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Essay: You-Know-Who
Watched "En Ami" last night while peeling potatoes, which leaves only two more episodes and then I'm done with Season Seven of X-files. Aww. The smoking man is such a woobie.
You may have noticed by now that I tend to fall for the bad guys. In xf, it's the Smoker; in Pirates, it's Barbossa; in X-men it's Magneto, in Star Wars I quite liked Tarkin (and really, he deserved better than Daala.) Maybe it's because their positions usually make more sense than the good guys', when you think about it; because they're the ones actually being proactive about their worlds' problems; maybe it's the blend of vulnerability and power. The Smoking Man wants so badly to be good, but he can't try, and he has that terrible and tragic capacity for love, even if it's usually demonstrated from behind a sniper rifle. Barbossa isn't really evil, despite everything, and he's so sad, but he tries to take joy in everything anyway . . .
Maybe it's the voices.
In Harry Potter I tried to fall for Snape, really I did, but he's just so *petty*, half the boys I know in real life are plotting world domination and he just wants revenge for a schoolboy prank? No, the Dark Lord's the one for me. I was reminded of this when Mom had on the Sorcerer's Stone tapes a few days ago. The thing about Voldemort, though, which I've never heard about the others, is the number of people who call him a cardboard villain. Black with no gray, plain vanilla evil. Badly characterized and therefore boring.
I disagree. Therefore, I give you
Four Virtues of the Dark Lord
1. He values courage. We have his direct word for this, of course, in HP:PS: "I always value bravery," in circumstances that make me inclined to believe him-- he taunts Harry not with his parents' weakness, but their fear; and when he tells the truth of their courage afterwards it's with almost a hint of respect. There's other evidence, too, of course, if you won't take the Dark Lord's word for it; the way he treats his followers, Peter in particular; the way he treats *Harry*, especially during the duel. Whenever he wants to be especially cutting he uses the word "cowardice." It's not a new trait, of course; witness Tom's contempt for Ginny's terror at the end of CoS. It's an almost Gryffindor point of view.*
2. He doesn't kill lightly. This is another bit that comes right out of the serpent's mouth at the end of book 1. "Your mother needn't have died... she was trying to protect you.... Now give me the Stone, unless you want her to have died in vain." There's been a lot of theorizing about why he didn't want to kill Lily, but the most likely answer, to me, is that he simply doesn't like killing, and doesn't do it unless there's no other choice. Note the conversation at the beginning of Goblet of Fire, where he carefully justifies the killing of Bertha Jorkins and tells Wormtail he only killed because he had to. This could be rationalized as reassurances to Wormtail-- but I think it's pretty clear Wormtail has no scruples about the murder of innocents. And then the cryptic references to the plan, where he repeatedly states that only *one* more murder is necessary if his plan works properly. Even Harry-as-Voldemort-as-the-Snake, in OotP, is being *restrained* from killing, despite instinct-- he bites only when "he had no choice" and Voldemort isn't happy about it.
We only see him kill someone twice. Frank Bryce, who he kills only after ascertaining that he had overheard damaging information and was not going to be cooperative. An old, half-mad Muggle, who he had reason to hate as a loyal ally of his father's, and he does him the honor of killing him personally while looking into his eyes. In fact several times it is mentioned that Voldemort had killed someone himself-- mentioned as if it was an honor reserved for worthy enemies-- "That's Dorcas Meadowes, Voldemort killed her personally "-- not as if it were frequent, or something he did for fun. Personal execution is more than Fudge offers his enemies, after all. And then there's Cedric, often used as an example of how easily Voldemort kills. Granted it was heartless, but I think also necessary. It was certainly unexpected for two boys to come through, and it left them *outnumbered*. It was either kill Cedric quickly, or lose everything; there'd just be so many problems with an extra person there; and then, his control over Wormtail was shaky enough without showing any fallibility or weakness.
As for "everybody else" he killed.. . the only other names mentioned are either Order members or Death Eaters. Volunteer combatants in a war. Even Mr. Crouch was kept alive until he left them no other chioce. Faced with two possibilities for the baby who will grow to destroy him-- he picked only one of the two, and went to kill him in person, and quickly. Even Arthur didn't exercise that moral restraint.
