dumbledore vs balrog of morgoth

@Baldy said:

@Laurcus said:

I say Balrog wins just because he's basically a lesser god.

The problem with Lord of The Rings characters is that their powers are all very abstract. Tolkien was basically as vague as possible, almost to the point of many of his characters being featless. As a matter of fact, no one even really knows what a Balrog looks like. The one from the movies is just Peter Jackson's interpretation of what a Balrog looks like. A huge debate still rages today on if Balrogs have wings or not.

No one can even really agree on what kind of powers they have or how they fight, beyond the fact that they have giant weapons. The Ringwraiths are very similar to this as well. Aside from the Black Breath, we don't have any details about their powers. We know nothing of the Witch King's sorcery, which was supposedly why he was so feared. We only have a little bit of knowledge of their invisibility power that they gain when they remove their armor.

Note that the Balrog is a Maia, the same species as Gandalf and Saruman. With the way the original Ainur created the world, for all we know the Balrog is a reality warper to some extent. It's basically the biggest lack of information of all time.

Seriously? Balrogs are reality warping lesser gods now? You blatently have very little knowledge of LoTR if you believe this to be the case.

@Laurcus said:

@lordraiden said:

@Laurcus said:

@lordraiden said:

You mean Gothmog?? He annihilates Dubledore!!

I think he means Durin's Bane.

Oh. That's not Morgoth's Balrog, who is Gothmog, which Durin's Bane pales incomparison to, from what i've read.

I'm aware. But most people aren't, because most people have only seen the movies. And in the movies Gandalf calls Durin's Bane the Balrog of Morgoth, because Peter Jackson possesses the reading comprehension of an average forum user.

All of the balrogs qualify as balrogs of Morgoth. He was the one that corrupted all of them in the first place.

@lordraiden said:

I think that what people need to be aware of is that Gandalf is a Mair, a higher being brought to earth for a specific purpose, to fight Sauron, and is limited on middle earth to the use of his full power, other wise he would be fighting on Sauron's side if he didn't care about unleashing his full power!! He is limited as to using his power on middle earth, otherwise, i'd say it's safe to say he is above humans even as powerfull as Dumbledore, imo.

Gandalf broke the rules all the time, and it's not 'safe to say' that he's above humans as powerful as Dumbledore. Dumbledore has much more impressive feats.

@Jonny_Anonymous said:

@justleader said:

dumbledore wins, since dumbledore>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Gandalf (in human form) who defeated the balrog.

Dumbledore can instantly and most importantly silently teleport (other than him only voldemort was capable of teleporting silently) which would give dumbledore the advantage of surprise, then he can summon his firestorm which could definitely kill the balrog.

Gandalf is s incredibly powerful spirit comparable to an angel, I doubt Dumbledore could take him

Sauron, the most powerful of the Maiar is described as a minor spirit, and he's a great deal more powerful in spirit terms than Gandalf, so to suggest that Gandalf is a powerful spirit comparable to an angel is incorrect.

@Laurcus said:

@PrinceAragorn1 said:

How is fire storm going to kill a being of fire? and about water, he has already survived falling in it and snow.. Even hides of Dragons in HP were great protection against spell.. What use are they going to be when your opponent is a creature who withstood Gandalf's attacks and Killed him.. (Though he returned..)

Anyway, Guy with the third post, a godlike being in human form >>>>> An old man with crooked nose and half moon spectacles..

I wasn't aware of that little detail about dragon's hides in Harry Potter... I'm gonna go with the lesser demon god that was created for war against wizards and other gods.

Balrogs. Are. Not. Gods.

First off, there's no need to be a prick by strawmanning me and insulting me based on your inaccurate perception of my argument. I never said a Balrog is a reality warper. If you bothered to actually read what I wrote I said that no one knows what a Balrog is capable of. For all we know they could be reality warpers, fluffy bunnies, Sephiroth or just about anything else you could imagine because we don't know very much about them aside from the fact that they use weapons.

