Suspension of disbelief - Being dependent

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 182520


Carol earlier:
> > <snip>
> > *That's* what's disappointing about DH!Voldie, IMO. He *does* have
extraordinary powers, as indicated in the preceding paragraph (and in
previous posts, which you've snipped). We just don't see much of them
in DH because he's sidetracked by the quest for the Elder Wand. 
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> Just to be clear, I've read what I've snipped.  You aren't being 
ignored. <g>  But I disagree that you're providing examples of 
special powers on Voldemort's part.  He's vicious and blunt and will
use the magic all wizards have to the fullest extent of his ability,
no matter what they may do to his victims.  But there's not something
so uniquely different about his powers that it explains why the WW 
had no choice but to cave to his appearance and await a "special hero"
to save them.
> 
> For example: Any wizard willing to create a horcrux and put their
piece of soul into an animal will control that animal as well as 
Voldemort controlled his snake.  So his control of Nagini isn't what
I'd term a special power.  Heck, even parsel tongue became more 
mundane when Ron was able to use it to get into Slytherin's lair.
> 
> To tell you the truth, I'm not sure I'd say "special powers" were
ever really alluded to throughout the series.  <snip>

Carol responds:

Oh, dear. You don't recall Voldemort's "special powers" being alluded
to in canon? guess I'd better get out the books and start quoting, then.

Let's start with possession. The very first time we see Voldemort, not
counting the unicorn-blood-drinking figure in the forbidden forest who
is probably Quirrell, he's sticking out of the back of Quirrell's head:

"Harry would have screamed, but he couldn't make a sound. Where there
should have been a back to quirrell's head, there was a face, the most
terrible face Harry had ever seen. It was chalk white with glaring red
eyes and slits for nostrils, like a snake. . . .

"See what I have become?' the face said. 'Mere shadow and vapor. . . I
have form only when I can share another's body. . . but there have
always been those willing to let me into their hearts and minds" (SS
Am. ed. 293).

I doubt very much that Quirrell *willingly* let Voldemort into his
"heart and mind." He says himself that his "master" possessed him as a
punishment to control him more closely.

"Sometimes," says Quirrell, "I find it hard to obey my master's
instructions. He is a great wizard and I am weak. <snip> He has had to
be very hard on me. He does not forgive mistakes easily. When I failed
to steal the stone from Gringotts <snip> [h]e punished me . . .
decided he would have to keep a closer watch on me" (290-91).

The very look of Voldemort is evil and monstrous, frightening in
itself, as is his ruthlessness. But wizards armed with wands,
especially those less weak and naive than Quirrell seems to have been,
are unlikely to be terrified of a Dark Wizard unless he's obviously
more powerful than they are. And Voldemort (who has been reduced to
vapor rather than being killed) even without a wand or even a body is
a scary figure who can possess both animals and snakes. He has no body
of his own, yet he can make Quirrell (who both fears and admires him)
obey him through a combination of threats and pain even before he
controls him (as he later controls Nagini) by possessing him.

In CoS, we see that as a boy of sixteen, he created a diary that can
possess the reader, enabling that person to speak Parseltongue so that
the memory in the diary (really a soul bit) can control the Basilisk,
which the real Tom Riddle used to murder Moaning Myrtle. As if that's
not enough, Diary!Tom causes Ginny to enter the CoS herself, after
writing what her own epitaph on the wall, and very nearly takes her
soul, turning the memory of himself into a second Tom Riddle.

He survives in the interim between leaving Quirrell's body and being
made a fetal form (through Dark magic we don't see the likes of
elsewhere) by possessing snakes and other small animals. Presumably,
he did the same thing between GH and the encounter with Wormtail. He
is possessing Nagini when she nearly kills Mr. Weasley, and we can see
just how closely she is controlled.

Harry, of course, thinks he's the snake, so read "Nagini" for "Harry"
and "she" for "he":

"Harry longed to bite the man . . . but he must master the impulse
[Voldemort's will controlling Nagini's] . . . he had more important
work to do <snip>. Harry <snip> saw a wand withdrawn from a belt . . .
. He had no choice . . . He reared high from the floor and struck" OoP
Am. ed. 463).

Nagini would not have bitten Mr. Weasley had Voldemort continued to
restrain her, just as she doesn't bite Snape or eat Charity Burbage
until she's ordered to do so or receives permission.

As Dumbledore says, "he [Voldemort] seems to have an unusual amount of
control over her, even for a Parselmouth" (HBP 507).

I can think of no other wizard in the books who can possess either
humans or animals. Voldemort can do both.  

I can't go on at this length about other powers, but Parseltongue,
too, is presented as a highly unusual power, associated, fairly or
unfairly, with Dark Wizards, especially Salazar Slytherin. Harry says
that lots of people in Hogwarts can probably do it and Ron responds,
"Oh, no, they ca't. It's not a very common gift" (Cos Am. ed. 196).
The Hufflepuffs suspect Harry of being the Heir of Slytherin because
he can speak it (and Tom Riddle regarded his ability to speak it, and
consequently to open the CoS and control the Basilisk, as proof of the
same thing--correctly, in his case). Ernie tells Hannah, "He's a
Parselmouth. Everyone knows that's the mark of a Dark wizard. Have you
ever heard of a decent one who could talk to snakes? They called
Slytherin himself Serpent-tongue" (199). 

So that ability in itself would cause people to be afraid of Voldemort
even if they didn't know that he had opened the CoS as a boy and could
use the Basilisk to kill people without being in danger from it
himself. (We see diary!Tom summoning it from its hiding place; it
doesn't come until he calls it and it obeys only him.)