3. He isn't prejudiced against Muggles and Mudbloods. Now I realize this one is a hard sell. But if you look at what we're shown, rather than what we're told? If anything, his attitudes toward them are less prejudiced than our good guys'. Yes, he's exploited the pre-existing political schism, and his followers are certainly prejudiced, but as for the Dark Lord himself? He's disapproving of his minions' predilections for a "spot of Muggle-torture." There's his interaction with Frank Bryce, which shows no sign of distaste. "I am calling you a Muggle," said the voice coolly. "It means that you are not a wizard." Compare that to Hagrid's explanation to Harry, where he uses the word as a pejorative-- "A Muggle," said Hagrid, "it's what we call nonmagic folk like them. An' it's your bad luck you grew up in a family o' the biggest Muggles I ever laid eyes on."
He seems to respect Lily (never referring to her as anything more disparaging than 'woman' and 'mother') and believe halfbloods are inherently powerful. Beyond that? Except for one throwaway comment about Dumbledore, for the benefit of his followers, he doesn't mention the issue at all. He hates his father, for cowardice and disloyalty and, yes, prejudice, but there's a certain pride there, too, tied up with his defeat of his father and the strength he derives from his upbringing. He uses Muggle things-- the house, the cemetary, the bone, the diary-- without any trace of disgust or contempt or distaste. If anything, it's the wizarding world he hates and despises, even though he's using it. Note the way he treats his followers. Speaking of that--
4. Voldemort dislikes sycophants. He treats Malfoy better than any of his other followers; for all his talk about loyalty, it's Malfoy's dignified and prideful acquiescence which he respects. Groveling leads to Cruciatus, apologies to curt brush-offs; Malfoy refuses to bend, and gets called "friend" and given a position of leadership. He seems to want real respect and acceptance from his followers; and barring that, he'll take honest manipulative ambition over sniveling. He took Snape back, despite Dumbledore's testimony; yet Bella the ever-faithful gets treated as just an unfavored pet. Voldemort doesn't like being feared, and he doesn't like being worshipped.
*This admiration for courage led me to wonder whether it was ever actually established in canon that Riddle was a Slytherin. Answer: As far as I can tell, no. It seems to be assumed he was, simply because he's the heir of Slytherin and he's a bad guy. But Harry's classmates obviously had no problem deciding the Heir wasn't a Slytherin, and when the trio first talk about his nastier habits they compare him to *Percy* rather than Malfoy. Then we have the Sorting Hat now claiming that Slytherin is only for purebloods. Add in the fact that nobody suspected him, his rather special relationship with Dumbledore, his emphasis on the value of courage. I won't require that you accept that he was a Gryffindor, but I'll hold out to anyone that he wasn't a Slytherin. Actually, the only support I can think of for Tom as Slytherin is that JKR seems to be stuck on Slytherin=bad, but I still hope that's misdirection.
Also, he's cute. No, really, doesn't he perfectly fit the classic description of a moonbaby? Big liquid eyes, almost no nose, pale, pale skin, large head and thin, wobbly limbs. Cute!
You may have noticed by now that I tend to fall for the bad guys. In xf, it's the Smoker; in Pirates, it's Barbossa; in X-men it's Magneto, in Star Wars I quite liked Tarkin (and really, he deserved better than Daala.) Maybe it's because their positions usually make more sense than the good guys', when you think about it; because they're the ones actually being proactive about their worlds' problems; maybe it's the blend of vulnerability and power. The Smoking Man wants so badly to be good, but he can't try, and he has that terrible and tragic capacity for love, even if it's usually demonstrated from behind a sniper rifle. Barbossa isn't really evil, despite everything, and he's so sad, but he tries to take joy in everything anyway . . .
Maybe it's the voices.
In Harry Potter I tried to fall for Snape, really I did, but he's just so *petty*, half the boys I know in real life are plotting world domination and he just wants revenge for a schoolboy prank? No, the Dark Lord's the one for me. I was reminded of this when Mom had on the Sorcerer's Stone tapes a few days ago. The thing about Voldemort, though, which I've never heard about the others, is the number of people who call him a cardboard villain. Black with no gray, plain vanilla evil. Badly characterized and therefore boring.
