Sauron vs Voldemort

[Ditto]

I did not say Voldemort was immune to fear. I said he was not afraid of anything. (Except ultimate, final death.) The horcruxes are the concrete representation of how much he fears final death and the lengths to which he will go to avoid it. Other than that… no, I can’t really think of anything. Fear comes from a sense of loss. You can be definitely scared (perhaps most scared, indeed) when you don’t know what’s going on – but there’s always an underlying reason. When you don’t know what’s going on, you likely experience all of those possible reasons running through your head at once. You’re afraid of failure and humiliation in front of your peers; afraid you’ll never get the love of a family member; afraid you’ll get hurt or die. These are all examples of losing something you care about. Voldemort doesn’t care about anything but his own survival. At all. That much has been submitted throughout the HP series.

Voldemort is angry often enough, when plans go awry. The only time we hear about him truly being nervous or skittish (which in your own words, is not afraid…) is when his relative immortality is on the line – leading up to the (Second) Battle of Hogwarts, when he discovers his horcruxes have been methodically destroyed and he’s down to his last one, the most vulnerable one in its corporeal shell.

I never said the fear effect was directional, I know it’s AoE. Standing behind Sauron is a good idea, regardless.

[Rowanomicon]

I was going to go into what exactly we can reason the HP spells are doing and why, but I realised that posting what I posted in my last post was much simpler and all we really need to know on the matter. Anything else is diverting the debate into a useless area.

You can call HP magic any type of force you want; it still remains that my last post is true.

Yes, Sauron will need to know what rules he wants to change before he can change them. That is why I previously said that any spell Sauron sees will no longer be effective within his presence (exactly how big a radius is unclear, if anyone can reference what size we should be looking at here that would be great).

I don't think it's a long to assume that Sauron would see something and say to himself "hey, I don't want that happening again" therefore each spell would only get off once unless they were sufficiently distant from Sauron or Sauron wanted it to work again. Considering Voldy et co would have to do a lot of fighting before Sauron decided to take them out himself (and Sauron would be watching the whole thing) that's a lot of spells out of their arsenal.

As to the fear, you yourself provided another of Voldy's great fears: humiliation. Are you telling me that he wouldn't mind being the laughing stock of the wizarding world? Another great fear (and this is just counting the big fears that drive his character, not the little fears that also exist in there) is that of powerlessness? Tom Riddle wants very much to live up to what he sees as the greatness of his family both in power and reputation; he is very afraid of not achieving this.

Now, let me recap: Sauron can take away Voldemorts power (even if this is only to a degree), Voldemort is afraid of powerlessness, and Sauron has the ability to instill great fear in those around him whether or not any of their phobias are present.

Well, it was clear beyond a reasonable doubt before, but now I think it is clear beyond even most unreasonable doubts that Voldemort would be very afraid in Sauron presence.

Also IF (and that's a big if) Sauron's fear effect does work on specific fears then it wouldn't matter if that specific fear was present. I imagine the fear effect as being vague and non-specific, but if you imagine it as causing specific fears in people then I imagine it would take the greatest fear from someone's mind and magnify it to the point where that person cannot even move. For someone with arachnophobia it would be spiders; for Voldemort it would be ultimate demise, powerlessness, and humiliation.

[Ditto]

No one likes being humiliated, but that's probably not on most people's mind when the Nazgul's fear effect comes into play. And it's certainly not an issue that would ever occur to Voldemort - who could possibly embarass him? With what? And how long would they live after? He's as afraid of this as he is of a marshmellow uprising.

If your *only* fear is arachnophobia, and there aren't any spiders around when the Nazgul arrive, then you're not afraid of not-spiders... Normal men care about many things, among them being killed. If you're hit with the fear, scan the area for 'things that could kill me' and spot a Nazgul, you choose the "Pee pants" option from the list of "Run away/pee pants/Swing sword blindly while peeing pants". The fear aura magnifies fear, it doesn't suggest "You're afraid of public places! Run away!".

Powerlessness is a fair redefinition. He's afraid of losing his power... "How can I lose my power?" he asks himself. "I can come back from the dead, so I'm thinking permadeath is about it." No other force can rob him of his powers. You can't rip the magic out of a wizard, and you can't kill him, so what need he worry about? This fear, again, comes back to demonstrating the power to ultimately banish him. That's not going to come up in a battle.

Why do you need to know how far out Sauron has a radius? His anti-magic abilities are not an area effect. He needs to consciously negate every instance of magic. Seeing the spell being used opens up that possibility (first shot is free), but that doesn't mean he can block it anywhere it happens, nor does it mean that he can block it because it involves him. And most spell's castings *don't* involve him, since they create some effect launched from the wand. Magic in LOTR is like two people holding a grenade, with one person trying to pull the pin and the other one stopping him. In HP, everyone gets to pull the pin and throw it. You can hide or shield yourself, but you can't stop it from going off.

Voldemort uses magic *which cannot be counterspelled*. Sauron is able to interfere with *eminently futz-with-able* magic. When you amend your earlier suggestion to match the functional descriptions from each universe, you see it's not as clear cut as you make it out to be. Otherwise, "AK kills things that are living" could include a huge umbrella of things under 'living', most certainly including 'any sentient creature that walks and talks'.

[warty goblin]

A few points:

1) Fear is not neccesarily rational. That's the point of a Fear Aura, it causes people to behave stupidly, to think they can't don't have a chance, to think that giving up and dying, or running away, or curling up and sobbing will help, but fighting will only make things worse. Everything Voldemort does is motivated essentially by fear, fear of death, fear of powerlessness, fear of weakness, fear of otherness, fear of the unknown. He's obviously pretty succeptible to fear. He also never shows much in the way of courage- every time a fight looks like it could go south, he's looking for a way out of there.

2) I believe you yourself said that HP magic can do anything, you just need to find the recipe. Countering a spell is something, therefore by your own logic there's a spell that can do it, its just that nobody's found out how. Anyway, the Anti-Disaparrition jinx is essentially a blanket counterspell in effect. Just thought I'd point that out.

Here's the thing, by looking at the nitty-gritty of the magic systems, you do neither side any favors. If in fact the magic systems are so completely inconpatible as you claim, Sauron will rip Voldemort's mind apart with a glance, since no HP magic can defend against the mind of a demi-god. There's mental defenses in HP against human magic sure, but Sauron is not human, therefore the highly specific magic of HP will not work to defend against him. See why this sort of logic is worthless, even if it can be supported by the nitty-gritty? If, on the other hand, you take a more top-down approach and look at what each combatant is capable of in a general sense things are a lot more sensible and the comparison between them is more reasonable.

