Many internet wags have pointed out that Harry Potter should have deployed a firearm instead of a magic wand against He Who Must Not Be Named (but is on an irregular basis). Not so, according to at least one Potterite, who claims that “muggle devices go completely nuts on magical territory.” I’m not sure what that means, but I’d sure like to see a Glock vs. Edler Wand shootout. Now, sadly, or happily, I won’t. In any case, Voldemort’s evil twin/nemesis displayed a remarkable lack of wand control in the most recent movie. Both Harry and uh, some British luvvie examine a wand with the business end pointing straight at their faces. Am I the only one who cringed? So I’m calling the wand a gun and giving Harry the IGOTD nod, if only as payback for making my kids make me endure the last episode in the series.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

13 COMMENTS

  1. IGOTD recipients earn their dishonor by misusing guns. A wand isn’t a gun. There’s no evidence that the rules of gun handling even apply to wands, so doing things with a wand that violate gun rules may well not apply when using a wand. Ergo, this IGOTD seems pretty bogus.

    Why do I suddenly feel like my pre-teen self just called and wanted to argue the finer points of Klingon vocabulary, and whether Han shot first?

    • “Why do I suddenly feel like my pre-teen self just called and wanted to argue the finer points of Klingon vocabulary, and whether Han shot first?”

      There is no argument to be had there. Han shot first. Period. End of story.

      And Klingon vocabulary has no finer points. 🙂

  2. Correct me if I am wrong here, not being a wizard (do you call a wand a wizard firearm?) wand expert but aren’t those things intrinsicly safer than a firearm, and less prone to going off by itself becuase it requires the user to perform a special action and a spoken phrase to be usefull? Imagine if you had to pull your firearm and perfrom an artsy wiggle and scream BANG! evertime you wanted to fire the damn thing, or you had to holler out the weight and type of bullet. Everytime I watch Judge Dread I think how crappy and how cool the pistol was. How’s that for nerd, Harry Potter to Judge Dread.

    • It might be worthwhile if you could get whatever caliber you needed from the same wand by casting different spells.

      “three-thirty-eight Lapuas, Bangus!”

    • The main difference is that a wand is a multi-task tool, they can turn on lights and make things float and also shoot out death. A firearm is designed only to propel a projectile down the barrel at high velocities into whatever is down range.

      Also if I remember correctly(its been years since I read the books) the 3 unforgivable curses require actual intent to be effective so if you don’t really want to cause excruciating pain to who ever is on the receiving end of the spell it won’t work or won’t be as effective. Whereas a firearm doesn’t care about intent, because it can’t, its just a tool to fling a chunk of lead down a tube at high speed.

      • Gossven said, “The main difference is that a wand is a multi-task tool, they can turn on lights and make things float and also shoot out death. A firearm is designed only to propel a projectile down the barrel at high velocities into whatever is down range.”

        I seem to remember seeing a video recently where some guy used a pistol as a fork.

  3. “Both Harry and . . . some British luvvie examine a wand”

    It sounds like the plot of a pay per view movie at the No Tell Hotel.

  4. If this wasn’t the end of the series, I’d say “Please, please, let them wand-blast their heads off so we don’t have to hear about Potter anymore.”

  6. Like the end of that film Wizards where the good wizard kills his evil brother, with a Luger if I remember correctly, because he knows that magically they are evenly matched.

  7. The retired Auror, “Mad Eye” Moody once chided Harry for keeping his wand in his hip pocket, and was in danger of blowing his buttocks off. Mad Eye was a strong advocate of wand safety.

Comments are closed.