Subject: Voldy's weaknesses as a villain

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 149023

> Lupinlore > Lupinlore, who acknowledges that #7 occurs in real 
life, and thus 
> points out that even in real life (Hitler, Stalin, the Kaiser) 
villains 
> often don't make very much sense at all
> 
> Deborah, now
> 
> Lupinlore is dead right except for one crucial point. Villains 
don't
> make sense to us because we're not villains. (Well, speaking for
> myself, anyway!) If you're a villain, it makes perfect sense to do
> stuff because you want to, and you want to because whatever you 
want
> has got to be not just good fun or morally sound or anything boring
> like that, but just a question of *you*, the obvious centre of the
> universe, taking precedence over everyone else. 

Magpie:

"How can I be expected to know how a werewolf's mind works" is a 
denial that the werewolf's mind works like a human's.  Same with the 
minds of villains.  To them the actions of the good guys probably 
make just as little sense (as they might to us as well if we were in 
the villain's pov)--do you think Dumbledore's not telling Harry 
about the Prophecy makes sense to Voldemort?  His not killing Draco 
when he discovered he was trying to kill him?  Didn't the whole plan 
in LOTR rest on Sauron being unable to imagine someone trying to 
destroy the ring?  

Villains are supposed to make sense in fiction--that's why people 
laugh when they don't and criticize it.  But things like Voldemort 
coming up with a ridiculously convuluted plan do not speak to his 
motivation not making sense but his methods being flawed.  His 
motivation is perfectly sensible: kill Harry.  As is his motivation 
in trying to takeover the world, by human standards, since humans 
are not robots.  Voldemort is trying to destroy all threat to 
himself in the world and have power over his surroundings.  His 
desire to live forever grows out of that, not the other way around.  
Also the idea of destroying a race of people, far from going against 
the idea of eternal life, has actually always been linked to it.  
The idea is that the "unclean" people are like a disease--remove it 
from your kingdom and the kingdom will stand forever.  Even though 
the focus on killing these people almost always weakens the country 
rather than strengthening it.  Regular people make that same wrong 
choice all the time, so why would it not make sense when a villain 
does it?  I mean, if you apply to real life villains like Hitler--
obviously the man made a lot of sense to a lot of people at the time.

So yeah, someone doing something you wouldn't have done yourself 
doesn't mean their motivations don't make sense.  All the good guys 
have shot themselves in the feet plenty of times as well, because 
people always have more than one motivation at a time, and their 
different personalities are going to make them choose one thing over 
another.  

-m