The Wizarding World is no stranger to enemies that rightfully deserved their place among the ranks of some of film and literature's deadliest antagonists. For example, as a character, Voldemort was so evil and full of hatred against Muggles that he killed that entire side of his family to erase any trace of them from his life. However, the Wizarding World also had another great antagonist named Gellert Grindelwald of the Fantastic Beasts franchise. But while his motivations are similar to Voldemort's, is he as villainous as the Dark Lord?
Grindelwald was childhood friends with Dumbledore, and the two shared an incredibly close bond to the point of even falling for one another. However, where Dumbledore sought to have harmony between magical people and those without the gift, Grindelwald felt that those born without magic deserved to be under their rule and believed that those magically inclined should never hide from muggles. And that belief caused a rift in their relationship that would nearly erupt into an all-out war to maintain peace in the world. In essence, Dumbeldore was the Professor Xavier to Grindelwald's Magneto, but the biggest difference was the methods of the latter's plan.
In Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, the wizard used truth to build his army of followers. Because the film took place before World War II, Grindelwald used visions of the war, even concluding with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to scare those watching to join his side. Grindelwald believed that the only way to keep the world safe meant they'd have to subjugate the muggles as they didn't know the potential for the destruction they had. In Grindelwald's eyes, everything he was doing was for the greater good, but he had also crossed a line that only further radicalized him on more than one occasion.
While disguised as Lord Percival Graves, Grindelwald began his journey to corrupt Credence Barebone for his larger plot of defeating Dumbledore. While he eventually helped Credence gain a modicum of control over his Obscurus, he still planned to use him to get to Dumbledore by revealing that Credence was actually Aurelius Dumbledore, the long lost sibling of his rival. In The Crimes of Grindelwald, he also allowed his followers to murder an entire family, including a toddler, so that they could use their home as a base of operations. He later forced others to prove their worth by stepping through a blue flame that would incinerate anyone who wasn't totally devoted to his cause, which inadvertently proved just how radical he had become.
Ultimately when it came to villainy, Grindelwald was a special case. Compared to Voldemort, Grindelwald wasn't raised with darkness in his heart -- it was fostered as he grew older. If anything, he was pushed to this belief because he spent so much of his life hiding from so much, including his abilities and his feelings towards those he cared for. His rage at a world that would always force him to hide likely pushed him into a path that eventually led to his more radical methods. However, his reasoning being to save the world from itself also created a decent moral challenge for the characters and the viewer because it asked how far a person would go to protect the ones they love, even if it meant the sacrifice of free will.
Grindelwald's actions have made him a challenging antagonist for fans of the Wizarding World to wrap their heads around. On the one hand, his dreams of a free world that is safe under wizard rule could be nearly perfect. But his methods, which include manipulation and murder, along with the end result of muggle oppression, quickly show the dark cracks in his "masterpiece." In the end, Grindelwald should be considered a villain due to his actions, but his motivations were born from a much more selfless place.
Source: Trendz OH
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