Voldemort's Idiocy (Couldn't call it: Voldemort's Intellect ('twas))

[Goddlefrood]

No: HPFGUIDX 177907

> > Goddlefrood:
> > This seems to overlook what Deathly Hallows itself would tell 
> > anyone. When Voldemort is thinking of the hiding place for the 
> > tiara Horcrux he clearly believes he is the ONLY person to have 
> > ever found the RoR. How he could possibly believe that given 
> > the amount of junk in there is unbelievable, or it was to me.
 
> Pippin:
> It's simple, IMO.  He  thought all the stuff in there was *lost*. 

Goddlefrood:

One way of spinning it, not consistent with canon, but possible.

> Pippin:
 
> Voldemort really is brilliant, 
<SNIP>
> Brilliance, IOW, is not the same as common sense. 

Goddlefrood:

Avoiding relaity as I am today, and enjoying what may be my 
last day of freedom (don't ask), I'd like to take a shortish 
look at this brilliant man.

In PS he had the superb idea of obtaining the Philosopher's 
Stone so that he could come back. When he actually *did* come 
back he needed a loyal servant, the bones of his father and 
the blood of an enemy. Perhaps he also needed the sustenance 
provided by Nagini's milk. However, all those things were 
available to him in PS. Quirrell was a loyal servant, 
notwithstanding that he was pursuing power (or so he implied 
during the course of the Mirror of Erised sequence under the 
school). Harry was already his enemy, and a much younger and 
more naive one than he became in GoF. The bones of his father 
were in the graveyard at Little Hangleton. He *could* have 
regained a body then and returned in PS, but he chose to rely 
on unicorn's blood and the eventual acquisition of the stone.

In my opinion you don't need too much common sense to figure 
that one out. This brilliant man didn't manage to do it, but 
delayed his return by three more years, two of which he spent 
back in Albania (the diary revenant was a part of LV but not 
the part that would become the deformed foetal organism).

Turning to GoF, LV had the brilliant idea of taking the entire 
school year to bring Harry to him so that he could be revived. 
IF, and that's a big if, he had not gone to such tremendous 
pains to bring Harry to him then I have little doubt that he 
could certainly have got hold of Harry and returned earlier, 
Wormtail having rejoined him shortly after the end of year 
three. Once he did return to corporeal form the first thing 
he does is gloat over Harry and then proceed to release him 
so that he can duel with Harry to show his Death Eaters that 
Harry had no real skill to match LV, not terribly bright 
either, rather more arrogance and grandstanding. It is these 
latter traits that, in my view, we were to ascribe to LV and 
which would have led to the conclusion that he *thought* no 
one else had ever discovered the RoR. Nothing to do with him 
thinking that the items in the room were lost. That, in my 
interpretation, is unlikely because even lost things have to 
be moved by someone, unless of course he thought they all got 
there by magic ;-)

In OotP he had eventually to get Harry to the prophecy hall 
because only either he or Harry could touch the orb. LV must 
necessarily have known that *he* could get the orb. Because 
the various Death Eaters, many of whom had at the point of 
entry to the MoM recently escaped from Azkaban, can anyone 
seriously suggest that LV couldn't have got in himself? Other 
than himself (and remember his return was officially denied 
by the Ministy at that point) these escaped Death eaters 
would have been the most wanted witches and wizards in the 
WW. Yet they can, with impugnity, wander into the MoM and 
gain access to the prophecy hall without raising any alarms 
anywhere. LV could also have done, but then, naturally, OotP 
would have been a short book or entirely about the six-gilled 
shark, and who would have liked that?.

Finally, in Deathly Hallows he makes the mistake of thinking 
that, with Dumbledore out of the way, he would have a clear 
run at becoming the supreme ruler of wizarding Britain and 
most likely later the world (oh, the ideas of these super-
villains). He never thought once he had returned to a body 
to check his Horcruxes, and there'll be a little more on them 
shortly. That goes to his arrogance again, in that he couldn't 
even begin to imagine that anyone ever discovered he was using 
Horcruxes to anchor him to the world. Once he returned, and 
there being few ways that we are aware of of doing so, if he 
were so brilliant he'd surely at least contemplate that 
someone would know, or at any rate guess, that he had used 
Horcruxes.

As it turns out Horcruxes are easy enough to destroy, it was 
only some misdirection from the auther through the medium of 
DD that led us to believe that they would be tough to get rid 
of. When it became clear to me that Horcruxes could be destroyed 
without too much real trouble, always assuming there's a handy 
dead basilisk nearby or a Gryffindor in need of *that* sword, 
I further doubted LV's intelligence.

Brilliant? Sorry, far from it, just a lame brain, IMO.

Goddlefrood