Second, there's no need to get all bent out of shape about terminology. Balrogs are lesser Ainur. Some Ainur, particularly beings like Aule, (who has the power to create a species) are probably more comparable to gods or archangels from other mythologies than anything else. I am not saying they're recognized as gods in LOTR. It's simply the easiest thing to make a comparison to.

Tolkien hierarchy. Gandalf wins.

Valar

Maiar

Elves

Dwarves, men, hobbits, orc

generally, people cannot beat those above them (1v1). However, in most cases, the upper third in a lower class can beat the lower third in an upper class. The lower third generally are those that have fallen (e.g. balrogs and morgoth [ungoliant and sauron are exceptions {Sauron retained his power, though sadly lacking in wisdom}]).

dumbledore

Lol at dumbledore's fire harming balrog.

Reading this thread it is really hitting just how nebulous "magic" in the LOTR-verse is.

Gandalf seemed crazy-powerful to me but in a reserved way. Heck, he has one of the three elven rings (I believe it grants him power over fire?). So does that make the balrog more or less impressive (given that it is a creature of smoke and flame) and managed to battle for days, smiting a mountain in the process?

Dumbledore

Since The Balrog can't die at all except but Eru he would win by default. Dumbledore might try to tp him away, but he would return granted it might take some time. Most people forget about the Balrogs travel speed aswell. They ran from Thangorodrim to Lammoth in a few minutes.that distance is more then 150 miles.

Avada kedavra would have 0 effect on it. It is stated in the Harry Potter wiki "Phoenixes are semi-protected from the Killing Curse, due to them being immortal. In 1996, Fawkes swallowed one intended for Albus Dumbledore, causing him to burst into flame and die instantly. However, he then was reborn from his ashes."

With that being said, Phoenixes reborn again but a Balrog is truly immortal.

You all asume harry potter spells will affect Tolkien demigods like they affect mortals in harry potterverse.

The likes of gandalf/balrog are magical demigods who are at a higher magical level than anything harryverse has.

@linark: Well Gandalf if might in the Books and movies since Manwe limited the Istari so that their aid against Sauron would be in advice and wisdom and not power. So Gandalf even if he seamed powerful in the books is nothing compared to his normal self. A Immortal "sheepherder" as the Valar was described as.

@lariend: Still, the only things that had a chance vs gandalf were magical beings like the Balrog or the Witchking.

And we are talking about dumbledore vs balrog. Gandalf may have been holding himself in the LOTR, but he went full power against the balrog, cause the balrog was an unexpected enemy he wanted to prevent facing. So he HAS the power, that he didnt used it in LOTR doesnt mean he doesnt have it. And a balrog almost defeated him. Considering how powerful magicwise demigods in Tolkiens universe are, i dont see how any Harryverse spell would even affect them.

Balrog probably wins, but I'm pretty sick of people promoting Tolkien's "demigods" as if they're so far above everything else.

@justleader: dumbledore isn't remotely close to gandalf in human form. Gandalf can still manipulate elements. Balrog stomps.

This guy has read the Silmarillion :). But seriously, it is incredibly hard to determine the strengths of the LOTR characters. I applaud you good sir: CLAP CLAP CLAP

@linark: Gandalf used all the power he could against the Balrog yes, but that is far from all the power Gandalf have in his full potential. Like i said the Istari came to middle earth with some off their power left in Valinor. This is something Gandalf could not change not even when he faced the Balrog. Gandalf got some off the power back after the fight with the Balrog. His mortal body was dead but his spirit went to Valinor and then came back cause his task wasn't done. Manwe then let him have a bit more off his power enough so he could throw down Sauroman but not much more.

But this isn't Dumbledore vs Gandalf (which Gandalf would have won since he being Immortal aswell) but Dumbledore vs the Balrog. And the thruth is there is nothing Dumbledore can do which would effect the the Balrog. He might be able to summon a dragon or other magic being that is extremely powerful in their universe. But the dragons in Harry Potter are mere chicken compared to the dragons in LOTR in which many cases (not all) the Balrog is more powerful.

