Sauron vs Voldemort

[lipe44]

You got it warty goblin, when Sauron came to Middle-Earth he maintained his original form which was just existing. You cant kill a thing like that.

If we look this way Sauron cannot lose but thats too stupid...

[Tyrant]

- Avada Kedavra. If you want a quote, the Lexicon.

To play the game that's obviously trying to be played here, does the Lexicon detail what happens when a god is hit by the killing curse? When a being that cannot die is hit by it?

There is no known case of Sauron being hit by a death effect, so we cannot say that he is immune to death effects outright. Sauron's fighting off divine-class magic was a physical assault - by giant magic air bird creatures, but a physical assault.

So, to get this straight, we need enough similarity for Hp magic to work, just not for it to play by the same rules? That's not biased in any way If he can fight off the magic of the gods, the beings who had some hand in creation, the magic of a mortal isn't going to be a problem.

Magic in Harry Potter is of an entirely different breed than divine good/evil magic in LOTR, so countering one does not outright grant countering the other. (Sidebar for Rowan below!) Either way, AK is not subject to counterspelling. Sauron can be killed - it might take a Ring being destroyed or his hand being cut off or a tower falling on him, but he can cease to exist. Besides the fact that this is terrifically easy, why wouldn't this work?

I think you're missing the point that Sauron can't be killed. Reduced in power, sure. Killed, not possible. If something absolutely cannot die, what would a killing curse do to it? I think the logical assumption is nothing. It would be the equivalent of casting some kind of light spell into a black hole. No matter how much light you pour into it, it isn't going to get any brighter. And again, if he can defend against the magic of the gods, the magic of mortals is nothing.

- Throwing a tower at him. Or trees, or boulders, whatever. Even if Sauron could disenchant them, it wouldn't matter - the magic is what threw them, but simple momentum will keep them on target.

Of course, he is simply going to stand there as with all of these other scenarios. Sidestepping a boulder going in a straight line with some build up to it happening shouldn't be terribly difficult. As second boulder is being prepped to throw, orc (insert any other minion of Sauron) inserts sword into throat of Voldy. Pretty downhill after that.

- Stabbing him with a swarm of objects instructed to stab hard and often. He has a physical body, and it can be shish-kebab'd. Let's go right for the face - stabbing in the face is always a great start.

He has a physical body within what is quite likely virtually indestructable armor. Armor that would likely not only be made of something far stonger than ordinary steel, but heavily reinforced with magic. Voldy's weapons on hand will be whatever got dropped by the orcs, which won't even scratch the armor. To play the game being palyed here, Voldy isn't one of the other being like Sauron and he isn't one of the Elves, or any of the other types of people that have been shown to stand any chance against Sauron, therefore he auto fails.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

You know, I can't believe this discussion has contuinued for so long - it's like discussing which is better, Wotan or Anansi? Zeus or Baal? They're from different myths, imagined by different people who made no attempt at compatibility or any systematic quantification of their powers. We can't even say that Zeus is a Level 500 conjuration true deity but Baal is a Level 342 earth / plant domain demi god - they aren't just not in the same system, they're not in any system!
Voldemort and Sauron's power are both quantified by their necessity to the plot. If Voldemort needs to be able to beat Sauron in your imagination, then he can - and vice versa. No dice rolls, no reference to rules - as author of this fiction you just need to think of a way (that need not be currently known by your readers) that one can beat the other. It doesn't have to be fair. They're not in an RPG, and any published "official" RPG stats for them weren't written by their creators.

[dehro]

ahem...LOTR food guards itself...
most of Sauron's army (those who need feeding anyway) does not shy away from orcflesh-stew....and Sauron has command over various birds that can be sort of asked to jump on the grill
I agree that there are a few thousand of Sauron's troops that are a bit more picky.. but hardly enough of them to risk starvation on food poisoning or sabotage.

could we please agree on the size of the scenario before we go any further?

It has to accomodate maneuvres of a couple hunderd thousand troops...but how far beyond that does it go?
I'm just asking because I have the feeling that the scenario is sort of adapting in size following the strategies the "voldies" comes up with... (as in "nazguls and several tens of thousands of troops are not enough to patrol it all and there are score of "safe places for Voldy to hide" ...but it's also small enough to still be a battlefield and not a world where Sauron could do a lot of nasty stuff without Voldy knowing.. and for there to be a limited suply of food...
I also have another related question...
how does Voldy go about stopping Sauron from crafting, breeding, summoning more henchmen as the times goes by? (remember, if Voldy wants to reduce the score of enemies he has to continue killing them every minute..so he can't really have time to keep track of Sauron changing tactics or finding new troops.

and the whole 3 orcs point seems a bit useless to me... with an army strong a 100.000 certified fighters and possibly double that number in the background (I'm not counting them in because their numbers would be source of debate but there is a strong number of hints that the army of Sauron is more than what we see in the books)... do orcs need to bother going out in scouting parties of 3?... why not mobilize a 100 at a time and have rotas of "readiness" of say, 15/20 units, ready for immediate reaction, to be "rotated" at the first signs of failing attention span (does "rotated" exist in english?... if I make errors, mistakes or say something funny please point it out to me, it helps improving my english)
in other words, Wizards can do some damage, but once their strategy of hit and run becomes an estabilished pattern (and I really can't figure any other working scheme) a rotating host of archers is bound to be put on permanent readiness.
and again... most of your strategy, ditto, relies on the infallibility of the wizards... could you please show me one single character that never fails an enchantment or misses the guy he aims for?...even one that never does get knocked down for reacting that precious half a second to late, would do.
also I would like to know any HP wizard cool blooded enough to never let go of his strategy/brains/magic, never to run, never to have a single doubt or anything that could in some way make him lose a heartbeat of time..enough for a lucky shot to get past his defenses (and will you please allow for one lucky shot every several hunderd?)

again, it's down to numbers... and to the fact that wizards are still humans... and all humans make mistakes or get tired... I'm not saying that Sauron or his men don't, what I'm saying is that they do not do so all at the same time and having several thousands of men to count on, the fallacity of the single individual is more than made up for by his allies.
..in other words, every single wizard is extremely precious to Voldy and the loss of every one of them is a drammatic blow to the balance in the forces...every loss makes it harder for Voldy to manage to do just about anything... and his party has to work double shifts as it is to simply manage to survive
Sauron, on the other hand, can easily afford to sacrifice half of his troups and still have enough left to crush any opponent.

and you still haven't managed to convince me beyond reasonable and justified doubt that Voldy has anything he could effectively trow at Sauron or the Nazgul to harm them, let alone dispose of them

[EvilElitest]

Obviously if there's no Mount Doom, then there's no Ring.

Please explain this to me, why is Sauron only at 1 percent of his orginal power? Because without the ring he is a lot weaker. Still godly in power, just weaker. Wow, fair fight. Both contestents need to be at full power. Aka, Sauron needs his ring to be at full power. See were i'm going with this? So if Sauron is at full power, he needs the Ring. If he has the ring, than the only way to defeat him is to destroy the ring. And to destroy the ring, you need mount Doom. See were i'm going with this?

The Ring isn't currently with Sauron, so it would have to be found somewhere on Middle Earth, which is not where the battle is.

Why wouldn't he have the ring

Likewise, Sauron can't find Voldemort's horcruxes. Both aren't important, due to the one-death-is-enough thing. S'all given under the neutral battlefield set-up. And no, that does not mean one field, it's just a neutral 'place'. Could be Middle Earth, could be Britain, but it shouldn't make a difference.

I think netural battle field would be big field? You know, big field, one army on one side with Mount Doom, Voldemort's army on the other with the Horcuxics. Gollum in the middle with the ring?

The Nazgul will guard the food? ALL of it? And I thought they were patrolling the entire world...
3 orc archers = 30% chance of success. That's some more of that lovely math that came up with 500,000 orcs at Pelennor, EE...

re count the numbers, untold thousands of orcs from Morder, untold thousands of orcs from the east, thousands of orcs from Morgul, thousands of orcs from the Black Gate, untold thousands from Dark Tower, Ten thousand from Izengard, Untold thousand from the grey moutainsm, untold thousands from moria, untold thousands from the Misty mountains, lots of orc eh? And more can be bred.