[dehro]

I do think that allow Sauron to completely ignore anything Voldemort does actually grants him a rather significant advantage…

so basically you are saying that it is unfair that sauron is a godlike creature and has the powers he has? it's a bit like complaining that Andrè the Giant (mayherestinpeace) was a bloody giant..after having voluntarily entered the ring. how is that unfair?
it would have been more sensible to say that the match could not be held because the opponents are of different category, instead than pretending that the heavier one fight with his hands tied on his back...not his fault he was born with them and they are bigger, is it?

No one likes being humiliated, but that's probably not on most people's mind when the Nazgul's fear effect comes into play. And it's certainly not an issue that would ever occur to Voldemort - who could possibly embarass him? With what? And how long would they live after? He's as afraid of this as he is of a marshmellow uprising.

there you go again, roaming in the wild world of assumptions that suit your defence line...

I appreciate the effort you make in defending your client..even if I do not always read this thread anymore....
anyway...aren't you making him look quite like something he is not, kinda superman like? from your descriptions he really looks bigger than he actually is...
and as for the point I am quoting here...
takiing it quite literally and out of context, for the sake of nitpicking as I realise you are talking of a different kind of fear, anybody who knew of his "shameful heritage" could very easily humiliate and embarass him Iin the HP-verse, of course...it is quite evident that being half muggleborn is a source of great shame for voldy..that alone, if it was used by Sauron to taunt him, could send him over the edge of fury and make him take the wrong steps...how long would it take sauron to discover this little secret? and how many death eaters would turn against him if they knew?
sauron likes to mess with people's head..this would be tipically a trick he'd aply

[Rowanomicon]

Yes, Voldy seems very immune to humiliation. It's not like was beaten repeatedly by a snot nosed little kid. Seriously, humilation is like Voldemort's middle name. Voldemort is the kid that always gets picked on and beaten by naturally more gifted kids. He, like all other kids that constantly get beaten, is quite angry about it and thinks he deserves better than those who have beaten him.

This debate really wont go anywhere if you continue to simply say that HP magic is uncountable (something that contradicts the accepted truths of HP magic anyway) even after several people quite clearly show how it would be countered in this instance.

Sauron could exert his will over the universe in an area. I was wondering if anyone knew of any references as to how large this area might be.

He would not have to be aware of and specifically target each casting, he would simply have to change the rules of reality so that casting doesn't produce a spell. Now that i think about it, once Sauron noticed that wizards seem to channel their magic through their ands he'd simply change the rules of reality so that wands no longer channel magic. All the wizards are effectively powerless.

Which brings me to my next point. Fear is not rational. If you think that people look around themselves calmly and reason out whether or not they should be afraid then you are very, very wrong. I cannot stress enough the degree of wrong that you are. Thinking that is even more wrong than... thinking Voldemort could beat Sauron (and that's wrong with a capital W).
Inhibiting Voldy's casting (making him... powerless, without his power, devoid of power, separated from that witch is his power, not containing power) would be more than enough (coupled with the fear effect) to make him pee his pants, curl up in a ball, and cry for mommy.

Allowing Sauron to be Sauron is definitely giving him an unfair advantage in this fight. Perhaps we should make Voldemort Sauron and Sauron Batman (with time to prepare, of course). That would certainly be the logical thing to do since the goal of all vs threads is to ultimately decide under what conditions the to opponents would be evenly matched.

And once more for old times sake, Sauron can stop HP magic, live with it.

[dehro]

Sauron could exert his will over the universe in an area. I was wondering if anyone knew of any references as to how large this area might be.

we do know for sure that Sauron has been able to shield the whole of Mordor from the probing minds of the likes of Saruman, Gandalf and Galadriel..and that he has been able to "cover the sun" on the pelennor fields, for quite a bit longer than nightime. that should sort of give us an indication of the scope of his powers.... they tend to fall in the "-ing huge" category..

[Ditto]

Counterspelling is not doing something. It’s undoing something, which has not been shown to be possible. There’s no reason it would not have come up – there are plenty of cases where Dumbledore, Snape, or Voldemort have faced vastly inferior opponents who they’d clearly have no challenge counterspelling (theoretically), but the opponent nevertheless gets to cast his spell. It’s easily blocked, which is clearly the MO.

When I say HP can do anything, I mean that it’s not limited to just the spells we see in books, in practice or principle. Transfiguration and Charms are hugely open-ended branches of *applied* magic, and we know that they’re constantly evolving with modifications of existing spells and research into new ones. I’m also saying that it can do many of the things that spell-like abilities in LOTR can do. Obviously HP can’t destroy the entire world just-like-that, which apparently Sauron and Gandalf can do if you read their abilities as open-endedly as y’all are.

Voldemort’s fears – Irrational fears and irrationally magnified fears are different things, of course. An irrational fear would be fear of clovers or the color red when they clearly have no adverse affect on you. Nazgul cannot implant fears like that. They irrationally magnify existing fears by implying that they are very here and very real, more than is the actual case. We don’t know that they can actually take advantage of anything besides fear of death, which every opponent they face has had. Voldemort is singularly unafraid of death.
I’m not saying fear is a rational process that mandates sitting down and working out whether to be afraid in that particular instance. I’m saying that when you’re alone in the dark, you’re afraid at the vaguest possibility that there COULD be a tiger or an ax murderer or the floor is a pit trap or or or. If you’re afraid of permadeath, and there’s no indication that ANYTHING that can cause permadeath is around (which is always, barring a scary conversation about destruction of horcruxes and holding souls in limbo), then yeah, you’re not afraid.

Humiliation – sure, he’s ashamed of stuff. But fear of humiliation means he’s afraid someone will laugh at him and belittle him when they find out, and he doesn’t consider that a possibility. (This might be one of those ‘immune to X fear on account of insanity/willingness to indiscriminately kill people). And fear of humiliation still isn’t the kind of thing that makes you run away in panic – these people are really only fleeing for their lives. Applying humiliation would be a fine thing for weakening morale in the long run, I guess, but it’s not going to stop him in his tracks on the battlefield.
At what point is Voldemort picked on by bigger and more talented kids? Cuz I thought he was the unrivaled prodigy who won Student Body President all four years of high school and married the prom queen.

