Once again you've just made shit up. There is no evidence at all that Grindelwald was better at magic than Voldemort. Given that Dumbledore could beat Grindelwald in a duel, but couldn't do so with Voldemort, it seems clear that Voldemort is better at magic than Grindelwald.

You've got this irrational idea that Voldemort is bad at magic and you seem to be determined to make up whatever information you want to make it true. Stop that.

@afrojack: there are plenty of possible situations in which Aberforth could be involved in the duel without being anywhere near the same league.

E.g. 1. The duel started out as being between Aberforth and Grindelwald, with Albus getting increasingly involved to protect Aberforth from Grindelewald.

E.g. 2. The duel was mostly a fight between Albus and Grindelwald, and Aberforth was just on the sidelines taking potshots at the pair of them.

 

Taure:
Old and dying Grindewald taunts, taunts him with his inept ignorance. What does Tom do? He throws a tantrum, as usual. Voldemort knows nothing of the most arcane aspects of magic. Speaking in made-up terms since we don't know their true names: nothing of Sacrifice, nothing of Blood, nothing of Death, nothing in nothing of Love, if it is indeed exists. He even lacks in Wandlore, a subject that both Dumbledore and Grindewald studied extensively.

We know little to nothing of the second Dumbledore vs Grindewald duel, and most lengthy mention of it belongs to Rita Skeeter, talking of her for once somewhat truthful research:

Dumbledore never intended to end Tom in the atrium duel, read it attentively. He stalled, restraining him and allowing some time for response all the while imitating strained effort to convince Voldemort that he could kill Dumbledore there and then instead of running away like he always did before. Because Tom was able to easily recreate himself then, because he has the right body for Harry to be anchored to and vanquish when the time comes, Dumbledore couldn't kill him. Because Voldemort must be spotted by Minister and Department Heads, Dumbledore couldn't overwhelm and thus scare him away.

You've got this irrational idea that Voldemort is the best magician in the whole world. He might be the best duellist, due to his 'throw AK till it hits' style of fighting, but even that is rather arguable. He might be better than most practitioners at Dark Arts, but still not the best as the darkest magic requires understanding and acceptance of things he flees from.


Of course Aberforth was nowhere near the same league. Else he'd got up and offed Voldemort himself when the bugger came around, that's what I reckon.

 

Rofl, I am not starting the atrium discussion again. I've already shown you to be incorrect on that one. If you need reminding, just go back to the plot holes thread. Tl;DR: Dumbledore not trying to kill Voldemort does not have any impact on the difficulty of the duel for Voldemort, and thus cannot be used to infer anything about their respective strengths.

Voldemort does, in fact, understand the rarer aspects of magic. He understands exactly how Lily Potter's sacrifice works - he said so in GoF. It's just that in the moment he failed to anticipate it. He also knows a lot about death - probably more than any other wizard. He had done more than any other wizard to avoid it. And of course he knows a lot about the soul. Blood is also something he understands well, given that he was able to create himself a new body using it.

Love is the only area of magic that we know Voldemort does not fully understand.

There's no evidence that Dumbledore and Grindelwald studied wandlore extensively. They simply believed that the Elder Wand exists.

Also there's no evidence that the niche topics you name (death, blood, love etc) are anything near fundamental.

All of Voldemort's errors are strategic, not magical.

As for Grindelwald's taunt, it's really not relevant at all.

 

Taure:
I disagreed and explained why. Trying in general matters. And there is the fact that in but a barest moment Dumbledore was able to do several wondrous things, then do nothing for much bigger chunk of time. To use some book-described trick of Chocolate Frog Card character is not the same as to understand it deeper theory. There room for the subject of Love in DoM, thus it is fundamental.

But let us agree that you are a Voldemort fanboy and prone to exaggerate his areas of competence while I vehemently dislike his portrayal as it could be so much more than insane tantrum-throwing freak, and end this infinite argument.

All that said, Voldemort pulled many things masterfully, so his shortcomings are more than balanced. Dumbledore's mentor figure is a Tower. Tall, strong, invincible but still inevitably fallen by the time of the Hero's battle. And Tom Riddle still is decades ahead of the Harry Potter in all branches of magic even by the end of last book.