The Nazgul and Sauron can *not* see through invisibility. They can see through illusions, which is totally separate fare. Deceiving Sauron's gaze is one thing, but outright blocking it is possible - someone cited the hobbits' cloaks as hiding the bearers from unfriendly eyes. And Sauron still has to know where to look!

1. Both Sauron and the Nazgul have seen through invisiblity in the books. So yeah
2. The nazgul are flying over the food, so not much to look for
3. Sauron's eys only needs to seem them onces, all over

'It keeps them away from a place by making them think of somewhere they really must be...' like back at base camp? Or checking out the cave on the next hill, because surely no one could be hiding in *this* cave. Maybe the orc doesn't even remember whether it checked this cave just now, since it causes them 'to forget what they were doing'. Is that specific enough? Please let me know if I've missed the language in question from before.

Does it effect undead, or orcs being chased by dudes with whips?

As far as Gant's Law goes, I think that logic is pretty straightforward, too. I'll do it again, for kicks: Wizards != Make food. Wizards = Make animals. Make food != Make animals. Transfiguration is an instantaneous effect, so what was a rock is now a fish, period. Fish can be fricassed and eaten. What is the issue with language here?

Soooooooooooooooooo, a lope hole.

- Avada Kedavra. If you want a quote, the Lexicon.

But Sauron can't be killed, just banished. So i like that other guy's idea, it is like Aking a rock

There is no known case of Sauron being hit by a death effect, so we cannot say that he is immune to death effects outright. Sauron's fighting off divine-class magic was a physical assault - by giant magic air bird creatures,

More like Giant Eagle clouds shooting magical divine level blasts with the intention of destroying Sauron and his island, and Sauron blocking every last one.

but a physical assault. Magic in Harry Potter is of an entirely different breed than divine good/evil magic in LOTR, so countering one does not outright grant countering the other. (Sidebar for Rowan below!) Either way, AK is not subject to counterspelling.

Counter spelling in HP, not in lOTRS

Sauron can be killed - it might take a Ring being destroyed or his hand being cut off or a tower falling on him, but he can cease to exist. Besides the fact that this is terrifically easy, why wouldn't this work?

The ring being destroyed yes.
You have to kill him with an epic level magical weapon, then cut his finger off
Tower falling on him, after his ring is destroyed.

- Dropping a tower on him. That worked once, right?

After his ring was destroyed.

- Throwing a tower at him. Or trees, or boulders, whatever. Even if Sauron could disenchant them, it wouldn't matter - the magic is what threw them, but simple momentum will keep them on target.

1. Couldn't he block them. I mean his mace can destroyed small armies
2.Can voldemort do that? Why didn't he throw a tower at hogwarts?
3. even if he did, doesn't he have to stand still for a while to do this (nazgul bows)

- Stabbing him with a swarm of objects instructed to stab hard and often. He has a physical body, and it can be shish-kebab'd. Let's go right for the face - stabbing in the face is always a great start.

Sauron can shatter small non magical items np

Orcs can certainly smell well and see very good at night, but it's not always night (Sauron cannot make the entire world dark all of the time

Yes he can, and he almost did. He covered one fourth of the world into night in a single 24 hour period. It was only the good guy magic that stopped him

- and even if he wanted to, it would be a lot of fun throwing a giant Luma Solarem in the middle of the camp. Blinding the orcs for a few seconds would solve problems, now, wouldn't it?)

How effected is that spell?

and it's hard to smell things rather higher up than you are, especially catching that scent quickly (by the time they leave), and then attempting to shoot an arrow at it.

But not hard when you can see in the dark

Oh and hte nazgul will jsut guard certain important things and wait for the Death Eaters to show up, like food and surrplies
from,
EE

When you move away from the center of an orc party, you have plenty of time to get a shot off and leave before anyone tracks and fires. A 100+ft. radius is a plenty large area to try and keep covered at a moment's notice. It's like playing paintball in a big open field, with targets placed all around the perimeter. If a target is live for only a second, it's not easy to find and hit even with projectiles faster than arrows.[/QUOTE]

[Ditto]

(Lipe, you need to end quotes with [/quote] to make them work.)

Transfiguring animals: Cedric Diggory made a rock into a Labrador retriever in the first Triwizard challenge. Conjuring them from nothing: Hermione and the Avifors spell in the 6th book. (These subsequently were instructed to attack Ron, with our favorite Oppugno spell.) There area few more, if you want them.

If I might try to clarify the size of the battlefield: It's as big as you need it to be. Middle Earth, Britain, Mars, whatever. The point was that nobody owns the territory, so neither side gets the home turf bonus. About Mount Doom... I'd forgotten about that sideline (neutral plane of battle but one side has a stronghold), cuz space is neutral and most vs. threads I'd been in were space races. I dunno... even granting that, Voldemort's not going to Mount Doom.

Sauron does not have the Ring because he did not have it during Lord of the Rings. Or for several thousand years prior. This battle is taking Sauron's team as of the middle of LOTR vs. Voldemort's team in the late HP series. If the Ring exists in the world, then we get back into those arguments about finding the Ring and ringlore and walking into Mordor and is the ring sentient and so on, and that was all left out long ago.

Can Sauron fly? I'm thinking disintegrating the ground beneath him until he hits some molten core (working in a volcano is not bathing in magma) and collapsing the hole upon him would be good for huge amounts of physical trauma. AK being blocked by a love shield once for purely plot-related purposes (and you know I'm loathe to bring plot into this) doesn't diminish AK's absolute definition, and Sauron most definitely does not have that going for him. Ditto Priori Incantatem. What's the third alleged example of AK being outright countered? Horcruxes don't 'get around it', the guy is still killed. Another part of the guy can come back, but that one's toast. Voldemort existing as a formless being is the same as Sauron existing as a shadow of his former self (as at the end of LOTR) is sufficient win. If AK will 'only' schuck him, that's fine with me. It rips you from this mortal coil, and that's good enough.

Have the Nazgul demonstrated an ability to see through illusions? (They can see Frodo when he's invisible, specifically because the Ring shifts him into the realm of shadow. That's not how HP invisibility works.) What does it matter if the unfriendly eyes are magical or not? ("Sauron's eye only needs to seem them once and it's all over - what does that mean, EE?) And it still doesn't address how anyone plans on finding Death Eaters when they have the whole world to search every night.
The Repello spell says "Keeps something away from the caster." Doesn't specify "Unless something really wants to find the caster", neh? It doesn't matter if they're undead, the first example (chronologically) was used on non-living matter. And Sauron has zombies now? Shoot.

Avoiding Sauron's physical retaliation (whatever that is) is simple enough, same as Voldemort's been doing for all the other enemies. Mental retaliation meaning what exactly? (Sauron still needs to catch a target, of course.) When I questioned this earlier, it was made clear that he could not simply mindcrush an opponent; rather, his work is that of insidious despair over a long period of time. That's not an insta-win on the battlefield.

Wizards miss, of course. That's why most tactics I've detailed are area of effect. Still. Launch a Fiendfyre, animate trees, LEAVE. No real miss chance there. There's no need to even raise a shield just-in-case, because you're not terrifically close to the enemy army - best case scenario, you'll never be anywhere near them, just send out your animated minions and launch a giant demon fire dragon over the hill. (Even if Sauron could dispel their animation, he can't be everywhere at once.) Speaking of Sauron dispelling things - Voldemort isn't launching one thing at a time like they're being thrown by his wand. He waves his wand at the target projectiles, and says "Go!" and they all leap up to do their thing.

EE, you can't smell them when they're up in the air, and IF you did, you can't pinpoint something by smell when it's moving around. If it's dark, that'd be great for seeing, but they're invisible via one of the methods I've mentioned repeatedly. Luma Solarem is terrifically effective, it's a blast/flash of noontime sunlight.

[EvilElitest]

(Lipe, you need to end quotes with

to make them work.)

Transfiguring animals: Cedric Diggory made a rock into a Labrador retriever in the first Triwizard challenge. Conjuring them from nothing: Hermione and the Avifors spell in the 6th book. (These subsequently were instructed to attack Ron, with our favorite Oppugno spell.) There area few more, if you want them.
[/QUOTE]
Hmmmm, if your right (i'll leave it for the Harry Potter fans to check this for confermation). If so, then your right, Grant's law is meanenless

If I might try to clarify the size of the battlefield: It's as big as you need it to be. Middle Earth, Britain, Mars, whatever. The point was that nobody owns the territory, so neither side gets the home turf bonus. About Mount Doom... I'd forgotten about that sideline (neutral plane of battle but one side has a stronghold), cuz space is neutral and most vs. threads I'd been in were space races. I dunno...