He hasn’t shown much in the way of courage? You mean fighting a losing battle in an epic way? What else are you referring to where he’s obviously shown being afraid of something and running off in a panic? Retreating is not the same as fleeing. Courage is defined as persevering in one’s action specifically against the impulses of fear and danger. If Voldemort is only afraid of permadeath, and nothing can threaten that, then he by definition cannot be brave. Darn.

Why do you say Voldemort is only immune to a very specific form or human magic? Legilimency and Occlumency have worked against all sorts of creatures in HP, not just wizards or even just humans. By its own definition, it is completely closing one’s mind to anything sentient AT ALL. The end. It hasn’t been stated as demi-god proof because there is no such thing as a demi-god. That’s not a defeat.

I’m not saying I think Sauron ignoring all of Voldemort’s spells because he’s a god isn’t fair (not that I’m copping to that); I’m saying that WG said he doesn’t think allowing Sauron to ignore it all is an unreasonable advantage. I think tossing that statement out there is a *little* to cavalier about dismissing 99% of his opponent’s abilities by saying “But it’s okay because Voldemort can resist Sauron’s magic too! Except he can’t.”

We tried the general approach to magic. It was decided Sauron is immune to all magic.
-This is because he can counter will-based magic at the point of casting; that’s not what HP magic does, so he’s not immune for that reason.
-He can apparently dispel existing enchantments… which is (mostly) not what HP magic does.
-He can allegedly end the magic of transfiguredly-animated objects and animals and things, except that they’re not magical any more. There’s nothing to dispel. You had a rock, and now it’s a dog. Not a magical dog. Just a dog. You had a tree, now you have an ambulatory tree. It’s a tree, that walks. Not a magic tree.
-He can apparently say “Magic doesn’t work here because your little stick doesn’t channel magic”. One, He couldn’t to it to Gandalf. Two, you yourself Rowan have argued that HP magic is an external force wizards tap into, whereas LOTR magic is inherent. How could Sauron tap into an external magic pool that *does not exist*, so far as he’s concerned? If there are two separate sources of magic, then we would have to use two different words. Sauron has demonstrated that he can counter magic’, but not that he can counter magic*.
-He can redefine the rules of everything ever, just because. This is ludicrous and not supported by the books. If it were true, then he could have turned Minis Tirith upside down by thinking about it off-handedly, but did not. I understand that ‘remaking the laws of creation’ is the mechanic by which Sauron creates his magic, but he is not changing the base rules – he’s making exceptions. There’s a huge difference.
-The only anti-magic ability Sauron has that I can see having any traction is that he personally will be resistant to effects which target him personally due to a sort of “Save: Will negates” effect for spells that somehow mess with his person such as stunning or attempting to transfigure him into a rock. This still leaves a host of options which do not screw with his innards that *should still work*, including Expelliarmus, Incarcerous, Defodio… well, that whole list I made before.
Then, we looked at the nitty-gritty, and it was decided Sauron is immune to all magic for more complicated but unsound reasons with a lot more words. (See above.)

[Beleriphon]

we do know for sure that Sauron has been able to shield the whole of Mordor from the probing minds of the likes of Saruman, Gandalf and Galadriel..and that he has been able to "cover the sun" on the pelennor fields, for quite a bit longer than nightime. that should sort of give us an indication of the scope of his powers.... they tend to fall in the "-ing huge" category..

More to point, he can do all of that without the Ring, which is a seriously limitation on his power.

Something occurs to me though, Voldemort is just the kind of guy that ends up being a Nazgul.

[EvilElitest]

No one likes being humiliated, but that's probably not on most people's mind when the Nazgul's fear effect comes into play. And it's certainly not an issue that would ever occur to Voldemort - who could possibly embarass him? With what? And how long would they live after? He's as afraid of this as he is of a marshmellow uprising

In fellowship of the ring and return of the king, the fear is decribed as irretional, or fear of the dark sort of thing. Eventally, it leads to panic or despair. When the WK walked up to minis tirith, no body could even shoot an arrow at his army until gandalf dispelled it
form,
EE

[Ditto]

Say, when do Galadriel etc. try to probe into Mordor? I'm just not sure what that means, and how that would work. Sauron can see around with his Eye-ness and the palantir and Galadriel can screen Lothlorien, but how are they trying to scan Mordor?

EE, can you cite a passage saying something to that effect? And fear of the dark in the colloquial sense is usually an umbrella for fear of the unknown and others (death, theft, siblings trying to scare you), not fear of actual darkness. That's one I'd call the purely irrational and not irrationally magnified.

[EvilElitest]

Fellowship of the Ring
A sudden unreasonable fear of discovery laid of Frodo's heart, and he thought of the Ring."
Farmer Maggot- I didn't like the look of him, and when Grip came out, he took one sniff and let out a yelp as if he had been stung, then sat down on his tail and bolted off holwing.........he looked down low and I felt a shiver go down my back"
"The shadow of fear of the Black Riders came suddenly over them again"
That is just form a quick skim, somebody with more time on their hands could do better
Return of the king
"But the enemy had a weapon more deadly than starvation, fear. It ran down the wall until the men of the city were cowered and stricken, and no arrow or dart was shot down below"
that last one i am a little uncertain of how accurate it is, that is by memory.
Oh, and yes the balrog does serve sauron
"and they disturbed that from which they fled, Durin's Bane. Of what [Mithril] was brought to light, the Orcs have gathered nearly all and given it in tribute to Sauron"
And those orcs work for teh balrog, so the Balrog works for Sauron
from,
EE

[Rowanomicon]

OK, I will be clearer on my stance on HP magic. Each spell has a specific recipe. We know that all recipes include the wizard gene (or whatever makes a wizard not a muggle) and we know that nearly all recipes include a wand as an ingredient, other than that each spell has specific verbal, somatic, or thought components.

All Sauron needs to do is make wands not cannel magic (which they clearly do, it might even be explicitly stated). It would be like making yeast not do it's reaction, then you wouldn't be able to make your bread.

Doing something vs undoing something is semantics. It's doing something.

I seriously don't see why you're saying that Voldemort would be immune to fear effects. He has no supernatural ability to avoid fear; he hasn't even undergone any specific personal training to remove or help him overcome his fears.

Nazgul fear (and Sauron's fear to a greater extent) instills a powerful and irrational fear in you. It instills, it does not magnify. It's not like "hey, that spider's gonna get you" where you can simply say "but I'm not afraid of spiders." If you want to give it a physical scientific explanation then sets of whatever electro-chemical reactions cause you sympathetic nervous system tot kick in to the point that your body cannot function properly. If you want a supernatural explanation the it, well pretty much does the same thing, but it's magical.