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One last thing, I disagree with you on the subject of Voldemort's strategic errors. Tom Riddle's terror campaign, assassinations, specific operations like takeover of the Ministry were brilliant. Even protections of his Horcruxes were designed well enough to assuredly kill Albus Dumbledore. It is the lack of magical knowledge that always did him in.

 

I'm inclined to think even making war on the ministry was a strategic error. The powerful Wizarding families are quite entrenched in the fabric of magical society; they could rise to supremacy through entirely legal means, methinks. If Voldemort had gone the political route, he wouldn't have inspired such fierce opposition.

It's also a little absurd that the most privileged members of society would feel the need to upend the social order at all, but well...

 

There's no fanboyism here, Archie, just canon. The only other wizards in Voldemort's league with respect to magical knowledge and skill were Dumbledore and (maybe) Grindelwald, though Dumbledore himself ranks Riddle as being more dangerous than his former friend.

Most dangerous Dark wizard of all time. Not "of this era," not "most dangerous alive," not "since Grindelwald," but ever. That's some serious respect he has going for Mr. Riddle. And it's verbatim from the source, from the guy who fought them both, not pulled from one's ass like a lot of your weird conjectures seem to be. (I mean, Aberforth? Seriously? May as well claim Alice Longbottom was a badass because she and her husband defied Riddle.)

 

I don't even want to get in this dispute how powerful Voldemort was, but unless Dumbledore is some kind of immortal who has lived on for thousands and thousands of years, his claim is shit. Yes, I am taking it quite literally.

 

Alternatively, he might be a very intelligent man who has studied history and knows what he's talking about.

 

Daidalos:
There wasn't an open war. Terror, yes. Fights with MLE, yes. Never open war or even rebellion.
There are problems with the completely legal method, lots of them. Three main problems: he'll be a known mudblood, he'll be a slave of Magical Law, Dumbledore already dislikes his guts and will cause much more problems. And he'll be unable to simply kill off his enemies and intimidate fence-sitters.
What he did was much simpler and efficient.


Perspicacity:
Exaggeration. Simple. Harry has no need to know of more powerful dark wizards anyway, and he must have a very strong motivation to give his life for the cause.

Of course Riddle is more dangerous. Grindelwald was an idealistic extremist with Dumbledore's own ideas, he isn't a psychopath that delights in murder and torture, and intimidated an entire sheep society into fearing his very name. Why would Headmaster bring up his past, fixed and irrelevant screw up?

Fact is that despite being a supreme wizard far above common witchfolk, Voldemort still is unoriginal ignorant laughing stock to the true Dark Wizard that knew his trade. Grindelwald was expelled due to uncoverable extent of his experiments. Riddle parroted several cool tricks without understanding their nature, and stopped at it.

I said that Aberforth is badass on the level of Black and Moody. Not up there with his brother and dark lord wannabes.

 

If you take over a country and are defeated only by a ridiculous series of coincidences I think you qualify as a bit more than a wannabe dark lord

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Would you dismiss something like "ghenghis khan was the greatest conqueror of all time"? Or Stalin the worst dictator? You can obviously disagree but even without meeting every human who ever lived it's not unreasonable to have a shortlist for that kind of thing.

 

gs17, I do not argue against his commanding abilities, he was great there.
Those weren't coincidences. Those were certain magical consequences of Voldemort's actions. Ones he weren't aware and prepared for. Thus he lacks magical knowledge.

Would you name a, say, Margaret Thatcher, Pol Pot or Kim Jong-il the greatest evil of all time? That's who Voldemort is, compared to Grindelwald the Magical Hitler. For the record, Alexander The Great was considered as the greatest conqueror even by mongols of Temujin's time, and worst dictator for now would be either Hitler or Mao. But please don't drag politics here, we have a separate thread for that.

 

Fair point.

 

Harry only became master of the elder wand by a series of coincidences, and without that ridiculously unlikely event voldemort would not have been defeated. It's unreasonable to expect anyone to have foreseen that, however much dream dumbledore mutters "just as planned...".

