The wizarding world is home to some of the most dastardly villains in fiction. Lord Voldemort traumatized the ‘Harry Potter’ series. A hell-bent psychopathic on deceiving death forever, he waged war on the wizards and nearly tore apart Hogwarts from the inside. Before Voldemort’s time, there was a dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald, obsessed with the Deathly Hallows. He wanted to conquer the entire wizarding world and nearly succeeded.
Both the dark wizards were expelled from their schools – Grindleward from Durmstrang and Voldemort from Hogwarts – for practicing dark arts. The goal of both the antagonists was the same – to conquer the magic world. But one did it out of fear of death and the other did it to impose power over muggles – non-magic folk. Sadly, Lord Voldemort killed Grindleward to access the location of the Elder Wand.
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The Powers And Madness Of Voldemort And Grindelwald
This is the most exciting comparison between the antagonists from two different timelines: ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Fantastic Beasts‘, who sold their souls to the dark arts. Both were followed by a huge army of people, who believed in them or were scared of them. But which wizard villain is the most powerful? Let’s compare them.
1. The Fear Of Death
Right here, Gellert Grindelwald won the battle. He never feared death, unlike Voldemort. Instead, he was progressive and open to death – as he knew the consequences of his actions. Grindelwald never wished to stay immortal despite this knowledge of dark arts. Even when Voldemort infiltrated Nurmengard to threaten Grindelwald’s life for the location of the Elder wand, he refused to give up very well knowing the circumstances – getting killed.
On the other hand, Voldemort was scared of death- which led him to create Horcruxes. Splitting one soul into seven objects just to stay immortal is an excessive fear of Death. Any great and powerful wizard should not be afraid of death, instead, face it bravely, that is how one can truly master the ‘Deathly Hallows’.
2. Resistance From Legilimency
In the wizarding world, legilimency allows a wizard to see into another person’s mind, reading their thoughts. The opposite of it is Occlumency, which was used to shield one’s mind from the invasion and influence of legilimens. The founders of the Hogwarts House enchanted this very spell in the Sorting Hat.
Apart from Queenie Goldstein from the ‘Fantastic Beasts’ franchise, Lord Voldemort is known to be the most powerful Legilimens of all time. After Grindelwald was arrested and thrown into a jail cell, he became susceptible to Voldemort, who was desperate to find the Elder Wand. However, Grindelwald was able to resist Voldemort and did not reveal the location of the Elder Wand as his final act of redemption.
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3. Death Eaters Vs. Acolytes
What Death Eaters were to Lord Voldemort, similarly Acolytes were to Gellert Grindelwald. Both the dark wizards have their own army of loyal followers who blindly respect their leaders. Unlike the Death Eaters, the Acolytes were a more loyal group of followers because of a clever test set forth by the dark wizard.
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Grindelwald is known for his intelligence and cunningness, he used a circle of protective fire to test the loyalty of those who claimed to pledge themselves to him. Something Lord Voldemort would have considered doing if he were smart and not driven by mere instinct. Many of the Death Eaters defected from Voldemort or crossed him, while Grindelwald weeded out those who were skeptical with his fire test that killed anyone with second thoughts.
4. Horcrux
Although the dark wizards’ quest was to acquire the elements to become the master of death. One chose a relatively easy and dark method to become immortal: creating Horcrux. Despite being Dark magic, it requires being extremely powerful and patient and more importantly, having a loyal ally like Nagini.
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The Horcruxes threatened Harry and his friends on multiple occasions Even if someone were to destroy all the Horcruxes, they would still have to duel Voldemort himself, who was more than a capable wizard. The Horcruxes made destroying Voldemort an impossible task. Only the most determined of wizards attempted it. Ultimately Harry tends to do it, a mere 17-year-old.
5. Persuasiveness
Grindelwald is known to be a master of speech. When he was imprisoned by the Ministry of Magic, the first thing they did was cut out his tongue because of how persuasive he was. When Grindelwald got out and began gathering followers across Europe, that silver tongue became transparent. He had charismatic speeches about the true rights of both wizards and muggles.
While Voldemort has proven to be persuasive to gain all sorts of followers, there were people who knew he was evil and joined him anyway. Those that battled alongside Grindelwald felt that they were fighting for the greater good. That made his followers potentially more terrifying.
6. Elder Wand Command
In the very first movie of the ‘Harry Potter’ franchise, Garrick Ollivander says that it’s the wand that chooses the wizard. This is quite evident throughout the series of Harry Potter and Fantastic Beast. We see the Elder wand in possession under Harry, Albus Dumbledore, Lord Voldemort, Severus Snape, Gellert Grindelwald, and Draco Malfoy for a little time. But only a few among those were the real owner of the wand.
Voldemort was an extraordinary wizard, but the Elder Wand never obeyed him. It answered only Harry. Grindelwald, on the other hand, was the master of the Elder Wand at the time. In ‘Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald‘, he was shown to conjure spells that most wizards would never even dream of achieving. It took multiple Aurors and sorcerers to fight off his deadly fire spell at the end of the film. Voldemort had power, but not the power of the Elder Wand.
The Conclusion
It is very obvious that Gellert Grindelwald is a powerful dark wizard when compared to Lord Voldemort. One can argue that Voldemort successfully killed Grindelwald, but that is because he was stripped of his powers. Anyone can win against the weak. Voldemort was also afraid of Dumbledore, when you are afraid of something you cannot stand a chance against it.
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Grindelwald was smart, intelligent, and also cunning and knew how to wisely use his power and power of speech. But Voldemort was driven was sheer ego, fear, and haste that he only took decisions instantly without thinking about the future. A villain along with being a badass should also be genius, charismatic, and have great leadership skills. Lord Voldemort lacked all the above qualities and lost with a mere boy of 17 years.