OK how about this. The Battle field is a big field, a really big field about the size London tops.

even granting that, Voldemort's not going to Mount Doom.

Well that is the only thing that can destroy Voldemort.

Sauron does not have the Ring because he did not have it during Lord of the Rings. Or for several thousand years prior.

And Voldemort dies in the end of the 7th book, your point?

f the Ring exists in the world, then we get back into those arguments about finding the Ring and ringlore and walking into Mordor and is the ring sentient and so on, and that was all left out long ago.

So instead of him having the ring, then how about fighting Sauron prior to hte creation of the Ring? When he was at full power. Then among his powers are shape shifting into pretty much anything, and bear in mind, he blocked divine level attacks without hte Ring and at only 1 percent of his full power.

Can Sauron fly?

Yes, he turned into a giant vampire thing in the Simerlarlion.

I'm thinking disintegrating the ground beneath him until he hits some molten core (working in a volcano is not bathing in magma)

1. I doubt that lava and Magma make much of a difference to a firce spirt
2. And he is going to just stand their and let him do this?

and collapsing the hole upon him would be good for huge amounts of physical trauma.

And Sauron is going to just stand their i ask you?

AK being blocked by a love shield once for purely plot-related purposes (and you know I'm loathe to bring plot into this) doesn't diminish AK's absolute definition, and Sauron most definitely does not have that going for him.

Sauron isn't alive in hte moral sense, he phyically can't be killed. Voldemort wins if
A) Destroy Sauron's ring
B) if Sauron doesn't have the ring, kill him again and again and again until he has no mortal forms left.

Ditto Priori Incantatem.

Is that the mind control one? You got to be kidding me.

Have the Nazgul demonstrated an ability to see through illusions? (They can see Frodo when he's invisible, specifically because the Ring shifts him into the realm of shadow. That's not how HP invisibility works.)

They can see through the elvish Cloaks, and they can break the spells of deception left by elves.

What does it matter if the unfriendly eyes are magical or not? ("Sauron's eye only needs to seem them once and it's all over - what does that mean, EE?)

ONce he sees them, all of Sauron's servents who are in tune with im can go along with in destroying them.

And it still doesn't address how anyone plans on finding Death Eaters when they have the whole world to search every night.

The whole world? What world? And why is it that the Death Eaters seems to know the layout perfectly while hate death eaters don't.

The Repello spell says "Keeps something away from the caster." Doesn't specify "Unless something really wants to find the caster", neh? It doesn't matter if they're undead, the first example (chronologically) was used on non-living matter. And Sauron has zombies now? Shoot.

1. IF this is the muggle thing, it makes them think of something they forgot. Now Nazgul don't have free will, they can move in.
2. Sauron has lesser wraiths, the Barrow wrights, the Phantoms of the Dead marches, and evil spirts. They don't have free will and he will just use them.

Avoiding Sauron's physical retaliation (whatever that is) is simple enough, same as Voldemort's been doing for all the other enemies.

Break them to pieces, use his magic to snap his wand, Black Breath, arrows, magic, fire, will magic, ect.

Mental retaliation meaning what exactly? (Sauron still needs to catch a target, of course.) When I questioned this earlier, it was made clear that he could not simply mindcrush an opponent; rather, his work is that of insidious despair over a long period of time. That's not an insta-win on the battlefield.

He can crush the wills of those who get near him, as Frodo comment, he makers those near him despair even when he is not aware of them. Considering his consitable mind powers, it makes sense that he could crush at least the death eaters hearts, if not Voldemort.

Wizards miss, of course. That's why most tactics I've detailed are area of effect.

all of these tatics require organization Death Eaters sadly lack

Still. Launch a Fiendfyre, animate trees, LEAVE. No real miss chance there. There's no need to even raise a shield just-in-case, because you're not terrifically close to the enemy army - best case scenario, you'll never be anywhere near them, just send out your animated minions and launch a giant demon fire dragon over the hill.

In the time it takes to cast these, the odds of the orcs or the Nazgul might slay the death eaters.

EE, you can't smell them when they're up in the air, and IF you did, you can't pinpoint something by smell when it's moving around. If it's dark, that'd be great for seeing, but they're invisible via one of the methods I've mentioned repeatedly. Luma Solarem is terrifically effective, it's a blast/flash of noontime sunlight.

1. The Death Eaters can't see in the dark on their own
2. Big shiny light, the Uruk-hai will have a nice shiny target
3. Wouldn't it blind the death eaters as well, i mean they have no light.
from,
EE

[warty goblin]

AK kills the target true, but Sauron cannot be killed, its that simple. Its like tring to paralyze a D&D zombie, it just does not work. I realize that this is conjecture since we don't know, but it seems to me that inducing a state (death) on a target is meaningless if the target cannot experience that state. Sauron cannot die, therefore he cannot be killed and a spell that kills the target does nothing to him. And my point about Love Shields was not to involve plot specifically, merely to point out that AK does in fact check to see if the target can be killed.

Regardless, with Sauron's demonstrated counterspelling powers, he'll shut Voldemort down so hard he won't be able to make sparks, let alone powerful death magic. Then its a simple matter of shattering V's wand for the final win, since he's entirely helpless without it.
Here's my rundown of spells Voldemort has been known to use in combat, and their likely effect on Sauron. I've also included some spells used by other wizards that Voldemort is likely to know.

1) Avada Kedavera. Already mentioned, won't work on Sauron, on a Nazgul will probably dispel their form, but they will still reform

2) The magic sword shield combo from book 5: Not gonna work. Sauron is one of the most skilled physical combatents in the world (see: killing Elendil and Gil-galad solo), he can parry, then counter this spell easily enough.

3) Fiendfyre: Setting a being that lived in a volcano on fire is an exercise in futility if there ever was one...

4)That animating tree thing that Ditto keeps coming back to (when does anybody do this anywway?): Let's think, wood and a creature clad in magical armor whose touch is so hot it kills, who wins? Here's a hint, its not the trees.

5) Possesion: hmm, placing yourself in direct mental opposition to Sauron is not going to work well for anybody, except Sauron. Again, shrivelled baby vs. Wheel of Fire.

6) Summoning: The most badass thing ever summoned in the books is a flock of canaries. I'm going to assume that Voldemort can in fact do better than that. Even so, summoned creatures are still basically more cannon fodder, useful for maybe buying some time, but hardly going to win the fight.

7)Stunning: Same as AK, only weaker and resisted/countered all the time. Useless.

8) Whatever I forgot: Still has to best Sauron's divine class counterspelling, not likely given its coming from a mortal with comprimised willpower (Voldemort loses lots of battles of will against Harry, Snape).

Sauron's known and likely combat options:

1) Dominate in melee combat. Nobody in the Potterverse is going to survive more than a few seconds in actual melee combat, end of story.

2) Excellent counterspelling: Sauron should be able to counter most, if not all, of Voldemort's combat magic, as well as possibly apperition.

3) Ranged Sundering: The Nazgul can do it, so its seems pretty reasonable that their Master can as well. Once deprived of a Wand, Voldemort is a snaky-dude with no physical combat experience. Glorified and overconfident cannon-fodder in other words.

4) Ranged: Admittedly, this is all conjecture, but there's absolutely no reason that Sauron can't break out the archery as well. What's more, it seems reasonable that if he hits, he pretty much auto-kills (the Nazgul do, and Sauron is far more powerful than the Nazgul). Even if he doesn't arrows tend to somewhat handicap their targets (that whole sticking out of your chest and making it hard to move thing), so its definately not a good thing for Voldemort.

Probable course of fight:
Voldemort: *sees single target*, "Avada Kedavera"
Sauron: "I appreciate your spell's minty-fresh after-taste."
Voldemort: *sword shield thingy*
Sauron: *Parry parry crush counterspell* "Obi0-Wan has taught you poorly"
Voldemort: *Fiendfyre*
Sauron: *sunders V's wand*
Voldemort *attempts to apperate*
Sauron: Not so fast there, you'll hurt yourself *counterspell*
Voldemort: "..."
Sauron *burns Voldemort to death with a touch*

[EvilElitest]

Hey two questions

1. Why has everbody forgetting the Basalisk. One of Voldemort's few advantages.
2. does voldemort even know anything about his opponent. I mean, in all the other vs. threads nether about each other. So considering they just start eache other, how would voldemort orginize this tatic i ask you?
from,
EE

[warty goblin]

The basilisk doesn't move that fast, and is just a big snake with a gaze attack. Its dangerous to individuals, so just gang-rush the sucker with orcs. Sure there will be loses, possibly even in the hundreds (although that's pretty unlikely), but then its dead, and there's only one of them. There's always more orcs

[Rutee]

Basilisks are legitimate threats? A 12 year old nearly solo'd one with a sword he's never used before. I think we can pretty much discount /that/, barring anything but a sneak attack.

