LV's bigger plan (was:Fawkes possible absence)

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 166396

> Dana:
> Sure Lucius is at fault to not swoop in and swoop out by letting
> himself be thwarted by 6 teenagers, but it was Snape who caused
> the plan to fail indefinitely.  More importantly, he thwarted LV's 
plan
> to stay out of sight until he was holding all the cards.

Magpie:
We don't know that Voldemort knows any of this. Even Bellatrix never 
suggests that Snape sent the Order to the MoM. I think if Voldemort 
knew, Snape's game would be up.

Dana: 
> Everything was working fine, DD stood with his back against the
> wall, losing more and more ground not only with the MoM but also
> with the general public and with it, Harry was losing valuable
> support. DD only had a handful of people to assist him in his fight
> against LV. The only thing LV would have to do is pull DD's (or
> Harry's) life support, one by one to seal the deal and get his 
hands
> on the prophecy to figure out how to deal with Harry himself.
> 
> So who do you think he was angrier with Lucius or Snape?

Magpie:
Voldemort's original plan to stay out of sight until he was at full 
power was thwarted when Harry returned to Hogwarts in GoF. After 
that we have no reason to believe that Voldemort knew Snape sent 
anyone to the MoM. All signs point to the opposite, with him being 
angry at Lucius who was in charge of the raid (and got the diary 
Horcrux destroyed) and Snape not just being killed because Voldemort 
knows he sent the Order and is thus on Dumbledore's side.

Dana:

> I do think it would not be to farfetched to think LV ordered
> Narcissa to get Snape committed and it seems that he prepared Snape
> himself to believe he would be asked to do it anyway. The UV might
> have been Narcissa's addition to secure Snape's commitment 
entirely,
> but I would not be surprised if it was LV's plan all along and
> Narcissa was to get Snape to commit to it.

Magpie:
Voldemort doesn't have to use Narcissa to do any of this. If he 
wants Snape to kill Dumbledore he can just order him to do it. 
Snape's supposed to be on his side. Why think he can manipulate him 
in this convuluted way by coming up with this whole plan with Draco 
just hoping Narcissa will go to Snape, and Bellatrix will follow 
her, and there will be a Vow that goes against his own orders? Snape 
does seem to think that ultimately killing Dumbledore will be his 
job, and Voldemort can tell him to do it at any time. Once he's told 
to do it, that's all the commitment Snape's supposed to need. Why 
does he need for Snape to do it for Draco when he can do it for 
Voldemort?

Dana: 
> Now the only thing needed was to help Draco move along and who says
> Draco did not get help at the last minute. Maybe LV sent Wormtail 
in
> to help Draco get a move on and to make sure Draco would move the
> moment LV wanted him to move. LV would not need all his DEs to know
> he wanted to get to Trelawney at the same time, they just helped
> Draco cause the necessary distraction and keep anyone on DD's side
> too busy with that. Wormtail with someone else could execute the
> Trelawney issue but I am still feel pretty sure DD outsmarted LV
> there (or I at least hope he did)

Magpie:
Why does Draco need help at the last minute? The whole storyline is 
being dismantled so that nobody's doing anything but being 
manipulated and nudged by Voldemort every which way. And you still 
haven't given any actual proof for the plan you need to prove, with 
Trelawney. None of the DEs indicate they're there for any other 
reason than to back up Draco, and nobody says anything's happened to 
Trelawney one way or another.

Basically, it seems like the whole story of what Dumbledore and 
Snape are doing with Draco all year has been tossed out and made 
into manipulation by Voldemort. Dumbledore's no longer outsmarting 
LV by having any sort of greater compassion or understanding. He's 
only outsmarted him by having Trelawney sent to his brother, which 
is completely uninteresting with no resonance to the story at all. 
Draco no longer has anything to draw "comfort and courage" from 
because Wormtail secretly fixed the Cabinet or whatever he did to 
tell him. The only person who benefits from this switcheroo is 
Voldemort, who is made much smarter and coldly efficient. Though 
even that benefit is a bit iffy, because it makes Voldemort less 
interesting by taking away his flaws. A guy who offers a mother a 
chance to step aside and save herself while you killed her infant 
son as if it's nice of him now thinks like loving schoolmasters and 
mothers. 

