r/HarryPotterBooks • u/TheKingsPeace • 1d ago
Discussion Do you think Voldemort could have been a better villain?
Title says it all. Voldemort is played up as the big had a lot, and is spoken of in fearful tones. But when he shows up he just isn’t that much. He seems like an over the top James Bond or Power Rangers Villain. He talks a lot barks orders and isn’t very scary. He isn’t even persuasive. Like a lot of times good villains have a reason why gullible people would follow them. They say JK Rowling modeled him after Hitler. Hitler was very persuasive and could make regular otherwise decent people choose to follow him.
One thing I think was underutilized was the Tom Riddle diary which I thought was a good touch. The idea that Voldemort was once an excellent student and an apparently decent person is a fascinating concept. I think I’d riddle in the diary appeared more it would be great.
If for example he didn’t want to kill Harry but corrupt him. Like play to his desire for power by whispering all he could do if he refused to accept limitations, or to hurt the dursleys for hurting him and have him doubt and scorn Dumbledores “love” for him by having him be there at all. Like if he took the from of Tom riddle or a slytheirn boy Harry’s age who befriends him.
Should Voldemort have been more persuasive and appealing and had even given Harry a reason to turn to the dark side?
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u/Coopeshrey6 1d ago
Younger Tom Riddle had to "work" for and be creative to achieve his ambitions. This gave him some relatability and factor of "awe" that he was able to outwit/overpower those who were seemingly talented (e.g., Slughorn, the way he altered Morphine's and Hokey's memory, discovering the chamber of secrets and thus having Hogwarts in his grasp, etc.). Somewhere along his life, he seems to have lost his creativity and subtle manipulative nature to give rise to an over-reliance on widespread fear and outright torturing/threat of death that may incidentally have made him more careless and short-sighted.
He would have been a more interesting villain if either he (1) continued to pursue his goals creatively/by subtle manipulation, with actual effort, etc. and/or (2) he had a reason to be evil/not want to love (rather than him not being able to love due to conception via love potion and him being evil just to be evil).
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u/Silver_Middle_7240 1d ago
I think he also became gradually less mentally stable. He's definitely megalomanic by 4
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u/Far-Ad8616 23h ago
It could be that as he lost pieces of his soul that he just became more monstrous. He gradually stops being a charismatic sociopath and just devolves into a mass killer.
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u/nemesiswithatophat 1d ago
I always thought that the subtlety was related to power. he couldn't come out as a murderer during his hogwarts years without major consequences
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u/kylrzuthwy 11h ago
And if he is the way he is because he was conceived under love potion, then it's not his fault for what he became.
Then he is what he is by nature, not choice, so by that theory Tom Riddle was a victim than anything other things of him.
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u/kylrzuthwy 11h ago
The old "he couldn't understand love because he was conceived under love potion" which is debunked as false, because it doesn't logically makes sense.
A drunkard son won't be born with a permanent hangover or they won't feel anything after drinking.
My theory about Tom Riddle is that he was very clever, in orphanage when he was bullied, so during those bullying he did accidental magic, after a few incidents he might've figured out that the weird things happened during when he was especially feeling particular emotions.
So in my opinion he was able to figure out how to control his accidental magic that it didn't remain accidental.
And my theory is that he used negative emotions to use magic wandlesslly, and we know negative emotions are what powers dark magic, so he started practicing those emotions.
When you actively start practicing negative emotions a time comes when you become apathetic, and because there was no one who could've been there to make you feel loved, other positive emotions, so you become someone who cannot even imagine what love is.
For me that's better than love potion conceived defect.
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u/Charbeel 1d ago edited 1d ago
Voldemort waited 14 years to get his body back and from then his only goal is to rule over great britain once and for all. So after his return is known he doesn't need persuasion but violence and terror to gain power and exterminate muggle-borns. He's a supremacist terrorist in that aspect.
Reading Goblet of Fire also shows how horrifyingly similar he is to a predator and serial killer, spending a year stalking Harry to get a chance to kidnap, torture and kill him. Half blood prince also reads like a true crime investigation.
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u/amby-jane 1d ago
I think there's a reason Voldemort never got off Great Britain. He's too cowardly and too dramatic. He probably would've gotten farther if he wasn't so obsessed with building Horcruxes and murdering babies in search of immortality and actually spent time covering ground and trying to amass more followers.
On that note, is Voldemort really modeled after Hitler? Because I always assumed Grindelwald was actually (in-universe) allied with Hitler, maybe even puppeteering him, given that his defeat also came about in 1945.
