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Chekhov's actual gun

Unread postPosted: December 18th, 2018, 9:24 am
by thrawnca
So, Harry is carrying around a Chekhov's Gun in the form of an actual gun. Which raises a few questions, such as:

- What can it actually do? He thinks it's conjuring new bullets, but he hasn't had a chance to test its limits. Does it have a finite total amount, or a limited rate, or a risk of overloading?

- What kind of targets will it be useful for? Maybe it would be effective in the final post-Horcrux confrontation with Moldyshorts? Or will Harry take a darker path and assassinate some of the Death Eaters? Or perhaps he'll encounter magical critters that need a good shooting, though he wouldn't be able to use it in the Triwizard Tournament without exposing himself.

- More immediately, how did Mr Weasley not notice it was missing? When Harry first discovered it, Mr Weasley called it "one of our more interesting finds", described it in detail, and said that everything on the shelf would be destroyed because "we can't let it fall into the wrong hands." It's rather odd that he'd apparently just forget about the gun when the cleanup came around. If he knew about the time travel at that point, I'd say that maybe he suspected Harry but trusted him to know what he was doing; however, he didn't find out until a year later.

Re: Chekhov's actual gun

Unread postPosted: April 15th, 2019, 10:39 am
by PaddyMurphy
It'll certainly be interesting to see Harry test the gun's actual limits if he ever gets around to it.

As for what it would be useful for, remember the strain Harry was under when he put up a shield to stop the rain? That was stopping physical objects. A bullet ain't a bunch of raindrops, it has a lot more energy and Harry has a lot more power than your average wizard, so he was likely able to maintain that shield far longer than anyone else would've. The main problem I see with the gun is not what it would be useful for, but whether Harry will have it on him when the opportunity to use it arises.

And Mr. Weasley not noticing that it was missing? It was part of a pile of stuff that was to be destroyed. A bit of wheat in a pile of chaff, if you will. And to him it was just a pile of Muggle stuff he didn't truly understand. If he did notice it was gone, he probably thought Perkins had already got started on destroying the pile of things.