Villains in potterverse

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 116583


Sherry wrote:
><snip> I see Voldemort almost like a force of evil, as sauron, rather
than particularly evil himself. <snip> I find him the most boring
character in the whole series.  I am not one bit interested in what
made him go bad.  I don't care if he's ever redeemed.
> The less book time given over to Tom's poor childhood and making
excuses for him because of that, the happier I'll be.  The deatheaters
are scary, because they actually do things, torture, murder, betrayal.
 If there's a puppet master, it's Voldemort, but he's not a very
clever or smart one, except in knowing how to use the weaknesses of
others to get them to do his will.

Carol responds:
I agree that Voldemort has so far been rather disappointing. Possibly
the Voldemort of VW1 was scarier, but we don't encounter him directly,
and the Voldemort of Books 1 through 3 has only been a head inside a
turban, a disembodied spirit, or a memory. The Voldemort of Book 4, an
evil baby-shaped creature capable of murder and forcing others to
commit murder was a more promising villain, but JKR could not allow
him to come back at full strength ready to kill or be killed by Harry
at that point, not with three books left in the series. The plot
required him to suffer yet another humiliating defeat at the hands of
a kid. (Not that Harry didn't also require unexpected help from his
own wand and a group of spectres!) At least he has his body back,
along with some of his DEs (who, alas for them, are a bit out of
practice, and Crouch!Moody, the most loyal DE, is worse than dead). In
OoP he's preoccupied (like Sauron with the Ring) with acquiring the
Prophecy so he can finally destroy Harry. I don't think we need to
suppose that he's been idle. For one thing, he's sent envoys to the
giants--one of them, conveniently, the MoM employee Macnair, who
evidently has ties to Fudge and Malfoy. For another, he evidently
arranges the escape of the imprisoned Death Eaters. Now, in Book 6,
thanks to the need to save the final confrontation for Book 7,
Voldemort is still incapacitated, his escaped DEs (except Bellatrix)
rearrested, along with those who had gone free before by pleading Imperio.

So, what will Voldy do now? It's a bit late to recruit new Death
Eaters. I expect an escape and some very angry DEs out for revenge,
and some evil uses for giants, goblins, dragons, Dementors, and other
Dark Creatures, not to mention Nagini. I expect we'll learn that there
are more than three evil, incapacitating spells (Dolohov?), even if
only three are illegal. I think that potions (and antidotes) will
finally play a crucial role. We may have more betrayals and mutual
distrust. But much of it will need to be directly traceable to
Voldemort. I hope that he will reveal other powers besides
Legilimency, possession, Parseltongue, and the willingness to cast an
infinite number of Unforgiveable Curses.

The plot has, till now, required an undoubtedly evil but incapacitated
and rather inept villain prone to overestimating his own abilities and
underestimating Harry's. Otherwise, Harry would long since have been
killed and Voldemort's victory assured. I hope that he'll be a more
formidable opponent now that the war is on in earnest, though he still
needs to gather his minions and regroup. Certainly the imprisoned DEs
will escape again to play a role in Book 7, and I think this time
they'll be going for the kill. But it's time that we saw something
new, preferably from Voldemort himself.

This much I can safely predict since at least one person will die: By
the end of Book 6, Harry will have more reason to hate Voldemort than
just the deaths of his parents in Godric's Hollow fifteen years before.

Carol