Pureblood DE and Knights of Walpurgis

[Richard]

No: HPFGUIDX 78779

Tamee wrote:
> As may be obvious, lately I've been struggling with what
> Voldemort has to offer his pureblooded followers already
> in positions of power.  I mean it's easy enough to attract
> the disenfranchised by promising them what they've been
> denied by the majority or at least a substantial vengeance
> for wrongs suffered; it's quite another to gain the loyalty
> of those who have more to lose from anarchy.

I don't think LV is offering anarchy at all.  He offers even the 
powerful a certain order and discipline that is hard to understand 
WANTING to endure, let alone work to establish, but there is 
something very sinister that he offers ... ABSOLUTE power, the power 
of life and death over the "undesirables" of the WW, without fear of 
consequences, and without the limitations of mere mortality, and all 
in a pure-blood WW.  With this goes the implication of wealth and 
prestife.  Such things are tempting enough in our real World, but in 
a magical world with the prospect of immortality IS real, and power 
is potentially exponentially more profitable, even those in positions 
of power might well be tempted, since they may see themselves as 
gaining so much more.

Tamee continued:
> But then I suddenly remembered reading an interview with JKR
> in which she said that DEs were once called the Knights of
> Walpurgis, which implied to me that they predated Voldemort's
> rise by some time.  I'm guessing that they were a secret
> society of pureblood Dark Arts practioners, who perhaps like
> the reputed Illuminati, work behind the scenes to maintain a
> status quo or move towards some particular goal.   Maybe the
> Knights once had a noble aim and like the Knights Templar became
> corrupt (if I remember correctly, I probably don't) and had to
> go underground.  Maybe Grindelwald was the chief leader before
> his defeat.  Anyway, I now think that Voldemort managed to take
> over an already existent organization and turn it to his own
> purposes. Perhaps he promised that they would finally control
> the wizarding world and beyond, and in the first Voldemort war,
> it looked like they'd succeed; of course, now things are
> different, and fear of Voldemort's power or insane loyalty seem
> to be what hold them together.

I think it quite likely LV DID usurp an existing organization, but we 
were told in CoS, by no less an authority than the young Tom 
Riddle/LV himself, that he was already seeking followers while in 
school.  If LV did usurp a pure-blood organization, he might well 
have done so by encouraging his followers to join that organization 
and to serve as agitators on his behalf.  But, I can't see LV 
willingly joining an organization controlled by a single powerful 
wizard or similar small clique of wizards.  Once out of school, I see 
him seeking to be ONLY the top dog in whatever organization he 
associated with.  Thus, such usurpation might not have been as a 
result of his rise from within that organization, but more like an 
annexation, having populated the "territory" with his followers, who 
keep bringing in more of LV's followers, until the organization 
ceases to be what it was, and becomes an organ in LV's apparatus.

This would also account for some DEs being less loyal than others.  
If they THOUGHT they were joining the "classical" Knights ("Dear old 
Dad was a member, you know ..."), only to find that they now must be 
loyal to LV as a consequence of joining (or die, a la Sirius' 
brother), they might well be less than loyal to LV or the usurped 
organization, once LV seemed to have fallen.

Tamee then wrote:
> I hope this makes some sense.  The idea that Voldemort became
> leader of an already existent Dark Arts/Pure blood society
> helps me understand why someone like Lucius would follow him.

Somehow I think Lucius would have been ripe pickings for LV 
regardless of any prior affiliations Lucius might have had.  He is 
smitten with his family wealth, he craves power and he despises mud-
bloods (sorry for the language) and mixed-bloods.

Richard