[lipe44]

(Lipe, you need to end quotes with

to make them work.)[/QUOTE]

*Ninja Edit* What are you talking about? I never did that...

Transfiguring animals: Cedric Diggory made a rock into a Labrador retriever in the first Triwizard challenge. Conjuring them from nothing: Hermione and the Avifors spell in the 6th book. (These subsequently were instructed to attack Ron, with our favorite Oppugno spell.) There area few more, if you want them.

True so that means its a big loophole but a history characters arents supposed to use loopholes...

If I might try to clarify the size of the battlefield: It's as big as you need it to be. Middle Earth, Britain, Mars, whatever. The point was that nobody owns the territory, so neither side gets the home turf bonus. About Mount Doom... I'd forgotten about that sideline (neutral plane of battle but one side has a stronghold), cuz space is neutral and most vs. threads I'd been in were space races. I dunno... even granting that, Voldemort's not going to Mount Doom.

Why not just make it a 10 min duel between Sauron and Voldemort, it would be much easier to argueb about...

Sauron does not have the Ring because he did not have it during Lord of the Rings. Or for several thousand years prior. This battle is taking Sauron's team as of the middle of LOTR vs. Voldemort's team in the late HP series. If the Ring exists in the world, then we get back into those arguments about finding the Ring and ringlore and walking into Mordor and is the ring sentient and so on, and that was all left out long ago.

One could argue that isnt fair taking one of the person when he isnt at full power against a person that is... The LOTR Sauron would be (at some level) the same as the baby Voldemort right before being ressurected.

AK being blocked by a love shield once for purely plot-related purposes (and you know I'm loathe to bring plot into this) doesn't diminish AK's absolute definition, and Sauron most definitely does not have that going for him. Ditto Priori Incantatem. What's the third alleged example of AK being outright countered? Horcruxes don't 'get around it', the guy is still killed. Another part of the guy can come back, but that one's toast. Voldemort existing as a formless being is the same as Sauron existing as a shadow of his former self (as at the end of LOTR) is sufficient win. If AK will 'only' schuck him, that's fine with me. It rips you from this mortal coil, and that's good enough.

I believe he meant that it isnt ALWAYS kills, there is exceptions.

Have the Nazgul demonstrated an ability to see through illusions? (They can see Frodo when he's invisible, specifically because the Ring shifts him into the realm of shadow. That's not how HP invisibility works.) What does it matter if the unfriendly eyes are magical or not? ("Sauron's eye only needs to seem them once and it's all over - what does that mean, EE?) And it still doesn't address how anyone plans on finding Death Eaters when they have the whole world to search every night.

I got tired of whole world to search so lets assume why not they stay right next to the troops at strategic positions so anywhere the wizards appear they will be affected by them resulting in a less effective of anything it should do.

The Repello spell says "Keeps something away from the caster." Doesn't specify "Unless something really wants to find the caster", neh? It doesn't matter if they're undead, the first example (chronologically) was used on non-living matter. And Sauron has zombies now? Shoot.

Sauron can control them, it will be like:

S or other general: Check there
Orc: Goes and come back, i forgot to do XXX
S or other genenral: ... Orc 2 goes there

Same thing happens, at some point they will realise there is something strange, once one of them that can recognize magic sees it will try to remove it.

Avoiding Sauron's physical retaliation (whatever that is) is simple enough, same as Voldemort's been doing for all the other enemies. Mental retaliation meaning what exactly? (Sauron still needs to catch a target, of course.) When I questioned this earlier, it was made clear that he could not simply mindcrush an opponent; rather, his work is that of insidious despair over a long period of time. That's not an insta-win on the battlefield.

It takes a while when the people arent standing right in front of him, then you need a great will power just to not lose your mind, if you want to do ANYthing you need a even bigger will.

Wizards miss, of course. That's why most tactics I've detailed are area of effect. Still. Launch a Fiendfyre, animate trees, LEAVE. No real miss chance there. There's no need to even raise a shield just-in-case, because you're not terrifically close to the enemy army - best case scenario, you'll never be anywhere near them, just send out your animated minions and launch a giant demon fire dragon over the hill. (Even if Sauron could dispel their animation, he can't be everywhere at once.) Speaking of Sauron dispelling things - Voldemort isn't launching one thing at a time like they're being thrown by his wand. He waves his wand at the target projectiles, and says "Go!" and they all leap up to do their thing.

One time they will make mistakes than dying or being heavily wounded so one less wizard, when having like 50 wizards i would be very sad if i lost one... Another thing is, how can you hold ground like that? It its like the Sauron's army having to advance forever then it comes to the fact that wizards dont live forever.

EE, you can't smell them when they're up in the air, and IF you did, you can't pinpoint something by smell when it's moving around. If it's dark, that'd be great for seeing, but they're invisible via one of the methods I've mentioned repeatedly. Luma Solarem is terrifically effective, it's a blast/flash of noontime sunlight.

Ok but everyone else can see while you cant, when you use this spell you make sure they saw you and if they did before you are screwed. If its Noontime it wont do Nazguls any bad and i doubt orcs would be so annoyed that they couldnt shoot. Its showed that Morgul's orcs can travel at Daylight even if they hate doing so, Sauron's army is made of those orcs and many others that are supposed superior, making light will just make the wizard see his own death...

[dehro]

If you try to blind an orc he will not shoot, or shoot to miss...if you try to blind a thousand, effective as it might be, if they still shoot, you are skewered..
in fact in most battles in history, the archers don't have a direct view of their targets, but shoot a volley of arrows in the general direction of the opponent, sometimes guided by a couple of people with better position to do the aiming.
sure, most of them will miss..sure, several of them will shoot in their feet or kill one another...but you only need one with better aim, greater luck or bigger arrows, to kill the wizard...and that's one wizard less

again, it is very true that wizards can do much, much more damage, proportionally speaking, and kill enemies by the hunderds...but it goes against any logic to believe that they can not be killed by a lucky shot/blow/thrust. or that their magic never fails..
and, again... every single loss counts for voldy a lot more than every 1000 orcs for Sauron.
there is nothing you can think of or say that can change this fact.

let's play out the battle...
if we assume that there are about 100.000 men in Sauron's army (and I'm not counting Trolls, Warghs and "special creatures" as being any different than the next best pikeman or archer..)...and that they lose about one third of them against dementors, giants and other cannon fodder..(and I'm making a really huge concession, because there is just no way that half a competent general could lose that many troops against a few thousand opponents at best)... then we are still left with about 6-700 men for every Wizard..assuming that there are about a 100 wizards, all of whom loyal to the death and with nerves that several death eaters do not show in the books.
let's say that every wizard manages to kill a few hunderd within hours, when the troops are not yet aquainted with their magic and their fighting style and are poorly dislocated..
that brings us down to 4-500 men for each wizard...let's say 450 for the sake of calculations..(and I'm again making concessions far beyond any realistic figure)...and then what happens? one or two wizard die..
(victim of a lucky shot, a backfiring spell, a miscalculated apparition, crucioed by voldy for running away from the battle..you name it)...
then what happens?...suddenly the remaining 99 wizards are facing each a couple more opponents, with a boost in morale and renewed bloodlust...

this could be a good moment for the wizards to decide to catch their breath and go in hiding..
what's next?

