Voldemort: Evil Overlord or Careful Planner? (WAS: Is Harry More Powerful..)

[grey_wolf_c]

No: HPFGUIDX 43017

> I said:
> 
> > This is not the work of an evil overlord, it's the work of an 
> > extremelly careful planner, one that has examined step by step his 
> > movements that night and which has planned almost every possible 
> > problem. 
> 
> Phyllis answered:
> 
> Why do the two need to be mutually exclusive?  I agree that Voldemort 
> is an extremely careful planner.  But I don't think that everything 
> always goes according to his plans (such as when Harry resists the 
> Imperius and dodges the Cruciatus).
>  
> ~Phyllis

You know, I've always been of the opinion that evil overlord and 
careful planner *are* mutually exclusive, although I have to grant you 
that it shouldn't necesarily be the case. This is because, once you've 
read the evil overlord list[1], one of the things you realise is that 
an evil overlord is such a supreme egomaniac that he doesn't ever 
really plan, or indeed can bring himself up to believe that one of his 
ideas can go wrong. It seems, as always seems to be my case, that we're 
woking on two different definitions here.

I never intended to say that everything goes according to Voldemort's 
plan. It is a known fact of life that no plan survives contact with the 
enemy, and MAGIC DISHWASHER actually works on this fact. Both 
Dumbledore and Voldemort have great plans for their victory, but so far 
they have all failed at the most decisive moment (read post #39662 for 
Dumbledore's plan, and how it failed). The fact that a plan can go 
wrong and still have a back-up plan (generally called "plan B") ready 
for that situation is what diferences an evil overlord and a careful 
planer in my eyes. But I can accept that this doesn't have to be a 
general perception.

And the fact is that, using that definition, Voldemort is not an evil 
overlord. He's evil, of course, but he doesn't let his cruelty get in 
the way of his plans. While he may enjoy causing pain to people around 
him, and is convinced that he is the greatest wizard ever, he's 
intelligent enough to know that plans can and will fail, and thus that 
he needs contingency plans as well as the main one. He uses deliberate 
cruelty as a weapon, to induce fear in his enemies and allies 
(Machiavelli said that you must be feared or loved to be a good leader. 
Voldemort knows this). This sort of deliberate cruelty is very hard to 
mantain, unless one has greater goals in mind. An egomaniac will not 
mantain control of himself long enough to create the Reign of Terror 
Voldemort has created, but will become bored or reckless and get 
himself killed very fast.

Phyllis:
> Voldemort had a need to prove, in front of his Death 
> Eaters, that he could kill Harry Potter fair and square, so there 
> would be no "lingering doubt" among his DEs as to "which of us is the 
> stronger" (GoF p. 658).  I think this is a combination of Voldemort's 
> overinflated ego as well as a need to redeem himself in front of his 
> followers.  Most of his followers, after all, claimed they'd been 
> Imperio'd after Voldemort's fall from power.

As I've said, Voldemort had to be lying about the lingering doubts. If 
the DE doubted Voldemort powers, why are they still afraid of him? Why 
did they answer his call? Why are they still loyal to him after 13 
years, especially after watching his master dwarfed by Harry in the 
graveyard once again? Truth is that Voldemort is still powerful enough 
to kill all of them, and there is no real reason to assume that there 
could be "lingering doubts" about Voldemort's power, or else they 
wouldn't risk going to him once more. If Voldemort is not powerful 
enough to beat Harry, why don't they *ally* with Harry? After, they're 
DEs, and for them morality is something that happens to (and weakens) 
other people. What do they gain by allying themselves with Voldemort, 
especially if they doubt his powers? They're powerful people in the WW: 
rich, close to the seat of power, and capable of buying whatever laws 
they want. DEs like Lucius must realize that when Voldemort gets to 
power, they won't have as many power as they have now, because 
Voldemort isn't the kind to accept ideas from people below him. 

No, I don't think there are any lingering doubts between the DEs: 
that's part of the misinformation that Voldemort wants to feed 
Dumbledore, because the only lingering doubts are in Voldemort himself: 
he isn't all that sure that he can kill Harry, and in case the boy 
escapes once again, at least he will put Dumbledore at a disadvantage 
by feeding him fase information about illusional weak spots in his DE 
origanization. The DEs don't doubt Voldemort's power because they are 
still DEs (i.e. they haven't chosen Dumbledore's side, so they must 
believe that Voldemort still has more than 50% chance of wining), and 
they are still very much afraid of Voldemort. IMO, not even Snape has 
doubts about Voldemort's power: I believe he changed sides because he 
has a debt to pay to Dumbledore (or to Harry, if you want to believe 
LOLLIPOPS), not because he thinks that Voldemort cannot win. 