@lariend: Didnt remembered exactly how Gandalf got some of his original power back when his mortal shell died, so thanks for the clarification.

Dementors could actually be killed with normal Harryverse spells apart from that big one Harry used? Cause if not that would proove their spells dont react the same way against powerfull magic beings.

@linark: According to Harry potters wiki Dementors could not be killed, or none where ever killed. you could only drive them away. but on the other hand no one tried the death kurse or similar spell to my knowledge the death eaters where allies with the Dementors and no one besides the death eators ever used the death kurse.

@lariend: Awww a pity. Wouldhave been a nice point if they had tried it. Still, dementors who are lets say "heavy magic creatures" are inmune to practically anything in harryverse then. We could use that when talking about Tolkien Maia

@whitewiz: Fucking idiot. Do you have enough braincells to understand no limits fallacy?

Though I agree that his argument is lacking, responding to an almost 3 years old comment with an insult and necroing a thread that hasn't been touched in 4 1/2 months in the process doesn't really make you seem intellectually superior.

Balrog wins.. Dumbledore isn't Gandalf lol...

Plus DD got oneshotted knocked out a window by another wizard blast...

Balrogs are very magic resistant There is nothing Dumbledore can do to harm the Balrog in any way.

I don't know Dumbledores feats, but I will go with the Balrog because it is immortal. You can't kill it with physical means, fire meant nothing to him. And I don't think the magic a human can use can really harm him.

As for feats, the Durin's bane Balrog singlehandedly cleaned out an entire Dwarven city, Moria. You might think "o well, he killed a bunch of dwarves, so what". But this was a dwarven city at the top of it's power, ruled by a leader wielding a ring of power, having tons of magical artifacts stored. And they were allied with elves, so they had access to their magic as well.

Nevertheless, the balrog murdered all of them save very few escapees. And he did it so fast that nobody really understood what happened before everyone was dead or chased away. It's a pretty strong feat IMO - I don't know many characters that singlehandledly cleaned out an entire very ressourceful city. Could Dumbledore kill every inhabitant in London for instance, including the magic wielders there?

But we don't know how the balrog did it, if he used some sort of telepathy or hacked/burned the dwarves to death with his sword.

So many people claiming Dumbledore could kill a Balrog because of the firestorm feat.

A fire storm.

To kill a Balrog.

A being literally made of fire.

Are you guys mentaly sane? Dumbledore's best feat is totally useless against a Balrog (also, OP should have specified what Balrog we're talking about, by at this point is clear we're talking about Durin's Bane). Other than that, Dumbledore hasn't show literally anything that could kill a Balrog. He could put up a fight, mostly take time, but I don't see any HP wizard able to deal the final blow.

Dumbledore, due to the only argument I see here is that you guys THINK balrog is immune to Dumbledore's magic, which is stupid, and illogical, and you have no way whatsoever to prove this ridiculous statement (some cross over I've never seen where harry fires magic at gandalf and it bounces off of him?). I also see the "well we don't know how strong or what a balrog is capable of", okay, so based on that he loses, because we can quantify dumbledores strength and abilities, therefore, based on the way we argue on the vine, he wins.

And what feat does a balrog have to show he can kill Dumbledore, what would it do, what abilities does it have? Once you tell me the answer, show me the source that proves it.

Here is a list of what Dumbledore (https://www.reddit.com/r/respectthreads/comments/3uamsg/respect_albus_dumbledore_harry_potter/) is capable of, show me yours on a Balrog that can counter this, which proves to you it is SO Far above Dumbledore that Dumbledore can't scratch it? Please show me something that is sourced at the very least, and don't tell me "it's like a god, it might be this or that.." I don't care what it might be, show me the facts like I've shown you.