Dana:
> With Snape secure, LV's plans (plural) would indeed unfold like he
> planned without the possibility for Snape to thwart him again and
> without Snape in the know, DD has to base every next move LV will 
be
> going to make, on guesswork. 

Magpie:
If Voldemort knows that Snape is there to thwart his plans, why is 
he keeping Snape in his camp? Why doesn't he just kill him? Snape's 
storyline, too, where he's a double-agent walking the knife's edge, 
has been destroyed in favor of Voldemort knowing all and just 
handling it in very complicated ways that follow the plot.

Dana:
Sure this says nothing about Snape's
> true loyalties or his intent when he took the UV and, as I said 
before, I
> have no problem with the idea that Snape did have some noble
> intention when he took it or that he really believed he could
> control the UV and its effects on him.

Magpie:
Haven't Snape's loyalties been revealed as DDM in this scenario? 
Voldemort is working against him because he knows Snape is working 
against Voldemort. If Snape is Voldemort's man, none of this is 
necessary. Voldemort tells him to kill Dumbledore and he does, right?

Dana:
 I do believe he never told DD about the UV because he
> thought he could handle it, it seems to be a nasty habit Snape has
> (Quirrell book1, Shrieking Shack book3, missing polyjuice herbs
> book4),

Magpie:
Dumbledore does know about the UV, at least in some form, because 
Harry tells him about it. He might not believe Harry, or he might 
not know about the third clause, but if Snape just didn't tell him, 
he should know that someone told Draco about it.

Dana: 
> If we look at who benefits from the way things worked out then one
> can easily conclude that LV is the only one that truly benefits and
> so why would it be a stretch to think he planned it. I think it
> would even be underestimating LV's capabilities to think he would
> just leave his main objective to rule the world and take out any
> obstacle that could prevent him to get there, just because he wants
> a holiday and have some fun with tormenting some of his minions.

Magpie:
It would be a stretch because it's backwards logic conspiracy logic--
just because someone benefits from something does not mean they 
planned it. If that were true, Dumbledore planned for Voldemort to 
kill the Potters because his side benefited from Voldeort getting 
turned into vapor. I don't think deciding we know best for Voldemort 
is anything like canon proof, though. Voldemort isn't taking a 
holiday. He's more active in HBP than in any other book. He's not 
giving up on trying to kill Harry and Dumbledore *because* he's 
focused on Draco. Draco is an easy side-issue that takes nothing 
away from Voldmemort at all. That's the irony of the way Dumbledore 
makes it a priority, something that makes things more difficult for 
him. Dumbledore could have dealt with the "threat" of Draco far more 
easily by just confronting him and, if not killing him, locking him 
up or sending him from the school. Dumbledore makes his own life 
more difficult by letting Draco muddle along, even though it 
ultimately means that Draco gets the shot at him nobody had expected.

One thing that comes up in the books more than once is that people 
are impossible to manipulate this closely. Dumbledore himself, who's 
supposed to be good at it, always underestimates people. He 
underestimates Draco in this book, and so does LV. Characters always 
surprise people by not acting the way they're supposed to act. 
Crouch couldn't manipulate Harry into something as simple as finding 
out about gillyweed. So no, I don't believe for a second that 
Voldemort, the character who doesn't even understand love and can 
only imitate it, is controlling every single thing smart characters 
who love people do in their private moments. Besides being imo 
unbelievable, it deflates the story because it removes all the chaos 
of a lot of people with free will and their own personalities who 
screw LV (and everyone else) up.

Dana:> 
> He has been unable to secure his quest for ultimate power for 16
> years after he attempted to take out Harry the first time. It took
> him 14 years to regain himself a body and we now have to believe
> that he would waste a year because he had nothing better to do? Or
> that his obsessions would take a back seat because he is a little
> angry and just is taking revenge for the fun of it. DD himself
> admits in the end of OotP he will not be able to hold off LV for-
> ever after he returned to power.

