This is a bit of an absurd point.

When I was in Boy Scouts, we were taught how to target shoot.

I'm pretty fucking sure if I shot a kid, I'd have been thrown out of Boy Scouts.


Is my point made? The definition of Dark Magic in JKR's universe includes ALL HEXES AND CURSES. Including such fun bits of magic like the Bat-Bogey Hex - just because they aren't taught at Hogwarts (canonically, NO hexes are taught, only Jinxes), doesn't mean little shits don't come in knowing them as first-years. Durmstrang teaches hexes and maybe curses. We don't know which ones. Could be Knee-Reversing Hexes, could be they allow Fourth years to cast the Killing Curse on each other until one of them gets it right.

But that last portrayal is awful tiresome, to me. Teaching something is not the same as allowing/encouraging students to use it on each other. Expelling the sociopathic fucks who do so doesn't seem to be "exploring the absolute depths of dark magic like none ever have!" so much as appropriate punishment for bullying.

 

Fair point, in reference to my earlier statement, I never presumed to say that Durmstrang was some kind of evil school where they repeatedly cursed each other with the most evil magic they could muster.


Now, we can address your point that the spells taught could just be hexes and curses of the fairly minor variety. Yet, for me, that just doesn't hold water. If we assume that Durmstrang functions at all like Hogwarts then they have 7 years of teaching to do on the Dark Arts... filling 7 years (or maybe even 5 if they allow electorates for the final 2) with the minor hexes that Harry saw in some fairly insignificant shop in the Philosopher's Stone seems kind of illogical to me (again, I could easily be, and am likely, wrong). This is particularly true when I think about what happened when DEs took over Hogwarts in DH.


I haven't read the books in a couple of years but certainly in the film the Carrows have various students using the cruciatus on first years. Of course we could then desolve this debate into a tiresome back and forth about intent behind the unforgivables and whether they are more evil then other spells etc. but the point I wanted to make was that within one year of having some free reign DEs turned a previously light-oriented school into one where unforgivables were used.


So, to my mind if Karkaroff, a DE, was able to become Highmaster and there wasn't a huge outcry (admittedly we don't know if there was but I'm assuming) then he can't have been that different to history. So, I figured that Durmstrang may well teach or allow fairly dark magic.

Therefore Grindelwald has to have done something fairly awful. Again, this is all conjencture, I know. Now this may have been using some form of dark magic (I'm assuming more than a minor curse or hex) on another student but to be honest, if at Hogwarts we see spells being thrown at students a lot (before Quidditch matches seems to be a prime example), then I would expect the same to happen at Durmstrang. So using minor hexes and curses on fellow students may well not be outside the remit of a normal activity.


So, the only thing that seems to make sense is that Grindelwald did something the school could not excuse. I.e. severly harming a student or perhaps studying darker hexes than Durmstrang allowed.


kmfrank your point is a good one and as such, to explain myself that slight bit more clearly: you were taught in the boy scouts to target shoot. If you in a fit of rage shot a kid, I would have good cause to worry and be scared of you. However if you used an RPG to target shoot I would also have good cause to be concerned because you would have gone further than the class of target shooting (which inherently carries with it some level of danger - i.e. kids with guns) allows. The analogy is hopefully self-evident.


If Grindelwald was darker than Durmstrang allowed and went beyond what a class that had inherent dangers allowed (you turning up with your RPG) then he should be considered dangerous and if he hurt another student majorly (you shooting a kid) then he should also be considered dangerous. In both cases when his other deeds are added in I come back to the same issue of the comparison between Grindelwald and Voldemort.


Of course, I could just now be rambling as I continue my slow spiraling descent into madness, but I like to think I'm not and that my points are justified.

 

My point is that Durmstrang is not a school run by psychopaths who use Unforgiveable Curses as punishment on students and teach Fiendfyre to Seventh Years - which is what the Carrows did.

If that was the case, I'm fairly certain the international community would have worked together to shut the place down. With Hogwarts, they hadn't had a chance because it was only that way for a year. You're saying Durmstrang was blatantly evil for nearly 100 years and, despite it being one of only two schools in Europe that we know about, the ICW didn't think maybe they should stop this nonsense?

Or is half of Europe evil?

Or do half of the parents in Europe want their children taught while tortured?

Because none of these arguments hold much water, to me.

 

Oh I totally agree with you. My point wasn't that Durmstrang was blatantly, ultimately evil in the strictest sense of using Unforgivables on children. What I meant was that that was what happened in the short term at Hogwarts where the ICW didn't have time to intervene. So if that happened when DEs had complete freedom, it does seem to make sense that some kind of scaled down version of this may have been representative of some elements of Durmstrang. My argument was against the idea of Durmstrang's Dark Arts classes not going further than just minor curses and hexes (though Rowling may have called them dark). I only brought up the Carrows as a kind of pointer to what may have happened if Karkaroff was entirely free, as he wasn't a scaled down version seems likely. And he can't have been hugely different to Durmstrang's history. So, in relation to Grindelwald he went beyond this scaled down version and either used bad dark magic (the scale of which is open to interpretation), or used some dark magic to seriously harm another student.