I disagree. Therefore, I give you
Four Virtues of the Dark Lord
1. He values courage. We have his direct word for this, of course, in HP:PS: "I always value bravery," in circumstances that make me inclined to believe him-- he taunts Harry not with his parents' weakness, but their fear; and when he tells the truth of their courage afterwards it's with almost a hint of respect. There's other evidence, too, of course, if you won't take the Dark Lord's word for it; the way he treats his followers, Peter in particular; the way he treats *Harry*, especially during the duel. Whenever he wants to be especially cutting he uses the word "cowardice." It's not a new trait, of course; witness Tom's contempt for Ginny's terror at the end of CoS. It's an almost Gryffindor point of view.*
2. He doesn't kill lightly. This is another bit that comes right out of the serpent's mouth at the end of book 1. "Your mother needn't have died... she was trying to protect you.... Now give me the Stone, unless you want her to have died in vain." There's been a lot of theorizing about why he didn't want to kill Lily, but the most likely answer, to me, is that he simply doesn't like killing, and doesn't do it unless there's no other choice. Note the conversation at the beginning of Goblet of Fire, where he carefully justifies the killing of Bertha Jorkins and tells Wormtail he only killed because he had to. This could be rationalized as reassurances to Wormtail-- but I think it's pretty clear Wormtail has no scruples about the murder of innocents. And then the cryptic references to the plan, where he repeatedly states that only *one* more murder is necessary if his plan works properly. Even Harry-as-Voldemort-as-the-Snake, in OotP, is being *restrained* from killing, despite instinct-- he bites only when "he had no choice" and Voldemort isn't happy about it.
We only see him kill someone twice. Frank Bryce, who he kills only after ascertaining that he had overheard damaging information and was not going to be cooperative. An old, half-mad Muggle, who he had reason to hate as a loyal ally of his father's, and he does him the honor of killing him personally while looking into his eyes. In fact several times it is mentioned that Voldemort had killed someone himself-- mentioned as if it was an honor reserved for worthy enemies-- "That's Dorcas Meadowes, Voldemort killed her personally "-- not as if it were frequent, or something he did for fun. Personal execution is more than Fudge offers his enemies, after all. And then there's Cedric, often used as an example of how easily Voldemort kills. Granted it was heartless, but I think also necessary. It was certainly unexpected for two boys to come through, and it left them *outnumbered*. It was either kill Cedric quickly, or lose everything; there'd just be so many problems with an extra person there; and then, his control over Wormtail was shaky enough without showing any fallibility or weakness.
As for "everybody else" he killed.. . the only other names mentioned are either Order members or Death Eaters. Volunteer combatants in a war. Even Mr. Crouch was kept alive until he left them no other chioce. Faced with two possibilities for the baby who will grow to destroy him-- he picked only one of the two, and went to kill him in person, and quickly. Even Arthur didn't exercise that moral restraint.
3. He isn't prejudiced against Muggles and Mudbloods. Now I realize this one is a hard sell. But if you look at what we're shown, rather than what we're told? If anything, his attitudes toward them are less prejudiced than our good guys'. Yes, he's exploited the pre-existing political schism, and his followers are certainly prejudiced, but as for the Dark Lord himself? He's disapproving of his minions' predilections for a "spot of Muggle-torture." There's his interaction with Frank Bryce, which shows no sign of distaste. "I am calling you a Muggle," said the voice coolly. "It means that you are not a wizard." Compare that to Hagrid's explanation to Harry, where he uses the word as a pejorative-- "A Muggle," said Hagrid, "it's what we call nonmagic folk like them. An' it's your bad luck you grew up in a family o' the biggest Muggles I ever laid eyes on."
He seems to respect Lily (never referring to her as anything more disparaging than 'woman' and 'mother') and believe halfbloods are inherently powerful. Beyond that? Except for one throwaway comment about Dumbledore, for the benefit of his followers, he doesn't mention the issue at all. He hates his father, for cowardice and disloyalty and, yes, prejudice, but there's a certain pride there, too, tied up with his defeat of his father and the strength he derives from his upbringing. He uses Muggle things-- the house, the cemetary, the bone, the diary-- without any trace of disgust or contempt or distaste. If anything, it's the wizarding world he hates and despises, even though he's using it. Note the way he treats his followers. Speaking of that--
4. Voldemort dislikes sycophants. He treats Malfoy better than any of his other followers; for all his talk about loyalty, it's Malfoy's dignified and prideful acquiescence which he respects. Groveling leads to Cruciatus, apologies to curt brush-offs; Malfoy refuses to bend, and gets called "friend" and given a position of leadership. He seems to want real respect and acceptance from his followers; and barring that, he'll take honest manipulative ambition over sniveling. He took Snape back, despite Dumbledore's testimony; yet Bella the ever-faithful gets treated as just an unfavored pet. Voldemort doesn't like being feared, and he doesn't like being worshipped.