the LOTR army has had time to think things through a bit and decided to start shooting at anything that they remotely think they saw moving...(arrows can be recovered if it was only a rabbit, or if they have missed and there is nobody around to bother them)
they've decided to regroup and not to move for a while from their established positions... meanwhile, Sauron is crafting more uruk-hai or applying the one big common practice in LOTR magic...endowing stuff or creatures with part of his inner strenght or magic (before you start nitpicking, the silmarillion where crafted from the power of the light of the trees but also from part of the personal power of Feanor...the one ring has been given part of the powers of Sauron, Melkor has given to Ungolianth part of his strenght...etc etc...)...this form of magic works and is the most effective in the LOTR universe.. it has major consequences on the plot, on battles, on big and small fights... I'll let you chose the nature and the effects of the new artifacts..a free gift of goodwill to show that I'm not onesided on playing out the battle (as if the out of proportion losses LOTR folk are taking was worth nothing)
in the meantime Voldy and his liege are recovering..but when they get back to battle they will find that they have killed those who where easy to kill, the weakest and less prepared..and that now they are facing troops with a better strategy, higher morales, some idea about what is awaiting them if they leave the initiative to the wizards...
not clueles and dimwitted orcs..but beast and fighters who have seen what happens if they make mistakes and who will strife not to make anymore..
this doesn't change much for the Wizards, except that they are bound to be less effective... and that they are going to take bigger losses...
in other words..the battle is going to get tougher for them...(and you will realize that they can hardly come up with more strenght or powers than they must already have displayed...this is not a cheap manga battle, after all)
in the end, the balance of the forces (if there ever was one) will drammaticaly tilt in favour of Sauron.

and that's pretty much it...I'll let you work out how exactly the wizards will find themselves at the end of their energy and will to fight.

two "minor" points to sleep on, tonight
I consider the wizards to be divided into 2 "morale groups"..
the ones freed from azkaban are loyal and full of anger, likely to be more lethal and determined to serve Voldy
the ones that were free and living amongst the "good" wizards are probably for the most part a bunch of cowards and/or calculating bastards that have scarpered and hid when things were going bad for them, escaping involvement, prison and consequences...to be drawn back to their lord only by terror, pain (the black mark), fear of losing what they have aquired or mantained untill the day of Voldy's return..
in other words, I'm quite sure that not all of the death eaters will stand and fight, when push comes to shove..(any single wizard counts, remember?)
second factor...
I don't recall the working of the fyzzyfire, or whatever the name is...but isn't it just fire? rapidly expanding and everything..but still fire? if not completely put out by wet clothes and armour, I'm sure the damage it can do would be limited severely...
after the first attacks, how long would it take for every single orc on the field to take the first bath of his life in the next available pool or river?

[warty goblin]

A most excellent analysis dehro, I conragulate you. One note on your breakdown of morale groups, the Azkaban wizards also seem a lot more reckless and crazed (Bellatrix for instance seems to be several wands short of a tree) and thus have a high likelyhood of being killed first, which would really mess with Death Eater morale.

[dehro]

A most excellent analysis dehro, I conragulate you. One note on your breakdown of morale groups, the Azkaban wizards also seem a lot more reckless and crazed (Bellatrix for instance seems to be several wands short of a tree) and thus have a high likelyhood of being killed first, which would really mess with Death Eater morale.

My thoughts exactly..I must have said as much, somewhere in one of my previous posts..
I believe Bellatrix to be totally unfitted for a sniper-like strategy..She's more likely to pop in and get caught in a battle frenzy...not a good idea, whatever magic you can summon to protect yourself.
then again there is the matter of Voldy and his men knowing from the start what could be the best possible strategy without having to test one or the other first(with the consequent losses)...quite a lucky circumstance, isn't it?

anyway, the whole thing of my previous post is against my better judgement...an exercise in debating an argument for the sake of debate itself...because it's maths...and I dislike and suck at maths..
to me this whole battle should be resolved with what it is, after all is said and done..a battle of characters and not a battle of numbers and stats.
I appreciate that both sides of this debate have tried to come up with the best possible strategies...what I deeply resent (for as much as I care to really feel for the matter) is that by doing so most of us (I've tried to avoid it but don't know if I've managed completely) have adapted the characters to our strategy, forcing behaviours and the use of qualities and strategies that might have never occurred to any of them...or to their authors

[warty goblin]

My thoughts exactly..I mus have said as much, somewhere in one of my previous posts..
I believe Bellatrix to be totally unfitted for a sniper-like strategy..She's more likely to pop in and get caught in a battle frenzy...not a good idea, whatever magic you can summon to protect yourself.

I'm sure you did say it somewhere, it just gets somewhat hard to remember everything said over 790+ posts...

[dehro]

I'm sure you did say it somewhere, it just gets somewhat hard to remember everything said over 790+ posts...

very true..and I tend to repeat myself and use far more words than necessary so I guess it comes easy to skip through my posts on fast forward


blast..it seems that we have all forgotten a quite big problem for the death eaters...when discussing their morale
they are not fighters...
and I don't mean in the physical sense of the term..I mean that they are not soldiers, have no training, have not the mentality of a corps or of a battalion...they do not fight (through magic) for a living...
they are just common people with a penchant for maliciousness and random tortures...and the advantage of a wand that brings their prejudices, their badness, their stolid malevolence to dire consequences...but that's all.
for most part of their life a great many amongst the death eaters are clercks, burocrats, landowners, teachers...people who just get on with their lifes..enjoying a quite evening at the expenses of the house elf or watching a game of quidditch..

Suddenly the life expectancy of the common orc seems to grow in the figures, when you keep this in mind.

[Ditto]

Y'know, I think I have the solution to the neutral battlefield problem - let's put them both in space! Voldemort can breathe in space, how's Sauron?

Again, EE, no one asked about Sauron as of the Silmarillion. It's LOTR Sauron. Can *he* fly? No. Sauron no longer has his rampant shapeshifting abilities. And no, he's not just going to stand there, but it doesn't make a difference when the floor drops out from under you. Unless he has a way to counter endless falling, he'll have to deal with being bathed in magma. And yes, I think that's a problem for *anyone*, I don't care if he worked near lava for long periods. You also can't swim in magma, which is a barrier to getting back, on top of all the rock that's collapsed in the hole he came down through.

WG, I understand your point about the definition of AK and deathlessness. I still feel it would banish Sauron's physical form. It is explicitly possible in all sorts of sources to destroy a Maiar's assumed physical form. (Gandalf died, no question.) It has been long established that is sufficient victory. When Voldemort was hit with AK after it rebounded from baby Harry Potter, he was 'banished' as well. It killed every bit of him it could find. His essence, however, endured to reform another day. AK schucks the target, even if it cannot permanently destroy it.

The wizards don't need any special knowledge of the world they're in - they pull a Rope Trick every night. That doesn't require any mastery of the terrain, hm?

Fiendfyre is not 'hot hot burnination'. It turns things to ash upon touch, and can destroy highly resilient magical artefacts like horcruxes. It doesn't matter if you hang out in volcanoes or not, Fiendfyre says "Disintegrate", "Shatter", however you'd like to phrase it. That would be bad news for Sauron's non-specifically vaunted armor, at the very least, leaving the fleshy parts available for all other manner of blunt trauma (for when the magic fire *doesn't* torch Sauron for whatever fun reason).

I never really thought about the Basilisk, but that is pretty formidable... 'just' a gaze attack is dismissing a lot. Orcs are going to have some trouble finding a target rushing whatever distance without looking up the whole way. The twelve-year-old was only able to fight it because that attack was disabled. It has 'killed' ghosts, so its potency against undying creatures has been demonstrated. And I don't know why you think it's slow, WG... snakes are plenty quick for their size. What's more, Voldemort has shown an ability to put a barrier *he* considers impenetrable around his most valuable possession, Nagini, that she is able to see out of - an insta-death gaze attack looking from behind a Protego is still devastingly effective.

Repello will keep X at a distance, even if they're staring right at the target. It's nothing to do with nondetection, it's simply abjuration. Wizards used it to keep the Snidget on the Quidditch pitch not by confusing it, but by 'physically' repulsing it toward the center of the field. By the time any Repello'd force decides it's time to stack up and try something to get past, the wizards will have noticed due to one of the other clever wards and left.
I still don't understand how this 'People following orders can't miss!' logic works. When you're deflected, you think nothing of it.
General: Did you check grid B3?
Orc: Sure. (Well, I don't remember *not* checking it, I must have...)

Vanishing has no visual display, so orcs will not 'see' it being cast.
Lucky shots with fortunate aim most definitely happen. I expect a number of lucky shots will run up against a wizard's shielding. Your point?
Orcs are the crispy grunts. Know what an Uruk is? A smart orc.
Again, Fiendfyre is not just fire. It turns objects to ash and shatters artefacts. Orc soot can jump in whatever river it wants.