Magie:
Who says he's wasting a year? He doesn't have to choose between 
Draco and Harry. Draco, like Regulus, is just a minor figure to him. 
He wasn't forgetting his obsessions with Harry when he crucio'd 
Wormtail or Avery, that's just something he also does. Voldemort 
could very easily have been meticulously planning his *real* plan to 
murder Dumbledore and Harry for next year. It's not like the guy 
isn't patient. He was willing to drag out his plan in GoF for the 
whole year.

Dana:> 
> We are also told that book 6 is not a stand alone and that it is 
the
> first part of a bigger story and therefore it would make sense that
> we do not get all the clues needed to see the full story even if we
> have all the clues to figure out what will happen next.

Magpie:
A great deal of Book VI is indeed a standalone, it's just that the 
two standalones of HBP and DH form one larger story even more than 
the entire series forms a larger story. HBP is like the Empire 
Strikes Back of the series. That movie is most obviously part of a 
larger story, and ends with the heroes in a low moment that we know 
must be resolved, but that doesn't make it not a standalone movie. 
Return of the Jedi wastes no time un-writing stuff that already 
happened in ESB. Sure they start out going to rescue Han, but 
they're not spending their time learning that Darth Vader really 
didn't come to the Cloud City to use Han to lure Luke there and 
offer to rule the galaxy with him. That plan's over. I can't imagine 
why we'd want to hear all about he "real" plot of HBP in DH. Not 
only does it go over old ground that should be finished, it makes a 
lot of HBP pointless on re-read because where now it seems like the 
good guys are doing things that will lead to their victory (even as 
they're making mistakes), making HBP the book that more than any 
other is about the personal choices people make that can't be 
manipulated, it turns out HBP was all a set up of Voldemort's. The 
stuff that seems like manipulation of Voldemort (like pressuring 
Draco and giving him the task) is just the first layer of 
manipulation. He's also manipulating the reactions to it.

Dana:
> He didn't want DD to know he was back when he tried to kill Harry 
in
> GoF because with DD not in the know, he could overrun the WW after 
he
> had all his puppets in place and Harry out of his way.  Because
> Harry did not die that night, LV needed to chance his plans and
> knowing the full prophecy became an obsession.

Magpie:
It became the plan for OotP. We don't know that it was an obsession 
to the point of carrying over to HBP. Actually, it seems like it 
pretty much isn't, because there's nothing in canon where Voldemort 
is expressly going after it in that book. Since killing Harry was 
his plan in GoF and not in OotP, I see no reason LV can't change his 
mind.

Dana: 
> JKR has been laying the groundwork of LV's bigger plan since
> beginning of the story, but by looking at each book individually we
> are bound to miss it and forget it is still the working on the same
> plan.

Magpie:
She definitely has been doing that, but she's never not 
straightforwardly written any of those single books. We may later 
find out that the diary of CoS was actually a Horcrux, but the 
mystery as solved in that book regarding the events of that book 
stands just as it did back in the 1990s. What everyone went through 
wasn't taken away from them and made into just a complicated plot 
for Voldemort. It was important for their own character development. 
Far more than his, since they are more important than his plans. 

Dana: 
> I think the Snape loyalty debate might be put in there on purpose 
to
> direct us away from the real culprit and his bigger plans -> LV. We
> think only DD would be able to get Snape in a position he does not
> want to be in, but what more ultimate punishment would there be
> for Snape than to be at LV's mercy, with nowhere else to go and
> with no one else to believe him?

Magpie:
I think LV is obviously the big bad, and that Snape being at LV's 
mercy would certainly be a bad place to be. But I think Snape can 
get there in ways that aren't all about Voldemort and far less about 
Snape himself and every other non-Voldemort character in canon.

Dana:
Just a quick note I do not want to imply Draco knew he was getting
help. *If* Wormtail was already at Hogwarts to keep an eye on Draco
(and everyone else's movement), then it would also have been easy to
figure out what Draco was planning to do or what he was working on.