Yeah this feat is meaningless, he cleared it out, oh but some survived.. so he didn't clear it out, also show me the source here, I want to see what is said in regard to this situation exactly, not your interpretation of it. No evidence that they had elven magic either, maybe elven garb, not their magic though, elves didn't live there, and dwarves can't do elven magic.

He cleared it in the sense that the Balrog killed all bar a few that then escaped.

The door to Moira worked with elven magic, it seems unlikely this was the ONLY thing using elven magic in the entire city.

Balrog

That depends if we are using movie Balrog or composite Balrog. With movie Balrog Dumbledore takes the majority but I think that Composite Balrog would win against Dumbledore.

Composite Balrog kills him without an effort, and lol at Dumbledore being more powerful than Gandalf.

That dude is probably universal ( along with all the other Ainurs ) before the creation . And yes, he's actually not a old man.

Lol, the wank for lotr, these "gods" are essentially featless against real magic like the hp universe, gandalf throws fiery pinecones and blows stuff up sometimes, just lol - Dumbledore wins 7/10

@snikt_bamf: lol, basing arguments off assumptions is not what we do here.. new to the vine?

Dumbledore takes it out with a bigger fire.

You seem to be knowledgeable on the LotR lore, and I appreciate that, it's rare in the CV community. But I do think you don't give Balrog and other Maia nearly enough credit. We have plenty of feats to judge the extent of their power and the role in the Tolkienverse. Even Balrog himself (and I don't mean entire Balrog species, but the durin's bane specifically, as it's probably what OP has in mind) has plenty of feats that allow us to properly scale him.

First, Balrog as Maia is super old, experienced and wise. He also helped Eru and the Valar's create the world. Yes you mentioned it, and I don't see why would you dismiss it. They literally took part in shaping the moutains, carving the valleys, filling the oceans etc. which should be treated as moutain to continental level reality warping.

The reason why you should not dismiss this feat, is because Balrog's, to the contrast of Wizards, were not bound or limited in any way after creation. There is no proof that their power after creation was anyhow restricted or changed, so they should be treated as capable of repeating that. To the contrary, according to Silmarillion and Tolkien letters, Balrog's were Maia who received a BUFF from Morgoth, who was sharing his own power with his most powerful minions.

Next, when it comes to Durin's Bane specifically, he was single handedly responsible for the fall of Kingdom of Moria. Meaning, he killed Durin and decimated the Moria in it's entirety, to the point of dwarves leaving the mines altogether. The reason why this is impressive, is because Moria was said openly to be the most powerful Kingdom of dwarves to ever exist. So we can easily scale their might to the Iron Hills army, Blue Moutain's army, the last dwarf alliance army and even prime Erebor's army all of which have their own feats. Not only that, but Moria dwarves had a nearly unlimited source of mithril and were known for making dwarf armor and weapons from this material. So not only was Moria army one of the most powerful armies in the Tolkien universe, it was also by far the best armed army in the lore, period. In other words Balrog can murder, tens of thousands of mithril-armed dwarves, in their own well protected mines, single handedly. Which makes Balrog (Durin's Bane) a superhuman large army buster. And, of course, he can also bust a much more powerful, single and magic-wielding individual, such as wizard Gandalf, whom Balrog killed (stalemated, I guess)

Next, we have Balrog's magic. We know Balrog's have pyrokinesis, as they can, for example conjure flaming weapons and burst their bodies into flames. Rather obvious, but this ability is featured in the books, not just in the movies, so it's worth mentioning. Fire aside, they can use the words of power, similarly to wizards. Words of power are used frequently throughout LotR. They are used to order around both living and even inanimate things to behave according to bidding of the caster, and are, I guess, a combination of TK and reality alteration. We know this thanks to lesser known Gandalf versus Balrog event, so called battle at the doors. Right before the Khazad-dum bridge fight happens, Gandalf tries to initially seal the door by using the word of power (he commands the doors to remain closed no matter what). When Balrog tries to pass through the door from the other side, he recognizes that the door obeys Gandalf's spell (I guess you could add another ability here, which is ability to sens magic and recognize type of magic that's being used), and then he counters Gandalfs spell with his own, and the door breaks torn between the two wills of the casters, along with the ceiling above it.