I agree about your breakdown of the morale groups. After some from the reckless number get killed, the other ones would probably pay attention - "Eep! They ran in guns blaze and got sworded and arrowed. Wait, they're responding with *arrows*?! Protego Totallum!" Further, Bellatrix is completely submissive to Voldemort. If he says drop a shot and leave, she'll damn well do so. Death Eaters made sport of nabbing and torturing and mindslaving highly skilled wizards and witches, in between all that boring back-room political stuff. These guys like a cushy life, sure, but they're no pushovers.

[The_Snark]

Ditto: You're consistently overestimating the power of Harry Potter magic. Voldemort can conjure giant abysses of lava under the feet of enemies? Death Eaters can teleport in, shoot Fiendfyre or animate a few boulders, and teleport out in the space of a second?

They never do this in the books. Apparation isn't used in combat very often–presumably, that's because it's disorienting or some such when you come out on the other side. Nobody ever animates large quantities of deadly objects to all that much effect. Fiendfyre is used once in the books; only once. If it were such a deadly, uncounterable weapon, and you could simply drop it and Apparate away, don't you think someone other than Crabbe would have used it?

Assuming that they can do this simply because we don't know the limits of the spells is like assuming that Sauron can take over your mind by looking at you. It might be true, but it's never done, and presumably there's a reason why.

Also: the Basilisk has to meet the person's eyes to kill them. If you do something like, I don't know, not look at it, you're fine. Have a hundred orcs or so shoot blindly—you'll probably kill a hundred of your own side, but it's not like that matters all that much. And as a nonintelligent snake, the basilisk is vulnerable to Nazgul-fear...

And you still haven't given any reason why the Black Breath wouldn't start crippling Death Eaters fighting a protracted hit-and-run war. It can affect you across battlefields, as has been shown. Moreover, it's actually more powerful while the Nazgul are uncloaked (and invisible).

[warty goblin]

I meant the basilisk is slow moving in that it lacks non-magical means of transportation and hence can be easily located and killed, not that it crawls along at a snail's pace.

And the whole abyss thing- when on earth does anybody in HP do anything that destructive? Destructo, a spell specifically designed to blow through stuff, can barely burn a hole through a hedge, that's a far cry from "hole through the mantle of the earth". And since when is Voldemort up on his plate tectonics anyway, and would know this kind of stuff? It was hardly common knowledge back in the 40's and 50's when he was in the Muggle orphanige, and my guess is that he pretty much pretends that part of his life never happened. Sauron would know this sort of stuff, having been around since the creation of the universe and all that, but Voldemort the great geophysicist? That's reeally reaching...

Animating stuff for combat was done once, to defend a structure that very well may have specifically facilitated such defenses, and anyway was done in advance, not on the spot under fire.

Sauron's ability to fly is pretty much immaterial, all he needs to do is to wait until Voldemort is flying around, then counter his spell. Problem solved through gravity.

And about all of the shielding stuff, please perform the following experiments:
Experiment A: The effectiveness of shielding.
Conditions: Assume 100% accuracy for all projectiles, whether arrows or magic. Assume distance of 100 feet between wizard and orcs. Assume enough orcs to keep a steady ROF on the wizard's position, spaced out enough to avoid shooting each other. Place yourself in the role of the wizard and perform the following steps:
1) Say Protego
2) Say Avada Kedavera/Fiendfyre (yes I know it non-verbal, but you still have to think the words, and there's no indication that NV spells actually speed up casting)
3) Say Protego again
did you manage steps 2) and 3) in under 1/3 of a second? No? Congragulations, the orcs just shot another wizard- most likely before the wizard even got their spell off. Conclusion- with enough orcs, the wizard cannot even lower their defences long enough to get a spell off without eating arrows.

Experiment B: Apperition
Conditions: Assume same physical and numerical conditions as above. Assume the wizard starts behind a shield spell. Perform the following steps:
1) Think of someplace- anyplace, and fix it in your mind
2) Perform the complicated bit of thinking that is required to pull off aperition.
Did you perform steps 1) and 2) in under 1/3 of a second? If not, the wizard once again tragically died with six inches of orc arrow sticking out of their chest. If so, the wizard managed to escape, after having inflicted exactly zero damage. Celebrate your survival, while realizing that you actualy accomplished nothing.

Conclusion: At best, apperating out will save a wizard's life ~70% of the time, since apperation is faster than spelling, but still reqiures the lowering of shields, since the shields are no longer being concentrated upon.

[dehro]

Y'know, I think I have the solution to the neutral battlefield problem - let's put them both in space! Voldemort can breathe in space, how's Sauron?
.

I realize from the smilie that you must be kidding...I shall point out however that Sauron has been around from far before space was created...(as opposed to breathable environments, that is)

Again, EE, no one asked about Sauron as of the Silmarillion. It's LOTR Sauron. Can *he* fly? No. Sauron no longer has his rampant shapeshifting abilities.

We know Nazgul have fancy flying beasts...what makes you think Sauron who created them would be unable to ride one himself?
It's a bit like a broomstick..only better because it has tallons and a great big mouth..

WG, I understand your point about the definition of AK and deathlessness. I still feel it would banish Sauron's physical form. .

that's your guess...my guess, given how HP magic works when it fails, is that AK could also backfire on Voldy...(seems appropriate)...I mean..trying to do something that is specifically stated as impossible could become doing the intended thing but to a lesser degree..but it could also mean that the whole enchantment blows up in your face. (not unlike Ron's experiment with the vingardium leviosa thing)

Fiendfyre is not 'hot hot burnination'. It turns things to ash upon touch, and can destroy highly resilient magical artefacts like horcruxes. It doesn't matter if you hang out in volcanoes or not, Fiendfyre says "Disintegrate", "Shatter", however you'd like to phrase it. That would be bad news for Sauron's non-specifically vaunted armor, at the very least, leaving the fleshy parts available for all other manner of blunt trauma (for when the magic fire *doesn't* torch Sauron for whatever fun reason)..

sounds a great deal more effective than AK then...why is it not on top of the forbidden magic list? it should be the most commonly used form of attack... why isn't this so?...oh...wait..maybe you are giving it more credit than it deserves.

oh..and, how great is the range of effect of a Repello?...I mean... we must scout grid 3B, right?... then have a long line of orcs march together, with ten metres in between them... the first one to stry from the assigned path gets an arrow trough his head and ten more orcs assigned to his piece of the grid...they are bound to just walk over the place and the wizard, eventually...

Lucky shots with fortunate aim most definitely happen. I expect a number of lucky shots will run up against a wizard's shielding. Your point?.

you seriously must be kidding...

what is it about lucky shots, reflexes and tiredness that you do not understand? or are you intentionally ignoring the possibility that a wizard makes mistakes and gets less than proficient when he is tired?
I'm not sure about my english, but I think it's pretty straightforward in any language, that if you talk about lucky shots and about wizards having been fighting for hours, you are talking about a slower than usual reaction from the wizard in pulling up his defences...and just one of the many many arrows, boulders and spears that are trown at him finding that gap...It isn't that rare...or magic duels would go on forever, as would boxing matches and fencing duels...no?
and what about numbers? a death wizard means a thousand more opponents for those who are still alive...shall we simply ignore this because it's not convenient to your theory?

I agree about your breakdown of the morale groups. After some from the reckless number get killed, the other ones would probably pay attention - "Eep! They ran in guns blaze and got sworded and arrowed. Wait, they're responding with *arrows*?! Protego Totallum!" Further, Bellatrix is completely submissive to Voldemort. If he says drop a shot and leave, she'll damn well do so. Death Eaters made sport of nabbing and torturing and mindslaving highly skilled wizards and witches, in between all that boring back-room political stuff. These guys like a cushy life, sure, but they're no pushovers.

all very very debatable... more so the effect it would have on the strategies they could apply..
and come on... what you do is elevating smallminded jerks who pulled the wings from flies and bees when they where little jerks, to people who have grown up in a orc-eat-orc society where you must have quite a thick skin to even survive childhood.
be serious, please..

anyway, I have deviced the perfect strategy for Sauron...it's so good that he can win the battle without losing a single man or orc.
all he needs to do is to..

