Voldemort the evil overlord

[Charmian]

No: HPFGUIDX 10195

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, "Rita Winston" <catlady at w...> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, " Charmian" <sashibuya at h...> 
wrote:
> > It also makes the hero's achievement much greater, IMO, if we know
> > that it didn't rest partially on the flaws of the villain.
> 
> Isn't that a bit much to ask of an 11 yo hero? 

This was in more general terms. As I said, I don't mind if HP repeats 
certain formulae, because it does it well and combines them 
interestingly. It was more of a personal response. I'm tired of the 
melodramatic villain, but others aren't. And a less melodramatic 
villain might not work well for the HP books. But of course, most 
books with kids saving the world aren't working with strict realism 
anyhow. 

> As novice fanfic writer, my villains have to be dumb because my 
> heroes aren't smarter than me and therefore can't figure out how 
> to foil smart villains.

Oh, I'm not talking about the villain's plan being so mindbogglingly 
complex that it takes three hundred pages to develop it in exhausting 
detail. I'm just talking about having the villain, if one wants to 
portray a smart villain sans melodrama, following common sense, so as 
not to have the reader say, "boy, I'm sure smarter than this guy who 
is supposed to be a genius leader in control of the world,"
 or, "know what he's gonna do now, he's going to do something dumb, so 
then the hero will save the day." 
> 
> > Plus, in real life, the nasty person usually isn't loony, just
> > mean, self-centered, and unscrupulous, and succeeds sometimes. 
> 
> Well, we had that in Lockhart.
> and Lucius?
> and Fudge?
> and Bagman?

Twasn't speaking of HP there, just in more general terms. And yes, 
this is what I referred to when I said that JKR did get in moral 
complexity.

Charmian
Rats live on no evil star.