Voldemort, the Scheming Villain

[find_sam at hotmail.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 21443

Eric Oppen wrote:
> One thing that struck _me_ about the scene in the cemetery where 
Voldie reunites with his "faithful" Death Eaters is that he 
apparently has no problem calling them by name.  Why bother with 
those stupid robes if you're going to be using real names, out loud?  
I'm sure that Voldemort's easily smart enough to come up with code 
names, which would also make it a lot harder for a traitor to betray 
the whole lot of them in one fell swoop.  

Voldemort makes his Death Eaters wear the robes, IMO, because he is a 
Scheming Villain. His ultimate goal is to dominate the wizarding 
world, yes, but he wants everything to be 'perfect' as he does so. 
His creepy followers *must* wear spooky black robes. Having evil 
followers who wear their usual apparel to meetings is hardly the 
proper way to go about things, is it? Especially when you're a 
Scheming Villain.

This idea of Voldemort as the Scheming Villain is especially 
important in GoF. One of the regularly discussed topics on this list 
is: Why did Voldemort have to wait until the Last Task until he got 
Harry to Portkey over to him; why didn't Moody just make Harry's 
toothbrush a Portkey?

The answer, I believe, is that Voldemort is a Scheming Villain. He 
wants to succeed, but he wants to scheme, too. He's so sadistic that 
there's no fun in it for him if he's not scheming. It's hardly going 
to look impressive to his followers if he killed Harry Potter by 
transfiguring his toothbrush. OTOH, coming back to power and killing 
Harry Potter under the noses of the whole wizarding community... 
*that's* impressive.

Of course, it's also a great device on which JKR can construct the 
canon. I suppose in a way we're all scheming readers - GoF would 
hardly be such a great book if Moody had turned Harry's *toothbrush* 
into a Portkey. PoA would have sucked if Sirius had killed 'Scabbers' 
on his first visit to Hogwarts. And so on.

> Sam