Who do you think would win? And why?

I for some reason always thought Grindelwald is stronger than Voldemort. I don't know why? Maybe because Grindelwald was playing in big leagues. Voldemort always seem's like local threat. Then there is duel of the century, between Dumbledore and Grindelwald. Everybody says that duel was legendary. While Dumbledore always seems like he is playing with Voldemort.

What do you think?

 

Magical knowledge/power ability I think grindelwald takes it but horcruxes give Voldemort the win

 

If we're going to compare the two, it's pretty clear Grindelwald would have won. Why you ask? Let's have a look at the evidence.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Case closed.

 

@TheWiseTomato, I see no fault in your logic.

 

Voldemort wins. There are two ways of getting to this answer: the easy way, or the hard way.

Easy way: we're told so

Dumbledore refers to Voldemort as the most dangerous dark wizard of all time in HBP, and he would know.

Similarly, in DH, Elphias Doge says that Voldemort displaced Grindelwald as the most dangerous dark wizard.

Hard way: by transitive implication

That is to say:

(1) Dumbledore can out-duel Grindelwald.
(2) Voldemort can out-duel Dumbledore.
(C) Therefore Voldemort can out-duel Grindelwald.

To go into more detail:

(1) is fairy uncontroversial. Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald in a straight up duel while Grindelwald held the Elder Wand. Pending any Fantastic Beasts revisions, I think most people would accept that Dumbledore is the more powerful wizard than Grindelwald.

(2) comes from the OotP duel between them. It was a very close fight, but crucially, Dumbledore needed Fawkes to save him from being hit by a Killing Curse. And that was while he had the Elder Wand and Voldemort did not. So Dumbledore went into that fight with an advantage but still needed a third party to rescue him. There are four common objections to this point:

Firstly, Dumbledore needed to protect Harry. But this has no impact on the duel. Dumbledore gives Harry a magical guardian before the duel starts and Harry is thereafter an observer only.

Secondly, Dumbledore was smart to have an ally who could rescue him. Of course he was. No one is criticising Dumledore's strategy. But strategic allies is not relevant to the question of who would win in a fair fight (i.e. who is the more powerful wizard).

Thirdly, Dumbledore achieved his strategic goal by exposing Voldemort. Same response to this as number 2.

Fourthly, Dumbledore was not trying to kill. This rather misses the nature of HP duelling. To win a duel, you have to land a single incapacitating spell on your opponent. It doesn't matter if that spell kills or incapacitates your opponent in another way. Either way, the key part of the duel is being able to land a spell in the first place, and that is the same regardless of whether you are trying to kill or not.

 

I think, the reason people think Grindelwald is stronger, myself included, is because Grindelwald was shown doing lot of powerful magic. While Voldemort got beaten by a kid.

 

Grindelwald is seen using a lot of flashy magic, which is not the same thing as power. Harry notes as much in HBP.

The most powerful spell - unblockable by any other magic, no matter how powerful - is the Killing Curse. That spell is pretty low key in visuals.

Similarly powerful is Lily's protection, which can redirect the Killing Curse. Again, no visual effect.

Consider also the fidelius, which apparently affects the knowledge of every person in the universe. Invisible.

Grindelwald's firestorm is impressive from a Muggle perspective because it is large in scale. But ultimately it was stopped in a moderately routine manner by a handful of Auror-level wizards (and Flamel, whose power outside alchemy is uncertain). I wouldn't even categorise it in the top 5 most powerful pieces of magic we see in the books.

(Also I'm pretty sure the firestorm going nuts was a result of Leta chucking the skull into the spell).

 

As they say, “subtle magic is usually the most powerful magic".

Also, what would you considers top 5 most powerful pieces of magic?

 

the power and harnessing of horcruxes is clearly magical knowledge though. Whether Grindelwald not utilizing them is a matter of ability or morality is rather irrelevant is it not?

 

Don't really agree with this people constantly mention that Dumbledore is the only one Voldemort fears.

Even the chapter of their fight in OOTP is called the Only one he ever feared, that seems to make it clear from word of God that he is superior.

