Voldemort, the Scheming Villain

[Zarleycat at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 21499

--- 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? 

It's like the army or the KKK - you make them wear the robes so that 
you reinforce the idea that they are all part of the same "movement" 
or army.  And, if you call the shots and can tell them what to wear, 
and your followers do it, then you've also subtly reinforced your 
dominance over them.


> 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.

True enough, and we'd have had more fun speculating on who was who.

snip
 
> 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.
> 

For that matter, why not assign a DE to go to Hogwarts and kill Harry 
outright?  I'm sure there are some Voldemort supporters who are not 
suspected of being Dark Wizards who could manage to stroll into the 
school grounds one fine day on some sort of fake mission and find a 
way to attack Harry. 

Maybe V should start thinking about changing his tactics, especially 
since Harry always seems to come out ahead whenever he faces 
Voldemort.  Isn't it a sign of insanity if you do the same thing over 
and over, and expect a different outcome?  You'd think V would start 
thinking about some other way to kill Harry.  Send McNair back with 
his ax...But, OTOH, I think V is vain enough that he will never 
willingly let someone else bump Harry off.  It's got to be him.  

Marianne