A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

[comicshorse]

And of course, none of this ever mattered to Rowling, as far as I can tell. Worldbuilding played second fiddle to storytelling - and a distant second at that. There's no apparent system to magic in the setting beyond "what the plot requires right now."

TL;DR, we don't know how powerful magic really is in Harry Potter's world; too many variables are left undefined.

Absolutely. We see this especialy with time controlling magic, somehting that would have massive effect on any society. Yet its casually introduced to help out with one plot and then off-handedly removed.

[Friv]

Voldemort made it seem pretty easy.
I agree, they are not unrelated. However, I think it's pretty clear it's the other way around. Look at Tommy in school. He basically had a bunch of mudbloods eaten by a snake for kick'n'giggles. Also, hunting around in the girls bathroom for a magic slide and room. Not for anything else a creeper might do in there, but a magic, probably-nonexistant room, plus, he was otherwise a general psychopath(And a bad one. More like Ramsey than Roose). I mean, that doesn't quite sound to me like the model of ideal mental health
Really? There have been plenty of psycho dictators in the world, and plenty of mad wizards I have trouble believing that NONE of them would have done it. Plus, being invisible, incorporeal, and stupid for a decade tends not to be good for mental health.

I would have three comments to make on this.

1) It is worth noting that creating a horcrux seems to involve both being totally batcrap insane and being wildly powerful and talented, and the two don't mix well.

2) As crazy and nasty as Tom was, Voldemort is a whole other level. Now, it is entirely possible that this is just poor writing, but there were certainly suggestions that at least some, or possibly all, of that mania lay in how fractured Voldemort was.

3) Kind of a big one here. Voldemort was one of the strongest wizards in history, and he was working from centuries of research into horcruxes, and he was completely psychotic and thus the sort of person to make horcruxes... and he still messed the ritual up. He fractured his soul so badly that he made his final horcrux by mistake, killing himself. That many horcruxes was a disastrously bad plan.

[Xondoure]

I would have three comments to make on this.

1) It is worth noting that creating a horcrux seems to involve both being totally batcrap insane and being wildly powerful and talented, and the two don't mix well.

2) As crazy and nasty as Tom was, Voldemort is a whole other level. Now, it is entirely possible that this is just poor writing, but there were certainly suggestions that at least some, or possibly all, of that mania lay in how fractured Voldemort was.

3) Kind of a big one here. Voldemort was one of the strongest wizards in history, and he was working from centuries of research into horcruxes, and he was completely psychotic and thus the sort of person to make horcruxes... and he still messed the ritual up. He fractured his soul so badly that he made his final horcrux by mistake, killing himself. That many horcruxes was a disastrously bad plan.

He was wandering into uncharted territories of magic yes, which is possibly not what you want to do when your soul is on the line. His sixth horcrux was only made when prophecy and love magic collided though, so that's admittedly kind of hard to predict.

[Avilan the Grey]

Well we do know for certain that present day teenagers are much better at magic than any that came before them, with very few exceptions (Voldemort in his prime, Dumbledore in his, maybe the founders of each student house). Of course this is because it is a series of books for young teenagers, I realize that. It DOES make every other wizard seem more or less inept, though.

[Xondoure]

Well we do know for certain that present day teenagers are much better at magic than any that came before them, with very few exceptions (Voldemort in his prime, Dumbledore in his, maybe the founders of each student house). Of course this is because it is a series of books for young teenagers, I realize that. It DOES make every other wizard seem more or less inept, though.

I'm not sure where this comes from. Apart from Voldemort and Dumbledore Moody, Lupin, Mr. and Ms. Weasley, Kingsley, Snape, Mcgonagall, Flitwick, Slughorn, Bellatrix and Barty Crouch jr. are all portrayed as much more proficient than any of the students with magic, and there's never an implication that anyone other than Hermione shows any exceptional talent out of the primary three. Well, Harry for Defense Against the Dark Arts, but even then he was a long way from an Auror.