Oh, possibly. But that might also have brought more attention to it. In the end, the story is about life lessons, not killing the big bad. That's kind of hard to spot in the later books and it's railroaded in (almost literally) during the "King's Crossing in Limbo" scene, but the story is really about how goodness empowers us (Harry finds love and family), and evil destroys us (as Voldemort continues his mad quest to slay Harry Potter, he slowly loses everything without even realizing it).

Because evil, evidently, is dumb.

I didn't really get that impression, at least not the same as the ending of Return of the Jedi as (spoilers?) the Empire was not defeated by Luke being the best at fighting and defeating the Emperor in martial combat, but convincing his father to turn from the Dark Side.

That was why Luke was the chosen one, not because he was the best fighter to destroy Vader, but that only Anakin's son could possibly convince him to return.

Yoda and Obi Wan kept saying he was not ready to "face" or "confront" Vader.

Luke: "I can't kill my father"
Obi Wan: "then the Emperor has already won"

Did Obi Wan dismay that Luke said he couldn't kill his father... or dismay that Luke thought his purpose was to kill him? I don't care about Lucas' actual intention, the DVD in my collection is set (can't get that one Georgie boy!) and open to interpretation. Maybe none of the characters actually knew HOW a (Luke) Skywalker would end Palpatine's evil reign, just that he would.

In the end, Harry Potter WAS just about him killing Voldermort. He found all the Horcruxes through cunning, luck and a bit of magical providence. Harry's "power of love" manifested itself simply in him being more powerful at magic shit-kicking. It wasn't like Vorldermort was undone by an inherent part of his evil.

The Emperor WAS undone by his evil, by almost torturing Luke to death, even after he had spared Vader and refused to fight Palpatine nor give in to the dark side, that was the motivation for Vader/Anakin to strike down his evil master. The last thing the Emperor would expect for his most slavishly loyal protector to turn on him. His evil made him under-appreciate the love a father had for his son. This act undid what had apparently been a self-evident truth that hate made people stronger, as Luke saw when he attacked and defeated Vader in a rage over the suggestion he would turn Leia. But it was suddenly subverted to be that empathy - the need to protect others - was the source of that strength.

You don't really get that same depth of conflict between emotions of your own selfish well-being and emotions for others.

And before you say this ending comparison is unfair; Both Luke and Harry willingly gave themselves up to the evil side after they (on their own initiative) concluded their presence is jeopardising their friends, where they ultimately stood before the Great Evil to be struck down.

The difference is Luke was saved by the Emotions, feelings and reasoning of another CHARACTER, in a profound and unexpected way: Vader's defection. Harry was saved by Deus Ex machina, a contrivance that the penultimate Horcrux was in him and that somehow that doesn't kill him, even though every other Horcrux was destroyed by destroying the host object/organism.

And once the final Horcrux was gone with Neville's blow-up-the-death-star moment decapitating that snake, Harry out zapped Voldermort in magic zapping contest. Voldermort ultimately was defeated because "Harry's love" had more destructive power. That defies what "love" should be.

Love should prevail not through strength but unity. As Vader united with his son against the emperor. As Sam and Frodo's platonic friendship allowed them to endure and finally destroy the One Ring. The Terminator lowering himself into molten steel to prevent a horrible war of the machines.

Also, Luke has some very human crisis of faith along the way, he is taunted by the Emperor into trying to strike him down though eventually tries to reason with his father.

That is why I am really not so moved by Harry Potter. I still am in awe of Luke of the Original Star Wars trilogy. It's jsut damn near perfect.

 

[Rylingo]

hand gun would be tricky, voldy could just go 'accio gun' and now he's shooting you w/your own gun. and despite how separated they are from the muggle world, i really don't see how they could unaware of such an old and ubiquitous technology as the gun. they have magic cars and clocks and other copies of mechanical muggle devices. I would think voldy would at least have a vague idea of what it could do upon seeing one.

rifle would be better, could get him from afar before he even knows you are there. what's that noise? where'd voldy's head go?

land mine would be even better, no one in this magic world of HP ever checks for land mines, and voldy's always telegraphing where he's gonna be

would he even recognize a grenade? Even if he had heard of them, they don't look particularly threatening. just leave it in the middle of a walkway you know he will pass. he'll pick it up, pull the pin out, puzzle over what its supposed to do, bam! No tripwire or anything fancy even needed.

