Comment on Does Harry Potter only know fifth grade math?
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 9 months agoI would expect Voldemort to have protective spells keeping things like that from happening.
If it were that easy to kill a witch or wizzard… then there’s lots of ways to go about that. He wouldn’t have needed a special wand to fight Harry. he’d just fling a ginormous rock out of nowhere.
SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml 9 months ago
Well, we know that wizards are vulnerable to physical attack and to surprise attacks. There’s the whomping willow, which they can’t just cast a force field against. There were the spiders and the centaurs in the forest. The big three headed dog. That devil’s something plant. And if I recall, Voldemort didn’t realize the caretaker had come into the house until he was in the hallway and Nagini saw him. Sorry, it’s been a hot minute since I read those.
Wizards, one would think, could go flinging cars around whenever they wanted to, but they use death spells, even on muggles. Maybe they think it’s gauche to do something so mundane as dropping a rock on someone’s head, I couldn’t say. Jedi use the Force to throw things, but not to just crush someone’s head or rip it from their body. That would take a lot less force (so to speak) than lifting an X-wing, but they still use lightsabers.
And for what it’s worth, I think a sniper could take out a Jedi, too.
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 9 months ago
the killing curse is probably simply more efficient for the task at hand. It’s also by and large, more discrete. In any case, all the things you listed were evaded by a couple of poorly taught kids. Like literally… children. Fluffy, the devil’s vine thing, (along with all the other challenges from teachers)… one of those kids had exactly a year’s worth of experience with magic. I could also kill an M1A1 Abrams with a rock if I stuffed it in the right place. (I’m thinking exhaust.). Doesn’t mean i want to fight an Abrams with a rock. or… at all.
again for surprise …[Hagrid’s insistence a mere car crash woudln’t kill the Potters[(www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoeSuboKeBk). They could probably literally just poof into smoke before a bullet ever fully breaks the skin.
Jedi use the lightsaber specifically because they’re taught the Force isn’t for killing. They just love running around in bathrobes waving their glowbats around. (stop giggling. no seriously. stop giggling. Okay fine. giggle. a little. mace’s has a vibrating lenses.)
The Sith have used the force to mow down entire armies, though. for example Maul running amok on a venator. still, the Sith use lightsabers as a symbol- invoking fear and terror, which further powers their dark-side natures. They also use lightsabers when it’s more efficient. (hurling rocks is… taxing, yes?)
SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml 9 months ago
I think we can agree to disagree on the sneak attack/sniper from a half a kilometer away.
I did not know that about the Jedi, though. I really was going to write “Sith” but said fuck it because I figured someone with the wherewithal to cut a bad guy in half wouldn’t have a moral system that would prevent them from crushing a head. Plus, it was a callback to a long forgotten skit (I think it was on SNL, but it could have been any of those sketch shows) where the character would look at a person standing far away through his thumb and forefinger and make it look to him like he was crushing their heads.
The Jedi do use their force power to kill droids, though, and droids in the franchise certainly possess self-awareness, and are conscious beings who demonstrate every human behavior, so I have to wonder how that’s handled. I think I remember someone getting offended because he was called “just a droid.”
I kind of lost interest in the franchise after the first prequel, and so I’m obviously forgetting a lot. Plus, I skipped most of the recent movies (although I’m told the new series is really good, and I did enjoy the first season of Mando.
Anyway, thanks for teaching me something!
Plus, killing an Abrams with a rock is pretty funny. It reminds me of the Beverly Hill Cop scene where Eddie Murphy puts a banana in the guy’s tailpipe.
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 9 months ago
The jedi are pretty warped in their sense of morality… ethics and philosophy.
It’s improper to grow connections, yet the force is a mystical energy field that connects all things…
It’s improper to (force) choke a guy out, but it’s totally fine to chop off his arm. Or leg. or hand. Or hands, legs and arms.
Slavery is illegal, yet infants are taken by the order and brainwashed into servitude. anyone who washes out of being a jedi joins the auxilary service corps; mopping decks, unloading cargo, and generally doing stuff most binary droids are capable of…
but in any case, back to the topic at hand; the point I’m trying to make is that, while yes… it’s possible, it’s fairly unlikely. sure, an Abrams could be taken out with a single rock chucked at it. but you don’t see anyone stocking up on anti-tank rocks. Even with the centaurs and the giant spiders… eventually everyone gets away from them. Umbridge was little more than irritated. and that, more at Potter than at the centaurs.
that’s kind of the problem with magic that’s overpowering. Rowling solved the problem by basically excluding muggles from the story altogether- they’re only vaguely aware of things happening at all- they see people disappearing, they see the ‘accidents’ happening. But they don’t know there’s witches, and that a war is on, they don’t know that the bridge collapsed because of terrorism… just that the bridge collapsed.
Star wars handled it by making lesser jedi vulnerable to those things. (like the battle in ep 2, where most of the jedi karked it to the overwhelming numbers of battle droids.) while people like Ahsoka murder them by the battalion… as a preteen.
(PS, if you liked Mando… try Andor. No jedi stuff. my favorite guy is the dude with the anvil.)
vinceman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 months ago
Kids in the Hall is the I’m crushing your head skit.