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

[erisedstraeh2002]

No: HPFGUIDX 43023

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "grey_wolf_c" <greywolf1 at j...> wrote:

> 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 necessarily be the case. This is because, 
> once you've read the evil overlord list, 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. 

Now me:

I don't think it's possible to put Voldemort in either an "evil 
overlord" or a "careful planner" box.  He clearly embodies elements 
of both.  And I think this is intentional on JKR's part - from the 
same 2000 BBC interview that I provided the link for in a previous 
post today, JKR says (with regard to Voldemort): "I wanted to create 
a villain where you could understand the workings of his mind, not 
just have a 2-D baddie, dressed up in black, and I wanted to explore 
that and see where that came from."

It's obvious that he's a careful planner (e.g., putting Fake!Moody at 
Hogwarts to guide Harry through the tournament, having the Triwizard 
Cup portkey Harry to the graveyard), but I also think he has a big 
ego. Not a *supreme* ego at the expense of all else, just a *big* 
ego.  And a ruthless desire for power.  And he does bring himself to 
believe that his ideas can go wrong and that he's fallible:  "His 
mother left upon him the traces of her sacrifice...This is old magic, 
I should have remembered it, I was foolish to overlook it..." (GoF, 
pgs. 652 and 653).
 
Grey Wolf again:

>(Machiavelli said that you must be feared or loved to be a good 
>leader. Voldemort knows this.)

Me again:

I agree that Voldemort understands that he must be feared to be a 
good leader.  I think he's concerned that his downfall at the hands 
of Harry Potter has diminished the fear he worked so hard to 
establish during his first rein of terror, since his followers were 
so quick to denounce him after his downfall.  And so, in the 
graveyard, he wants to demonstrate to the DEs that he can kill Harry 
on a level playing field, thus vanquishing the only person who ever 
presented a real threat to him and firmly re-establishing that fear.

Grey Wolf:

>Where does Harry fit, then?  

Now me:

Dumbledore is grooming Harry for something, most likely a show-down 
with Voldemort in Book 7.  If he wasn't, he would have told Harry 
that he had put a spell on the philosopher's stone that precluded 
Voldemort from getting it; he wouldn't have let Harry go into the 
Forbidden Forest for detention when something evil was killing 
unicorns; he wouldn't have given Harry the invisibility cloak 
(twice!) with notes saying "use it well" and "just in case" in SS/PS; 
he would have told Harry that Voldemort was once called Tom Riddle so 
that Harry would know to ditch the diary; he would have time-turned 
himself to save Buckbeak and Sirius in PoA rather than asking Harry 
and Hermione to do it and he wouldn't have let the Triwizard 
Tournament happen when he suspected Voldemort was trying to regain 
power.  Why Harry has to be the one to vanquish Voldemort is a 
question I'd like to hear theories from the group on (or references 
to previous posts) - I think it has something to do with why 
Voldemort wanted to kill him in the first place, which I think has to 
do with his being the Heir of Gryffindor.

Grey Wolf:

> 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). 

Me again:

I agree, I just ran out of time to make my argument because I had to 
run to a meeting!  I just think the wandless magic Harry performs 
while angry is more powerful (blowing up Marge) than the wandless 
magic he performs while scared (regrowing hair). But not more 
powerful than controlled magic with a wand!

~Phyllis
think outside the box!