I already explained it in this thread with large post how it was Harry who thwarted Voldemort from taking over the world regularly but if you want to credit Dumbledore for it go ahead. Remember it is Harry who Voldemort fears most and wants to kill most out of everyone. He built his forces for the very purpose of taking over quickly over the span of two years. Dumbledore being alive wouldn't have changed anything. He cannot take on Voldemort and his army by himself and would had to go hiding like Harry did.
I will credit hin for providing information about Horcruxes which was ultimately cruicial end of day.

 

People in general when it comes to fanfiction don't seem to understand what competent means. Especially since the times it is used to mean great skill it is further modified with phrasing like "highly competent," "extremely competent," "infinitely competent" and so on and so forth.

 

I did not say Dumbledore deserves credit for all Harry did. Again, read properly.

Dumbledore's presence was undoubtedly vital. I have no idea where you got your delusions, but please refrain from spewing them out.

Or, I suppose I can consider you in the category yargle mentioned.

 

Calm down mate there is no need to get angry over fictional characters. Yes in OOTP he has sizable force but so do the Ministry who became aware of him end of OOTP. Now he has to infiltrate the ministry and outnumber them which he does over course of HBP and he is ready to take over the world by the end of it. There is reason the kids had enough time for their teenage romances. They weren't ready yet. As for my english and understanding of HP I actually wrote a fanfic recently maybe have a look? As for Sanderson, look i'll be honest jkr definitely isn't the cream of the crop in the fantasy genre and there are lots and lots writers better than her and he is just one of them. It doesn't mean I hate Harry Potter.

 

No, he starts out his attacks on the Ministry in HBP. This is where the second war begins, and he attacks. Infiltration was done in OotP, and now has secondary importance. He uses fear to fight.

 

Vital maybe but Voldemort himself know from infiltrating Hogwarts in HP's first year how infallible Dumbledore is. He is more fearful of Harry Potter who keeps thwarting him over and over again which slows him down. But he is not wholly afraid of Dumbledore as he plans for Draco to find a way in and for Snape to kill him than dealing with him himself. While with HP he doesn't trust anyone but himself to get the job done. Again there is no need to get angry over fantasy characters.

 

It was a suicide mission for Draco. Voldemort intended for him to fail. Snape was intended to kill Dumbledore. Harry was an only a threat because of the prophecy, he couldn't hope to match Voldemort, who considers power (magical, and political) as marks of competence. Dumbledore is his greatest foe, who he always intends to kill.

Well, I don't think I came across as angry, but I can assure you I'm not. Only... exasperated, I suppose.

 

Remember even after Dumbledore's death taking over the country, people still believe in Harry Potter and ultimately until HP is dead people will not surrender easily and will keep fighting him which makes killing Harry his no 1 priority. While Dumbledore was vital killing him was never gonna make people give up killing Harry would. Wizarding world could survive Dumbledore's death and keep fighting. But they couldn't survive Harry's death which would end all hopes and make the. give up. Ultimately Harry Potter was Voldemort's no 1 foe as he was the one thwarted him when was a baby when even Dumbledore couldn't and that's why the wizarding world and Dumbledore himself believes only Harry can defeat him.

 

People expected Harry to be 'out there', leading the war. It was a last, desperate hope, not an actual expectation. Harry was, by no means, a wizard of truly exceptional caliber, and a number of people, including his teachers, knew it. Dumbledore, on the other hand, was an accomplished, ridiculously powerful wizard, who Voldemort actually feared. Killing Harry meant tying the final knot; it's what Voldemort believes we're talking about here, not the public. They(general populace) were willing to accept rumours that Voldemort had the powers of a Basilisk.

 

Yes but end of the day Dumbledore himself never beloved he could beat Voldemort and it was Harry's destiny and he believed mainly Harry would beat him. The whole power of love thing. Voldemort himself is not satisfied after Dumbledore's death and he does everything he can to kill Harry because he needs to prove to himself and the public that the reason Harry keeps thwarting him is a fluke and by killing him he ultimately conquered the one thing that stopped him before which is why Harry is ultimately Voldemort's foil.