And the tricky question here is that "who's more powerful" business. In 
a power scale, who would you put at the top: Voldemort or Dumbledore? 
Dumbledore has more raw power, but he doubts he could win Voldemort 
because there are certain spells he would not do. Voldemort, on the 
other hand, probably thinks that if he confronted Dumbledore directly, 
he could very well push him into using those pwowers, and would thus be 
killed. Where does Harry fit, then? He's no way more powerful than 
Voldemort, that's for sure. Everyone knows that: Dumbledore, Harry, 
Voldemort and the DEs. They know that he's no match whatsoever for 
Voldemort. The only reason why Harry is still alive is that a magical 
shield used to protect him, and now a freaky coincidence called priori 
incantatum saved him (yes, I know it's not really a coincidence, but 
still, he's geting more and more vulnerable). Harry has a defence that 
Voldemort, so far, hasn't been able to overcome, but that's not good 
enough for Harry: no war is won from a defensive position, and they all 
know it. Just bcause Voldemort cannot kill Harry doesn't make Harry 
more powerful than Voldemort, just equally protected: Harry cannot kill 
Voldemort, and Voldemort cannot kill Harry. Volemort can still take 
over the world, and there isn't really anything Harry can do about it. 
Which is why Dumbledore is collecting allies at the end of GoF. Harry 
is good enough as a defensive mechanism, but Dumbledore knows that it's 
going to take more than Harry to win the war (and he's got plans to 
help him along, according to MAIC DISHWASHER, even if we don't know 
what those plans are yet).

> Phyllis again:
> 
> I went back and read the Comic Relief interview again, and as 
> Porphyria points out, JKR mentions Harry specifically by referencing 
> the Aunt Marge inflation incident as an example of unfocused, 
> uncontrolled magic. So perhaps she was just thinking of Harry when 
> she made the comment, since we know there are other instances of 
> wandless magic performed by others. And the examples I can think of 
> for when Harry does such wandless magic - the vanishing glass in the 
> zoo, Aunt Marge's inflation and exploding glass - are when he is 
> angry.  He's not angry in the graveyard, he's scared for his life.  
> Moreover, even Harry admits that, when Aunt Marge's glass explodes in 
> PoA, he "hasn't lost control like that in awhile."  

The unfocused magic does not only work when Harry is angry. It also 
works when he's scared of something (of Dudley's gang, when he 
apparates to the roof of the kitchen, or of being laughed at, when he 
regrows his hair). It actually makes more sense that the magic kicks in 
when scared, as a form of reflex mechanism of self-protection. And the 
wizards know this sort of magic: Neville's family kept putting him into 
danger to see if they could get Neville to show magic. If the Nevilles 
know, Voldemort probably does too, and if he knows, he doesn't want 
Harry tapping into the unfocused magic. And the graveyard was the 
perfect situation for it to happen since Harry, as you've said, was 
very scared.

> IMO, out-of-control magic is not as powerful as controlled magic.

I'm going to repeat it once more, just in case. I do *not* say that 
unfocused magic is more powerful than focused magic. I only say that in 
*Harry's* case it is and *only* because he's not fully trained. To take 
it to the extreme: imagine a 10 year old wizard. He certainly doesn't 
know how to cast spells, but he *has* got unfocused magic. In his case, 
which is more powerful? Unfocused, of corse. Well, Harry is still 
halfway through his training and, notwithtanding all the pratice he has 
gotten so far, his focused magic is still not very powerful, except in 
two or three specific spells (Expelliarmus, Patronus and maybe Accio), 
while his unfocused magic is still very powerful inded. If Voldemort 
hadn't given him a wand to have his mind concentrate on focused magic, 
he could have apparated away from there, inflated the lot of them, 
create a diversion, or JKR knows what other tricks the unfocused magic 
has up its sleave. Since he was scared, I'd say that apparating away 
would be a distinct possibility, since it has happened once already.

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf

[1] http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html