Voldemort vs Grindelwald

I'm surprised this isn't in the battle thread. So ... here it goes ...

You need a few details about the battle.

A straight duel with regular wands? This is a good fight, a really good fight. This is one that I've thought about many times.

Dumbledore was able to defeat both of them, he defeated Grindelwald while Grindelwald held the Elder Wand; on the other hand he handily defeated Voldemort while restraining LeStrange and Harry all at the same time. We know that neither can defeat Dumbledore but which is the lower feat; losing to him while holding the Elder Wand or losing to him while he restrains two other people at the same time?

Details: They are both in their primes. Grindelwald has the Elder Wand (let's say Dumbledore never got it) and Voldemort has his standard wand with no horcruxes.

Grindelwald IMO. Close and hard to judge though. Only because he has the elder wand.

Voldemort. Grindewald has almost no feats.

Voldemort, he was often said to be the most powerful Dark Lord in history, a title Gellert previously held.

I would love to see Dumbledore kicking arse in his prime.

Grindelwald. Dumbledore was just a shade better than him, while dumbledore >> voldemort.

well, that's because grindelwald stayed away from the country dumbledore was in - smart, if you ask me. Dumbledore only fought him when it was established that he was unstoppable.

Grindelwald won. Voldemort killed Grindelwald because Grindelwald was old.

And Grindelwald have the Elder Wand(or Wand of Wands, if you prefer) and can fight Dumbledore one-in-one. Voldemort lose to Dumbledore.

prime Dumbledore beat Grindelwald with the elder wand in a slight victory. Old dumbledore (who admitted he was far past his prime) beat voldemort while restraining two people(although he had elder wand here). If both had elder wand or both had normal wand i would say grindlewald would win both.

Grindelwald battled for hours with Dumbledore, meaning they were extremely close. While Dumbledore could not finish off Voldemort in the Ministry of Magic, I attribute that mostly to him having to deal with Harry being there too. Although, I have reason to believe D was holding back vs G because of their friendship, so he was looking to incapacitate him, not kill.

Grindelwald wins, but with extreme difficulty.

Grindelwald wins. There aren't any evidence that Dumbledore vs. Voldemort >>> Dumbledore vs. Grindelwald. Grindelwald = Dumbledore. Dumbledore >> Voldemort. Meaning Grindewald >> Voldemort.

Voldemort by feats, although Grindelwald has better hype, by people whose opinions actually matter.

Voldy wins.He could match Albus in a fight with the elder wand to the point where Fawkes had to eat a curse so Albus could live.In addition he can fly. Even Albus can't do that .Snape mentions how Albus was shaken from the fight in book 6.

Grindelwald lost to Albus *despite* the elder wand and Albus possibly holding back .

Where? From reading it Dumbleore wasn't really struggling (and one of his statues could have tanked Voldie's AK had it not been protecting Harry). Or he could dodging it with teleportation, which he has done.

@thegrayghost: Dumbledore had to make sure Harry was safe when he was fighting Voldie, so he did not go all out for that fight either.

@alphaq: Spinners end . When talking to Narcissa and Bellatrix . He mentions the horcrux ring injury as a separate issue .

The statue thing seems implausible given a) he was out of statues cept the ones pinning Bellatrix and Harry and b) it was a 2 pronged attack ( snake + curse)

He *could have* done a lot of things but fact is he needed Fawkes as back up for this one . Voldy didn't need Nagini to eat curses for him for instance

All in all Tom was matching him with the freakin elder wand despite wanting a quick win + escape till he decided to possess Harry

@cpt_nice: Eh Dumbledore didn't seem unduly concerned till he possesed Harry . To that point after his appearance he never once directly attacked Harry during the duel

Grindelwald can win here

@thegrayghost: He was lieing. He says right after that Dumbledore was getting weaker with age and acquired his burnt hand in a fight. It seems to me that he wanted to explain Dumbledore's injuries in a way that would appeal to Voldemort and hs posse;that Dumbledore was a weakening old man and Voldemort was the stronger of the two. I mean otherwise Voldemort might reslise that Dumbledore had been fiddling with his horcruxes. And from what we saw of the fight Dumbledore was not that pressured tbh.

He sent two other statues into the Floo Network at the start of the fight , to get Fudge, so that is four statues that he had removed from the fight beforehand. Anyone of them could have shielded him in Fawkes place. And he has shown by feats that he can time Voldemort's spells. He could, by feats, have done without Fawkes.

I honestly think that the Elder Wand is overrated in verse, it's desugned to be a trap, so IMO it does just enough to be able to create this hype, nowhere near it's vaunted 'invincability'.

Tom tbh.

