I know most people would say a thu'um master is a lot more powerful than a master wizard but how about mages like Fry, Pisijicc mages, jagar tharn etc? would the greybeard/voice master still be much stronger than them?

define stronger


theres a lot of different ways to be powerful

It would dependly entirely on the user, the skills they learned and what not. Having a Thu'um user blowing apart walls for your advancing armies seems more useful then having somebody setting the wall on fire.

But I seriously doubt that even the most powerful Thu'um master could beat one of those mages you listed. After all the Thu'um is just another form of magic and magic can be blocked.

I agree that those mages woild beat a thuum master, but I don't think the thuum is just another form of magic. I have always seen the thuum as a way of changing the world and defying the bendable laws of nature. I have Paarthurnax' (slaughtered his name?) meditation on Fus in my mind. And while normal magic is bending magicka from Atherius into whatever you want, I think of the thuum as more of an inner power (or power from Mundus) without help from Atherius. Perhaps bending the world without magicka. But I can accept that you can block the Voice(thuum) as well, it may just be gameplay, but some mages in Skyrim block my thuum with wards.

The thuum is a weapon and a language in one.

The main difference between thuum and magic users is basically in execution. Magic comes from rituals, hand waving, etc and thuum comes from ur voice powered by ur inner fire wind etc. the end result is the same between the two, how u get the result is where they differ. Id imagine silence being a thuum users bane....

Well when Borri the Greybeard whispers the whole mountain shakes. When a master mage uses magic he can make the dead return to life. Yet the Greybeards can whisper and make the mountain shake. Thu'um > magic

Divayth Fyr grew his own daughters and has lived for thousands of years, longer then any mortal ever should. Magic > Thu'um.
Magic users have summoned princes from Oblivion. If Mehrunes Dagon walks the earth he could make a mountain shake. Magic > Thu'um.
Vivec used magic to teach all Dunmer how to breath water and then submerged Morrowind including mountains into the sea. Magic > Thu'um.

In the end the Thu'um is just a form of magic, and it depends on who wields it to see how strong it is. If not for Dragonrend Alduin could not have been defeated, no matter how powerful the mage. But the Dovahkin knew dragonrend and managed to beat Alduin in combat regardless. A battle like that can never be predicted with 100% accuracy. What we can say however is that examples of outlandish magic outnumber and outpreform examples of otulands Thu'um use, so that's why I'd go with magic.

Thu'um is an ancient form of Nordic spirit magic.

So, technically Thu'um masters are elite magic users.
My opinion is that Thu'um can raze cities, but so can magic in lore. So it pretty much equal.

They are equal. Remember Galerion and Mannimarco also shook mountains when they fought each other using ald/altmeri magic?

The difference between the Meri-Magic and the Thu'um is that, Meri-Magic uses raw magikca power in the world mainly leaked from the Sun, and the Thu'um uses mafikca power from both the user's own soul and the true intenal power of the Words, aka the protonym of the Words.

As through Meri-Magic one can also reach the protonym of something, one great equals to the other.

Well, silence is any magic users bane. The place the thu'um user has an advantage is that they're generally Nordic, and therefore still capable of smashing your face manually.

Considering that the Thu'um is a language and at the same time, magic from one's internal soul, it would be Thu'um>Magic.

Well, we have to take into account what types of magic. Like, are we going to include stuff like sword-singing or the Akaviri kiai? What about Pelinal, do we include his moth-swarm-storms and his hand of killing light? How about the Marukhati's Dance on the Tower? Numidium could be seen as magic as well, and it's pretty much the most powerful thing out there.

It's very difficult to compare different types of magic, since each type is only really suited for specific purposes and it eventually becomes an apples vs. oranges discussion.

In general, though, I would say that Thu'um has at least as much potenial as other types of magic.

In game Thu'um is to the mountain shaking ways of the Greybeards what Fireball was to the Dragon Break.

Thu'um>Magicka

Haha

The greatest Thu'um masters are dragons, so there's that. I still think, based on what we've seen, that a Psijiic could wreck any dragon (I mean, they can freeze time), but I suppose you might disqualify the Psijiic, since Psijiic mysticism might be beyond what is traditionally considered "magic".

I could say that the greatest mage was Magnus.

So, who is the more powerful? Magnus, or Borhamu/Alduin/Akatosh/Tosh Raka/Alkosh/Aka-Tusk/[insert dragon of choice]?

Pretty close match, but I would say the dragons are more powerful. However, it would be due to their intrinsic nature as time-god-dragon-angels rather than their Thu'um mastery.

Shouldn't we restrict the users to mortals?
Or we may return to the Ehlnofex War and all goes to Dawn.

Seems rather irrelevant in a fight against Magnus... Because that's a fight between gods and on a whole other level.


Why would you exclude them? They know magic better then any one else, also ignoring them and not ignoring dragons would allow the strongest of one side while not allowing the strongest of another side.

It's hard to say but I think the voice is more powerful. You can destroy somebody with a single utterance, and if you're powerful enough you can make the world shake. Normal magic could never make a dragon understand mortality...

Normal magic could burn the dragon to a crisp though. Sure the soul would still be there, but the dragon would be useless. Normal magic could also silence a dragon, or destroy a continent.

Sword Singing doesn't count as normal magic, and we don't know for sure if silencing does anything against the Thu'um. I doubt it does, as dragons would be far less fearsome lorewise if any twobit mage could silence them.

This is true, however you'll note that Agnir doesn't totally blow you off the map when he opens his mouth, and hes their leader. My assumption is that Dragons don't have that horrible side effect, and are able to control it, as opposed to the Greybeards who take a really, really, long time to get to that point.

On righteous Thu'um master vs. righteous magic master. To be completely honest, I don't think that there's any chance that either of them will wind up getting a upper hand on one another. It really depends on what kind of skills each opponent utilizes, and I believe the victor would have to go outside the magical box to claim victory. Epic battle tales usually go down like that, as opposed to a couple of dumbasses punching each other in the middle of a cornfield until they get tired.

Silence can be resisted if you're powerful enough. Besides what does silence do? We know it stops people from talking, which stops magic. We also know that the Thu'um is nothing different then talking, so a strong enough silence spell would probably shut up a strong Thu'um user.

How does it stop people from talking? I don't think "silence" is meant to be taken literally. Are there any articles on this?

The greatest magic users are also dragons now.