 

Which is, in essence, Dumbledore guiding Harry, and moving along with his plan(he had a plan, he openly admitted to it in OotP). That was his role as the mentor.

 

Which ultimately depended on Harry executing his plan on his own which he did due to hard work, improvisation and luck. Like in sports the coach may have the plan but it's ultimately the players who get the job done. Like Harry had to find most of the remaining Horcuxes hidden places himself destroy them. RAB locket thing which Dumbledore didn't plan for, Diadem, Nagini, Cup.

 

So, you're implying that your issue with Dumbledore is that he is not... omniscient? Yeah, he's not. Nor is he perfect.
If he was planning everything, the series would be called 'Albus Dumbledore and the Master Plan', not Harry Potter. Dumbledore's plan always depended on Harry performing beyond all expectations, because conventional methods would be useless against Lord Voldemort. Also, it's a children's tale.

Also, as it's been pointed out countless times, Dumbledore's presence on the planet was what kept Voldemort from taking over. I've said this before - see the reactions of Death Eaters each time they're faced with a Dumbledore who isn't weak and dying. Hell, see Voldemort's reaction. That's a proof as good as any that Dumbledore was heavily involved in the war effort - at least in the first war. The calm, ever forgiving demeanour is for his students, not everyone in the world.

Even in HBP, during the long durations of time he left the school, do you think he was searching for the Locket the entire time? There was a war raging outside, and Albus Dumbledore was the prime opposition to Lord Voldemort. He'd be helping in the war effort. Just because we didn't see something, i.e., Harry didn't see something, doesn't mean it didn't happen. It's the same argument that applies for those who consider the Order didn't do anything of use, besides guarding a prophecy. That's ostrich mentality.

If you expected him to be an infallible god, then I'm truly sorry to break it to you, but he isn't. He obviously couldn't plan every step in DH, but he gave Harry all the help he could. What else would you have him do?

 

Going back to Dumbledore vs Voldemort. Where Dumbledore (and Harry) exceed Voldemort is their understanding of the power in areas of magic that Voldemort dismissed as weak or unimportant. Voldemort first fell in 1981. He spent 10 years floating about until he met Harry a second time and he STILL hadn’t figured out what protected Harry that night 10 years before (see Harry melting Quirrell and expelling Voldemort from his body). Meanwhile, Dumbledore knew immediately what happened that night to the point he placed Harry with Lily’s sister and cast a charm to keep that protection alive.

Fast forward 6 years and Voldemort once again doesn’t realize Harry’s sacrifice is protecting the Hogwarts defenders. AND he also overlooks the magic of wands. He has NO IDEA what happened in the graveyard between his wand and Harry’s (Dumbledore did), and iirc still doesn’t by book 7. He doesn’t consider what would happen if the Elder Wand is used against its owner.

So, that’s twice he is defeated because he overlooked magic he considered unimportant and another time a piece of magic occurred that he didn’t understand stymying him from killing Harry.

Not to mention, Voldemort never figured out that Harry is a Horcrux. The fact that he could enter Harry’s mind from a distance never raised a red flag. He never realized that using Harry’s blood would also act as an anchor for Harry. Meanwhile, Dumbledore figures that shit out as soon as he sees the diary and that Harry is a parselmouth, hence the look in his eyes when Harry tells him about the resurrection and the use of his blood. He knew the implication immediately.

So, I’d have to give Dumbledore the edge. Voldemort can cast any piece of magic he wants (except the patronus apparently) but you put something like the magic behind self sacrifice, wand creation, the consequences of an unstable soul, etc and he fails every time.

 

Fair point. I guess I'll have to give it to Voldemort in the more general sense, rather than almost every area of magic. Granted, the only evidence for this is Dumbledore calling Voldemort the most skilled wizard to ever walk the halls of Hogwarts in CoS, and later that he understands and knows magic better than any other in OotP.

The only area he is ignorant of is 'love', which seemed to know of in GoF(he spoke of it that way when he was resurrected and talking to his Death Eater). I suppose he just underestimated it, in his arrogance and in typical Voldemort fashion. And wandlore, which, to him, might have been unimportant. After all, who could do anything to Lord Voldemort's wand? (Really humble guy, you know)

Also, he is definitely greater than Grindelwald, who Dumbledore only surpasses by 'a shade more skill.'