I know D&D is not the be all and end all, but "cause fear" and "fear auras" do not have a clause that is nothing the person is afraid of is near by then the spell (or ability) has no effect.

Letting Sauron be Sauron is not an unreasonable advantage. It is a huge advantage, but it is quite reasonable that both opponents have access to the full scope of their powers.

[Deadmeat.GW]

It hasn’t been stated as demi-god proof because there is no such thing as a demi-god.

Yay, Ditto wins this and therefore Voldy because there is NO demi-gods, hence no Sauron so victory by default.

Once again, where does it state that Voldy is immune to fear and doubt?

Is this in the 'real', not written by a certain lady version of the HP books, which you seem to have a set of?

Let us see, Voldemort flees in near panic from HP when his borrowed wand pretty much backfires on him...
Voldemort goes to extra-ordinary lengths to prevent himself from dying, quite like people who are afraid of something will go to extra-ordinary lengths to remove the cause of a fear.
When the horcruxes are all but one destroyed he does what?
He tries and hides his last Horcrux because he is afraid it will be destroyed too.

Since ditto said no magic in HP-verse can be countered we really need to ask him to post to original version of the story because the copies I have do have some references to countering magic and one that is even supposedly impossible to break through...FOR HP wizards yet House Elves simply ignore it when they use their magic.

He is pretty much saying that since there is no other magic then the HP wizards magic which you cannot affect or counter yet we have House Elves who show that a) there is other types of magic and b) the magic of HP wizards is NOT all-powerful or unstoppable as he is trying to make out.

The mere fact that Ditto has proven that using his imagination that he can with the HP wizards spells come up with better and more fool-proof methods then Voldemort just shows that DITTO is better then Voldemort at using this magic, NOT that VOLDEMORT would be able to do so.

Muggles sciences...no way would Voldemort lower himself to use it, he is above it in his own mind.
Ditto may not be afraid or ashamed of being a part muggle Voldemort however is and tries to hide this a lot.
Ditto knows what Saurons weaknesses and likely strengths are, Voldemort however does NOT.
Voldemort is overconfident and arrogant to the point of overlooking things that enable a bunch of kids with barely any training and a very, very limited repertoire of spells to beat him again and again which Ditto does not seem to be.
Ditto is not afraid of dying, completely incapable of emotions like doubt, shame, fear, panic and so since he does not seem to understand that Voldemort is such a good baddie because he is actually driven by his fears to do what he does.
Voldemort is very much capable of feeling fear, it is why he made the Horcruxes in the first place, it is why he hides his greatest shame (being part muggle).

Fear of the dark and fear of the unknown is not the same thing perse, it could be the same but it does not have to be.
Irrational behaviour if you encounter something beyond your understanding is not bound to a specific thing in all cases.
Sometimes people can be afraid beyond any reason from things that have nothing to do with why they were afraid in the first place.

Hence people who are scared to death from barking dogs...because they were in an earthquake which was announced by the barking of the neighbours dog and so-on.

Voldemort is not immune to fear, he shows this throughout the books.
So anything that like the Nazgul or Sauron can create an irrational state of fear or panic that only the very strongest willed people can even hope to resist for a while will be exceedingly dangerous to Voldemort as he absolutely loves to look his opponents in the eyes while he kills them.
He would not stay at a safe distance just in case because he is overconfident and definately the first time around will be in the face of his opponent to try and scare him.

Just like trying to bypass the loophole in the rules of magic in HP verse, you cannot simply say that rule is bypassed for creating food when in what for all intents and purposes is a society where killing an animal for food is not really seen as something that is rarely going to be happening near you.
If the wizards say it cannot be done you have to ask yourself why the obvious ploy you refered to is not working?
Because I am sure that if it says no food that it means no food given that we have examples of the food that these people eat in the books and the films and they include farmyard animals for families down on their fortunes (and if they could do what you said they would do so and not be down so much).
Could it be something as simple as the theory I put up, namely that the created animal is just inedible?
Hence you cannot create 'food' since you cannot use it to feed you?

[Beleriphon]

Letting Sauron be Sauron is not an unreasonable advantage. It is a huge advantage, but it is quite reasonable that both opponents have access to the full scope of their powers.

When you consider that Sauron among other things is a consumate shape changer, if you want to take him at the height of his power some time during the first age, this along gives him a huge advantage. It isn't even a magical/dispelled effect. He simply assumes the shape of something else.

From a magical ability perspective things get much muddier. We know the powers that Sauron has, at least in a general sense of things, but we don't know whether these are supposed to be spells that he casts (which by all accounts he's very good at) or innate abilities that he posses by virtue of station and being one of the Maiar. I think by default the fact that Sauron is one of the Maiar makes him more powerful that Voldemort and he should conceivably be able to ignore any effect that Voldemort produces. According to the Silmarillin Sauron is a master of illusions, and that werewolves and vampires are among his most powerful servants during this period.

Voldemort's powers and abilities are much more clearly defined, and pretty limited in comparison.

[Ditto]

Thanks again for the sarcasm, Deadmeat. Helpful as ever. [/sarcasm]

Of course there's no such thing as demigod-proof magic in HP. I didn't think that was a profound statement. There's nothing that says Sauron is immune to wizard wand-based magic in LOTR or that he can in any way interact with non-mind-based magic, either. I'm not dismissing the possibility of some magical transparency out of hand, though, hm? We've gone through what has and hasn't been shown pretty thoroughly.

Voldemort did not flee when his wand broke. He actually *charged* Harry. He was driven off by the wards set up around the Tonks'. He got panicky and protected his last horcrux above all else because he was afraid of losing his link to immortality, absolutely. That's what I've been saying. That one, all-consuming fear is what drives him, and it's been stated quite clearly in the books that there's nothing else to it. If bouncing off of the Tonk's protections is your only evidence of Voldemort's fear, then he's sitting pretty.