*This admiration for courage led me to wonder whether it was ever actually established in canon that Riddle was a Slytherin. Answer: As far as I can tell, no. It seems to be assumed he was, simply because he's the heir of Slytherin and he's a bad guy. But Harry's classmates obviously had no problem deciding the Heir wasn't a Slytherin, and when the trio first talk about his nastier habits they compare him to *Percy* rather than Malfoy. Then we have the Sorting Hat now claiming that Slytherin is only for purebloods. Add in the fact that nobody suspected him, his rather special relationship with Dumbledore, his emphasis on the value of courage. I won't require that you accept that he was a Gryffindor, but I'll hold out to anyone that he wasn't a Slytherin. Actually, the only support I can think of for Tom as Slytherin is that JKR seems to be stuck on Slytherin=bad, but I still hope that's misdirection.
Also, he's cute. No, really, doesn't he perfectly fit the classic description of a moonbaby? Big liquid eyes, almost no nose, pale, pale skin, large head and thin, wobbly limbs. Cute!
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2. How do you know he wouldn't have come for Neville after Harry, if he hadn't been stripped of power in the first confrontation? He's not *that* imprudent.
However: he's *not* cute. Sorry.
::huggles CSM:: What's a woobie?
I liked Pellaeon much better than Tarkin.
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A woobie is exactly what it sounds like.
2. I don't know he wouldn't, but it's implied he'd wanted just Harry in OotP. Plus Bella and company didn't try for Neville when they went after his parents. The smart thing to do, of course, would be do what Arthur did, and send minions after them all.
1. The more I think about it, the more Gryffindor seems right.
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1. Yes.
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hmm..
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But one can hardly call him all good, he was rather ruthless; Killing underlings, continuing the deception with the Noghri, and such.
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And you can't really call him a true imperial. He joined up with the empire but he was never really all about their ideals, he was looking out for the Chiss, really. When he returned from unknown space, if the Republic had appeared strong and cohesive enough, he probably would've defected and led them to squash the imperial remnant.
But all this is moot, because when I take over the galaxy I wont get stabbed and I'll actually finish the job.
And yeah, Daala kinda sucks...which is probably why Tarkin liked her, I suppose.
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And the pun is unworthy of you.
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Additionally, he planted sleeper cells throughout Imperial held worlds with the intention not to aid the Empire against the Republicans (damn them) but to defend the galaxy itself.
These are not the actions of a man fighting for the Empire. These are the actions of a man using Imperial status to fight for something larger.
As for the pun...cmon...even Aristophones made dirty puns that were kinda lame.
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As for your addition to Voldemort not being a Slytherin: both Hagrid and Ron confirm in PS that Voldemort was a Slytherin.
2. I disagree that Voldemort doesn't like killing. I believe he developed a taste for it while he was still in Hogwarts, and set the Basilisk after muggle-born students. And got a student killed. Right after he left Hogwarts, he killed his father and his grandparents, for no other reason than revenge. A person who doesn't kill lightly or doesn't like killing wouldn't have gone through all that trouble, methinks.
The statement from PS you quote, in which Voldemort says Lily needn't have died, is sweet-talk, I believe. Voldemort was at that point trying to convince Harry to give up the stone, and Voldemort is someone who is very good at playing people. I believe he was merely trying tell Harry what Harry wanted to hear. Because fact is, that Voldemort killed both James and Lily before he got to Harry. He could have easily stunned Lily if he didn't want her to die.
Also, even though we don't see Voldemort himself kill all that often, that doesn't mean that he isn't responsible for a lot of deaths. Remember that we see the books through Harry's eyes, so, particularly in OotP, we have no idea what Voldemort was up to. During both the first and the second war Voldemort killed people, and even if he didn't kill them himself, he was still responsible for their deaths the moment he gave his Death Eaters the order to kill.