All of this is only my theory, though. Feel free to refute it. If there is something wrong in the first time I wrote about this, please inform me about that as well.

 

I think the whole starting premise is wrong. When I read the duel in OotP between Dumbledore and Voldemort, for me it is Voldemort who comes across as the greater duellist. Of the two combatants, Dumbledore is the one who needed a third party (Fawkes) to rescue him from an attack that otherwise would have killed him.

And more generally, I tend to view duelling ability as a general expression of a person's overall magical ability. Less so in the lower, amateur levels of duelling, where there's probably more scope to gain an edge from non-magical factors such as speed, reflexes, etc. But once you're in the big leagues, I essentially view duelling as a holistic test of magic.

So I'm not really on board with the idea that a character in the big leagues can be a worse duellist than another while also having an advantage in general magical ability. If they have greater magical ability, they would also be the better duellist.

For me, Voldemort is the better wizard in terms of knowledge and understanding of magic, and the better wizard in terms of duelling ability. And the same with Dumbledore vs. Grindelwald.

I also disagree that Voldemort and Dumbledore have duelled before OotP. The whole premise of the term "The only one he ever feared" is that Voldemort actively avoided any direct conflict with Dumbledore. That avoidance, however, is an expression of Voldemort's extreme caution, not an indicator of who is the better duellist. Voldemort may well be of the view that he would probably defeat Dumbledore, but Voldemort does not accept "probably". He only risks himself when the deck is massively stacked in his favour. For example, he was reluctant to make a move on Scrimgeour - a far inferior wizard - until Scrimgeour was surrounded by traitors.

 

Not make the plan in DH so fucking convoluted? I mean, for example Dumbledore planned for the ministry to stop Harry from having the Gryffindor's sword as inheritance by making a replica to be delivered later. Instead of hiding the real sword in the bottom of a fucking lake, maybe give it to some trusted person to deliver it in secrecy, instead of making a spectacle of it? Dumbledore could have even given the sword to Harry while he was still alive (and leave the fake behind), circumventing the whole charade. The same question is even asked by Harry in DH.

Or tell literally anyone that Snape killing him is part of the plan, so that Snape could be actually useful as a spy?

Dumbledore's competence as an individual wizard is unquestionable, and perhaps even unparalleled. As a leader of people and schemer he is mediocre at best, and given how many leadership positions he is given thanks to his personal competence, actually bad at worst.

 

That is not a flaw in Dumbledore's plan - it is an example of Voldemort managing to out-manoeuvre him. Remember, Dumbledore didn't plan on being murdered when he did. He thought he still had several months left. He never got to execute his plan for Harry to take over the horcrux hunt, because he was murdered before he could fully prepare Harry.

As someone else said - these things tend to happen when your opponent is the most powerful wizard of all time.

 

You've been at this way longer than I have, and probably considered almost every possible argument I could give. I'll concede.

I always thought Dumbledore had the upper hand. That may have been because he was far more composed. However, is there any other explanation for why the statue of centaur shattered, while the witch and wizard were unaffected? If he used to Goblin and the Elf to call the Aurors and Fudge, why not just use only one, especially if his animated statues can even the killing curse?

Also, Dumbledore could've just apparated out of the way, when Voldemort attacked. Why did he empty the plinth, if he didn't intend to use at least one of the statues? It's almost like he knew Voldemort would apparate there if it the position was vacant. Using Fawkes was just using an advantage he had - he wasn't duelling to prove he was the greater wizard.
And why did Voldemort, the greatest dark wizard of all time, miss when shooting the killing curse, when his feet were firmly planted on the ground and his opponent wasn't even running.

As I've said, you've been at this longer than I have, and considered almost every argument I could give before coming to a conclusion.

 

Having the sword as part of inheritance instead of simply giving it to Harry was Dumbledore's plan: it was in his will, after all. It's not like Dumbledore only wrote his will after he was murdered.

Dumbledore's plan was bad. It was bad for narrative reasons, but bad none the less.