And if we look at the fight Dumbledore has used one statue to restrain Bellatrix and some others to protect Harry which he could have used to defend against the Killing Curse even than pretty sure he could have apparated or done something else to not get hit by the AK.

Just because he used the savest way to defend doesn't mean he didn't have a bunch of other options besides it seems like a cool visual for Rowling to see Fawkes eat a death curse.

The rest of the duell makes it imo clear that Dumbledore has the edge, he did have the elder wand but for arguments sake we don't even know if JK already had the Deathly Hollows idea.

You could even add that Dumbledores age weakend him. Snape in HBP tells this to Narcissa and Bellatrix which they seem to take for a credible explanation , so it's possible that old age weakens a wizard and prime Dumbledore would be greater.

He also seems more intelligent and knowledgeable in general always being one step ahead of Voldemort he knew what the priori incantatem was ,he knew that Voldemort was stupid taking Harrys blood and he knew that Harry was a horcrux despite them having the same info showing a higher understanding of deeper magic.

 

Way I see it, Dumbledore (and possibly Grindelwald) are better Wizards than Voldemort, but Voldemort is at least their equal, if not marginally better, as a magical combatant.

The logic behind this stems from their objectives and therefore their interest in magic.

Take Voldemort. From an 11 year old, he has basically 2 objectives.

1 - defeat death
2 - dominate others.

and as a sub point to these goals, avoid the attention of aurors, unspeakables, Dumbledore etc.

As such, his focus on magic is as a tool to achieve these objectives. He is indiputably a master of many aspects of soul magic, to a greater degree than pretty much any others, having 'gone further than anybody on the path that leads to immortality' than Grindelwald or Dumbledore, and presumably this goal would have given him at least a grounding in other routes to this end such as Alchemy.

Heis also a master of most combat or conflict relevant magic. He has the Dark Arts, of course, and few can fault him there. But we're also talking martially orientated Charms, Transfiguration, compulsions, wards etc. Anything that is directly needed to wage war or exert his will upon others, Voldemort has expertise in it. The need to avoid attention probably give him a grounding in magic such as the fidelius as well. He also has great knowledge in the darker aspects of potions, as demonstrated by the potion containing his Horcrux in book 5.

But as far as depth or breadth of knowledge? I'd say not as much. He doesn't have the sheer love of magic as a thing in it's own right that we see in Dumbledore and the few snippets we get of Grindelwald, and that limits his focus, and therefore his scope.

Contrast this to Dumbledore and Grindelwald. They are much more rounded wizards. They innovate, they research, they advance the field. Dumbledore is published in fields of at least Potions and Alchemy, and presumably at least Transfiguation, if not others, and to my mind at least, knows a lot more about the deeper mysteries of magic generally. Grindelwald also seemed to innovate more at least in wards (is the schtick of his symbol still being carved into the Durmstrang walls canon or fanon, I forget). Certainly either one would be my first choice to develop a new spell, to replicate the Durmstrang ship, to make a philosophers stone, to improve or innovate a new form of apparition. Dumbledore especially understood the implications of Lily's sacrifice, he connected the dots for the Horcruxes and seems much more scholarly in general. That said, this depth of knowledge doesn't allow him to always defeat Voldemort in certain fields, the curse on the Defence teachers position being an example of this.

So that's my take. Voldemort is combat specialised, extremely dangerous and an undisputed master in a few narrow fields. Dumbledore and presumably Grindelwald are generalists across many fields, with a breadth and depth of knowledge that Voldemort simply doesn't possess. However, as far as an out and out duel goes, I reckon that narrow focus might give Voldemort an edge. Certainly he's the equal of any other there, and when one considers that he can challenge Dumbledore on equal terms despite his 50 years less experience, I think that he would ultimately gain an edge in an all out fight, if only because he'll tire more slowly than Dumbledore, whilst if pitted against each other at the same age, he'd have an edge because he simply knows more combat relevant magic and has no scruples.

