Explain this passage

[susanmcgee48176]

No: HPFGUIDX 180633

> Mike:
> But as far as the whole blood thing; I don't think Voldemort really
> cared that much, despite what Dumbledore said. I think the pure-
> blood mania was for his followers consumption. He needed a hook to
> recruit them and to keep them focused on their tasks, a reason
d'etre
> if you will, giving them something *they* believed in to pursue
> Voldemort's goals. Give the DEs somebody to lord over and they
won't
> notice how much self determination they've lost to Voldemort.
Another
> Hitler parallel, with the DEs playing the part of the Gestapo.
>
> Angel:
> snip  Also I think Voldemort did seriously care about tainting the
purebloods even though he was as far removed from a pureblood as
possible barring Muggles. Having killed his own father and family,
feeling responsible for the death of his mother, he was full of self-
loathing (was he a psychopath or sociopath?) The "them" he blamed was
himself, I guess in someway it was a form of self-purging?  (here
again though I won't bang my head against my desk as I write it this
time, but just how daft are these people who followed a halfblood to
restore purebloodism???  Honestly!)  At the same time I do think
you're right - purebloodism was a means to an end if we are to take
Voldemort at his/Quirrell's word that there is only power.  He only
sought power.. snip.
>
>







Susan:

Lord Voldemort was obsessed with being a wizard, obsessed with his
parentage, and totally focused on identifying himself with the
powerful. Why else use tokens from the founders of Hogwarts for his
horcruxes? L.V.'s first meeting with DD --  He asks about his father -
 did his father go to Hogwarts? His MOTHER couldn't have been a
witch, he says, because if she had been, she wouldn't have died.
He exulted in being a descendant of Salazar Slytherin, and speaking
parseltongue. He parades the ring that belonged to SS (even though he
murdered his wizard uncle to get it). Hogwarts meant everything to
him. He was going to deck Hogwarts in the colors of his noble
ancestor. (DH)

By murdering his father and grandparents, I suggest that he was
destroying the part of himself that wasn't wizard-like.
Maybe he thought that by killing his father, he purged himself of
dad's dirty blood, and that he got rid of the Muggle part of
himself..who knows?

He adores and worships the pure bloods. (Look at what he says to
Neville just before Neville pulled the sword of out the hat).

And I strongly suggest, that MOST of his followers did NOT know that
he wasn't a pure blood.
He tells Harry at the end of CoS, but that doesn't mean he told the
DEs. He was the consummate power monger, trusting one DE for a while,
then abandoning him or her if their usefulness ran out.
He told some of them a little information, and others a little
different information.

And after all, there were computers, but was there an internet, or a
world wide web? There might have been Google
..but I doubt that the
HP Lexicon existed. Most of his followers had no way to get
information about LV.

Lord Voldemort kept the secret of the horcruxes, and how he was
surviving from everyone. He operated alone. He made a fetish of
secrecy. DD found out by work, research, etc., but he surely didn't
tell anyone (until Harry).

DD says (I'm working from memory here) that few people remembered
that the clever brilliant good looking boy that had been Tom Riddle
became Lord Voldemort. Who would know about his parentage? If they
did know a little about it, they probably were not telling. We infer
(from the scene in Slughorn's office where he and his buddies smirk
knowingly when Slughorn says he comes of good wizard stock) that he
told them about being a descendant of SS, but we have no clue what
else he told them.

The idea of pure blood supremacy was a justification
but I think that
LV also believed it and bought into it.

His followers had to be given a philosophical justification for
the "cause" AND a scapegoat. For Hitler it was to revenge the
humiliation Germany "unjustly" suffered after WW I, and the scapegoat
were the Jews. LV TELLS his followers that he wants revenge for the
wrong done to witches and wizards by the Muggles. The scapegoat
becomes the Muggle-borns. He tells his followers they "stole" magic
so that everyone can be justified in throwing them out.

Susan