Villains in potterverse

[Hannah]

No: HPFGUIDX 116257


Alla wrote:
> > I suppose come to think of it JKR does portray some evil fairly 
> > convincingly - some DE are very scary, same with TR. I just wish 
> > Voldemort could be the same way.

Kneasy replied:
> TR is just a snide teenager, most of the DEs are fairly standard
> heavies -  thuggish  rather than evil, and Bella - well, in the 
past
> I've had girl-friends that were more frightening than she is.
> More could be made of other characters, I think. 
> Am I the only one that sees more than a touch of Uriah Heap in
> Ollivander? or O'Brien (from 1984) in Lucius?


Hannah now: I agree with Alla that LV isn't particularly 
frightening.  I don't think that the red eyes and snake-features 
help, they make him into an implausible monster.  Also, with LV you 
know what you're getting; ie. big-style evil.  The Sauron 
comparisons are spot on.  I found TMR more chilling, because he 
seemed to be a good guy (ok, maybe I was just very gullible for not 
seeing through him straight away).  

I like Kneasy's Ollivander-Heap and Malfoy-O'Brien comparisons.  We 
haven't really seen enough of Ollivander yet, but he's certainly a 
bit creepy (just wait for him to say 'I'm ever so 'umble').  The 
O'Brien-Lucius similarity is really interesting.  But I would find 
O'Brien more sinister, in that he is again a character that we trust 
(tentatively, but relatively speaking he seems to be a 'good guy').  
With Lucius, as with LV, you get what you expect.  There isn't 
that 'oh no, it was him all along!' moment.  For me, that ambiguity 
makes a character more scary. OTOH, I never found Quirrel scary, 
even after the big revelation.  

Trouble is, I don't know what JKR can do to really convey the evil 
of characters like LV, partly because it's a childrens book and she 
has to draw the line somewhere, but also because I think it is quite 
difficult to really comprehend that sort of evil.  All the same, I 
do hope LV gets a bit more competent, otherwise the whole saga will 
be slightly less plausible.  Him and twelve of his most loyal and 
feared followers were outwitted by a bunch of school children, and 
we're supposed to believe that he terrorised an entire country!

Hannah, who guesses if she can believe Snape is secretly a wonderful 
person (which I do) then perhaps she can also stretch her 
imagination a little about the awfulness of LV!