Voldemort - All Powerful & Slytherins come back

[Mike]

No: HPFGUIDX 180566

> Pippin:
> I think Fudge is the first to state, in PoA, that without his 
> followers Voldemort is not dangerous. 

Mike:
Not looking up the quote, relying on memory, I think Fudge said that 
Voldemort alone was bad enough, but give him back his most loyal 
supporters and the WW would be in real trouble again - akin to VWI, I 
suspect. I don't think Fudge was giving the impression that Voldemort 
wasn't scary without his crew. Just with his supporters, he would 
have the ability to spread his destruction over a wider world.


> Pippin:
> The really scary thing about LV  is his ability to organize and 
> direct the disaffected elements of the WW in a unified assault 
> on the Ministry. I can't imagine Giants, dementors, purebloods 
> and werewolves deciding to work together on their own. If you
> think about it, that makes Voldemort a lot scarier, and a lot
> more like the dangerous dictators of the real world.

Mike:
But Pippin, this is a book about magic and wizards and such. The WW 
is supposed to be more powerful and hence more deadly than the Muggle 
world. I wanted a Voldemort that exemplified those great and terrible 
things that Ollivander warned me about. I wanted him worse than those 
dictators you speak of. The other side has magic too, remember. And 
as the bad guys, I expected that they had no compunctions against 
using those spells that Dumbledore was too noble to use. I wanted to 
see those spells, I wanted something to have come from Voldemort's 
world travels.

I expected to be scared of more than Voldemort's organizational 
skills. How staid is that?



> Pippin:
> That he could duel on a level with Dumbledore would be enough to
> scare most wizards silly, IMO. Slughorn, Kingsley and McGonagall
> together couldn't finish him, even with his powers weakened by
> Harry's protective spell. 

See, that's the thing, I never doubted that Voldemort was powerful, 
capable of holding his own against Dumbledore. With all his build up 
I half expected he could have beaten Dumbledore using spells that 
Dumbledore wouldn't use or spells DD didn't know how to counter. That 
he couldn't did not make me think he was not powerful. 

But scary?! I'm sorry, but holding him in the background for two 
books diminished his magical omniscience and personal formidability 
in my eyes. Supposedly he scared all the students silly by his 
booming voice while they were in the Great hall. Gee, we saw Ludo 
Bagman use Sonorous in GoF. We were supposed to be scared because he 
was "Voldemort", but he didn't *do* anything that would inform that 
type of all encompassing fear, not that I saw.



> Pippin:
> The actual antagonist of the story, IMO, is Harry.  Voldemort
> and Slytherin are only mirrors. Harry's great struggles are with 
> himself; with his  feelings of helplessness, weakness, anger and 
> loss. Beating the bad guys just proves he's really over it.

Mike:
Now wait a sec, Harry is both the protagonist and antagonist? I don't 
give Harry as much credit as you do. I have a hard time seeing 
Harry's defeat of Voldemort as a metaphor for him overcoming his 
inner demons. I don't see the story written that *deep*. I don't see 
Harry learning that about himself. YMMV and obviously does.


> Pippin:
> That's where the life lesson is, IMO. It doesn't *matter* whether
> your hate is justified or not -- either way, life is too short for 
> it. 

Mike:
It's a nice sentiment, Pippin, but I don't see as how it applies in 
this series. That is, I don't see it being a thematic undercurrent in 
this story other than how a general truism would apply to any story.



> > Mike previously:
> > In any case, 99% of the Slytherin students 
> > didn't suffer any repercussions for those beliefs. 
> 
> Pippin:
> I don't like the idea of punishing people for their beliefs, no 
> matter how wrong-headed they are.

Mike again:
Yes, you're right, repercussion is the wrong word. What I should have 
said was that I wanted to see some realization from the Slytherins, 
that pure-bloodism is wrong. I was left to guess and hope that it 
happened, but not one Slyhterin student was shown to harbor any 
remorse for blindly following a false and destructive credo.


> Pippin:
> Anyway, how often do true believers
> actually change their minds? I expect most of the real bloodists
> were bloodists to the day they died -- but people who didn't have
> any personal allegiance to the bloodist cause, which was probably
> most of Slytherin, no longer were under any pressure to pretend 
> they did.

Mike:
So says you, and so hopes I. But where did you read that in the final 
book? I *thought* I was going to get that from Draco. I suspected 
that Pansy, Goyle, and others wouldn't change. They would be 
your "true believers". But the other Slytherins...? Didn't hear a 
peep out of them, did we?



> Pippin:
> Slughorn, Regulus and Snape all "got it" -- but the whole point
> for Harry is to realize that people he doesn't like, or wouldn't 
> have liked if he'd known them when they were alive, are not
> thereby capable of the worst he can imagine. 

Mike:
Sorry Pippin, it's just not good enough. I think it was Steve that 
said that he needed someone from Harry's generation, just one, to 
show that some of the Slytherins *got it*. Otherwise, how can we know 
that the poisonous atmosphere inside of Slytherin House has changed? 
Slughorn is not going to convince his students, that's even if he 
stays at that "pestilential school" and stays as Slyth's HoH. The 
other two are dead, whose going to be the force for change inside the 
Slytherin common room?



> Pippin:
> What I find telling is the contrast between Harry's first 
> impression of Slytherins, "Perhaps it was his imagination, after
> all he'd heard about Slytherin, but he thought they looked an
> unpleasant lot" and his last, where the only thing he particularly
> notices about Draco is that he's going bald.

Mike:
Yes, that is to Harry's credit. But how do you know that Draco wasn't 
looking back at Harry and co. and thinking; "lousy half-bloods, 
mudbloods, and blood traitors. They'll get theirs some day."? I would 
hope not, but the last line we got from Draco was him whimpering to a 
Death Eater, "I'm on your side." 

That's how we're left with it, plus our imagination and 
interpretation. That may be enough for some, not enough for others. 
Personally, I would have felt better about it if I'd gotten 
Steve's "one Slytherin".

Mike