Dumbledore or Gandalf

Yes, but when your entire house is on fire, flinging one cupful of water on the flames isn't going to get you anywhere.

This made me laugh so freaking hard. A battle to the death, and one of the combatants uses tickling charms? And there's still a question that Gandalf would win?

Sounds like a perfectly sound argument to me.

When have we seen an adult wizard (and the kind of uncontrolled magic children do is different) perform magic without a wand? And as DW said, goblin/elvish magic is not the same thing as wizard magic, either. This whole assumption is false.

I actually disagree that occlumency and legilimency could be used in battle. Or rather, I think someone could potentially try it, but it would take up so much of that person's concentration that it would leave him vulnerable to attack. And from Snape's impatient explanations to Harry, I don't think legilimency works the way that we often see telepathy. You can study the object's mind and from flashes of emotions and memories piece together what you're looking for, but, at least the way I understood it, legilimency does not allow you to simply put two fingers to your temple and know every thought flashing through the object's head in the instant it's happening. And who even knows if legilimency would work on a non-human mind anyway.

And I kinda thought Voldemort was able to possess Harry because Harry had a piece of his soul in him, yes? So I dunno how that translates to Dumbledore being able to possess Gandalf, unless Dumbledore tried the Imperius curse, but I think it obvious that Gandalf would be too powerful for it to hold. I dunno, maybe I'm misunderstanding this point here.

In some cases, depending on the rules of the universe in question. But if Gandalf is immortal, no matter how good Dumbledore is, he won't be able to kill him for good, surely not by himself. Dumbledore can keep on knocking him back, but he's only a human and eventually he'll get tired and slip up. I would think he would need the aid of a being higher than Gandalf to finish the job, and there is no equivalent in the HP universe.

And lastly, lol at the people voting for Dumbledore because they don't like or never watched/read LOTR. That's the only way he'll win this poll.

 

If a 14 year old boy wizard can resist the Imperius curse and later train his pals to do it, too, I reckon a 2000+ year old angel would have no problem with it.

Because I'm geeky and proud (and my Potter books are on the shelf across from me), a quote to prove you wrong...

Wandless magic where now? And if you're referring to a scene from the movie, well, the movies are full of inaccuracies and inconsistencies with the canon books.

As for the other scenes you mentioned, since they don't involve Dumbledore I'm not going to get into them, but I think it suffices to say that just because the page doesn't spell out that a character is pointing his wand at something doesn't mean he isn't doing so (i.e. it's obvious to me from reading the scene that Lupin used his wand to cast the fire spell, even though Harry couldn't see him do it, it being dark and all), and the movies throw in all kinds of crap that wouldn't actually happen in canon (Voldemort hugging Draco, anyone?) because it looks good on screen, so movie magic shouldn't really count for the purpose of this debate. Not to mention there's still the quote mentioned by DW on the last page of JKR confirming that the wizards rely on their wands to perform magic. Can't escape that little fact. JKR is god.

As for goblins and elves, I dunno why this is relevant, because Dumbledore is neither of those.

Except he's not human. Just because he has a humanoid appearance doesn't make him so. There are humans in Middle Earth and Gandalf is clearly something more than them.

This. Even if simply dousing the Balrog in water could defeat him, I seriously doubt one wizard could produce enough water to subdue it. And it's not like the Balrog is gonna just stand there and let the wizard get on with it. I also agree with noz about the Balrog's flames being more dark and infernal than the kind you produce with a match. I think it'd be made of something more akin to the fiend fire either Crabbe or Goyle unleashes in Deathly Hallows (to compare it to something Rowling), and we saw how well wizards could handle that.

I can't really argue this, because I have not read Tolkien in quite a while and am unsure on the details, but we've seen Gandalf die in battle once and survive, so I don't see why it would be so impossible for it to happen again.

Yes, that was my point. If Gandalf is immortal to the point that he can continue to survive death, Dumbledore killing him would simply start a rematch. But Dumbledore does not share in Gandalf's immortality. Dumbledore could kill Gandalf ten times in a row, but eventually, as he is an old, human, man, he'll get tired, he'll get sloppy, he'll make mistakes, and Gandalf would gain the upper hand and kill him. And Dumbledore would not be coming back. Advantage: Gandalf.

And to put on my Mod Hat for a moment, quit arguing about how to spell each other's names and stuff, goddamn. If noz wants the name lowercased, lowercase it. Stick to the topic, please. XD

 

Except they can't use it. Wandless magic in the movie was simply done because it looked cooler than someone waving a wand around, and unless the scene is backed up with a corresponding scene in the books, the ability shouldn't be considered canon, in my opinion.

My point here was hypothetical because, for one, I am unsure, as I said earlier, how Gandalf's immortality actually works. And it was for dramatic effect that I said Dumbledore could hypothetically beat Gandalf ten times in a row and still never really kill Gandalf for good, because as I am taking Gandalf's side in this debate, it should be obvious that I don't expect Dumbledore to be able to beat Gandalf even one time.

I said it to both of you, because I don't want to continue to see this thread derailed. So quit mentioning it. <_<