Voldemort the Cartoon (was Re: Draco = Evil?)

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 124800


Betsy:
Yes, context.  In a world with Voldemort you'll have a hard time 
convincing me that silly, petty, Draco is supposed to be *evil*.  
And *worst* fellow student?  Please.  He's barely a blip on Harry 
and co.'s radar.  Why else did we hear so little of himn OotP.  His 
digs are tired, and his songs, while hurtful to Ron, won't cause a 
bunch of dead bodies.  And won't get a fellow student expelled. 
(Hello, Tom Riddle!) 


Lupinlore:
You know, this is very interesting, and I think at the heart of a lot
of arguments we have over the Dursleys, Snape, and Draco.  That is
that people often point out that the Dursleys/Snape/Draco aren't 
*really* evil, because Voldemort represents the *real* evil in the 
books.

And there I think is the problem for a lot of adult readers, including
myself and others in my circle.  We just can't take Voldy seriously. 
The man is *such* a cartoon!  I mean, who can read a Voldemort scene
and not laugh?
 
And therein lies the problem.  We can take the Dursleys seriously,
particularly after OOTP, because we have all known people who make or
would make abusive parents.  We can take Snape seriously because we
all know the kind of pain his hatefulness can bring.  We can take
Draco seriously because we have all known bullies and know what can
happen to them in adult life.  We can take Dudley seriously for the
same reason.  But Voldemort?  The man is an over-the-top cliche
straight out of a comic opera or a comic book.  We (my circle and I)
just can't see him as a very real threat.  I mean, his best Death
Eaters and he couldn't best a bunch of fourteen and fifteen year-olds
when they (the DEs) had the advantage of springing a well-laid trap! 
<SNIP>
Yes, of course intellectually the books present him as a threat.  Of
course intellectually we know he killed the Potters and is the cause
of Cedric and Sirius' deaths and so forth.  But emotionally we just
can't believe in him as a character or really feel, deep in our
hearts, that he is the real threat to Harry that many of the other
hurtful figures seem to be.  
<SNIP>
JKR hasn't helped matters by her interviews, either.  Voldemort has
NEVER felt love for ANYONE?  How over-the-top (and emotionally
unbelievable) can you get?  Even Satan, we are told, once had his good
points.
 
So perhaps, just perhaps, how seriously you take the behavior of the
Dursleys/Snape/Draco depends largely on how much you can believe in
Voldemort.


Alla:

LOL, Lupinlore! Too funny "your circle and you" :o) But since I 
usually agree with at least 90% of what you write about it, I don't 
mind. :)

I absolutely agree with what you wrote in this post as well. I once 
posted about "villains in potterverse", (post 116071). The gist of my 
post was that I don't find Voldemort to be very scary at all. Since 
then I got convinced that some of his DE are quite scary, but I still 
hold the same opinion of the Voldemort.

I think that JKR does NOT portray him well. Even in the Graveyard 
scene, which I consider to be quite chilling as a whole ( I'd say 
Voldemor at its best), at some moments when Voldie opened his mouth, 
I wanted to laugh.

But even if I WERE to take Voldemort seriously ( and again you are 
absolutely correct - intellectually I definitely do, but not on the 
emotional level), it still does not mean that I cannot think of 
Voldemort as primary Evil and Draco, Snape, etc as everyday secondary 
evil.

After all, Voldemort and what he stands for is supposed to be an 
ultimate threat, right? But even during the time of peace evil things 
keep happening and I am not going to stop calling them evil, just 
because much bigger Evil is lurking  in the shadows ( well, he is not 
lurking anymore, but you get what I mean).

Just my opinion,

Alla