If you were completely unrestrained by ethics, armed with the ancient secrets of Salazar Slytherin, had dozens of powerful followers including Lucius Malfoy, and it took you more than ten years to fail to overthrow the government of magical Britain, it meant you were stupid.
I tend to agree with Harry that a smart wizard could do devastating damage to magical Britain far beyond what Voldemort accomplished. Maybe with Time Turners, all bets are off.
But taking that as given, I see two assumptions above that may be false.
Voldemort was failing to overthrow the government—assumes that he was trying to overthrow the government.
Voldemort is completely unrestrained by ethics.
Both of those assumptions have problems.
Voldemort seems like a fine bogey man to be destroyed by some hero, who is then crowned king. If you’re looking to be king, you can’t do without a Voldemort. Likely he wasn’t trying to overthrow the government, he was trying to have the people hand the government to him. Or maybe he wasn’t trying to rule at all. Maybe this was his grown up version of Hogwart’s armies, so that he was just teaching them how to fight.
As for ethics, Quirrell doesn’t seem unrestrained by ethics. He’s not big on minimizing suffering, but he does seem to have a sense of justice. And Voldemort backing down in the face of Dumbledore’s reported immolation of Narcissa seemed unnecessary and more like an excuse to stop the violence.
An excuse to stop, or further evidence of the ‘teaching them to fight’ theory?
Dumbledore’s eyes were like stones. “I am told that Voldemort laughed at the news, and proclaimed to his Death Eaters that I had finally grown, and was at last a worthy opponent. Perhaps he was right. After the day I condemned my brother to his death, I began to weigh those who followed me, balancing them one against another, asking who I would risk, and who I would sacrifice, to what end. It was strange how many fewer pieces I lost, once I knew what they were worth.”
One hundred Voldemort points to Mr Dumbledore, and twenty points to Gryffindor.
I thought of this too, but how about this variant: teaching himself to fight.
Early on, Quirrell says he realized his ambition was to be the greatest fighting wizard of all time. He might have decided that winning the moment he got good enough to win once would cut short his learning too much.
Not so much an excuse to stop, but no need to continue after the lesson had been learned. It always indicated to me that for him killing and torturing wasn’t a terminal value.
This lines up perfectly with the worries Quirrel expresses to Harry about a possible war between Muggles and wizards, as well as his attempts to unify magical Britain. He gave up being Monroe when he saw Britain wouldn’t unify behind him, and gave up (it’s possible he was actually destroyed by Harry but it seems pretty sketchy to me) being Voldemort because he couldn’t unify it by force either. Sort of a reverse of Watchmen. The trumped up threat is in order to prepare Wizards for a much larger threat in the end.
“Voldemort seems like a fine bogey man to be destroyed by some hero, who is then crowned king”
Yes, and when Quirrell hears that Harry is being kept in Hogwarts due to the threat of Voldemort, Quirell specifically—and immediately—comes up with a plan to allow Harry to leave, by creating a “fake Voldemort” that Harry can defeat, ideally in a way that “leaves the [legend] open for future re-use”.
So there may be an as-yet-unnamed Dark Wizard who has the personas of Voldemort and David Monroe.
This Voldemort may either be him in disguise, or a person created by him, much as Bellatrix is an engineered persona.
This person may have initially planned to be “crowned” after he defeated Voldemort, but it looks like he just “gave up” at some point.
He then hears about Harry, and is curious if Harry can help him “do it right” or if he can help Harry achieve a comparable success.
Having to support a bad guy to fight a worse bad guy. Then creating fake threats to pretend to be a savior. Being able to project different identities. Taking over the identity of the savior. Then wondering, who is the real bad guy?
I think the resolution is that Voldemort set up his “defeat” by Harry, came back to nurture the Harry legend, will arrange the plan with Harry to have Harry defeat him as a fake(but actually real) Voldemort, but in fact Harry won’t be defeating Voldemort, he will only appear to defeat Voldemort, with Voldemort actually taking control of Harry, and ruling the wizarding world as Harry, destroyer of Voldemort.
I tend to agree with Harry that a smart wizard could do devastating damage to magical Britain far beyond what Voldemort accomplished. Maybe with Time Turners, all bets are off.
But taking that as given, I see two assumptions above that may be false.
Voldemort was failing to overthrow the government—assumes that he was trying to overthrow the government. Voldemort is completely unrestrained by ethics.
Both of those assumptions have problems.
Voldemort seems like a fine bogey man to be destroyed by some hero, who is then crowned king. If you’re looking to be king, you can’t do without a Voldemort. Likely he wasn’t trying to overthrow the government, he was trying to have the people hand the government to him. Or maybe he wasn’t trying to rule at all. Maybe this was his grown up version of Hogwart’s armies, so that he was just teaching them how to fight.
As for ethics, Quirrell doesn’t seem unrestrained by ethics. He’s not big on minimizing suffering, but he does seem to have a sense of justice. And Voldemort backing down in the face of Dumbledore’s reported immolation of Narcissa seemed unnecessary and more like an excuse to stop the violence.
An excuse to stop, or further evidence of the ‘teaching them to fight’ theory?
One hundred Voldemort points to Mr Dumbledore, and twenty points to Gryffindor.
I thought of this too, but how about this variant: teaching himself to fight.
Early on, Quirrell says he realized his ambition was to be the greatest fighting wizard of all time. He might have decided that winning the moment he got good enough to win once would cut short his learning too much.
Good point.
Not so much an excuse to stop, but no need to continue after the lesson had been learned. It always indicated to me that for him killing and torturing wasn’t a terminal value.
This lines up perfectly with the worries Quirrel expresses to Harry about a possible war between Muggles and wizards, as well as his attempts to unify magical Britain. He gave up being Monroe when he saw Britain wouldn’t unify behind him, and gave up (it’s possible he was actually destroyed by Harry but it seems pretty sketchy to me) being Voldemort because he couldn’t unify it by force either. Sort of a reverse of Watchmen. The trumped up threat is in order to prepare Wizards for a much larger threat in the end.
“Voldemort seems like a fine bogey man to be destroyed by some hero, who is then crowned king”
Yes, and when Quirrell hears that Harry is being kept in Hogwarts due to the threat of Voldemort, Quirell specifically—and immediately—comes up with a plan to allow Harry to leave, by creating a “fake Voldemort” that Harry can defeat, ideally in a way that “leaves the [legend] open for future re-use”.
So there may be an as-yet-unnamed Dark Wizard who has the personas of Voldemort and David Monroe. This Voldemort may either be him in disguise, or a person created by him, much as Bellatrix is an engineered persona. This person may have initially planned to be “crowned” after he defeated Voldemort, but it looks like he just “gave up” at some point.
He then hears about Harry, and is curious if Harry can help him “do it right” or if he can help Harry achieve a comparable success.
Yeah, there are a number of consistent themes.
Having to support a bad guy to fight a worse bad guy. Then creating fake threats to pretend to be a savior. Being able to project different identities. Taking over the identity of the savior. Then wondering, who is the real bad guy?
I think the resolution is that Voldemort set up his “defeat” by Harry, came back to nurture the Harry legend, will arrange the plan with Harry to have Harry defeat him as a fake(but actually real) Voldemort, but in fact Harry won’t be defeating Voldemort, he will only appear to defeat Voldemort, with Voldemort actually taking control of Harry, and ruling the wizarding world as Harry, destroyer of Voldemort.