Spoiler

Show

hire Dobby.
no, seriously, folks..just think of it...
houself magic is stronger than Wizard magic even in the HPverse.. Dobby seems to be impervious to it...
Dobby and eventually other oppressed houselves have been suffering from the Death Eaters particularily harsh treatments and might just be waiting for a chance for payback time.
they can track wizards wherever they hide (Kreacher does just that and fight them whatever magic they try on them...kreacher again, and Dobby too) and apparate in the most heavily protected places (hogwarts)..Voldy and his gang have nothing prepared against them, since they hardly notice their existence to begin with..
Sauron has always been good at hiring people or making them side with him...he could offer them freedom, or to be a better master, or to be a worse master if that's their fancy...
I can just totally picture it, small squads of Nazguls and houselves..a little backup from archers...and that's about it..

I know, I know..there are a lot of reasons wherefore the houselves might not want to side against the Death eaters...plotwise...but it's just so funny that it could actually work..adn there are at least as many reasons why it could work very well..and could be entirely possible...and you can't even say that it would not occur to Sauron, because he does this kind of things all the time...and you've been thinking of a lot ot things that would never occur to a HP wizard yourself

...it's cracking me up really ....

[Ditto]

Voldemort hasn’t summoned lava pits beneath anyone, but he can tunnel the ground out from under them huge chunks at a time. (Defodio - It was enough to clear the way for a dragon to maneuver.) Knowing that lava comes from underground is not rocket science, either – that’s how volcanos happen, right? Tunnel far enough, you find lava. Or tunnel less far, which is fine too, and crush him under a giant tunnel’s worth of rock. The only time there’s an open fight off of Hogwarts grounds (where Apparition isn’t possible) – at the Ministry with Dumbledore and Voldemort – they pop all around the atrium. In the movie, you see it used even more frequently in the Department of Mysteries by the Death Eaters.
-Not animating objects to much effect is a rather relative term, and also the tactic works much better against stationary targets, obviously. And it was used on an area that ‘*may* have been’ specifically set up that way, so don’t dismiss it out of hand.
-Fiendfyre is terrifically dangerous, as has been said, and not used by prudent wizard’s when there’s something or someone they’d like in the area – and also, other wizards (plural, if need be, there are lots of them) can dispel it. Fiendfyre also announces pretty clearly that “The Death Eaters are back!” and they weren’t exactly shooting for that throughout their active period in the books. On a nowhere-land, though, what do they care about letting this loose?
-Black Breath works from across a battlefield? I know we said it’s farther than literal breath range, but I thought it was understood to be a very local effect. Super-Rapid death is noticeable like that.
-The Basilisk does have to get you to look at it, but that’s going to catch a lot of people chancing glances. And blind shooting is going to tink harmlessly off of the impregnable glowy transparent bubble, anyway.
-Your test on Protego-Fiendfyre-Protego is a valid one. Wizards would be hard pressed to block all of those shots all of the time or even most of the time, absolutely. That’s why if they’re hiding in a Protego bubble, they apparate away. The shield remains until there is no longer a wizard to sustain it. If you don’t like that, then instead of Protego they use the ‘Summon shield-wall’ trick. Or they do the whole shebang from a broomstick, and stay Protego’d that way. Sauron isn’t big on the flying minion count. They come back from a different direction to drop the shot and leave again. Or leave outright, and come back in an entirely different area.

There’s no question that they *can* do these things, just whether they’re likely to. Whether Sauron can crush your mind with a glance is a HUGE question mark. (The answer is no, of course.)

Fell beasts can be killed like any other creature. They’re fleshy, and most definitely subject to AK or Stunning or anything else. And broomsticks are faster and more maneuverable. Not that they’d want to get in a dogfight with fell beasts, but if for some reason one was standing right behind the wizards (again, why and how where they anywhere close to them?), I’d give good odds on evading for the few seconds it takes to apparate away, or just flying off.

AK schucking Voldemort/Sauron is not ‘lesser AK’. It kills them dead, insofar as they exist on the mortal plane. Again, Gandalf *died*. And came back. That’s why Jesus isn’t any good in a battle royale – you only get to die once.

Fiendfyre *is* at the top of the forbidden magic list. Hermione intimates as much. It’s not one of the three Unforgivable Curses, because those are defined as single-target use-on-person spells, that’s all.

Repello is large enough to surround the castle and its grounds. That’s plenty of distance/warning for a small camp to notice. And even if every orc in the line approaches, they’ll each react the same way…

I don’t expect the wizards to get terrifically tired during a fight, no. They aren’t going to be battered sitting there for hours, they’re going to be in and out. And they can sit out awhile if they need to ‘recharge’ a bit. And if they’re not near the battlefront, they’re not under a hail of arrows anyway. House elves would actually be a great idea, but they’re probably not to keen on Sauron and it seems their magics are limited to defensive and useful household things – a huge toolbox, but not offensive, certainly. That’s the only reason I can see them charging the Death Eaters with freaking forks and knives… still, they could do a number of useful things. Cuz they’re wizardly! It’s still terrifically hard to track folks down… I mean, there were quite a number of folks scurrying around being hunted during the year under Voldemort’s puppet government. Voldemort himself remained out of side for the better part of three decades.

[dehro]

I don’t expect the wizards to get terrifically tired during a fight, no. They aren’t going to be battered sitting there for hours, they’re going to be in and out. And they can sit out awhile if they need to ‘recharge’ a bit. And if they’re not near the battlefront, they’re not under a hail of arrows anyway. House elves would actually be a great idea, but they’re probably not to keen on Sauron and it seems their magics are limited to defensive and useful household things – a huge toolbox, but not offensive, certainly. That’s the only reason I can see them charging the Death Eaters with freaking forks and knives… still, they could do a number of useful things. Cuz they’re wizardly! It’s still terrifically hard to track folks down… I mean, there were quite a number of folks scurrying around being hunted during the year under Voldemort’s puppet government. Voldemort himself remained out of side for the better part of three decades.

how convenient that Wizards never fail, never get tired, never sleep, eat or take a leak..
nobody before HP came up with the idea of using a houself for more than cleaning the cesspit... the one time HP sets a houself up on following and capturing a wizard, it takes a couple of days because said wizard is especially proficient at hiding...but he gets captured and delivered on a leash like a harmless puppy...I know what Sauron would do to harmless puppies...
and this could hardly be done without some pretty impressive magic, defensive or whatever you like...
after all, capturing a wizard is all Sauron needs to get rid of him..since once he's captured he is going to get killed because there are no plot reasons for keeping him alive.

anyway..I'm done with this thread, this is my last post in it.
you win it, for what I care..(god knows you've earned it if nothing for all the effor you have waisted on it, to no avail)
you haven't managed to convince me of one third of the things you so effectively argue, and I'm still convinced that you are using loopholes, that you are exagerating the HP magic's effectivness, underestimating Sauron's reactions and mobility..
you tend to bend common sense and arguments to fit your schemes
your strategy would in most cases be completelly alien to the HP wizards' mentality and thought process..
you equate the handiness of a few good spells with automatic victory and you never give any room for the flaws of the characters, that are part of them as much as their virtues and skills.

given this, I've tried to argue some sense in the whole debate, but I see it's useless.

I surrender.

and change approach.
no more concessions:
we know that potentially Sauron's army is more likely to be around 200.000 men strong..as much is suggested by people who actually write about middle earth and tolkien's saga.
we know that a large part of them is much more than merely human or orc..so the actual amount might equate for a fighting force of about 25.000-300.000 men strong.
I hereby declare that they will set out all at once, trampling all over all of Voldemort's allies losing maybe, if they get very unlucky, about 10-20.000 men in the process.
all remaining 280.000 will start walking to the center of the battlefield and spread out in regularily expanding circles, never less than 100 people in the same spot. once they find a hideout (and with so many people they are bound to succeed) they are going to dig up some large boulders and chuck them into the front door untill the place is nothing but a pile of rocks.
they will hunt down and shoot at anything that moves..without sleeping, without resting, without stopping for a quick sandwich..Sauron and the nazgul will swarm all over the place whipping their men into obeissance and killing everybody they see wearing a pointy hat.
when they find Voldemort all of the 200.000 something surviving men will grab stones, arrows, boulders torches and pitchforks and nail the bastard where he stands.

this all in obeissance to the one big rule that governs this situation.

Spoiler

Show

because I bloody say so

goodbye.

[warty goblin]

At its best, protego works until the wizard starts casting another spell- which they do as soon as they start apperating, and would hence be lowered, or is apperition not a spell?

