(That may be a personal record for most colons in one title.)

With the release of Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore this week, I though I would answer the age-old question in the Harry Potter universe: who would win in a fight between the wizards and the muggles?

I teased this essay all the way back in 2018 when I reviewed The Crimes of Grindelwald. I thought about it for a while at the time, but I eventually dropped it because I thought it was too complicated, and the more I thought about it, the less sure I was of the answer. However, I never forgot about it, and over the past year, I’ve thought of a different way to go about it. Rather than trying to solve the whole problem from the beginning, let’s go through the different advantages and disadvantages each side has to try to building up a winning strategy they could use.

And the answer, it turns out, is that it’s complicated, but the muggles seem to have the biggest advantage.

Click here to read the full essay.