[HPforGrownups] LV's mudblood ancestry

[Patricia Bullington-McGuire]

No: HPFGUIDX 57146

On Mon, 5 May 2003, Odile Falaise wrote:

> The motivation of Tom Riddle/Voldemort is something
> that intrigues me as well.  But I am having a really
> hard time with that of Lucius Malfoy and the other
> Death Eaters: if Mudbloods (and all those they
> consider inferior to them) are so repulsive to them,
> then why are they devoted to someone with this
> background?

Because he can offer them power, and power is more important to them than
their supposed ideals.  At least, that's my take on it.  It's likely that
at least some of the DEs don't know about LV's parentage (I doubt LV would
bring up the subject voluntarily), but even if they all did I think very
few would leave his service.  He is promising his followers total control
over the wizarding world.  If they have to cozy up to a half-blood to get
it, I believe they gladly would.

All of which, I think, demonstrates that the Voldemort Wars are not really
a conflict of ideas, however much LV would like us to believe that's the
case.  It's fundamentally about personal advancement and weilding power
over others.  Any idealistic component is and will always be secondary to
that goal.

----
Patricia Bullington-McGuire	<patricia at obscure.org>

The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the problem analytically, discovered
three distinct kinds of dragon: the mythical, the chimerical, and the
purely hypothetical.  They were all, one might say, nonexistent, but each
nonexisted in an entirely different way ... 
                -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"