Dumbledore says to Harry, "You can speak Parseltongue, Harry, because
Lord Voldemort <snip> can speak Parseltongue. Unless I'm much
mistaken, he transferred some of his own powers to you the night he
gave you that scar" (333).

So Harry and Voldemort are the only two wizards, not counting
possessed!Ginny, who can open the Chamber of Secrets because they
share this rare power. Only Riddle!Voldemort can control the Basilisk,
but the other students, especially the Hufflepuffs, suspect Harry of
controlling the monster because, like Slytherin and Voldemort, he can
speak to snakes. (Ron can't, of course. He can only imitate the word
for "open." Had the Basilisk still been alive and roaming the CoS, Ron
would have been dead, and Hermione with him.)

But Dumbledore speaks of "powers," not "power." The only other power
Of Voldemort's that Harry has (unless the ability to resist the
Imperius Curse is somehow related to the soul bit) is the ability to
see into LV's mind through the scar, rather like Voldemort's
formidable Legilimency (but, of course, he can't perform Legilimency
in the normal way on anyone else). 

Snape tells Harry in the Occlumency lessons, "<snip> those who have
mastered Legilimency are able, under certain conditions, to delve into
the minds of their victims and to interpret their findings correctly.
the dark Lord, for instance, almost always knows when somebody is
lying to him. Only those skilled at Occlumency are able to shut down
those feelings and memories that contradict the lie, and so utter
falsehoods in his presence without detection" (OoP Am. ed. 531).

Later, Snape speaks of Voldemort to Bellatrix as "the most
accomplished Legilimens the world has ever seen" (HBP Am. ed. 26).
Snape could, of course, be exaggerating since he certainly doesn't
want Bellatrix to know that hr really has "hoodwinked" the Dark Lord
through his "superb" Occlumency, but DH shows just how formidable and
invasive Voldemort's Legilimency is (as if what he did to Bertha, and
to Morfin and Hokey, weren't sufficient):

"'Do not lie to Lord Voldemort, Gregorovitch. He knows. . . . He
always knows.'

"The hanging man's pupils were wide, dilated with fear, and they
seemed to swell, bigger and bigger until their blackness swallowed
Harry whole--

"And now Harry was hurrying along a dark corridor in stout little
Gregorovitch's wake <snip" (DH am. ed 279).

It is, of course, Voldemort who is really "hurrying along a dark
corridor" in Gregorovitch's memory. Voldemort has entered Voldemort's
mind as if it were a Pensieve, and Harry is in Voldemort's mind,
experiencing Legilimency from the perspective of the Legilimens.

Voldemort can also communicate wordlessly with his DEs, not just
summoning them and telling them exactly where they are to come, but
sending messages such as telling Alecto Carrow that Harry Potter is
likely to come to the Ravenclaw common room. And we actually hear him
communicating with Nagini when she's not being possessed--LV is far
away in continental Europe:

Harry feels the Horcrux twitch and then "he felt a leap of joy and
spoke in a high, cold voice: '*Hold him!'" (DH 339).

Anyway, I think that's sufficient canon, even without mentioning
whatever Dark magic Voldemort has used to create Bathilda!Nagini to
prove that Voldemort has unusual powers, some of which the WW knows
about and some of which they don't. Certainly, the DEs know about his
Legilimency and are terrified lying to him, and the WW at large knows
that he created and used Inferi in the previous war.

I can't argue against your disappointment in Voldemort, which is
wholly subjective, but your statement that he "use[s] the magic all
wizards have to the fullest extent of his ability" is only partly
true. Certainly, most if not all mature wizards can cast an
Unforgiveable Curse is they will themselves to hurt or control or kill
others, and if that were all that Voldemort does, I would agree with you.

But show me another Wizard who possesses people (and animals); invades
their minds with that horrible, Pensieve-style Legilimency (as opposed
to Snape's causing the Potions book to rise to the surface of Harry's
mind); or uses animals to kill people by controlling their wills (as
contrasted with Hagrid's lack of control over the Acromnantulas).

People are afraid even to speak Voldemort's name. (Whether that's
because the name was jinxed in VW1 or because of superstition--speak
of the devil and he'll appear--I don't know.)

But Voldemort has a reputation as the greatest Dark Wizard in a
century, believed even by those who think he's dead, and it can't be
the Horcruxes because no one knows about them. (Not that anyone else
has ever created more than one, and the only other wizard we know of
who made one was Herpo the Foul, the same Dark Wizard and Parselmouth
who hatched the first Basilisk back in ancient Greece. Too bad we have
to read FB to find that out.)

You stated: "But there's not something so uniquely different about his
powers that it explains why the WW  had no choice but to cave to his
appearance and await a "special hero" to save them."

I just countered that statement with canon. Possession, Parseltongue,
invasive Legilimency, Dark magic in various forms (including Inferi,
Bathilda!Nagini, potions with no antidotes, curses with no
countercurse, potions that use the blood, body, and bone of others to
restore a body that has been destroyed, Horcruxes). And, of course, he
and his followers do indeed make widespread use of the Unforgiveable
Curses, though I would hardly call them "the magic that everyone else
has" since most Wizards would not use them.

Rather than snipping my examples and sweeping them aside as the same
magic that everyone else uses, how about showing me some examples of
other wizards who use that same kind of magic?

Carol, who has used hours looking up canon to support her arguments
and hopes that Betsy will quote some canon of her own to counter them