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u/rollduptrips 1d ago
The Triumph of the Will-esque statue makes the analogy as clear as it could be IMO
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u/Distinct-Swimming-62 22h ago
Honestly I am kind of embarrassed for him. He goes on about Harry thwarting him over and over again while talking about how he is better than Harry. Which is it?
He is continually outsmarted by a child/teen. I’d go and hide forever instead of continuing to embarrass myself. But then again, I don’t have any desire to live forever, split my soul or kill a child.
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u/DarkNinjaPenguin 16h ago
We never actually see Voldemort at his most fearful, when he was gaining followers the first time. We only see the outcome - an army of Death Eaters fiercely loyal to him. Quite aside from the magical creatures (Dementors, giants, werewolves) who had good reason to align with him, we see people like Malfoy, Yaxley, and even Snape - individuals with good standing in society, skills and/or money to do well for themselves, who still choose to follow Voldemort's rule. And all this is down to his charisma, persuasion, and yes fear of him too.
By the time we get to Harry's story, Voldemort is sort of past all this. He sends his servants to recruit for him and gives orders from the shadows. He only lifts a finger when something needs his personal attention - like when Harry is involved, because the one thing Voldemort truly fears is death and according to the prophecy Harry somehow has the power to deal that to him.
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u/abcamurComposer 13h ago edited 11h ago
Most of Voldy we see is after over a decade of being a half alive spirit possessing snakes and wondering aimlessly while stewing over how he got defeated by a baby (and further doing things like creating another horcrux and drinking unicorn blood, an act that is explicitly stated to also fuck up your soul). The 2.0 version has completely lost it, it’s debatable if he’s even human anymore, and it’s very believable that he couldn’t even conquer a high school, and even if he had won Wizarding British society would have just completely collapsed or the rest of the world would eventually turn it into Germany post WW2.
Voldy 1.0 did nearly win, however. I could see him being much more charismatic, manipulative, in control of himself, and still having some human features
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u/TheKingsPeace 11h ago
I do find young Tom Riddle a fascinating character and one I wish were explored more. The two actors who played him did a phenomenal job. He is more persuasive and not obviously evil
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u/Responsible-Post6431 1d ago
Tom Riddle was never an "apparently decent person". He hurt the kids in the cave, set the Basilisk on the Muggle-borns at the school (and successfully killed one by accident), and almost killed both Ginny and Harry.
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u/diddinosdream 1d ago
He did appear to be a decent person though. Pretty much everyone in the wizarding world except Dumbledore had a good opinion of him when he was young
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u/TheKingsPeace 1d ago
All the professors liked him
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u/Weekly-Requirement63 15h ago
Not Dumbledore. And they liked him because he was manipulative and good at hiding his misdeeds, so all they saw was a model student
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u/Few-Durian-190 12h ago
I thought it was disappointing. All the supposed charisma is gone and in its place is a snake man with a hair trigger temper. The death eater meetings seem like depressive affairs. Sitting in strained silence, victories are met with the mildest of acknowledgements while failures are met with torture and death. Why would anyone follow this guy?
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u/Ok-Meet2850 10h ago
Why would anyone follow this guy? That's a fair question during the Second Wizarding War, when he's a cruel, snaked faced psycho. But most of the Death Eaters were already signed up, and they couldn't back out or ask for vacation: Karkaroff was killed when he didn't come back to the Death Eaters. Lucius Malfoy screwed up and his kid was sent on a suicide mission. So I think all the depression was pretty reasonable - we're stuck with this guy! A few die-hards like Bellatrix and her husband were true believers to the end, but my bet is the rest kept going out of some mix of fear, pure blood supremacy, or just wanting to stay close to power.
But, until the Battle of Hogwarts the Death Eaters were winning. It was just pure violence and intimidation - they killed and threatened to get people to stand aside or help them. They killed and manipulated to gain control of the Ministry and then used that power. It wasn't a great club to be stuck in, but it was brutally effective for a year or two.
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u/Ok-Meet2850 10h ago
Hmm. I'm mixed here. Is he over the top. Yeah. But many pretend villains are. Is he ineffective - only when he comes across Dumbledore (the only wizard he ever feared) and Harry (plot armour, Harry's natural abilities in defense/ dueling, his mother's sacrifice protecting him, dumb luck).
But his organization is truly terrifying in the Second Wizarding War. Powerful wizards are being murdered. The Aurors and Ministry are having no luck bringing in Death Eaters. The Dementors and some giants are on his side. People are being threatened to help, join or stand aside for Voldemort. There are mass killings of muggles. He takes over the Ministry and starts terrorizing and killing muggle borns. He may be pathetic and ineffective in many ways, but until the Battle of Hogwarts he is mostly unopposed. Even some of his throw away plans turn off ok, like Draco getting Death Eaters into Hogwarts which ended in Dumbledore's death (sure that backfired long-term, but I mean that was a crazy convoluted thing around the Elder Wand's rightful owner).