@alphaq: Eh maybe about the lying bit

He showed himself capable of dealing with one curse at a time , not two attacks at the same time . He *could* have maybe done without Fawkes but "based on feats", he lacks feats to suggest he could have survived both the attacks at the same time

Also about the statues, Voldemort used shields alone to block or counter curses so really ....pointing out the lack of environment cover doesn't exactly help Albus' case if he is ultimately someone who needs the environment to beat Voldy

As for the Elder wand , nobody had beaten an Elder wand user in direct combat like ever to the point where Harry, a fairly average wizard who was Pwned by Snape , could beat someone who could thrash 3 Snape level wizards at the same time with a malfunctioning wand because of how the elder wand worked : he ultimately had both wands in the duel working for him

Harry, again a fairly average wizard , could repair his own wand with the Elder wand when Ollivander , the greatest wand expert of his age couldn't

I don't think its a stretch to say the Elder Wand is the most powerful wand in the series by far and actually beating someone in a straight up duel with the wand as opposed to only stalemating the other in a straight up duel while *weilding* the wand ,puts one clearly above the other

Voldemort. Grindelwald lost to a younger Dumbledore without the Elder Wand. Voldemort stalemated an older more experienced Dumbledore with the Elder Wand which was supposed to be unbeatable, and guarantee it's wielder victory in any duel.

Bump due to Fantastic Beast feats

Grindelwald battled Dumbledore in his prime, who was the most powerful wizard of his age. Voldemort could not kill Dumbledore whilst Dumbledore was an old man and was protecting Harry. So Grindelwald takes this.

@thegrayghost: Voldemort never really stalemated Dumbledore. It wasn't as much a fight as Dumbledore defending himself and Harry and keeping Riddle at bay. Voldemort even noted himself that one of the curses Dumbledore fired at him wasn't meant to kill and wondered why he was holding back.

Dumbledore was never worried and didn't HAVE to be saved by Faux. Dumbledore let Faux take the curse because he new the Phoenix would simply be reborn which he did straight away. If we wanna look at how skilled Albus is, just take into account the fact that he could control take control of fiend fire from another wizard, a type of magic that is so wild and uncontrollable and powerful that it can destroy Horcruxes. That alone is considered impossible to do.

Is it possible to ask JK Rowling this question so it can be resolved, also in my opinion I think Voldemort is stronger.

I always thought Grin was stronger due to his clearly better performance against Dumbledore. So I'm going with him.

Aside from mentions of past battles, I'll side with Voldemort for now. In terms of shown feats, Voldemort is more impressive than Grindelwald(though I love the scene where he's trying to solo the American aurors, wish the protagonist didn't stop him... would have been amazing to see him in full action). I hope we get more prequel novels/movies to see more of him, especially the fight with Dumbledoore(that's probably going to be one of the most bad-ass fights in the series)

Voldemort wins in a close fight. The books do seem to make it clear that Grindelwald has always ranked second when it comes to most dangerous/feared dark wizards.

Didn't Grindelwald also build his prison Nurmengard thinking it would be impossible to break into or out of. And voldemort seemed to do that pretty effortlessly.

Gridewald, IMO. He fought a much stronger Dumbledore in a battle which laster hours. Though he did have elder wand. Voldermort on the other hand was completely manhandled by Dumbledore.

@terminator2938: This is not a dark arts magical contest. In a duel, Grindelwand was portrayed as clearly superior imo. He was legimately giving Albus the most hell of a fight, the "Battle of the Century". Voldie didn't even come close to beating him and was defeated in much, much less time.

Also, the Fantastic Beasts movie would be considered canon to the books right? Because Grindewald was holding off dozen of Aurors at same time, taking them down one by one. Voldermort is nowhere as capable.

@anthp2000: But he was doing so with the elder wand, whilst Voldemort fought against Dumbledore and the elder wand. And you have to consider that mentally Dumbledore may not have been at 100% considering he was fighting his former best friend, and as JK Rowling's suggested perhaps even former lover.

I also feel a battle of this nature between the 2 most powerful wizards in the world would be sure to get over-hyped and exaggerated through the years.

I don't know who would win, but in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Grindelwald seemed pretty impressive. In one scene he lifted a 1920's car (maybe a 1925 Buick?) with HIS HAND (wandless magic) and threw it at a high speed towards Tina Goldstein.

Yep. I was kinda pissed that they were showing Graves do powerful effortless wandless magic when even top wizards in HP verse can't do it. It all made sense with final reveal.

The script is definitely canon since it's written by J.K., though I wouldn't say what we see onscreen is necessarily canon. Not sure if she's spoken about it yet.

Haha, I was thinking "Damn, this auror is waaaaay too powerful :o".

Bump.

No they don't. Non-British wizards still don't really know much about Voldemort and I can remember one even asking who he was. He never got big outside Britain. Even if we look at their influence on the Wizarding World, the entire world was scared of Grindelwald and IMO the books seem to be implying that he sparked WW2

Grindelwald.

When was this? Are you sure he wasn't just asking who Harry was?

JKR implied that wizarding and Muggle wars 'fuel each other', it wasn't solely due to Grindelwald, but it is significant that the year of his defeat coincided with the end of the war IIRC.

@alphaq: I think it was during the Quiddich World Cup that somebody didn't know who the Death Eaters were. Im not positive though, although I am positive that it was said that Voldemort never got much influence outside Britain

@decaf_wizard: I see. I'll have a look.

Looking at that chapter, the wizards at the Cup lost their heads when the Dark Mark appeared and there were lots of foreign wizards there, so maybe that's indicative of wider influence.

@decaf_wizard: are you thinking of krum mentioning how grindelwald never made it to Britain because of Dumbledore? Although that's in the 7th book.