And finally, I'll dignify the ad hominem rant with a response, though these points have been long dealt with.
-The Malfoys didn't block House Elf apparating because they didn't think house elves could ever do anything useful. House elves simply aren't used for reconnaissance missions. Their magic (and apparating-ish) is different from the wizards' version, so a spell blocking the wizards' version doesn't interfere with the house elves'. Pretty straightforward.
-Cite an example of countering magic that prevents the spell from going off.
-I haven't invented any bizarre new branch of magic that outstrips Voldemort's knowledge... and if there were a bizarre new branch of magic useful in this situation, then Voldemort would probably be the one to find it.
-Fooding is old and boring.
-As above, I said myself that Voldemort is *highly motivated* when it comes to his one overriding fear. Thanks for agreeing with me.

Doing vs. undoing is not merely semantics. Magic in HP always has some positive effect (not as in a happy thing, but an active result). It's like casting un-magic. The phrasing doesn't even make sense. Dispelling is a fundamentally different mechanic than that of any other magic with its alleged blanket blockability... and it still has zero evidence in the canon. Less than zero. It has positive evidence against.

Sauron can think at his enemies and disable magic by severing the link between caster and magic? It's a good thing he did that at some point ever. That's why he won every war without incident.

In HP, it doesn't matter how powerful you are - everyone's vulnerable to magic the same way. Voldemort or Colin Creevey get Expelliarmus'd, they're both losing their wand. There's no such thing as shrugging it off because you're older or more experienced. In LOTR, the power of the caster determines everything, up to whether the magic happens in the first place. I'd say that's another huge example of irreconcilable differences.

[Niun]

-Cite an example of countering magic that prevents the spell from going off.

This passage comes to mind:

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Page number 602

Spoiler

Show

Twenty yards apart, he and Harry looked at each other before raising their wands simultaneously.
"Cruc -"
But Snape parried the curse, knocking Harry backward off his feet before he could complete it

Over the remainder of this page and the next page, Snape parries every spell sent his way in this manor

While it might not be what anyone had in mind, all Sauron would need to do would be to push Voldemort, who would then be either unable to cast, or would miss. Now, I'm not sure if Sauron is actually able to push people/things around using magic, but if he can, he can counter HP magic.

I'd also like to point out that if Sauron or the Witch-King crack, or otherwise damage Voldemort's wand while he's casting the spell, it should have a very interesting effect, possibly backfiring and killing Voldemort, depending on what spell he was casting.

It would be rather amusing to have Voldemort or one of his Death Eaters trying to conjure up Fiendfyre, only to have their wands crack a split-second before they finish the incantation.

[Ossian]

Flight to the Ford:
Frodo (ok, barely a lifeform next to the witch king) is on the other side of the river. He raises his sword (well, dagger) and defies the witch king uttering some elvish names. The witch king 50 yards away raises his hand and frodo's sword is broken (mind you, a numenorean sword) and falls to the ground.

Now, do the same with wands (granted, not without breaking a sweat. Vold. isn't frodo, but hey, Sauron isn't the witch king either)

O.

[Deadmeat.GW]

Thanks again for the sarcasm, Deadmeat. Helpful as ever. [/sarcasm]

He got panicky and protected his last horcrux above all else because he was afraid of losing his link to immortality, absolutely. That's what I've been saying. That one, all-consuming fear is what drives him, and it's been stated quite clearly in the books that there's nothing else to it. If bouncing off of the Tonk's protections is your only evidence of Voldemort's fear, then he's sitting pretty.

And finally, I'll dignify the ad hominem rant with a response, though these points have been long dealt with.
-The Malfoys didn't block House Elf apparating because they didn't think house elves could ever do anything useful. House elves simply aren't used for reconnaissance missions. Their magic (and apparating-ish) is different from the wizards' version, so a spell blocking the wizards' version doesn't interfere with the house elves'. Pretty straightforward.
-Cite an example of countering magic that prevents the spell from going off.
-I haven't invented any bizarre new branch of magic that outstrips Voldemort's knowledge... and if there were a bizarre new branch of magic useful in this situation, then Voldemort would probably be the one to find it.
-Fooding is old and boring.
-As above, I said myself that Voldemort is *highly motivated* when it comes to his one overriding fear. Thanks for agreeing with me.

With other words Voldemort does have fears, for a human he controls these fear very well but he has them...

Now think back to what you said earlier, Sauron and the Nazgul could not affect Voldemort because he was not afraid...

You are falling into the big trap almost any poster on these boards falls for, we have a massive experience figuring things out in tons of alternative ways through our experiences from games, plays, etc...

Any one of us if transported to the HP verse would be in the top 1 percentile of most powerful wizards ever because we can think in an abstract manner.

The wizards from the HP verse are not able for some reason in the books to do this, it is why Harry and his closest friends are so dangerous, they are imaginative and they tend to break so-called rules (mind you not the big Laws, even they could not break those) because they don't think it beneath their notice or beyond their power to do so.

You Ditto could with the powers of Voldemort do a serious number on Sauron, even so I doubt you would win but Sauron would have known he had been in a battle.
Voldemort simply would not, his arrogance, his extreme fear of specific things and his habit of playing with his prey tends to make any of those tactics fail.

He would be crazed with fear if he got too close but due to his overconfidence he would actually get that close to Sauron.
He would dismiss the servants of Sauron as mere servants he would almost ignore them.
His best weapons would not work, fear and distrust would loose a lot of power if you KNOW that your current boss will make sure he would punish your transgressions, whether you are dead or alive.

I don't see Voldemort as anything but a 'oops, that was foolish...argh' fight against Sauron.

He simply is far too prone to overestimating his powers and underestimating his opponents and against Sauron or even any of the nazgul that is a seriously deadly mistake.

You have to stop seeing Voldemort from your viewpoint and from Voldemort's viewpoint.
Heck, if you had the powers of a average HP wizard your skill at inventing new tactics would quite likely defeat Voldemort all on your own.

[Ossian]

I don't know, possibly Voldemort, if played a bit less like the stereotype archvillain, but to its full potential, could do some harm to Sauron, but I just instinctively feel he's..too far from him. As jules Winnifeld put it, It ain't the same ballpark. It ain't the same league. It ain't even the same f-ing sport.

Voldemort is there just like a plot device, like the reason why Harry matures, gets to know and overcome his fears, reveal us his tormented past and so on. He's basically a fish in a can, he's doomed to be defeated from square one. I mean that J.K Rowling's Voldemort, starting from the very name choice, has NO chance whatsoever against Sauron. A wizard of comparable level, that got it without losing his mental sanity, hmmm....maybe he could do some harm.

What beats me is the context. I'm not really into HP verse, but I guess that if all the wizards of the ministry, and the united teachers of all schools had a clue of his whereabouts, they'd go into overkill and just mass attack him, thus ending a scary threat.

