The top tier includes supremely talented all time great wizards and witches such as Voldemort, Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and perhaps Merlin and the Hogwarts Founders.

The second tier I'd assume would be comprised of some of the strongest witches and wizards of their generation such as Mad-Eye Moody, Snape, Bellatrix, James, Sirius.

The third tier would include the likes of Hermione, Lucius, Draco, other competent wizards but not the best.

The fourth would include the likes of Ron, Neville average wizards.

Where does he belong?

 

If you don't know where to put Harry on your scale then how do you know where to put the others?

 

Eh, Harry Potter doesn't follow power level logic. Fifteen years old teenagers could hold their own against fully trained wizards and a housewife like Molly could kill someone like Bellatrix. The only ones that we know for sure are Dumbledore and Voldemort, who stand above pretty much everyone else.

 

WHARBARGURL. Every week we have to endure someone trying to hit their five post count and every week it's a thread How powerful is Harry?

If you need the post count, can't we keep it all in that one thread?

But anyway, I will answer the question.

He's Harry Fuckin' Potter, the greatest wizard in all the land. Let's review:

Pre-Hogwarts,
- Survived the Killing Curse (first time)
- Traveled in a flying motor bike while he was in nappies.
- Endured a decade in a closet and came out still willing to sass Vernon and Duddikins. Kid has spirit.

Year 1
- Rescued a legendary artifact from an evil wizard.
- Acquired a legendary artifact from his father via proxy.
- Killed a possessed professor.
- Learned a spell or two when he wasn't busy saving everyone from an evil wizard who would have been immortal and immeasurably wealthy if not for Harry.

Year 2
- Saved some girl by killing a giant snake that can kill you with its eyes.
- Acquired another legendary artifact.
- Conned a very powerful man into freeing his slave.
- Regrew his arm in a single night.
- Did some spellz.

Year 3
- Learned a powerful charm that many grown wizards never accomplish, used it to defeat a horde of soul-eating monsters.
- Rescued his godfather
- Traveled back through time
- Used another priceless artifact (see above)
- Accurately foretold the future predicting Buckbeak's survival, and then didn't stand around like a chump; went back in time to fulfill his own prediction like a boss.

And that's while some boys are still waiting for their balls to drop. It only goes up from there, because he's Harry Fuckin Potter. When you're a time-traveling boogeyman who haunts the nightmares of creatures who suck souls, when you've survived a curse multiple times that has made every other person that it hits, dead, 100% of the time, when you are literally THE MASTER OF DEATH... and still find time to pass your Potions OWL, then you get back to me on 'I dunno what tier Harry is in'.

 

I'm hyped.

 

This has always been my stance on it. On one hand, Harry Potter might not be the greatest at casting spells and is not a genius like Dumbledore and Voldemort.

On the other hand, he beat a fucking giant snake in a sword fight. Which is like, super rad.

 

How powerful is Harry?

One time, he put his finger in a light socket... and it was the local power plant that got electrocuted.

That lightning bolt on his forehead? It's his output rating in zettawatts.

 

I sense a 'Harry Potter Facts' threads in the making.

 

Harry's magical core is rated over 9000 Tauren Magical Units (tMU)

 

Over 20000 taur'i-chlorians? Seriously though, this is not really an appropriate way of phrasing the question.

He's obviously skilled and capable, far beyond average and at the same time, seeing as he's only seventeen at the end of the series, well below god-tier people like Dumbledore/Voldemort. However, he's accomplished some really ridiculous things (Vlad pointed out some in his post) due to his character and the nature of the specific problem (e.g. 100 dementors v. Prongs). I mean, would a 12 year old Dumbledore have managed to kill a 60-foot basilisk with a sword?

So there isn't a character within the series who would be a good measure for Harry's "power" because there is really no one else quite like him in it.

 

I heard that a very big snake, with the most poisonous venom ever found, bit Harry once. After a few seconds agonizing, the snake died.

 

This one time, he set his pet hippogriff on me. When I tried to watch its lawful execution, he had one of his minions beat me.

It was awesome.

 

I don't think he is that powerful.....his only good subject is DADA and he isn't good at Charms or other practical subjects. And killing a snake with a sword at age 12 is not powerful, it is luck but it doesn't have to do with magical power......therefore, I would put him between third and fourth tier

 

And you would be wrong.

He got several Exceeds Expectations on his exams: including one for a class where students and the professor were actively hostile to any attempt from him to learn. Once the potions class was proctored by someone else, he shone like a boss.

And don't give me any nonsense about HBP's book. If Harry could follow those instructions perfectly, then he could have done the same with standard instructions. Fact is given a quiet lab, Harry is a damn good brewer.

Patronus CHARM. Don't give me any claptrap that Harry can't do Charms.

And by 17 he's hitting 2 for 3 on the unforgiveables, tossing them around at fools like it's a blue light sale.

I mean really - you go ahead and put Harry Potter in the bushleague if you want - but don't come to me crying when he blows your shit out of the water six different ways and still makes it back home in time for tea and a quickie with Daphne Greengrass*.

Edit: Again, Harry is also objectively top in the class in Divination, having succesfully used a crystal ball to actually divine the future. That nobody else recognized this accomplishment is on them, not Harry.

* At no point in the books does Rowling suggest this did not happen.

 

I think the OP and everyone else who doesn't believe that Harry is Merlin level strong found the wrong forum.

That being said, I think I also found the wrong forum.

 

Yep. If you weren't looking for a measured and reasonable assessment of Harry's abilities and instead were hoping for a gaggle of idiots waiting around to tell you how brilliant you are, yeah. You found the wrong forum.

 

Or you could refute with facts and offer a counterpoint. But the string of numbers after your name are proof positive you probably are on the wrong forum. So 1 for 2.

 

I think you need to get off your high horse and stop assuming things. For someone who calls others idiots, you don't seem to be too bright yourself.

 

You are wrong. Merlin is the one who is almost Harry level strong.

Jokes aside, everything he said is canon. If you bothered looking for other threads with this very same discussion, you would find many people who gave similar assessments to Harry's skills. He is extraordinary, much beyond the usual fanon 'average guy with lots of luck'.

 

I haven't read canon in a long time, so please do fact check me, but here goes:

1. Harry's successes in, at least, books 1,2,4, and arguably 7 could not have occurred without outside help. In book 1, he would have never gotten to Quirrell without his friends, and he also wouldn't have been able to kill or even subdue Quirrell without his mother's protection. I recognize that Harry is a first year and that he should have had no chance against Quirrell/Voldemort anyways. But he was still fairly useless even in getting to Quirrell. The only useful thing I can remember him doing is flying to catch the key.
Book 2 he displayed sone pretty awesome medieval swordfighting ability, but would be dead without the hat that gave him the sword, and Fawkes who destroyed the Basilisks most dangerous asset and healed its poison.
Book 4: Would've lost badly without Crouch. Probably literally fail the second task since he had no ideas morning of the task and Dobby just hands him a plant and goes " use this"
Book 7: At this point in time, Harry is more or less an adult wizard. Unfortunately, he's still losing duels, although they were decidedly unfair duels, to the Snatchers. It's like he's always running in the story. I do think that he did really well in just surviving the year though.

I disagree with your opinion that Harry is"the greatest wizard in all the land", but I'm not saying he's average either. He's good. But he's not great.

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I mean, feel free to disagree. Its not like Rowling ever did a classification of magical strength, so we could all be wrong, for all we know.