Voldemort, the Scheming Villain

[Kevin Devine]

No: HPFGUIDX 21467

I have to agree with these statements.  Voldemort could have easily 
gotten HP's toothbrush and then killed him, but Volde needs drama.  
He needs to feel that he can create the unescapable death trap and 
let's be perfectly honest, it nearly worked.

There are many occurences that, upon analysis, we say 'Why didn't 
they...' to the villians (and even the heroes).  In Terminator II, I 
constantly wonder why the T1000 didn't assume the form of the Arnie 
bot instead of the Conners, but that would have ended the movie too 
quickly.  Why didn't the Ghostbusters just buy some heavy explosives 
(hey, they bought nuclear accelerators) and demolish the building.  
Why did every Bond villian spell out his plan before attempting to 
kill Bond.  Its just what villians do.  Voldemort is a great, classic 
villian, evil enough to kill the bystanders, but he cannot simply 
destroy the hero.

Just my 2c,
Kevin


--- In HPforGrownups at y..., find_sam at h... wrote:
> 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