I think his order to kill Cedric is a perfect example of how easily Voldemort kills people. Because he could have easily told Wormtail to stun/bound Cedric and snap his wand if he had such a hard time taking people's lives.
Frank Bryce, who he kills only after ascertaining that he had overheard damaging information and was not going to be cooperative.
They are wizards. If he didn't want to kill Bryce, he could have easily obliviated the poor man and erase his memory.
3. He didn't disapprove of a spot of muggle torture, he disapproved that Lucius and others went about torturing muggles while they did nothing to try to aid Voldemort. From GoF:
You are still ready to take the lead in a spot of Muggle-torture, I believe? Yet you never tried to find me, Lucius. . . . Your exploits at the Quidditch World Cup were fun, I daresay. . . but might not your energies have been better directed toward finding and aiding your master?"
He calls Lily a mudblood in CoS: You'll be back with your dear Mudblood mother soon, Harry... I think he doesn't respect her at all, just as he doesn't respect anything Muggle. He sees them as inferior. As for using Muggle things: the diary wasn't a Muggle thing, it was a magical diary. And using the house, the cemetery and the bone, that was a mere necessity to get his body back.
4. I agree with this one. Voldemort is an intelligent man, and I think someone like Lucius humors him a lot more than someone like Wormtail. Still, he has no qualms about using those sycophants to get what he wants, so it's not really a moral issue for him, but rather one of personal entertainment, I believe.
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However I still maintain that *valuing* courage is a very Gryffindor trait. Anyone can *exhibit* courage, but to give it the paramount important that Voldemort does is, in my opinion, distinctly Gryffindor in outlook. And intriguing, either way.
2. I didn't bring up the basilisk because I was trying to focus on Voldemort rather than Tom-- there's lots of Tom apologists around, and he's clearly changed in the intervening 50 years-- but I saw that whole incident as supporting my point of view rather than opposing it (thus why debates happen, of course.) He controlled the basilisk, but only *one person* died either time, and that was an *accident*. Either he just happened to run into Myrtle the first time, or he'd been playing with the basilisk for awhile without killing anyone. You can argue that accident's when he got his taste for killing, but Diary!Tom doesn't seem particularly fond of random murder either, judging by his actions.
He is sweet-talking Harry, but the nature of the protections on Harry supposedly require that Lily voluntarily sacrificed herself for him, which implies a *choice*. It's arguable, but to me that means he must have been sincere when he tried to get Lily to move aside without being killed.
It's true that he kills ruthlessly when neccessary, but I haven't seen any sign that he enjoys it. And I don't think he had iron control over his Death Eaters, either-- even in the Ministry battle they weren't exactly under control-- and some of *them* definitely enjoy killing. We *do* know to some extent what he was doing during the time of his return, too. The only unexplained deaths between the escape of Wormtail and the end of GoF were Bertha, Frank, and Crouch, according to Dumbledore; by the same source, he was *absolutely quiet* between then and the mass escape from Azkaban, after which he was saddled with a bunch of crazy Death Eater.
Similarly, he had to order Cedric killed because a) taking time to tie him up would have left Harry free for a few crucial seconds-- or the other way around-- and then there'd be no-one to watch him while the ritual was going on, and b) Voldemort rules many of his death eaters, particularly Peter, by fear, and mercy for Cedric would have undermined that possibly fatally. But he did everything in his power to ensure that only one student showed up; it was horribly unlikely that they'd happen to touch it at the same time.
He could have obliviated Frank, but then he'd just finished explaining to Wormtail why he doesn't trust Memory charms, and frankly I agree.
3. It was a Muggle diary, purchased in a Muggle shop on Vauxhall road, London. And the house wasn't required for the resurrection, nor the cemetary, only the bone. And someone as virulently anti-Muggle as he's often assumed to be would, going by history, either find some way around the Muggle bone or frantically rationalize it away, not calmly use it the way he did.
The Mudblood comment was Diary!Tom, not the Dark Lord. Actually I was struck by the contrast between the sixteen-year-old and older Voldemort's tone about Lily. Teenagers say a lot of hurtful things without really investing in them-- sixteen-year-old Snape called Lily the same thing, but he's shown no sign of true prejudice either.
The Muggle-torture thing is mostly a question of tone, I suppose. I've always got the impression he treated it with vague contempt, but it's not as obvious as I read it, clearly.
