Albus Dumbledore

Lets say we swap Gandalf on the Bridge of Kazad Dum, would he be able to fend off the Balrog?

I have seen a lot of people bash Albus like anyhting just because he used Severus (kind of) and let Harry die. But I think different. Dude is literally one of the finest characters of the whole series and has a whole lot more good than bad. Him leaving Harry with Vernon and Petunia is a genius idea. Not because Harry was abused in that house like anything, but because it protected Harry. You see, Frank and Alicia were tortured by the Death Eaters still on the move. If any wizard family kept Harry with them, what was the guarantee the Death Eaters would not come knocking on their doors? He was far safe with Vernon and Petunia. And again, if Harry knew about his fame from the beginning, he would not have been as modest and selfless as we see him now. Then coming to his fifth year, yes Albus made a big mistake ignoring Harry and forcing him to take lessons with Severus, but he himself admit it, and making mistakes is natural, although it did cost Harry too much, you can not ignore that Albus still had Harry's best interest at heart and he tried to make the correct decision, in which he obviously failed, he was not intentionally making Harry suffer throughout the School year. Last coming to him raising Harry as a Pig for slaughter, I honestly believe that Albus did forsee that Harry can make it through when the Horocrux inside him was destroyed, after all, he did have a fantastic larger plan. And he really loved Harry and his family, remember when he was saying "do not kill them, kill me" in the Half Blood Prince? Harry himself acknowledges that. And Albus' portrait was in tears when Harry met him after the battle of Hogwarts. And during the Half Blood Prince, Albus was determined to find out as much as he could about the Horocruxes until his last breath to repay Harry for the previous year's mistakes. All in all, Albus did make some mistakes, but he had Harry's and the magical world's best interests at heart and he tried as much as he could to keep them all safe after he was gone. Oh, and he devised the plan which ultimately caused the downfall of Lord Voldemort.

Cheers!!

Centaurs standing quite still, half-hidden in the shadow of the forest with Merpeople rising from the water to sing.

My god what a scene this could have been. It was a missed opportunity in the movies because this would undoubtedly be the best scene in the series.

Exact same situation as in LOTR. Fight begins in Moria.

Dumbledore/Balrog get feats from their movies and books both, but not from offshoots like video games, comics, fanfiction, etc.

Dumbledore has his wand and the Sword of Gryffindor: Balrog has his sword and whip.

Edit: Thanks for all the comments. I hadn't really considered how Dumbledore would attack the Balrog, and a number of people have pointed out that he'd be likely to lean on his mobility, which is significantly better than Gandalf's, as well as his ability to manipulate his environment. Dumbledore's range is a big factor too; Gandalf needed to be right on the bridge to break it, but Dumbledore could easily do it from a distance.

The Balrog is big, slow, and can't attack from distance. His weaknesses are Dumbledore's strengths. Assuming Dumbledore has an inkling of what he's going up against, I think he can 10/10.

What exactly ARE Muggles?

So everyone in the wizarding world is very wrapped around the idea of "magic blood" right? Wizards have it, Muggles don't. Which we know is bullshit right away because of Hermione. But even Harry and friends believe that magic "runs in families" and Muggle-born wizards happen when two Muggles' latent magical genes pair up just right and so on.

Now Harry is not exactly the sharpest broom in the closet (under the stairs) otherwise he would have realized this story is full of holes.

If magic were in any way genetic then Squibs would not be ostracized, because a union of two Squibs would be quite likely to produce a "full-blood" wizard. Squibs would simply be thought of as "magic skipping a generation." Instead Squibs are treated as imbeciles and evolutionary dead ends, the same way medieval societies treated people with learning disorders and mild mental disabilities.

It's interesting that Harry never thinks to investigate how the

airtight magical tests that supposedly distinguish Muggles from Muggle-born Wizards

actually work. Some examples of spells that do this are the Hogwarts acceptance letters, the Muggle-repelling wards around Hogwarts, and so on. If these pieces of magic are not mere shams by Dumbledore and his allies, if they work - remember they're magic not science, Lucius Malfoy should have no problem understanding them - then how is there any legal or social controversy over the status of Muggle-born Wizards?

Also, we hear that wizarding schools like Durmstrang have at times not accepted Muggle-born students. Okay. So what happens to them?

In the later books we learn that the Ministry has

a pervasive spying network that invades potentially every household in Britain to detect underage wizardry

and Harry for some reason does not think this is overkill to track the at most forty Hogwarts students at any given time who have Muggle homes? Most of whom are far more obedient than Harry, anyway, and don't need a spy network to detect if they're dropping cakes or inflating aunts?