So, I will agree that Durmstrang isn't characterised by a bunch of loons like the Carrows running around cursing the living daylights out of each other, but I would say it would be more like I'd imagine Mad-Eye Moody (or some other dark wizards and aurors for that matter) to be - i.e. willing to use some dark magic (some curses and hexes - can't envision fighting a war without them unless you're Dumbledore) but not really dark magic and thus, Grindewald crossed this bridge?

Just to reiterate I wasn't making Durmstrang evil, just somewhat dark in a kind of tolerable sense.

And once again, in relation to the original point, my view, that Grindelwald was deserving of serious fear in either circumstance, leads to asking why Voldemort was more feared, because at the minute I'm not seeing a single weakness in Grindelwald.

 

SIAPL and SIAUL?

Just started fanfiction reading last year, so I have no idea what stories they are... Help?

 

Stranger in a Promised Land and Stranger in an Unholy Land, the first two stories of the (unfortunately incomplete) Stranger Trilogy [FONT=&quot]–[/FONT] which is my absolute favorite fanfic of all time. Check them out. Now.

And yes, Grindelwald was amazing in Promised. Shame we never got to see it play out.

 

We really don't know the depth of Grindelwald's involvement in WWII, other than that it couldn't end decisively until Dumbledore stepped in, at least for the magical side.

As for the cult or public perception of Voldemort vs. Grindelwald;
I got the impression that Grindelwald's Greater Good was more acceptable to many magicals seeing as the basic premise was the same old rhetoric of "muggles beneath us because we know better". Simply being magical made you in this group, although maybe with a lesser standing for muggleborns, etc. That he used the muggles as his pawns for conquest just fit into that picture. It just was at an unprecedented scale. As a bonus, many things could be hidden under the fog of war and attributed to muggles.

Voldemort on the other hand, promised something totally different; Magic is might. Him on top and everybody else beneath him. His inner circle was just above the rabble. To achieve that he killed anyone in his way, not to mention torturing his own followers. Whole families disappearing and stuff like that.

It's the difference between a race war and a civil war - a civil war with a fucking powerful wizard on one side and a divided Ministry with a old codger on the other.

Which is scarier to you as a magical, you vs. Muggles or you vs. Voldemort?

 

TIME.

Grindelwald's reign of terror was 50 years old news when Dumbledore died and Rita published the article. To them, Grindelwald is an old codger long defeated and disgraced while Voldemort was on the rise and Britain on the verge of a forced takeover.

 

Just an interesting note to make concerning Gellert Grindelwald's involvement in WWII.

The Thule Society

Seriously, JKR's intentions with Grindelwald and his involvement in WWII are quite plain, considering the timing. In no way were the two separate, IMO.

 

On another note, Gellert Grindelwald in Harry Dursley and the Chronicles of the King was AWESOME.

 

My take on Grindelwald regarding Durmstrang and WWII:

I think kmfrank has a good point here. We have to remember that the wizarding society in JKR's imagination was ran by bureaucracy, state ministries, the WCI, etc. Within that framework, it would be unreasonable to assume that Durmstrang was a school ran by psychopaths that allowed their students to cast unforgiveable curses on each other. I think a good reference point might actually be Dumbledore's Army (in a twisted way) - perhaps casting stunners or even minor curses on each other. Remember, Karkaroff was supposed to be on excellent behavior and never expected Voldemort to return. Therefore, it is unlikley he would have allowed any conduct that could have poorly reflected upon his rule as headmaster.

As a result, it is probable that Grindelwald committed a series of minor to serious violations that Durmstrang couldn't ignore for an indenfinite period of time - such as breaking someone's arm with a curse, causing a minor concussion, casting cutting curses that left scars, etc.

Regarding WWII, I believe that Grindelwald could have employed the Imperius curse on several world leaders. If he wanted to enslave the muggle population, he would have had to reduce it to a managealbe size first. We could go into more detail, but I hate to incorporate HP into such a sensetive topic where world leaders (Hitler) used historical pretext to slaugther millions.

Lastly, I do not believe Grindelwald being Dumbledore's evil twin would fully explain his character. While Dumbledore was infatuated with him, no one comes to believe in world domination simply because they are in love. Grindelwald would have had to have been an extremely persuasive and complex man to get someone like Dumbledore (not to mention much of wizarding Europe) to follow such a radical agenda.

Much of his character is up to interpretation, but I think the fact that he was manipulative, persuasive, radical (even evil if he was partly responsible for WWII in HP) and ideological in the extreme is clear. He is far from the jolly yet heartless old man that he is portrayed as in a few popular fan fics... IMO at least.

 

Lol. You haven't yet met the Harry Potter and the Greater Good, Grindelwald have you?

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6004275/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Greater-Good

But man, the story does true justice to Albus Dumbledore. He is super awesome.