Sauron lives in Mordor. All the 5 Istari perfectly know where he is, and so do Galadriel, Celeborn, Elrond, Glorfindel, Erestor, Gildor, Cirdan, Elladan, Elrohir, Aragorn. Let's forget about a massive attack with armies. You clearly don't bother the Dark Lord if you don't have a 300.000 strong army of dunedain. But those guys, who are inded mighty, perfectly equipped, millenia old, expert and knowledgeable of the ways of magic, perfectly aware of who the Dark Lord is, and yet they didn't just go like a good adventuring party on an assassination mission. "So we can take care of the Ring while sauron takes 2000 years to reform a body". Sauron is beyond, FAR beyond, any of the Istari (who seem on pair with any HP wizard). Even if Voldemort was such an engine for distruction, and if you removed all his psycho traits, I don't see him doing much damage. His servant, his creation, the Witch King is more than a match for the most powerful wiz of Middle Earth!

Howvere, all this reading of HP verse and Sauron has kind of inspired me. In fact, you all can be happy (I hope) as I got this plot hook I'd love to elaborate. The fact is, we're considering a neutral ground, like a 300000 miles wide arena where opponents and whichever magical paraphernalia, fortresses, forces and backup forces and reinforcments and supplies could fit.
Now, obvious as it might be, Voldemort IS a force to be reckoned with. And if Voldemort was in Middle Earth (that's my plot hook mind you) he would not bother defeating Sauron. On the contrary, he'd seek to pledge allegiance to him as soon as he set foot in mordor, and Sauron would not be that dumb as to let him down. He would make a great servant and one more than willing to accept Sauron's most alluring offer: Immortality. We have seen how much he's obsessed with it, and if he did not know much about the effects of the rings, as most men didn't, he'd judge Mordor's chef executives from their sheer power. The Nazguls! He'd assume (and Sauron would stress he would be right) that power is proportional, and if the king of numenore became the Witch King, with one of the Rings he'd make an AWESOME immortal spirit with powers beyond (his) imagination, PLUS fairly well into immortality, more than eager to subjugate, say, the far East of middle earth for his master.

After all, who says that HP wizards have no masters? I have just seen the movies, and the hogwarts guys seem to be sort of atheistic-gnostic-convince yourself you're badass wizards. Yet, their power MUST have a Source. Something a bit more elaborate tha just "Earth electromagnetic field". magic, pure magic. Mana, energy, mystic power. Something in Arda is well represented by the Song of Arda, the music of the Ainur. So, take Sauron as the newfound source of your power, and go enjoy being an immortal lich in middle earth!

O.

[Ditto]

Niun - That's the main example I was talking about earlier. That's hex deflection (very easy when you know exactly what's coming at you) as well as interrupting the spell before it can be cast. Versus a prone, exhausted, traumatized target whose head you've already been inside of, no less. You'll notice the exact wording is 'before he could complete it'. That's exactly what I've been saying. Counterspelling would be - "Harry pointed his wand at Snape and screamed Crucio! at him, but no spark of righteous fury erupted from his wand. Impedimenta! he cried aloud again, but again his wand sat cold and unresponsive in his hand." *That's* what Sauron can do to magic in LOTR, and it simply isn't done at all in HP.

Ossian - That's been discussed before, and avoided for several reasons. First off, Voldemort wouldn't stand there a moment waving his wand at Sauron before attacking, as per the MO for the entire wizarding campaign. This was Frodo's first encounter with the Ringwraiths IIRC, and he wasn't aware of what he was truly facing, and he thought he was safe on the water... plenty of things Voldemort's not doing at this point. I forget... is there evidence Sauron can do the same thing (and if so, why he didn't do that against Gil-Galad and that crew)?

Deadmeat - I understand the point about vs. proponents applying their own meta-logic to scenarios, and it's a fair one. It always happens, on both sides. If you'd like to point out particular tactics you think are coming purely from me, then I'd be happy to explain the in-universe logic and precedent for them.
Voldemort is, of course, that top 1% you're talking about.
He has traditionally overestimated his power against well-known opponents whose strengths he knew about but dismissed as ineffectual. That's very different from plunging headlong into any fight without consideration merely because he expects he's going to win in the end anyway.
He plays with his prey when they're already crushed and prone and nominally weaker anyway (Harry Potter, repeatedly). When it comes to serious threats, he takes them the hell out. He didn't screw around with Moody or Amelia Bones or the Dumbledore battle, it was in-and-out splat.

Harry & co. breaking rules and getting away with it is the source of endless debate on the morality of authority in HP... I mean, McGonagall uses Imperio needlessly, and Harry's used Crucio several times in anger. His use of Imperio at Gringott's might be justifiable as part of The War on Death Eaters - especially since during the First Wizarding War, Aurors were allowed to use Unforgivable Curses - but there are never any consequences aside from detentions and losing house points.

O. again - Sauron's offer of immortality would certainly be alluring; however, Voldemort already has that (in effectively the same way as the Rings grant, via an artefact or seven) and he quite decidedly will serve no master. Period. (Not to say that's a wizarding trait overall, but Voldemort simply isn't capable of loyalty like that. His Death Eaters stay out of the bully mentality - in it for the power, or afraid to leave. No one cares about Voldemort himself... besides Bellatrix. Ew.) Even if he were to consider it, a quick question to ask might be "Super ring of immortality, eh? What's the catch? Can I talk to some other satisfied customers, shop around a bit?"
The relative scale of badassery in the two universes is duly noted. Sauron is unquestionably head and shoulders above Voldemort when it comes to relative worth of their cosmic import. (That doesn't mean he can't lose a fight, of course.) The important point here is that Sauron's edge over the Istari & co. is that his magic is more powerful than their because of his overwhelming Will, which fuels (and counters) their magic. He cannot bring that same effectiveness to bear on Voldemort (as I read it), since Voldemort's magic doesn't really care what Sauron thinks about it. LOTR magic is opening one's mind to shove the universe one way, and Sauron (or whoever) is able to shove back hard enough to cause feedback and fry the attempt. Voldemort's casting is flick and swish, no world-shaping will involved. Voldemort is a more powerful and capable caster than the other wizards in the Potterverse, if not by orders of magnitude - but it's enough.

