Gellert Grindelwald, the dark wizard who precedes Voldemort in the world of Harry Potter and the protagonist of Fantastic Beasts, is not a murderer who acts in the shadows nor a fanatic who stammers his hatred. He is something more uncomfortable: an orator. He summons crowds, seduces with a vision, promises a future. His cause has a polished slogan —"For the Greater Good"— and a thesis: that wizards, superior by nature, should come out of hiding and rule openly over Muggles, "for the good of all". For class-conflict theory, Grindelwald is a laboratory case, because he makes explicit what the theory accuses of always operating in the shadows: that the social order is not a neutral agreement, but the result of a struggle between groups with unequal power, and that whoever wins that struggle writes the rules and calls them justice.
// The theorySociety as a struggle of groups
With roots in Marx, conflict criminology breaks with the assumption of consensus —the comforting idea that we all agree on what is wrong and the law merely records it—. For George Vold (Theoretical Criminology, 1958), society is a permanent clash of groups with opposing interests, and whoever dominates the legislative process criminalizes the conduct of the rival. Richard Quinney radicalized it in The Social Reality of Crime (1970): crime is not a quality of the act, but a definition imposed by those who hold the power to protect their interests. Hence a question that shifts the focus: not "why does the weak person offend?", but "who decides what is a crime, and whom does that decision benefit?". The law, this school says, is not neutral: it is what the strongest wins. You can read the full theory in our dossier on class conflict.
Whoever rules defines the order
The twist of conflict theory is not to deny that order exists, but to point out that someone defines it and that someone is not impartial: it is the group that has won the struggle for power. Grindelwald turns that abstract thesis into a political program. Where the theory denounces that the law tends to secretly serve the interests of whoever rules, he proposes to do it out in the open: that wizards stop hiding and openly assume the right to govern. He does not argue over the rules of the game —the statute that separates wizards and Muggles, the unequal power between them—; he only wants to invert who ends up on top and to engrave that hierarchy in the law. His supremacism is, read in criminological terms, the most bare-faced form of the conflict idea: the conviction that the legitimate order is simply the one imposed by the group with the most power, and that calling it "greater good" is enough to baptize domination as justice. Grindelwald does not hide the conflict of groups: he proclaims it, organizes it and aspires to win it.
Get the map of theories for free
Subscribe to the criminal archive —one case a week, no spam— and I'll send you The map of theories: the great currents of criminology on a single sheet.
// The subjectThe supremacist who disguises himself as a liberator
What is dangerous about Grindelwald is that his discourse does not have the shape of hatred, but that of liberation. He does not say "let us hate the Muggles"; he says "let us stop hiding", "let us protect our world", "let us think about the future of everyone". He wraps the domination of one group over another in the language of care, security and progress —ideology, in the exact sense that critical theory gives it: the narrative that makes a hierarchy of power seem natural, necessary and even benevolent—. In his version of history, wizards would not be oppressors, but guardians; the submission of Muggles would not be tyranny, but order. That is the machinery that conflict criminology lays bare: how the group that aspires to rule produces a justification that presents its particular interest as the general interest. Grindelwald is so effective because he understands something that brutes do not grasp —that lasting power is not imposed by wands alone, but by convincing people that the hierarchy which subjugates them is, in truth, for their own good—. And yet, the film of his cause ends where they all end: in camps, in purges, in the certainty that "the greater good" was always his own.
Gellert Grindelwald
// The crackExplaining the structure does not exculpate the demagogue
Conflict theory illuminates the structure of the Grindelwald case with clarity: it teaches us to read his supremacism not as individual madness, but as a dispute over who holds the power to define the order, and to distrust any narrative that presents the domination of one group as "the good of all". But it has its limits when applied to him. The first is that the theory explains the logic of group conflict, not the charisma nor the cruelty of this man in particular: there is something irreducibly individual in his capacity to seduce, in his coldness, in the betrayal of the one who loved him. The structure describes the board; it does not manufacture the player who enjoys moving the pieces. The second limit is the one the school itself reproaches: its tendency to idealize whoever rebels against the established order. Grindelwald presents himself as a rebel against an unjust status quo —and he knows how to use real grievances—, but his alternative is not less power, but more: an even more brutal hierarchy with him at the top. Not everyone who defies the order is fighting for justice.
And here is the line that is not crossed: explaining is not excusing. To understand that Grindelwald embodies the logic of conflict —that order is written by whoever wins— does not turn him into an innocent symptom of a structure, but into an agent who drives it: he chose the discourse, he chose the violence, he chose whom to sacrifice for his "greater good". The theory serves to see the machinery that makes the Grindelwalds possible —the hierarchies that already exist, the grievances he exploits, the seduction of a "natural" order—, not to dilute his responsibility into it. Memory, as always, is for those whom his utopia of domination deemed expendable.
Distrust whoever calls domination "good"
Grindelwald matters because he teaches us to recognize the danger before it bares its teeth. Conflict theory insists on a simple and devastating question: when someone proposes a new order, whom does it benefit? Who ends up on top and who at the bottom, and who has decided it should be so? Supremacism rarely arrives dressed in explicit hatred; it arrives, like Grindelwald's, dressed in the future, in security, in the "greater good", in a hierarchy presented as the natural order of things. Learning to read that machinery —to ask which group wins when it is defined who rules and who obeys— is a defense against the demagogues who promise liberation while designing the next domination. There is no need to wait for the wizard who wants to rule the world: it is enough to distrust, from the very start, whoever insists that subjugating others is, in truth, for their own good.
Three key ideas
- Gellert Grindelwald embodies class-conflict theory (Vold, 1958; Quinney, 1970): society as a struggle of groups with unequal power, and order as whatever is imposed and defined by the winner. His supremacism makes that logic explicit.
- His strength is ideology: he disguises the domination of one group over another as liberation —"For the Greater Good"—, turning the interest of wizards into the supposed interest of all. That is how lasting power convinces, not merely imposes.
- Explaining is not excusing. The theory illuminates the structure of the conflict, but his charisma and his cruelty are individual, and his rebellion seeks only more power for himself. He chose the fire: the responsibility is his and the memory belongs to his victims.
Sources · further reading
- Vold, G. B. (1958). Theoretical Criminology. Oxford University Press.
- Quinney, R. (1970). The Social Reality of Crime. Little, Brown.
- Chambliss, W. J. (1975). "Toward a Political Economy of Crime". Theory and Society, 2(2).
- Turk, A. T. (1969). Criminality and Legal Order. Rand McNally.
Case-file questionsFrequently asked questions
¿Quién es Gellert Grindelwald?
Gellert Grindelwald es un villano de Harry Potter, analizado en KRIMINIS con la lente de la criminología. He does not deny that a hierarchy exists between wizards and Muggles: he proclaims it, celebrates it and wants to turn it into law.
¿Por qué Gellert Grindelwald se convierte en villano?
Gellert Grindelwald and class-conflict theory: society as a struggle of groups with unequal power, and order as whatever the winner imposes. How a supremacist disguises domination as liberation.
¿Qué teoría criminológica explica a Gellert Grindelwald?
El caso de Gellert Grindelwald se analiza desde la Conflicto de clases. Class-conflict theory (Vold, Quinney; rooted in Marx) understands society not as a consensus but as a struggle of groups with unequal power: the law and order are defined by whoever rules, to sustain their position. Gellert Grindelwald, the dark wizard of Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts, takes that logic to its sharpest extreme: he theorizes and mobilizes a hierarchy of domination —wizards over Muggles— and presents it as liberation under the slogan "For the Greater Good". He does not hide the conflict: he wants to win it and to write, from the top, what counts as legitimate order.