I wasn't intending to make a political point, perhaps a better example might be something along the lines of the greatest dancer, boxer, composer, inventor etc. I can't help but mention the irony of you saying I should avoid political statements while casually grouping pol pot and thatcher, I'll assume that was tongue in cheek

 

More canon quotes regarding Voldemort's magical abilities:

Fudge in HPB:

Skeeter in DH:

Flitwick in DH

Fred in DH:

Dumbledore in OotP:

 

gs17: Harry mastership matters little to nothing, as Deathstick is extremely unfaithful. Deathstick extreme unwillingness to serve someone as unworthy as Voldemort matters. Harry acceptance of Death and willingness to sacrifice himself for others matters. Those aren't coincidences.

Indeed, though there still are some scales. It was.


Palver, Dumbledore has the reason to claim that. Tom Riddle was very intimidating person, that is certain too. British wizards aren't quite impartial because of that, besides, worst wizard of all time or not, he is much, much more powerful than likes of Fudge and Weasley.

 

Let's consider some examples of Voldemort's errors:

1. Lily sacrificed herself for Harry. Voldemort knew that could form a powerful counter charm, but pushed ahead anyway out of eagerness.

2. Diary Riddle allowed Fawkes to heal Harry. He knew the properties of phoenix tears, but it didn't occur to him that Fawkes would cry on Harry's wound until too late.

3. Voldemort toyed with Harry rather than killing him immediately in GoF. He had the magical ability to kill him, and he had the opportunity to do so easily while Harry was tied up. He didn't do so, because he was arrogant.

4. Voldemort tried and failed to possess Harry in OotP. He failed because he isn't capable of love and Harry is.

5. Voldemort failed to kill Dumbledore in OotP. A close duel in which both sides had the upper hand at some point.

6. Voldemort destroyed the piece of his own soul within Harry. This occurred because he was lacking several pieces of information: that Harry was a horcrux, and that Snape hadn't been the one to disarm Dumbledore.

7. Voldemort failed to realise Harry was still alive after he resurrected. This occurred because a follower was disloyal.

8. Voldemort knew he wasn't the master of the elder wand. Harry told him that, in fact, he was the master. Voldemort chose to fight with that wand anyway.

9. Voldemort failed to guard his horcruxes as thoroughly as he could have, choosing to entrust them to wizards of inferior skill or using hiding places he considered clever, rather than placing them under as much magical protection as possible.


Out of these errors, there aren't really any caused by a lack of magical knowledge, with the possible exception of the duel with Dumbledore. But it's not clear than knowing more about magic would have helped him there -- both Voldemort and Dumbledore are already at the peak of magical performance.

Would you like to provide an example of when Voldemort failed because he lacked understanding of magic?

 

Harry believes, and everything we are told supports him, that his mastership of the Elder wand matters a huge deal, it is the reason why voldemort's curse rebounds. The wand is, in a narrow sense, extremely faithful to the point of being unable to kill its master; it is unfaithful only in that its master can change easily. Harry's willingness to sacrifice himself only protected others, and even then not absolutely. Is there any in book support for the idea that voldemort is unworthy of the wand? Consider it's supposed to have been made for a pretty scummy character in Peverell.

 

Taure: entirety of those encounters are when you consider that it is lack of knowledge or memory forced his hand of fuelled his arrogance. He hadn't got the fact that his favourite curse doesn't work on Harry even at the very end, when even dumbest of us would've got a hunch. I reckon that the DADA curse is one of the pieces of magic that he read about and wasn't able to use somewhere else due to the lack of understanding of it.

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gs17, he's utterly terrified of Death, for once, and the ability to accept it is wide known requirement of the Hallows Mastery. If mastery transmitted through indirect disarming mattered, then there would be very big mess with its true master. Of which there's no evidence, even if Harry believes that. It helps, though.
Matters the fact that the Elder Wand doesn't work for Voldemort.

 

Have you even read the books, Archie? I'm having a hard time believing you have.

There's not a shred of evidence that Voldemort didn't understand the curse he placed on the Defense Against the Dark Arts position. If anything, its resilience was evidence for the opposite: even Dumbledore, gifted as he was, was unable to dispel it.

 

Perspicacity, there's no evidence to confirm either hypothesis, and hypothesis only it is. I rely on the fact that the curse in question wasn't used anywhere else. Why wouldn't he if he knew how to adapt it?