[warty goblin]

How's this for a senario:
Voldemort apperates into combat range of Sauron. Sauron affixes Voldemort with his patented Dark Lord Stare (tm)- essentially performs ligimency. Now Voldemort is pretty good at mental defense, which leads to a conflict of wills. Now Voldemort's will may or may not be weakened by having multiple horcruxes and a shattered soul, that point is debatable. He is however, human. Boring old human, who has displayed a short temper, and other signs that he doth not overruneth with willpower. To my knowledge, only one human has ever survived any contact with Sauron's mind, and that was Aragorn, who had massive amounts of prophetic aid and was still exhausted by a short confrentation with Sauron. Everybody else fails. Pippin, Saruman, Denethor, even Gandalf says he would have been unable to resist Sauron's will. A momentary touch of it nearly kills Pippin, and hobbits are tougher than people. None of these people faced him directly, only over long distances through a Palantir.
Bottom line, Voldemort's mind bursts like a ripe watermelon under a tank tread when put against Sauron's will. End of battle. Assuming this doesn't kill him outright, Voldemort will be slaved to Sauron's mind. If he dies, his mind is still shattered, so he's somewhat "comprimized" for that whole regenerating thingy.

[Deadmeat.GW]

Deadmeat - I understand the point about vs. proponents applying their own meta-logic to scenarios, and it's a fair one. It always happens, on both sides. If you'd like to point out particular tactics you think are coming purely from me, then I'd be happy to explain the in-universe logic and precedent for them.
Voldemort is, of course, that top 1% you're talking about.
He has traditionally overestimated his power against well-known opponents whose strengths he knew about but dismissed as ineffectual. That's very different from plunging headlong into any fight without consideration merely because he expects he's going to win in the end anyway.
He plays with his prey when they're already crushed and prone and nominally weaker anyway (Harry Potter, repeatedly). When it comes to serious threats, he takes them the hell out. He didn't screw around with Moody or Amelia Bones or the Dumbledore battle, it was in-and-out splat.

Ok, so...how does he know what Sauron can do?

Please tell me how he has figured out the best way to deal with what in all appearance looks like a half giant in armour and no, he would not be able to use scrying spells on Sauron, that would be a one-way ticket to insta-ko for Voldemort.

You are stating strategies going out from what YOU know, not what Voldemort knows.

Is Voldemort arrogant yes or no?

Very easy question there, please lets see what you think.

Is Voldemort prone to overconfidence?

Is Voldemort prone to under-estimating his opponents?

Dumbledore was killed by Voldemort?
Hum, you sure of that?

Don't forget that those in-and-splat-out battles you refer to he was more then a bit going in with a massive weight advantage in power.
He did not go in solo in those fights because he has faced them before as alluded to in the books and had a hard time of it.

I.e. prior knowledge and experience...

Not something you can give him against Sauron.

Or if you do then Sauron gets the EXACT same advantages and you know what...Voldemort will be alone facing Sauron, Saurons army, Voldemorts army, all of his Deadeaters that were not absolutely loyal because that would be how Sauron works.
Disappear (good luck trying to find Sauron if he does not want to be found) and work against you from the inside or he is going to build a fortress you cannot breach and again he will take over your troops from the inside out.

If Sauron knows how exactly magic works in HP verse then he can and will stop it. Cold, no ifs or buts, it would simply not work.

If you are going to give all the info Voldemort needs not to fall for his own overconfidence and his general disregard of the potential danger his opponents could present then giving Sauron an equal amount of normally not available information is the least you can do.

We are talking equal starting grounds with their respective powers and armies, not Sauron's weaknesses are all known, perfect tactics are made for countering his powerful weapons while Sauron gets automatically no knowledge (nor even the possibility to learn about them during combat according to some of your replies) and forgets/looses some of his age old powers and tactics because the game is otherwise not even.

Sauron is a demi-god or even a minor god in powerlevel yet he has taken on gods and deflected their spells and powers.
Something like that means according to you that he cannot stop, deflect or block HP spells because they are cast as fire-and-forget spells?

You do know that blocking in martial arts can take forms that block before, during and after you attack?
Something like deflecting a strike away is also a block yet not simply stops the attack.
Counters do not have to be simply preventing the spell from being created (which Sauron has shown he can do), it could be deflecting the spell (another thing that Sauron has shown he can do) or even simply stopping it dead (yet another way Sauron has stopped spells).

Sauron has proven he can stop spells in their tracks, deflect spells away and simply block them if need be.
For some reason the answer that HP spells are more powerfull then spells and magical attacks launched by Gods and Demi-gods seems a bit...biased towards HP wizards.
I am not sure but can you give an example of a wizard in HP-verse flattening a mountain so much so that it becomes a crater deep enough to have the sea rushing in?
This is the kind of thing Sauron has survived or blocked, there alone you see just how much of a power difference there is between HP wizards and Sauron.

[Ditto]

Running out now, but Deadmeat - you didn't mention any particular tactics I attributed to Voldemort that you thought weren't consistent with the in-universe ones. Could you have a go at it?

I did not say Voldemort knows exactly what Sauron can do from the start. You did just say that Sauron knows exactly how all HP magic works, though.

Moody and Amelia bones were killed by Voldemort alone, even if the cronies were around. He was the one doing all the fighting. I didn't say he killed Dumbledore, hence why I said 'the Dumbledore battle', indicating he acted in the driven non-taunting manner during this fight.

WG - I would not equate Dark Lord Stare (is that like the Care Bear Stare? Who decided 'stare' was a good word for an attack coming from the tummy?) with legillmency. Legillimency requires close range direct eye contact. Does Sauron's Dark Lord Stare allow for the mindcrushing trick with just a glance? (That is, without the palantir?)

[warty goblin]

Well, Frodo (and others) frequently say "His eye is almost on me" or words to that effect, from great distances. There is also a strong implication that if the Eye found them, they would be seriously Boned. Bear in mind that this is over rather long ranges. So I'd say that if you were close enough to cast a line of sight spell on Sauron, you'd easily be in range of the Eye, given that at that range Sauron is simply able to actually physically see his target, and would then run the risk of being broken by the Wheel of Fire.

Now of course he didn't seem to use this tactic during the battle that led to his defeat in the Second Age, for which I can an explanation: Strength of Will. Elendil, Isildur and Gil-galad were exceptionally powerful and strong of will and would probably have taken time to crush mentally. A strategy that requires your complete concentration is probably not the best choice when fighting three people at once, particularly since it only immobalizes one person at a time. Voldemort on the other hand is not a several millenia old superhuman and thus would take far less time to mentally flay. Once engaged in mental conflict like that, Voldemort's not going to have the spare concentration to cast a spell, merely holding his own will take more than he has.

