What about the Signs aliens ? At least Voldy won’t die if you pee or spit on him.
You clearly do not appreciate the power of the Unforgivable Curses. Ignoring completely that a wizard so inclined could, I assure, cast the Killing Curse before you could even draw your pistol, either the Imperius Curse or the Cruciatus Curse would be excellent ways of making you decide to use that pistol on yourself.
Well, if manipulating others comes into play then it’s pretty clear:
- The Emperor was undisputed ruler of thousands of worlds.
- He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had the power of putting others under his absolute mental control, but at best was an outlaw who didn’t even control the government of a single island (which was led by even-more inbred and ineffective dolts, as Smiling Bandit put it).
This difference in political skills is clear in their final confrontations: the Emperor almost succeeds in turning his biggest enemy into an ally and minion, while V---- can only think about killing in blind anger.
But there are people with guns in the Potterverse. The Muggles have them- we know this because, when Sirius Black escaped from Azkaban, the wizarding community warned the Muggles about him, but said he was armed with a gun. Clearly the Muggle community in the Potterverse is familiar with guns, even if the wizards aren’t.
If anyone with a gun could have killed Voldemort, you’d think that someone in the wizarding world would have called in the Muggle police or army, or just a sympathetic Muggle (some wizard’s Muggle spouse, parent, or sibling, maybe?), and had them do the job. Or some Muggle friend or relative of a wizard killed by Voldemort might have taken it upon themselves to inflict some vigilante justice on Voldemort, or at least on some of his Death Eaters.
No, he can’t. You can draw a pistol, aim, and fire at close range (which is where they use all their spells) and kill Voldemorte before he says anything, or even concentrates and mentally casts the spell. It would take practice, and you’d prefer to have it at ahnd, but the hand is quicker than the tongue. or the mind.
But anyway…
I think what Palpatine would actually do, if this isn’t a “fight to the death” style battle, is subvert Voldemort. Let’s be blunt here, Voldemort is a moron. He’s about as threatening as an irritated loser in his mama’s basement - yes, he’s dangerous if he get’s his hands on a gun and goes ona random rampage, but his sole strength is stealth and the fact that his opponents are traditionally even dumber than he is.
Palpatine, on the other hand, is a scheming genius who was finally killed in a clash between almighty cosmic powers by a (to him) shocking event. Not only did someone resist the temptations of the dark side, but Vader actually came back from it. And let’s face it: Vader was more or less Palpatine’s yes-man. Oh, he chomped at the bit and had some minor rebellions over the years, but he’s Sith Lord. Palpatine was expecting Vader to try assassinating him or taking command of the armies of the Empire, not turning on the Dark Side itself over some punk.
Palpatine would fake defeat and offer his oh-so-baluable services. He woudl appear to be a loyal, helpful servant in exchange for his "master’s favor. he would also study everything about Harry Potter magic, infiltrate the weaknesses in Voldemort’s plans, take the loyalty of key figures and establish a seperate but totally hidden power base, and take over.
I predict it will take Palpatine all of a month of two.
And as far as the Unforgivable Curses goes…
Imperio: We’ve already seen that you CAN resist it. Palpatine has more mental strength than everyone in Harry Potter and their cousins put together.
Cruciatus: What else do we know of which causes uncontrollable, mind-blowing pain? Force Lightning. What does palpatine take a face-full of and barely twitch a muscle? Force Lightning. Sure, he didn’t like it. But he took it like a man when everyone else folded like a paper napkin.
Death: This is an interesting one. In Harry Potter, we know of only one thing which can stop it outright. However, Voldemort does use it in a couple of places, where the target doesn’t actually get hit. It’s not pretty when it hits other things, but it’s no good if the target dodges. We’ve also seen that people managed to counter it with sufficient power. A Lightsaber won’t reflect it, of course, but I think a Lightsaber would cancel it much like it soaks up Force Lightning. Likewise,
Because of this, I think this is actually the weakness in Voldemort’s arsenal. Voldemort has a lot of very versatile, cool attack spells. He won’t use them, because he’ll be too busy trying Death spells at first. And Palpatine will, if necessary, jut dodge the damn thing. Sure, he can’t see the far future that clearly. But he can certainly dodge a ranged attack - Jedi do it all the time.