Reality check time. If wizarding ability is the result of genetics, then why do beginning wizards have to learn long strings of meaningless codes ("Wingardium Leviosa!") that have to be pronounced just right or the magic won't work? Yet at the same time there are Muggle-born wizards out there "didya-ever-make-anythin-happen"-ing their hearts out without knowing a word of Wizard spells?

It's pretty obvious - contrary to everything that everyone tells Harry - that wizarding ability is like language. It's latent in the deep structures of the human brain, but has to be brought forth and shaped by human culture, otherwise it remains wild and feral.

Humans raised by wizards in Britain turn out to be wizards - naturally, just like they turn out speaking English.

And spells are language-like - or like strings of nonsense words - because they interact with the language center of the brain. Spells are the brain "fooling itself" into unlocking magic. Which is why mature wizards can cast without speaking, just by visualizing.

So it's worth underlining:

There is no genetic key. Every single human being is a potential Wizard.

EDIT: because people didn't understand the full implications I am editing an explanation here.

Basically everyone has the latent ability to become a wizard, you "unlock it" by one of two means:

1. Being raised by wizards in wizard culture.

2. Having an early childhood experience where you are put in danger, or call on your magic to help someone (e.g. you wish really hard that you could help your friend who is being bullied, all of a sudden the bullies are hanging from a chimney by their underpants).

It's clear that BOTH explanations apply to Harry. For the first year of his life he was "raised Wizard" and "exposed" to lots of powerful bits of magic (including a Fidelius Charm and Avada Kadavra, to name a few...). Then for the next ten years of his life he was raised as a Muggle but periodically "broke through" to his innate magical abilities because of neglect and bullying.

For most Muggle-borns (or so-called Muggle-borns) they probably 'unlocked' their magic by the second means (the "breakthrough") or by accidentally stumbling on magic. Even though they didn't understand it at the time or were Obliviated to forget, the magic made its impact and unlocked the magic bit of their mind.

Anyway, this explains how VERY FEW "Muggle" children end up unlocking their wizard abilities, but NEARLY all "Wizard" children do so.

end EDIT

See the whole "wizarding world" is just a charade of a few privileged families trying desperately to hold on to power...they want to pretend that they're better than us. And the way to keep holding on to that fantasy is by tightly restricting who can learn about magic by attending Hogwarts.

If anybody could attend, it would become clear that anybody can learn.

(as long as they start young). It would also become clear that Squibs are simply wizards with the equivalent of "language disabilities" in the wizarding-language part of their brains. And that there is no distinction between "Muggle born wizards" and "Muggles." See... all this time... Albus Dumbledore has simply been picking Muggle names out of a hat.

Whenever a kid manifested particularly wild and feral magic... the kind that might make adults actually notice instead of dismissing it as "strange coincidences" or whatnot - that kid is bound to get a Hogwarts letter. A letter which absorbs him into the masquerade of the Wizarding World, makes him a Wizard...

by making him believe he is "better" and "different" from the Muggles who raised him or her

which makes him determined to keep the secret... marry a Wizard and join the Wizarding World... and carry no secrets back to the Muggles.

Muggles who don't get absorbed into the WW, but demonstrate feral magic ability, simply get Dementored.

So along comes a wizard who basically wants Wizards to try to rule Muggles. "For the Greater Good" he said. He didn't say whose.

Grindelwald knew that Wizards could never rule Muggles because Muggles don't exist. The purpose of Grindelwald's war was to play on the pureblood snobbery of families like Malfoy, to incite a war that WOULD REVEAL WIZARDRY TO MUGGLES. Thus

allowing Muggles to realize that they're aren't Muggles.

which would make the gift of Magic free to everyone on Planet Earth. But you know who stopped Grindelwald? Dumbledore.

And when another wizard came along, a half blood orphan who nevertheless trumpeted the pureblood propaganda (and people believed he believed it! what fools!) and tried to incite a similar war, even tearing apart his soul to ensure that he could never be killed until the war escalated to the attention of "Muggles," do you know who plotted his demise?

Albus Dumbledore.

That bastard.

Literally when talking about it in book 6, he referred to him as “poor Lucius”, and he seems to be overly sympathetic to Malfoys in general for no damn reason, referring to Draco as “that poor boy”. And Lucius had done more than that, including the Department of Mysteries thing, so why the bloody hell did Dumbledore view the Malfoys as anything more than your average Death Eater?

And his overly sympathetic nature rubbed of onto Harry as well: sure Draco Malfoy may have spared his life at Malfoy Manor by not confirming it was Harry, but he negated that by trying to kidnap Harry during the Battle of Hogwarts, and this is the person responsible for poisoning and almost murdering Harry’s best friend. And then he fucking spoke up for Malfoy at his trial. That literally isn’t being noble.