Voldermourt was brought up as a muggle. He would have a basic knowledge of human weaponry. How far away can Voldermourt read minds? Very far away. He enters the minds of everyone in Hogwarts to send them messages from a distance. This is from outside the grounds. He can read the minds of people using rifle, from a distance. Snipers are literally the only gun that has a hope and even then, multiple headshots are a must. Even then its not a plot hole as Voldermourt would be aware of when muggles with long range weaponry become involved and would probably protect himself for such an occasion.

and if they're in contact w/the muggle prime minister and voldy's army is harassing muggles - then we have access to drones, missiles, helicopters, etc... Can attack from even greater range than a sniper rifle (much greater), w/the right vehicles/weapons. Ask harry where voldy is, send a bunker buster that way, dropped from such altitude no one notices the fly-over.

And if Voldermourt takes the precaution to make his position unplottable to muggles? Bunker busters might be dangerous. Drones, missiles and helicopters, not in the slightest. With a single slick of a wand a drone or helicopter would be removed from the air. Even a simple charm like flippendo could take them out. Missiles could be fooled in an almost uncountable number of ways. Simply taking control of the object and flicking it away like a fleck of dust comes to mind.

 

[Rylingo]

It would probably cost a lot of lives for muggles to figure out the extent of magic capabilities. (teleporting would confuse them and make it dificult to pinpoint his location) Rather than I sniper team I would just carpet bomb any area wizards were thought to be in.

You can't carpet bomb something when you can't even pinpoint its location. All major wizarding areas are unplottable due to wildly used wizard magic which can be performed by even weak wizards.

No muggles can enter, or find, or plot on a map a wizarding area.

Im off to bed. Ill counter anything interesting I see tomorrow. Honestly if you haven't read the (vastly superior) books then trying to pick plot holes is silly. Most of these have already been explained in the books.

 

[uzo]

Familiar with World of Darkness 'Mage' at all?

The whole paradox system might apply. Shit works the way it does because we *believe* it should. Nothing exists without belief, basically, and that includes physical laws.

In Mage, if 'magic' is used in front of the unenlightened (let's say muggles, for arguments sake), it fucks their perception of reality. When someone sees a bald snake-man hurling green fire from a stick .. they say 'this shit ain't real'. And hey presto, it ain't.

I like to think that the wizards in Harry Potter's world likewise keep the hell out of the muggle world because it would kill their magic by the majority of humans not believing in it. Likewise with technology back in the magic world.

 

[caviar1]

nice to have a couple people not trying to crap down this guys throat. while its pretty pointless to debate this in the first place, this is kind of a loophole. but since we're doing this, why dont they use timeturners to save the potters, stop voldemort at any point, save dumbledore or really any number of things (as soon as you play with time magic the rules start to break down). for that matter, why didnt the eagles fly frodo to mordor (not too busy to take gandalf off a tower)?

 

[Harlief]

Okay from the other topic, someone brought up the question about why they didn't just shoot Voldemort. Now I use to watch these movies with my ex and drive her up the wall with all my questions cause really a LOT of what the magic community does doesn't make sense and is overly pretentios, but this question I investigated in earnest.

On one hand your argument is stupid because you're talking about a guy who can see through the eyes of other people and disappear in a puff of smoke. You'd also have to find someone who can actually navigate around the magical parts of the world (which according to the stories are invisible non-magic folk) and can operate a gun with a degree of accuracy and the reflexes to shoot dead a guy who can move faster than the eye can follow and kill with a thought.

On the other less literal side of things you're also talking about a metaphor for white supremacy/racism in general. What kind of lesson is it to say "Why don't we just kill all the genocidal maniacs?"
Voldemort is a sort of magical Fuhrer (not Hitler specifically), the death eaters are Nazis, Muggles take the role of Jews in WWII. Muggle sympathisers and mud-bloods are killed indiscriminately. The Harry Potter books are basically the Holocaust+Magic.
I say Voldemort is not a direct analogy for Hitler because he encompasses the idea that though you may kill one genocidal maniac, another will spring up in his place - thus the sub-plot about horcruxes.

You've clearly thought about this a lot, but you haven't thought your arguments through nearly enough.

 

[Rylingo]

nice to have a couple people not trying to crap down this guys throat. while its pretty pointless to debate this in the first place, this is kind of a loophole. but since we're doing this, why dont they use timeturners to save the potters, stop voldemort at any point, save dumbledore or really any number of things

Because they were all destroyed in the 5th book I believe. They were destroyed before the ministry accepted that voldermourt was back. They had no reason to use the devices if they didn't believe voldermourt was alive.

The real question is why would the ministry keep such powerful devices all in one place. That mistake led to them being destroyed. Arrogance more than a plot hole really.

 

[caviar1]

goodpoint, they still couldve saved the potters though and stopped voldemort the first time, right?