Amberion said:
WhiteKnightLeo said:
Lord Raine said:
Does any of this matter since Word of God and Word of Dumbledore have already settled the matter?
Oh look, a question we can actually answer.
No.
What exactly was the Word of God in this case?
That prophecies are not set in stone.
She has never said that they are bullshit. She has said that both Voldemort and Harry could have walked away from it, but it isn't in their character to have done that.
Another thing is that she has drawn inspiration from Macbeth, and people still arguing that prophecy today.
Right. And if they can both just walk away from it, it's obviously not binding in any way, shape, or form. It's just a statement that this might happen if these other qualifiers were also met, maybe.
Dumbledore said it, and Rowling said it. That's case closed. Any arguments beyond that point are pure bitching for the sake of being contrary. Dumbledore is a mouthpiece of exposition in canon, and Rowling's word is God. Prophecies aren't binding, and are pretty much total bunk all around. Dumbledore flat-out said that sometimes people, in trying to avoid a prophecy, make it come true, and other times people who try to fulfill a prophecy wind up not doing it specifically because they tried to make it happen. Thus, Dumbledore concluded (logically, and I agree with him 100%) that all prophecies are just shots in the dark, and that they don't actually mean anything or hold any value unless you're superstitious enough to ascribe some merit to them.
And that's all true. Rowling very clearly stated,
as did Dumbledore, that the prophecy itself is nonbinding and means absolutely nothing, but since Voldemort believes all prophecy is True Prophecy and must come to pass, he'll never leave Harry alone or stop trying to kill Harry, because he believes that if he can just kill Harry, no one else will be able to oppose him.
Also, the shotgun statement is false. She never said that, and the claim that she did was debunked a long time ago. However, a muggle probably could, depending on certain variables. If the wizard was taking the fight seriously and understood the threat that the shotgun posed, it would probably go to the wizard. However, most wizards don't even know what a gun
is, and the ones that do seem to have trouble even remembering what you call them. Someone who was cocky and arrogant and ignorant of muggles in general, like Fudge, your average Death Eater, or pretty much any pureblood, would probably either not understand or not take it seriously, and thus catch a shotgun blast to the chest. Wizards who aren't that stupid or who know a lot about muggles, like Harry, Hermione, Dumbledore, any muggleborn, and possibly most half-bloods, though, would know what the hell they were looking at and know how dangerous it can be, and thus act accordingly.
The biggest problem you run into with wands versus guns is that all spells require at least a little bit of time to use; at least enough time to say the words of the spell. Conversely, all you need to do to use a gun is pull the trigger. The gun will fire much, much faster than the wand, assuming the wand is in the hands of an average wizard. Whether or not shielding spells can block bullets is almost a moot point, because unless you're skilled enough to cast one with a flick of a wand and without saying anything (which puts you well beyond the skills of an average wizard), you'll be shot by the gun before you can even get the shield up in the first place.
There are a lot of variables involved, but in general, I would give the advantage to the shotgun. Which makes sense, if you think about it. A wand is a general purpose tool that can accomplish a great many things. A gun is designed from the ground-up to be a weapon, and nothing but a weapon. The wand in the hands of a normal wizard can't give you the same kind of slaughter-per-second ratio that a gun can, but then again, there isn't a gun made that can heal gunshot wounds.
