4 Voldemort Phases (was re: Pureblood DE and Knights of Walpurgis)

[Tamee Livingston]

No: HPFGUIDX 78843

 [Snipping all my own original comments]
Now Richard [who I've also ruthlessly snipped]:

>>>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.  <<<

I think you've got a good point here.  Voldemort was offering these
particular people a chance to indulge in their crueler natures, something up
until that point they would have had to keep hidden.  Power over others can
be quite intoxicating, and he was offering them a path denied them.  Of
course, I'm not sure just how willing Voldemort would have been to allow
them to achieve the immortality he sought, but illusion can be everything.

>>>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.  <<<

That is a good point, although I think it possible that a younger Voldemort
just establishing himself would be willing to play the politics of such a
group to maneuver into power, or conversely, if their last strong leader had
been Grindelwald, the group may have been drifting aimlessly until Voldemort
showed up to give them purpose and thus gone straight to the top.

>>>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.<<<

I think this is most likely as well.  I think my problem has been that right
now Voldemort doesn't seem to have any grand strategy; he just wants to
regain his immortality and figure out how to kill Harry, and his followers
with the exception of the insane Bellatrix and the other Azkaban escapees
don't seem that enthusiastic in his service.  So,  Voldemort as he currently
is seems weak to me, and I guess I've been projecting backwards.  However as
I see it now, I believe Voldemort has gone through 4 different phases in his
development.

1. Tom Riddle.  Here he's just apprentice Dark Lord (whether self taught or
under the instruction of Grindelwald or another seriously evil wizard).
He's discovered his ancestry, killed his muggle family, and opened the
chamber of secrets.  We know then that he had charm and charisma and was
recruiting followers.  This instance of Voldemort I could see having the
patience to study under and learn to manipulate more powerful dark wizards
until he could dispose of them.

2.  Lord Voldemort in his first and most powerful incarnation.  Here is
where he nearly takes over the wizarding world.  Here he has plans and his
followers become intoxicated on their freedom to kill, torture and control.
He uses their lust for power over others and a promise of complete
domination over wizards, muggles, and even life itself.  This is the
Voldemort that Bellatrix learned to blindly worship.  The world was in their
grasp.  Until that fateful Halloween.

3. Blam.  Now we have Vapormort.  In this form, all he cares about is
survival.  He's still got enough power to seduce Quirrel to his side, and he
lasts long enough for Wormtail to get him into ugly baby form.  However,
Harry Potter is still the one who both sent him to that state and has kept
him in it by thwarting his attempts on the Philosopher's Stone.

4. Voldemort reborn.  Now we come to the current Voldemort, the one who
spent13 (is that number right?) years barely surviving, brooding on Harry
Potter, who once again in the Graveyard thwarted him and made him look weak.
And he is weak right now, and Harry has become his obsession.  He knows that
unless he can kill Harry, he will never be the power he once was.  He'll
never strike the terror he once did.  So now his obsession is not so much to
control the world, but to destroy his enemy, and regain his invulnerability.
I think that's why Voldemort isn't so frightening now.  He's already been
vanquished once and so now his focus has shifted.

Unfortunately, though I'm starting to get an idea about him, Voldemort is
still a one dimensional tedious villain to me now.  Bring back diary!Tom; at
least he had some charisma.

Tamee