Just curious.
Not so far, no. The stories are told through Harry’s viewpoint for the most part, and he spends most of the time we see him at Hogwarts and other parts of the wizarding world, where computers aren’t used. When he’s in the Muggle world, at Privet Drive, he doesn’t have access to a computer.
JK Rowling has said in interviews that wizards have some sort of magical equivalent of the internet, but it hasn’t shown up in the books so far.
Those poor wizards could sure benefit from some of our Muggle technology. Who wants to wait forever to get your mail by owl when you can use e-mail?
The books are set during the 90s, the first book set in 1991, the year that Jo Rowling first came up with the idea for the series. The internet didn’t really rise to prominence in our pop culture until around 1995 or so, which is about the time of Book 4. As Harry’s spent most of the 90s in the Wizarding World, the internet really doesn’t have much of an opportunity to appear.
You mean you’ve never heard of A-Owl?
That would explain a lot, actually.
To add to the previous answers, wizards don’t really care about Muggle stuff - who can blame them, if they’ve got magic? For example, one of the major characters (Ron) has no idea how to use a “fellytone”, as he calls it. There’s some point when characters also talk about the amazing ways muggles get by without magic. It’s unlikely to come up, because while a lot of the characters are born to muggle parents, they have magic for that stuff! The interaction between the magic and muggle commmunities is pretty much nil.
Doesn’t stop Mr Weasley from ‘experimenting’ though!
Eh, I still say that if you could pin Voldemort down and drop a nuke on him, he’s toast, no matter how ineffective witch-burning was in the Middle Ages.
He could just transfigure the nuke into something harmless, though. Or apparate away from the explosion. Besides(Book Six spoilers):
His horcruxes will ensure that he won’t be killed, just turned back into Vapourmort.
Early on in Book 6, with the scenes involving the Muggle Prime Minister, I started envisioning an alliance between Muggles and Wizards.
Sure, wizards could hex and bedazzle technology but only if they understood it. Imagine the SAS hunting Voldey by coordinating their actions via wireless communication. He’d be confused at how Muggles keep one step ahead of him.
But after that thought, I realized that was what happened in the Darksword Trilogy, turning a cool Fantasy concept into a lameass hybrid tale. So, Ms. Rowling, if you are reading, don’t sweat the technology.
Yeah, and she can write it like a Tom Clancy novel. Just imagine the possibilities…
Yep, they have – the Floo Network, which gives new meaning to talking heads
Far more personal than email, that, though without the inconvenience of actually travelling places, or opening your fireplace up to strange people.
You know, I’ve heard this timeline bandied about a couple of times. How did you arrive at the 1991 date?
Harry’s birthday is 31st July 1980. He started going to Hogwarts when he was 11. Currently, he’d be 25.
Pardon my obtuseness, but when was the 1980 date mentioned?
In CoS, Nearly Headless Nick celebrates his 500th deathday. The cake at his deathday party read: *Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington died 31st October, 1492 *. So everything has been calculated relative to that.
Computer games have been mentioned. When Dudley Dursley was put on a diet, he got so angry at his parents that Harry told Ron about how Dudly threw his computer game player out the window.
A Playstation, actually, which is an anachronism if you accept the timeline based on Nick’s deathday, because Dudley would have been hard-pressed to find a Playstation 6 months before it launched.
And would that be the Japanese launch, the American launch, or the European launch?