 

You can be afraid of someone even if overall, they're less skilled than you. You just have to see that person as a potential threat, someone who has a positive probability of killing you. An encounter between two wizards should not logically always go to the better duelist, as there are more variables to consider in real duels, and experienced wizards like Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and Voldemort would understand this. Voldemort, for example, might be afraid of Dumbledore because he might know a super secret spell that was forgotten before his squib mother raped his muggle father. Alternatively, since he's so well-respected internationally, Dumbledore may simply call on a friend from Angola or something to attack him with magic he's never seen before.
This is also why we can't use the quotes about Voldemort being the most dangerous dark wizard ever to mean that he's the very best in a one-on-one duel. One thing that makes him a spectacularly dangerous dark wizard is his ability to attract followers, allowing him to act in multiple places at once, influence politics, and command a powerful fighting force that could attack Hogwarts in a stupidly written battle that resulted in only one casualty on either side, one being accidental and the other being planned.
The duels themselves provide more information than any of the quotes, but even then we don't have many of them.

 

Exactly this. It's not that Voldemort fears a direct battle with Dumbledore because he doesn't think there's any way he could possibly win. It's just that the odds of losing are unacceptably high. Why risk a 50/50 chance of being locked up in Azkaban or whatever fate Dumbledore would chose if Voldemort lost their duel? Much better to do something like his gambit in HBP, where he uses minor expendable pawns.

 

I do have to say I disagree with this assertion, in that there's no indication that Dumbledore NEEDED Fawkes to save him and that he would otherwise have fallen to the Killing Curse. Especially since you mention OPTION 2, in that he is smart enough to have an ally with him, and my interpretation of Fawkes taking the curse for him is simply opportunistic use of an advantage in a fight. Much in the way an intelligent fighter strategises which risks to take in a fight depending on the options available to them, there is no indicator that without Fawkes around, Dumbledore wouldn't have simply maneuvered differently in order to not be exposed directly to the Killing Curse.

If anything, in the parts of the duel when Dumbledore is unencumbered and has his attention fully focused on Voldemort, it is the Dark Lord who is shown to be constantly on the defensive. Going on that, it is Dumbledore who out-duels Voldemort, not the reverse.

 

Firstly, I think there absolutely is an indication that Dumbledore needed Fawkes to save him.

There's a few things to take away here:

1. It appears to Harry that Dumbledore is about to be hit.

2. Dumbledore is dealing with two attacks at once.

3. At the time Fawkes takes the killing curse, we know that Dumbledore was busy defending from a different attack (the snake).

4. Dumbledore was also preparing his next attack on Voldemort (the water) so was doubly preoccupied when the Killing Curse became a threat.

As for describing the rest of the duel as Voldemort on the defensive, this is largely a matter of subjective impression, one I do not share. I think a lot of that impression comes from Dumbledore's relaxed and condescending tone, but tone is not tactics. Viewing the duel as a whole, Voldemort is the only one who really ever makes an attack which poses a genuine threat. Even if one were of the impression that Voldemort is on the defensive for most of the fight, biding your time until you are positioned for a perfect strike is a completely legitimate tactic.

 

It's subjective and thus open to interpretation, but to me it doesn't seem Dumbledore is harried by either attack in this scenario.

More tellingly, the Killing Curse doesn't come from a blindspot - it's not like he's unaware of it, given that it comes from in front of him. Fawkes takes care of that one, and he efficiently deals with the snake himself.

My opinion here is that he is aware Fawkes will do this (A phoenix will come to the aid of anyone of the Dumbledore family in dire need), which is why he doesn't appear bothered to personally evade the Killing Curse, given that he previously apparated when first faced with it. He has an effective counter to both attacks.

Overall, the impression I get is that he doesn't appear to have been outmaneuvered by either attack, Harry's concern notwithstanding.

The first time he appears concerned is when Voldemort vanishes from his watery cocoon.

 

That, doesn’t really work well. Dumbledore has the body of an 100 year old, even though there’s solid evidence in canon that Wizards age a lot better then muggles do, I think it’s fairly reasonable to assume that Albus is nowhere near as agile or with the same stamina he had when he was just over half the age he was in OOTP.

 

Where's a definitive JKR Twitter statement when you need one? Is Voldemort gay the most OP? Are Malfoy's ancestors among the ones who took shits in the hallowed halls of Hogwarts?