Now, it’s true that Palpatine can’t fully get rid of Voldemort just by killing him. However, Palpatine knows that mighty Dark Wizards don’t just stop trying to kill when they die. So he’ll be ready for Voldemort and probably try to imprison him with the Dark Side fo the Force. Or something. Maybe make a few Holocrons in his honor or something.
All in all, I give Palpatine a 70-30 odds in a direct confrontation. He’s probvably too fast and aggressive for a smug prick like Voldemort. In the long run, I’d have to give it Palpatine 99.999999-.0000001 odds.
Actually, to make your point even stronger, Palpatine *wasn’t * finally killed by Vader’s action, at least not in the Star Wars Extended Universe. (I’m so sorry I know that).
Also, bear in mind the Voldy got his ass handed to him by an untrained teenager four times. It took a doulbe team combined with a betrayl to take down Palpy
Bingo. It’s not strictly that Voldemort is an idiot, it’s that he has no imagination to speak of. Potterverse magic is much more flexible in application than the Force, and a genuinely clever wizard would use that to his advantage. Voldie is not such a wizard. I don’t think he’d actually go for a frontal assault, because he’s also a sniveling coward. I would imagine that he’d try repeatedly to lure Palpatine into traps (a less-than-stellar tactic against someone who’s both smarter than you and prescient). Eventually, Palpatine would track him down and burn him just to put an end to the annoyance.
If we were picking a wizard from the Potterverse to go up against Palpatine, there are much better choices. Dumbledore, Snape, and McGonagall spring to mind.
He’s not actually an old man, but he’s certainly in very bad shape from a couple of decades in the suit. Although the suit itself would help him rather than hindering him, as it’s undoubtedly stronger than he is.
Well, to be fair, it took a betrayal to help bring Voldy down, too.
Ehhh… Kinda.
The problem is that Voldemort has notihg but magic. He may have a brilliant mind, but he doesn’t use it. It was obvious that Snape was not his man. I knew there was no such possibility for definite in book 3. And that information was available to Voldy if he chose to use it. Certainly he would have known that by book 6, if he’d tried to gather information rather than going about half-cocked.
But he’s too reliant on his magic. He’s mroe powerfult han anyone else, and he just assumes it will work, even though he knows there are defences and counters. That’s really, really bad judgment, and in fact it got him killed.
Twice. 
Let’s not pat Palpatine to hard on the back here. His grand plan was to have a mental deficient rasta-mollusk call for a vote of no confidence of the current ruler. Which in no sane universe should have worked.
The force grants only a few powers, physical enhancement (jumping and the like), post and retro-cognition (including esp, the parry blaster bolts, and pod racing abilities), telekinesis and mental domination (screwing with perceptions and mind control). Do they even do anything else but those broad categories?
Magic can do anything. I’m no expert on Pottermagic but it seems the vast utility of spells make it more of a force to be feared. With shapeshifting and other utility magics, it seems like you’d have a lot of possibilities.
Voldemort does seem like a one-trick pony, where with his self-proclaimed vast magical skill he still kills everyone with plain ol’ Avada Kedavra. But if he faces someone he truly fears and respects (pretty much no one besides Dumbledore) then he rolls up his sleeves and breaks out the fancy light show. If he thought of Palpatine as a worthy opponent, he’d put some real effort into it. Force telekinesis could ward off some of it, but given what was described in the battle scene in book 5, Palpy would probably be overcome. Knowing what’s coming isn’t going to help if you’re completely surrounded by fiend fire.
But direct confrontation isn’t Palpy’s style. He’d reason with Voldy to join forces with him. Then, in secret, train another apprentice (like, hmm…how about, Peter Petrelli? Peter’s dumb enough to go along with it) then pit them against each other. Or he’d just kill him in his sleep like he did with his old master.