Now for another question, how effective is protego anyway? In book 4 it is described as deflecting "minor jinxes", but by book seven it can hold two people apart from ripping each other's eyes out, which is another thing entirely. Either way, the only thing we've seen it stop are small things moving at a somewhat fast rate (spells) and large things moving even slower. Arrows as demonstrated move even faster than spells and have a lot of penetrating power, unlike spells which tend to burst on impact, arrows go through stuff. Up to and including steel plate armor, shields, and several inch thick pieces of oak. I'm not saying that protego would'nt stop arrows, but its not automatic that it would.

[Greebo]

The problem with judging the effectiveness of any Harry Potter spell is that J.K. didn't apply rules to the magic in her books in most cases. Protego is as effective as she needed it to be for whatever plot point she was making. Ditto for expelliarmus. In some scenes, it just knocks the wand lose. In others, it makes the wizard fly across the room or even knocks them out when hit with multiples (Snape, Book 3, in the Shrieking Shack).

Rowling wasn't interested in internal consistency in her magic, she was telling a story.

Tolkien equally wasn't concerned with the mechanics of magic, HE was telling a story.

So in this debate, the opponent who manages to get under the skin of the other side wins, cause that's the only measure by which to judge.

[Rowanomicon]

I agree with dehro. This argument is useless if some people ignore reason.

I believe that is has been quite clearly shown several times over that Sauron (alone or with his forces) would triumph over Voldemort (alone or with his force) under almost any circumstances. In fact I can't even imagine circumstances (staying true to each team's power levels) where Voldemort would win; I only assume that given infinite possibilities there must be some ridiculously specific circumstances in which Voldemort is so favoured that he almost has a chance of not dying if he got ridiculously lucky.

Anyway, Ditto, if you will never concede the debate, and I find it very unlikely that you will, then there is no point in this debate. You have proved nothing except that in a fight Death Eaters would fight (duh!) and that you are impervious to logic and sometimes are even fully protected form seeing things you do not wish to read.
Oh wait, you did one more thing: You proved, as any serious examination of the HP world does, that HP is utterly ridiculous and falls apart as a piece of...(dare I use this word for those books)...literature.
From now on when an English prof dares tell me that Heinlein or Verne have no literary merit I will "No, Rowling has no literary merit."

Good morning.

[Ditto]

I never said that wizards don’t get eat, sleep, take a leak, or get tired (not ‘never’, just not due to the rigors of a battle they barely have to engage in as far as running around or non-stop spell-slinging goes). We’ve spent a sizable portion of this debate figuring out how wizards get food and where they sleep at night. (Clever transfiguration or stealing or scrounging (er, I’m sorry, Sauron has destroyed the ENTIRE WORLD already.) and ‘inside highly sneaky and mobile tents or under the stars very, very far away’, respectively). If I try to bring up what the orcs are going to eat on this scorched earth, the answer I get is “each other”, over and over and over again. Apparently they’ve dedicated an entire nursery of baby orcs to being the cannon fodder’s food.

Sauron’s mobility is next to nothing. Do you know how impossible it is to move an army that size and its impedimenta with any speed?

House elves are indeed capable of hunting down wizards, but Mundungus probably wasn’t going to murder the elf to avoid the headlock. Death Eaters would. And as you say, no one ever thought of using them that way.

I’d rather like to see an orc every ten feet spread out across the entire continent (the great majority of whom are NOT archers), with Sauron and the Nazgul “swarming all over the place”. (Ten men do not a swarm comprise.)

If you don’t like Protego, that’s fine. Again, I don’t see them standing around for long enough to be beaten down under some great barrage. Whipping up a wall works just fine for the second it takes to poof away. Expelliarmus isn’t *that* bad – Snape was knocked out because he slammed into the wall, not as a stunning function of the spell. It’s demonstrated that you can put different amounts of force behind it, either swatting the wand away or whacking it. It’s like being able to hit someone with the flat side of your sword instead of the business end. Getting hit with the flat side is a huge insult. When you’ve simply disarmed them and they’re there with their pants down, they’re still standing and you get to gloat.

I’m sorry you feel I’ve done *nothing* constructive and unplot-hole-y in this discussion. I beg to differ, of course, and I’m not sure what egregious examples you’d cite since beyond Gant’s law, I’ve not heard ‘loophole’ thrown around. (I hardly think I’ve proved that the entire Potterverse is ridiculous.) When people point out items I’ve missed, I go back and respond to them quite carefully – as with Dehro’s recent claim of negligence. People have disagreed with my radical ideas on “advanced” wizard tactics *that they’ve already demonstrated*, such as “Don’t get hit”, “Apparate whenever possible”, and “Use things other than straight-shot curses”. I have never equated anything Voldemort puts up with automatic victory, unlike some early Sauron fans did – I recognize that Sauron’s army is huge, and it would take time to work it down. I don’t know why devastating things such as Fiendfyre and the Basilisk have been dismissed as ineffectual (…proved nothing except that in a fight Death eaters will fight (duh!) is what you call it?!).

I will, of course, join you in slapping any professor that disses Heinlein or Verne. We have that much in common.

[lipe44]

Ditto about you saying sauron cant have the ring because its LOTR Sauron, who said so? The tittle is "Sauron vs Voldemort" why should one be in a weakened state while other at his strongest state?

So unless Sauron is fighting the "baby" Voldemort with only Wormtail as follower then it isnt fair.

So forget about saying "He cant have the ring, its LOTR Sauron" because it is NOT.

Now lets see how Voldemort would do against Sauron with the ring(or you prefer Sauron without the ring against "baby" Voldemort and wormtail).

[warty goblin]

A rather amusing point about Fiendfyre: If, as Ditto claims, it does not need fuel, then it won't burn out. If it won't burn out it will spread over the entire world eventually. Since it apparently doesn't go out when it burns up everything in an area, then the entire landmass of Middle Earth will be on fire. Sauron won't be fussed, he lives in a volcano, but I'd imagine that the Death Eaters would be pretty put out (pun intended). It would make scavenging a real pain for sure.

So no, Sauron does not have to destroy the entire world to keep the wizards from eating. They do it just fine themselves.

I also don't believe that I've ever claimed that the orcs would "live off of each other" or any such thing. All of my food related plans were pretty clear on that. In fact the only time I think that orcs have been mentioned as eating each other being useful is that it makes having armies killed deplete resources to a lesser degree.

I feel that I've demonstrated that the basilisk is at best a minor speed bump. Its not like they can really keep it around the Death Eaters in general, since they can't control it, and you never know what accidents might happen, so its going to be on its own, unprotected, and pretty soon dead.

Again, no way has been given for Voldemort to prevail in combat against an enemy that can counter every spell he casts and not even break a sweat- the best he can ever hope to do is to escape, but escape =/= win, assuming Sauron doesn't counter his apperition and flight as well.

[Rowanomicon]

A rather amusing point about Fiendfyre: If, as Ditto claims, it does not need fuel, then it won't burn out. If it won't burn out it will spread over the entire world eventually. Since it apparently doesn't go out when it burns up everything in an area, then the entire landmass of Middle Earth will be on fire. Sauron won't be fussed, he lives in a volcano, but I'd imagine that the Death Eaters would be pretty put out (pun intended). It would make scavenging a real pain for sure.

So no, Sauron does not have to destroy the entire world to keep the wizards from eating. They do it just fine themselves.

Haha!
Also if there's any doubt that Sauron is immune to burning: he forged The Ring in the fired of Mount Doom. Now unless he has some really long tools he must have been nearly (if not literally) bathing in lava.

I also don't believe that I've ever claimed that the orcs would "live off of each other" or any such thing. All of my food related plans were pretty clear on that. In fact the only time I think that orcs have been mentioned as eating each other being useful is that it makes having armies killed deplete resources to a lesser degree.

Good point. Eating orc flesh is very far from the only thing mentioned in this thread. It is simply another thing that orcs can eat that Death Eater's wont be too keen on. I mean, if I stole a crate of orc meat I wouldn't be too stoked on it.

Again, no way has been given for Voldemort to prevail in combat against an enemy that can counter every spell he casts and not even break a sweat- the best he can ever hope to do is to escape, but escape =/= win, assuming Sauron doesn't counter his apperition and flight as well.

You've read it (twice in the last two posts), you can't un-read it!