I finally completed reading the Harry Potter series last night.
I’m curious how Voldemort would hold up against Gandalf or other very powerful wizards of other series.
Voldemort, IMO, wants to be a lich without the messy part of semi-dying. He’s a powerful wizard – but at the end of the day, he’s still a Human magus, who requires a wand to perform most magic.
Gandalf is an Istari, a semi-divine being in a mortal avatar. It seems to me the Killing Curse would at best disrupt his avatar. It also STM that Gandalf doesn’t require his staff, though having it does help.
Raistlin from Dragonlance would wipe the floor with the both of 'em… at the same time. He did after all take on a God, and would have won if he hadn’t quit.
Along the same lines, Elminster from the Forgotten Realms novels could wipe both of them as well.
On the other hand, I’m sure there’s volumes of internet nerd-rage over who would win between Raistlin and Elminster that I’m going to do myself the favor of not looking up.
Richard Rahl’s proven ability in book after book to pull new powers he never knew he had out of his ass, and that are exactly the powers needed, means that he will inevitably triumph over any opponent.
Raistline wipes the floor with Voldemort and then teaches how pathetic he is at being evil.
Elminster then points out that Raistlin, being an early edition wizard who never got an update, has jack-all above low-level spells (because back then you could beat up Gods with a decent fireball. And Elminster has ludicrously high levels.
Then Gandalf strides in, points out that fourth edition spell-slingers are pussies, stares them all down at once while they cry home to mama. He finshes it by handing the title over to Merlin, who persuaded Gandalf to go put the fix on thsoe losers.
While he’s not technically a wizard, I’m pretty sure that Rand al’Thor of the Wheel of Time series would kick the ass of everyone that’s been mentioned and anyone that could conceivably be mentioned. Not only is he crazy powerful, he’s also just plain crazy.
In principle, Gandalf the Maia incarnate ought to be able to trounce any human wizard. In practice, though, when did Gandalf ever do anything that badass in combat, other than an off-camera battle with a Balrog in which he got himself killed for a while.
In contrast, Voldemort made himself basically unkillable unless you could destroy the six thingamajigs, and tossed around instant death spells left and right.
Gandalf would probably still win, but he’d do it by sending some Hobbit version of Harry Potter on a quest, not with straightforward ass kicking.
Since “Mary Sue” is used so broadly as to be fairly meaningless, no. Eliminate all the characters who get slapped with that label by someone and all you’ll have left are the characters too obscure or dull for anyone to care.
Only to find that they beat him back home and very firmly told him to play nice if he wants to be invited in for tea. (You don’t really outsmart an Angel of the Lord who cannot be bound by time, space, or dimension.)
Chuck Norris would kick Batman’s, Voldemort’s, Gandalf’s, and all the rest’s collective asses. All at once. Then, he’d succumb to The Most Interesting Man In The World from the Dos Equis commercial.
But I think we can all agree that Gandalf the Grey and Gandalf the White and “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”'s Black Knight and Benito Mussolini and The Blue Meanie and Cowboy Curtis and Jambi the Genie Robocop, the Terminator, Captain Kirk, and Darth Vader Lo Pan, Superman, every single Power Ranger Bill S. Preston and Theodore Logan, Spock, The Rock, Doc Ock, and Hulk Hogan combined could kick Chuck Norris’s cowboy ass, right?
Probably . . . But Harry Dresden v. Voldemort would be a more interesting matchup. That is, Harry before he became the Winter Knight and acquired faerie-backup and god-level powers.