Magpie:
Easy for Wormtail where it wasn't easy for Dumbledore or Snape, 
apparently. And unfortunately having the side-effect of again 
destroying Draco's own story. He's no longer succeeded at something 
himself, something that effects him personally, or surprising the 
older generation as a member of the younger. He's just another pawn 
micro-managed by Voldemort. And with no signs of it happening--no 
hints whatsoever that Peter is at Hogwarts. 

Jen: 
I'm not a military strategist, but what was up with Draco not 
realizing or being told the Order patrols the corridors when 
Dumbledore is gone? You send the wet-behind-the-ears kid to run 
reconnaissance for, oh, two seconds, and then the DE's poured out of 
the ROR? Seems like they had this huge element of surprise and could 
have waited until someone ascertained Dumbledore was indeed back and 
the Order gone.

Magpie:
Who says Draco didn't know the Order was patrolling? Isn't that what 
the DE backup is for, to get him to Dumbledore? Isn't that exactly 
why they do? 

Jen:
Everything else Mike said about the DE's not seeming to have a 
mission strenghtens my impression their mission was a cover. They 
certainly attracted attention at any rate!

Magpie:
Huh??? What do you mean they didn't seem to have a mission? They 
stated their mission several times and did it. Their mission was to 
get Draco to Dumbledore so that Draco could kill him. Their being 
second-stringers goes along well with that as well. The death of 
Draco Malfoy is not an important mission!

Jen:
When you think about the backstory of LV, one point that came up over
and over was how attached he is to Hogwarts, more attached to the 
castle than a person according to Dumbledore. When Draco came to LV 
offering a way into Hogwarts that even Dumbledore didn't know about, 
*that* was the cornerstone of Voldemort's plan in my opinion. 
Besides kidnapping Trelawney, there's always the possibility 
Wormtail is back at Hogwarts now, hiding in the Room of Requirement. 
JKR made the point that the ROR would not show up on the Map.

Magpie:
No one in canon suggests any such thing. *They* say that the 
cornerstone was Voldemort seeing a fitting way to punish Lucius by 
telling Draco to kill Dumbledore, and Draco seeing a way to get the 
DEs into Hogwarts for backup (a secret way, we don't know from how 
many people for how long), and that happening. Every other single 
thing mentioned--that Trelawney was going to be kidnapped and that 
Wormtail is at Hogwarts in the RoR or not--was born outside of canon 
seemingly, from what I've read, from fan dissatisfaction with 
Voldemort's interest in the Malfoys and the actions that come out of 
it. If we learn in future that Trelawney has been kidnapped or that 
Pettigrew is in Hogwarts, I think it will be the subject of a 
different book with HBP being a convenient explanation without the 
plot taking over HBP retroactively. Much the way that Montague's 
adventure in the Vanishing Cabinet happened in OotP, and was used as 
a springboard for important actions in HBP, without OotP being 
written to be all about Voldemort engineering the Inquisitorial 
Squad, and getting Twins to push him in there, and keeping Montague 
for getting out, and making sure Draco heard, and manipulating the 
Trio into not taking an interest etc.

Jen: 
I didn't say anything about LV targeting Harry at Hogwarts, that
would make no sense as a plan. I was saying that targeting the 
Malfoys isn't much of a plan either, not for someone like Voldemort 
who's obsessed with removing obstacles to killing Harry.

Magpie:
Targetting the Malfoys is a wonderful plan, especially for someone 
like Voldemort. Not everything he does has to be based on removing 
obstacles and killing Harry. People don't not get punished on the 
Bad Side because Voldemort doesn't care about anything that doesn't 
kill Harry. On the contrary, he tortures for drama, for amusement, 
and to establish his dominance. The example he makes of Draco is 
well-chosen for the point he's making to his followers and probably 
quite personally satisfying to him as well. I don't understand why 
it must be wrong just because it's not a plan like the ones in GoF 
and OotP. It's no more important than killing Emmeline Vance or 
Madam Bones or the little boy who got eaten by the werewolf. It only 
*seems* important to us because we know Draco, and he means 
something to Harry, and because Dumbledore and Snape see more in 
Draco than that.

-m