Additionally, similarly to many powerful evil beings, the Balrog has the power to break the will/morale/courage etc. of his opponents, with his mere evil presence, which is a very potent TK hax, especially that it even worked on very resilient, immortal creatures such us experienced elf warriors Legolas, who faced countless evil and powerful monsters as a top hunter in Mirkwood, was resistant to the similar spell covering the cursed moutain of the dead in Dunharrow etc. and yet was not able to fire a shot at Balrog from terror when he faced him.

Next, Balrog's should be capable of flight with his wings (yes, Balrog's do have wings... I don't know how is that debatable, they are literally described in that chapter. And well, if they aren't really wings, but shadow constructs OF wings... then it's all the better for Balrog, because we can add a shadow constructs/manipulation to his list of powers...), or at least leaping great distances with them (Balrog was able to leap across a massive firey pit that trolls were trying to build a bridge across...

Also also, Balrog's durability and stamina requires attention. Notice that he was able to survive a fall from the Khazad Dum bridge to the deepest void on the earth. And it doesn't even matter if he landed in water or not. From a distance this huge, a fall into water is no different than a fall into concrete. Next, after hitting the "bottom of the world", he got up, and proceeded to climb the freakin tallest moutain on the planet from that point. That's an equivallent of Balrog surviving a fall to an empty Mariana Trench and than climbing Mt. Everest from the bottom, immediately, without stopping once to catch a breath. That's a testament to insane superhuman durability, vastly exceeding 100+ ton kinetic energy class, and seemingly unending stamina. As for Balrog's strength, he has at least enough power to set his own body flying with a strike (it happened. When Balrog takes a swing at Gandalf, Gandalf blocks the strikes and Balrog i actually send flying and drops flat on the ground from the force of his own blow) and Balrog's must be insanely heavy, considering that Balrog's fall, in Gandalf's own words, crushed an entire moutain side. So Balrog's should be at least in massive multitonsuper strength range, likely 100+. They also have to possess vastly superhuman speed and reflexes, since despite their large body size and mass, they are still able to compete in CQC with incredibly small and agile creatures, even in large numbers, such as dwarves, wizards etc.

Here's a brief summary:

- superhuman durability (100+)

- superhuman strength (100+)

- unending stamina

- vastly superhuman speed and reflexes

- flight/super leaps

- telepathy hax (exceeding low superhuman resistance)

- reality warping hax (moutain to continental level)

- words of power (ability to command lesser objects and living creatures according to his will)

- pyrokinesis

- *possibly shadow constructs/manipulation

- ancient age, experience and knowledge

- top power/skill feats include superhuman large army busting and killing a powerful wizard, Gandalf


How is this NOT enough to kill Dumbledore? Who has not nearly as impressive feats when it comes to reality warping, tk, energy projection and all other types of magic/hax, on top of being a REGULAR, hell even ELDERLY HUMAN in every sense of the word? (human level strength, speed, reflexes, durability, stamina etc)?

And on top of all that, let's just add the fact that HP magic has a very hard time putting down large beasts. Apparently spells used by HP wizards have a lot of limitations, based on how large the creature is (even person as big as Hagrid was more resistant to spells, and giants/dragons were basically immune), how powerful it is (Moody said that over a dozen lesser wizards wouldn't be able to give him a nosebleed with a combined avada kedavra) etc. Balrog seems like a very tough opponent to any HPverse wizards. Since he is basically a low tier god of massive size and enormous magic power, I doubt any HP spells should be even properly working on him at all. Not to mention, moves like words of power, reality warping or his passive TK terror aura should be able to one shot Dumbledore right away, before any spells are cast.

Balrog stomps, borderline spite to be honest.