4. The point is that Voldemort knows Lucius is using him; Lucius respects him enough not to try to hide it very hard; but he puts Lucius in a position of trust anyway. I don't think Lucius humors him particularly except when it serves his own purposes; he certainly didn't in the one scene where they interact. I don't know that I meant it as a moral issue, exactly; but it is something I would generally consider a positive trait, and it lifts him above cardboard cackling villain status, that he wants something approaching equals around him, even if he can't afford to have them.
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But this isn’t exactly a clinching argument, is it? This is the same Hagrid that says that the only witches or wizards who “went bad” were those in Slytherin. Which he knows to be untrue – at this point, Hagrid (like the rest of the wizarding world) was convinced that Sirius Black murdered 12 Muggles after the fall of Voldemort. Judging by the conversation held in the Three Broomsticks in PoA, Hagrid was also aware that Sirius betrayed the Potters. JKR has also confirmed that Sirius (and the rest of the Marauders) were in Gryffindor.
Also, Ron doesn’t recognise Tom Riddle to be Voldemort. Of the trio, he’s got the most chance of knowing Voldemort’s birth name – he’s grown up with the stories and the fear. And yet he only even recognises the name because he scrubbed Tom’s trophy for hours. Most likely, Voldemort distanced himself from the identity of Tom Riddle entirely on his quest for greater powers. He couldn’t reasonably try to gain status with pureblood supremacists if the majority of them knew from the outset that he was half Muggle. Indeed, Voldemort could have just claimed that he was a Slytherin in his school days, get a bit of that old boys camaraderie flowing and so on.
Correct me if I’m wrong, of course. Actually, I do believe that Tom was in Slytherin, despite all the “OMG PUREBLOODS ONLY!!!11!” stuff the books seem to brand them with. He’s never seemed anything more than supremely focused on his own goals. A lot of his killings have been without malice – they’re just obstacles in his way. I don’t think a Gryffindor evil overlord could be quite so detached. Plus, you know. Heir of Slytherin and all. They’d probably bend the rules just a bit.
(Hi! Bounced in here off a link from
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I still see no signs of an addiction to killing, but yeah, either he really doesn't like it, or he's trying ridiculously hard to justify it to himself. Every single killing we get his POV on, he claims he had no choice about.
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...
The choice is that you could give up on your goals and value some human life.
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I am agog! I am aghast!
Bad!
Go read Harry Potter NOW!
Lots of villains gloat about and enjoy killing people. It's the ones who are either in denial or who actually have a conscience (or occasionally the ones who really do think they're the good guys) that protest that they had no choice. Look at Palpatine. Or Jabba the Hutt. Since you've just been exposing your Star Wars geekiness.
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Harry Potter was something I originally didnt read because I was busy reading other things and it wasnt on my list of priorities. However, once I found out that the word Muggle was being added into the English Dictionary, my urge to vomit resulted in a boycott of this book series.
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However .. it is *totally* not Harry Potter's, nor even J.K. Rowling's, fault that the books and associated vocabulary have become popular enough to be inserted into our "official" language. Boycott the OED, even boycott Warner Brothers if you must, but don't boycott the Harry Potter books. You're missing too much goodness for the sake of misguided pettiness.
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I like you. Therefore, I wish you luck in taking over the world (preferably with as little suffering as possible).
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Everything from his physical appearance to his outlandish schemes scream unstable drama queen. Which is why I love the guy.
(I'm nursing a pet theory that Morty is Dumbledore's pawn: the twinkling headmaster will help Harry become a hero who will be instated as head of the wizarding world with very little fuss in the aftermath of adulation--and then Albus has a puppet to manipulate.)
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Also, to judge by what he said to Harry, it is bravery on which he built his Hogwarts reputation. "On the one hand, Tom Riddle, poor but brilliant, parentless but so brave, school Prefect, model student..." In other words, he claims that his school reputation was founded on extraordinary bravery.
Whether he really "is" brave is another matter. He has a genuine terror of death, or at least of his own death, and put himself beyond the reach of it (paying, it's hinted, a terrible price) before he was willing to start his campaign to take over; and there was genuine fear in his eyes when faced with the unexpected: ie, being caught up with Harry in the Phoenix song spell.
I had forgotten that Myrtle's death could all too easily have been an accident: she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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