Voldemort vs. Grings Kodai

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

So the other night I was watching the thirteenth Pokemon movie, Zoroark: Master of Illusions, and I got to thinking about the main villain of the show, Grings Kodai. It seems as though the movie was trying to do with him the same thing as Harry Potter had done with Voldemort- except that in Pokemon it actually worked!

So, just who is this Grings Kodai? Well, simply put, he’s a wealthy and influential business tycoon who can see the future, allowing him to increase his fortune. The reasons for that are rather complicated to anyone not familiar with Pokemon (basically, a Pokemon did it), so suffice it to say, his powers don’t last forever and have to be renewed (he’s terrified of losing them). When he first acquired those powers it caused great destruction; because of this, nobody who knows what’s going on will just let him waltz in there and replenish his powers- he has to force them out of the city where this power is located. So he enslaves a mother Pokemon (the eponymous Zoroark) by threatening her child and drives everyone away- leaving our plucky kid heroes to stop him.

Kodai is renowned for being one of only three villains in the Pokemon anime who are completely evil, since he’s sadistic and cruel.

Now, one interesting point about these two villains is that they both seem to represent death in some capacity- in Kodai’s case, he dresses in white, a color commonly associated with death in Japan and select other cultures, and the Pokemon companions he keeps are both ghosts. He’s also one of the only villains in the series who’s actually tried to kill the heroes, rather than merely put a stop to them. The difference is that it appears almost as though he’s supposed to represent death itself, whereas Voldemort represents an all-consuming fear of death and desire for immortality- which, paradoxically, can only be obtained through murder.

Well, with that out of the way, it’s Voldie bashing time!! XD

So, where does Pokemon succeed where Harry Potter goes wrong?

1. Backstories are only useful if they add depth and complexity- something neither villain has.

Now, Voldie has a backstory while Kodai does not. However, all Voldie’s backstory does is to show that he was evil from birth- so really, it’s a waste. In Kodai’s case, the fact that he has no backstory telling us how he made bad choices even as an infant and always had and always will actually makes him seem more believable, not less- because it’s easier to believe that some people are evil and sadistic than to believe that anyone was doomed to be a mass murderer from the moment of his conception. Voldie’s inherent evil is laid on so thick that you simply can’t take him or his backstory seriously.

Incidentally, Kodai’s mysterious past also means he’s a glorious free-for-all in fanfic- but I digress.

2. Not every villain has to look like a zombie!

There’s a difference between using visual cues to tell that someone is a villain and making him look completely unearthly just to illustrate his evilness. In Kodai’s case, while you can tell just by looking at him that he’s a villain, that has more to do with subtle details like the shape of his eyes, his clothes (see above), and (to a somewhat lesser extent) his Pokemon. Compare that with Voldemort, who looks like a smooth-skinned zombie with snake eyes and no nose! Again, you wonder how that guy’s managed to get around for so long without being killed with fire- or attract any followers (since he sure as hell doesn’t look like a good leader)!

Now, to be fair, Voldie was pretty when young (as our questionably-not-gay hero Harry frequently notes). However, when he eventually turns ugly it becomes increasingly clear that Rowling is pathologically incapable of subtleties of description.

And that leads me to a digression here to point something out: often villains (especially in anime and heavily visual media) are gorgeous, to symbolize how seductive evil can be. Pokemon is no exception to this rule, and indeed seems to have enforced it for as long as the franchise has been around. Whether or not you find Grings Kodai physically attractive, he’s clearly supposed to look refined and successful, producing the same effect.

On the subject of my personal favorite Poke-villain (who actually shares a voice actor with Kodai- though unlike Kodai he actually retains some shreds of humanity in how he operates, at least in the games), common fan assertions about him are something along the lines of “That guy looks just like Voldemort with blue hair yet he’s hot.” What they probably mean is that his charismatic personality (and probably his tortured backstory, too) win them over even if his physical appearance isn’t a factor. Voldemort could have been the same way despite his appearance (well, if it were SLIGHTLY less over-the-top anyway)- yet Rowling squandered that opportunity with her approach to his personality and back story, leaving him as a shallow plot device.

3. Villains won’t win over anyone, in universe or out, by being dicks to anything that moves!

You know how Voldemort was a bully from the second he knew what that word meant, and how he got people killed at the age of twelve with no regrets? How about killing so many people as an adult that people feared to speak his name- and then trying to take over and begin a new government? Wait, what?!

As I’ve said before, it’s pretty unbelievable that Voldemort could get any real power, since he never so much as pretends to care about the well-being of anyone but himself.

Kodai, on the other hand, is successful in getting his way in part because he actually thinks to convince other people that he’s an honest, reasonable man. If he can frame a Pokemon for something he wants to cause, he will. Now think back to Voldemort. We see Voldemort do that exactly once (only it sort-of falls flat since Hagrid was actually dangerous and only got away with it for being Dumbledore’s darling) and then he just starts killing people to make himself fearsome and immortal and stuff. And then once he gets the power, he just sits on it!

Then there’s Hogwarts, where Voldemort, rather than try to appeal to the students that Harry deserves to be turned in for being a selfish prick, decides to impose martial law on the school and everyone in it. Smooth, that!