[Rowanomicon]

"mentally flay" I love that term, I really do.

Ditto, what you asked for is an example of Sauron's power in HP. The problem with that is that Sauron doesn't exist in HP (just a cheap knock off) and no one even approaches his power level. This is like saying that HP wizards will not go insane from being in direct contact with Cthulhu because in HP no one went insane simply by being in direct contact with another life form.

It occurred to me that the perfect neutral playing field would be somewhere that Sauron does not know the rules of the universe and cannot exert his will over the universe, but HP magic does not work (as per the rules of that universe). That would be pointless and stupid though.

WG is right. There is absolutely no reason to believe that Voldemort could survive being in Sauron's line of sight.
Voldemort: *apparrate* Aaaaargh!
Narrator: And they all lived happily ever after, the en- Aaaaaargh!

Oh, I'd also like to point out that the Istari are not on level with HP wizards. I'd put my money on Gandalf over any HP wizard any day (even when he was stoned on pipe weed).

Deadmeat brings up a very good point: Sauron can block spells in several ways, some of which have been shown in HP and others of which are logically possible.

[Ditto]

Rowan - I'm not sure there's anything new to what Deadmeat said. Sauron's shown the ability to stop spells from happening and block/deflect them, that's true. Stopping spells doesn't work for HP magic (not because Sauron's 'not powerful enough', but because it doesn't work that way), and he's welcome to block direct attack spells the same way he did with that divine bird assault. (I don't remember other examples of direct spell attacks.) That doesn't preclude other forms of magic that aren't attack. Sauron was brought down by lesser things than these mighty bombardments... and again, all LOTR magic is a direct challenge. The two guys get face to face and shout "Mine's bigger! I AM BEOWULF!" until one has to back down. Shooting people in the back and sides and back is niftier.

You're taking what I said about Legilimency more strictly than what I said. It's not specifically labeled anti-demigod and you're saying it therefore cannot possibly be demigod-proof. I'm saying that's a fallacy. There's nothing that says Sauron's immune to acid or rocket launchers, either. That's all I'm saying. I did not ask for an example of Sauron's power in HP.

Sauron seeing something does *NOT* crisp them! They say they're going to be screwed because the Nazgul will be showing up. Wasn't Frodo under Sauron's gaze every time he put the Ring on? And at Mount Doom, right before the Ring was destroyed?
If mindcrushing Gil-Galad was impractical during the battle... then maybe Sauron could have started earlier? It's a long walk to Mount Doom. Sauron has not ever mindcrushed anyone just be looking at them.

[warty goblin]

HP defensive magic does not work by countering spells yes. LOTR defensive magic works by countering magic spells. HP magic is spells. Hence LOTR magic can counter it, if we assume any degree of transparency at all. Again, if we don't, then none of Voldemort's defensive magic will work for jack because of system incompatibility.

Also, from the Silmarilion "Of Beren and Luthien"
Sauron removes potent magical disguises easily, another example of stopping an ongoing magical effect. Sauron then imprisons Beren and Felagund, neither of whom are pansies. The terror of Sauron's presense is such that he causes Haun, the Hound of the Valar, who esciverates werewolves without a thought to flee. Granted, once he takes wolf form, Haun beats Sauron, but Haun is pretty much a god. He also causes Luthien, the daughter of a miaia, to faint with his mere presense. Bear in mind that Luthian is pretty powerful as well, she can destroy an entire fortress with a single song. She can also shift shape without a problem, and pass unseen. Later, she charms Morgoth himself. And this is the being that the mere proximity of Sauron causes to collapse. Please explain how on earth Voldemort has a prayer of keeping his feet and his mind around such terror.

This isn't even "I'm going to die" type terror, this is something greater than that, Sauron is a walking, killing abomination to the natural order. He's something fundamentally wrong with the universe. Sort of a more personal Cthulhu I guess. Let's put it this way, if Sauron initiates a mental battle with a target- he's going to win, and in doing so will flay the sanity from his victim's mind like a hunter pulling the skin from a rabbit. I feel it a fair assumption that Sauron is capable of initiating mental contact with anything he can see, given that he's a great sorcerer and LOTR's willpower based magic and all.

[Rowanomicon]

So, are you admitting that since Sauron can clearly block (not prevent through a battle of wills) god-powered magic that he can block HP magic? That's good enough for me. I think it's pretty clear, for a number of reasons, that Voldy's spells wouldn't affect Sauron, but as long as you accept at least one of those reasons then I'm happy as it leads t the same conclusion: Voldy is not going to defeat Sauron with his spells.

You, sir, do great injustice to Tolkien's work by declaring the workings of wizards to be such. You also illustrate your ignorance quite clearly.

You asked for an example in the HP books of someone doing something that only someone of Sauron's power could do: change the rules of the universe to disallow the use of magic. If all you wanted was someone preemptively stopping magic then the anti-apparrating charm works, but you asked for more.

[Ditto]

Sauron’s presence being the Cthulhu-like ‘abomination presence’ is completely different than a fear aura. I do not have a problem admitting Voldemort would be cowed by it – this is the first it’s been put in such terms. I still say the explicitly fear-based aura of the Nazgul will be significantly weaker if not totally ineffective.

Does Sauron rip the magic away or see through it? It’s the difference between ‘Will Save if interacted with to disbelieve’ and outright dispelling.

I have always allowed that Sauron can block attack spells. There was never a question whether he or anyone could block an incoming spell. I took issue with counterspelling. It is not as simple as “Sauron dampens magic wizards use magic Sauron blocks wizards.” As I stated before, Sauron dispels counterspellable magic. Wizards use uncounterspellable magic. I’m sure we all agree that Sauron cannot overpower uncounterspellable magic, by definition. You’ve been trying to (and must) prove that HP magic is counterspellable in order for this to work. I have pointed out quite clearly no evidence that this is possible, and further that existing evidence *against* the possibility. You’re welcome to find some hard facts to demonstrate counterspelling works, but it’s simply not there.

Further, Sauron is not fundamentally immune to magic. He’s adept at countering, and failing that, blocking, direct magical assaults. Voldemort’s (and any wizards’) MO is similarly “Move for the big block and dodge away”. Sauron just goes for the big block-stop from the start. Maiar are not golems. He still has to actually block something to avoid its effect, and in order to do such he has to be aware of an attack.