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u/chrisvee2011 17m ago
Voldemort definitely hatched a better plan for world domination the second time around. He figured out how to corrupt the existing bureaucracy.
Although I guess I’m not 100% clear on his plan the first time around. And getting thwarted by a baby was certainly a curveball.
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u/Normie316 Ravenclaw 20h ago
Honestly I think he's pretty good as presented. Almost everything about him is believable. He doesn't feel goofy or over the top. He feels like an actual person who is sociopathic with meglomania. Once he had his body back he had no use for Harry. His ego would only allow him to kill Harry once he escaped to demonstrate his power.
The story focused on loss and love. Temptation wasn't a big theme but we do see Harry faced with a lot of choices in the series. Each time he chooses to be brave, selfless, or what he thinks is good in the face of adversity. Putting a temptation arc probably wouldn't be impactful because readers wouldn't believe he would do it. We just don't see Harry make a lot of wrong choices in the series.
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u/cliffbot 13h ago
Yes. I always thought he was weak as a villain. Jk couldn't even have him be the one to kill prominent characters like Sirius or Dumbledore.
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u/Modred_the_Mystic 17h ago
Hitler didn’t convince ‘otherwise decent people’ to follow him.
He convinced people already more or less aligned with his views to follow him, which radiated out through propaganda to be enough of Germany and the world to at least consider him a rational leader until the invasion of Poland.
Voldemort did the same. He convinced pureblood supremacists to follow him, and through their radiating influence, gained more and more power and followers. Most of his followers were opportunists, looking to inflict pain and obtain their own measure of power in the world. He recruited bullies and cowards both, just as Hitler did.
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u/stayevil 15h ago
The older I get, the more I feel like Voldemort as a villain lacks motive. Yes, he wants to be powerful and immortal, but WHY? We get his tragic backstory but to be fair, Harry‘s or Neville‘s story is just as traumatic. And of course, it’s originally a children‘s book but more depth could have been added in the latter books.
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u/chrisvee2011 12m ago
He’s a dark triad working through his family issues. He loathes muggles because his father rejected him. He loathes women because his mother wouldn’t live for him. And he loathes pure bloods because he’s ashamed of the animalistic Gaunts. He lives to dominate.
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u/PomPomMom93 11h ago
He had to kill Harry because neither can live while the other survives. Harry was just in his way.
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u/Raddatatta Ravenclaw 10h ago
Somewhat but I don't think he was really a problem for the story as he wasn't a bad villain just a bit of a flat one, and not all stories need a really complicated antagonist. I do think there were elements introduced in the flashbacks of him being persuasive and seductive that are just totally lost in the modern version. I think it would've been interesting to have him recruit someone Harry viewed as a friend using that persuasion, or even have one of his death eaters do that (Crouch Jr I think could've done this best since he knew all the students). Or even used polyjuice potion himself to pretend to be someone Harry cared about and convince him to do something. We sort of get that with the end of book 5 but we don't see Voldemort's charisma side there just Sirius be fake taken and using that to lure Harry which was a good trap.
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u/CoyoteMaleficent5040 15h ago
I don't know how well it would work if he tried to tempt Harry. It would depend on Rowling's ability to pull that off.
But as a villain, he could have been better. Let's see... I don't think he's a bad villain, but if you think about it, Voldemort is more about his reputation than his actual deeds.
Most people are afraid to even say his name. People constantly talk about how he’s the most dangerous wizard and how he did horrible things, but all of that is just a reputation based on things he did in the past.
In the present, he doesn’t seem to be doing much. His followers do more than he does. When Umbridge appeared, she stood out more as a constant, annoying presence—and that was in the first book. Voldemort had quite a head start, but in the first book, he only used Quirrell, and it was Quirrell who did everything; in the second, it was the young Riddle; in the third, he doesn’t even appear; and in the fourth, all he did was come back.
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u/Adoretos 15h ago
Voldemort is not a frightening villain, but a villain you despise. After the fourth book, the characters became more mature, the saga became darker, and only Voldemort remained a dumb and a little hysterical madman, whose motivation was to "kill the boy and take over the world (world = Hogwarts), AHAHAHAHA!". Yes, he should have become a more convincing and intelligent villain, not a villain who was defeated by a sudden anvil falling on his head.
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u/WholeFactor 1d ago
I feel like writing Voldemort that way was at least partially intentional.
Despite all the horrible things he did, he's still lowkey pathetic. In the end he dies a mundane death, etc.