Though if I may say so, Kodai’s actions to appeal to the public sort-of fall flat only because the audience sees so little of them. It’s incredibly hard to buy him as anything other than a villain since apart from a single video recording, all we see him do is be evil.

Note well in all this, that Kodai is in no respects a subtle villain himself. He’s played with a lighter touch than Voldemort, but that tells you more about Voldemort than it does about him. Basically, the Voldie/Kodai comparison can be summed up in much the same way as Doug Walker compared the villains for two Titanic movies- sure, Kodai may have been a barely-human evil monster, but at least the Pokemon guys tried to make him look like a civilized gentleman so you could take him seriously. With Voldemort, on the other hand, not a chance- in fact, you’d think Rowling was delighted to make him as shallow and stereotyped as possible.

And... now to put my overall feelings in perspective...

Reaction I’m supposed to have to both these villains:

“OH MY GOD THIS VILLAIN IS SO EVIL AND SICK SOMEONE PUT A STAKE THROUGH HIS HEART RIGHT NOW!!!!!!”

My reaction to Grings Kodai:

“Yup, this villain sure is evil.”

My reaction to Voldemort (after finishing the series and reflecting on it):

“Oh, come on! How could anyone take this guy seriously?! He’s so flat!”

Comments

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

I was a seventh grade jaded reader by the time I read Philosopher Stone on a family trip to England*. Voldemort didn't do much more than have people say he's scary, he's defeated by a baby, tries to knock Harry off a broom and tries to choke Harry at one point. The troll was scarier. Snape was scarier. Voldemort was a large talking tumor.

Rangers Apprentice is awesome. It's written for the same audience as Harry Potter, and it has the same cliche elements, but the friendship is more real, the girls are more empowered and the stakes are higher. They do have a Dark Lord, but he isn't the only villain, and many of the other villains are pretty frightening.

As a Hebrew speaker, Sephiroth makes me giggle. Keep imagining him as a giant tree.


*Amazing story btw. My mum had been thoroughly tired of my chatting and had wanted to sleep. The person across the hall had taken out a copy of Harry Potter, which had been advertised in England a bit. I made my big cute eyes and asked if I could read it. The woman laughed and said "It's a very long book, over 200 pages. You think you can finish it in 4 hours?" (I looked much younger than my age) Them's fighting words. I made a bet that I could finish it in two and did so, before giving my review to the staggered lady. "It will never take off." My family has never ever stopped reminding me of that.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

Giant tree or no, you can't deny the fact that Sephiroth is deranged, murderous and incredibly unsettling. It probably helps that the way he is first introduced is absolutely chilling.

also..."It will never take off..." I think that speaks more for your good taste as a young reader than anything. There are plenty of popular things that don't deserve to be. I mean, look at Twilight! ;-)

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

Oh very true. I have no doubt that given the chance, Sephiroth is capable of destruction on a wholesale level. The burning down of the village....that is a level of terror that Voldemort never got to do. Everyone was afraid of the Dark Lord...they wouldn't speak his name....and I never got why.

And yes, One Wing Angel the Score helps a lot. Merciful Gods, is that scary! It's a steam roller of death and power. Voldemort should invest in Sephiroth's costume designer and orchestra.

Awww, thanks. I figured if so many people liked HP, there must be a lot of good in it and I still want to learn from her, but according to my mother, here was what 12 year old me didn't like. (She remembers my ranting better than me)

1. The Dursleys are silly. No one is that horrible. If they were real, they would be in a psych ward.

2. Hogwarts is a bad school. I wouldn't want to go there. Unfair punishments, bad classes and no music, art, gym, languages, literature, or math (I counted magic as science)

3. No good villains, besides Snape. Draco is boring and yes, I saw Quirrel a mile away

4. Teachers are stupid. If all my teachers wanted to give me riddles, I doubt I would solve them so easily.

5. WHy does everyone like Gryffindor? Sorting house makes no sense. why are all bad people Slytherin?

6. Harry just defeated the Dark Lord. I wonder if there will be a better villain. WHo cares, I'm bored, I want something else to read.

Hahaha, yeah. Twilight baffles me in its popularity. I do love JKR's world building, and there's a lot of Good in Harry.

In Twilight, I just wanted Buffy to do a road trip from Sunnydale and cull the Cullens.

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

"(I counted magic as science)"

As someone who's training to be a scientist, and goes to a science-driven school, I take offense to that one ;)

Seriously, though, magic can't be science because science involves learning the scientific method. All these kids ever do is rote memorization- the basic instructions are given to them and not questioned (Hogwarts strikes me as a bit vocational-school-esque, actually, only nobody learns anything that would be of value to anyone over the age of ten).

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

Apologies, I was 12 so my exposure to science was mostly basic as in "how things work." I figured that magic counted as their science, how their world rocked.

Yeah, if my niece (I have no kids yet) was in a school like Hogwarts, I'd be furious. The students do not know how to think, this is the spell. How does the spell work? What modifications are needed in different things? For instance, in chemistry, I doubt I'd pass if I didn't understand why hydrogen and oxygen make water.

Why do these charms make this effect? How does transfiguration deal with taking a living creature and turning it into a non living object? Does that mean you're murdering the porcupine when you turn it into a pin cushion?

And again, thousand pardons!

[sunnyskywalker]

I bet it's like science when Snape does it :-D He has cross-outs in the margins and is evidently experimenting, so there must be some principles somewhere to work with!

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but that's never really encouraged. Snape (and Ravenclaws and Slytherins in general, who would experiment) are marginalized in favor of the Gryffindors who just want to use magic to make explosions.

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

I just wonder how they have no math.

Let's say you need 2/3 of a cup of aconite juice for every 2/7 of a cup of crushed spider eggs for 10 people, how much do you need?

Yes, Snape could do it, but how many students could?

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

I think that that view of science might make sense as far as junior high or high school science goes. I always thought that it was a very memorization based field and was horribly uncreative, at least when I was younger. I think that the way that science is taught for younger people and non-science majors is a problem that way.

Just curious, but what branch of the sciences are you studying?

And I definitely agree about the trade school thing. I mean, Hogwarts doesn't really encourage any sort of branching out into things besides magic, let alone creativity. No wonder these people need to employ goblins at their banks- they apparently can't even do basic math.

In a place where rote memorization is the only method of learning, I suppose it makes sense that Hermione is considered to be really smart. She certainly doesn't seem interested in problem solving, or any other aspect of intellectual life.

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

I'm studying biological sciences primarily, though this particular semester I'm taking lots of physics and chemistry courses.

A good example of how science is NOT rote memorization comes from the notes my cell biology professor last semester had for reading a research article. He says that you can't possibly take everything in in one go, so what you should do is first read only the title and try to come up with a list of possible experiments based on what of the title you understand (nothing else). You're supposed to make guesses the whole way through, until you've gleaned all useful information from the main body. And then once you're done with your close reading YOU'RE supposed to critique the experimenters' methods and conclusions, and propose ideas for where to take the experiment from there (in school, obviously just for your own experience).

We also designed our own experiments in the lab that came with that class.

So basically Snape would feel right at home in a class like that, but Harry and co. wouldn't last ten minutes.

Incidentally, Hogwarts isn't even a GOOD vocational school- how much of what they learn is actually useful?

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

Very interesting. I actually sort of wish that I had studied more science when I was an undergrad. I have always found biology to be particularly interesting.

Good point. I wonder when turning a mouse into a teacup would come in handy. Maybe if you ran out of tea cups? I wouldn't want to drink out of it though. Eew. I think that most of the stuff was just put in to be fun and whimsical, not to be practical. Practicality is considered boring in the WW.

New Headcanon!!

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

Maybe Dumbledore deliberately made it very difficult for students to learn the scientific method or proper researching techniques, so that they wouldn't get into the habit of questioning his authority, information, or agenda (and since he owns the only wizarding school in Britain, every student passes through there, so it works on a large scale). He then rewarded Hermione for being good at rote memorization so that everyone would think it was the height of intelligence to remember and regurgitate his own propaganda.

Re: New Headcanon!!

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I like that. The only thing I wonder about is how this would explain students from different countries having similar characteristics. Perhaps some kind of conspiracy?

Re: New Headcanon!!

[sunnyskywalker]

Well, Karkaroff was a DE, so he might have motive to want Durmstrang students to be obedient and uncreative too. Not sure about Madame Maxime (though I suppose she doesn't want too many questions about why she's so abnormally tall).

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

In a place where rote memorization is the only method of learning, I suppose it makes sense that Hermione is considered to be really smart. She certainly doesn't seem interested in problem solving, or any other aspect of intellectual life.

She is capable of solving Snape's logic puzzle though - although that may be one of the odd bits in the first book, like Hagrid not understanding why Voldemort didn't try to recruit Lily, or Snape taking a point off Harry without any reasonable excuse (is Snape showing favouritism to Seamus here?).

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

You do have a point there. I wonder if perhaps Hermione was not quite fleshed out as a character originally- or, better yet, she originally was pretty bright but the stifling attitude of the WW made her at the very least get out of practice, since critical thinking skills are hardly required there.

Or JKR is just really inconsistent about characterization and I am giving her too much credit.

As an aside, I wonder what it says that Hogwarts' super special security system could be so easily beaten by a bunch of children. It kind of makes all of the professors look incompetent.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Even if the traps were only there to lull Quirrelmort into a false sense of security until he was trapped in front of the Mirror, surely they didn't have to be that easy.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

I would think that he would have gotten suspicious by that point. I mean, if I were a villain out to steal something that my enemies don't want me to have, I would be concerned if I had no trouble bypassing their security.

I'm a grad student. A friggin' grad student should inot be better at being a villain than a (supposedly) super powerful evil overlord. Gah!

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

I think that the whole "He who must not be named" thing was kind of a cheap trick to try to make the reader afraid of Voldemort. I mean, even in the height of their power, people never minced words about Hitler or Pol Pot. You would think that having magic powers would make Voldemort scarier, but he doesn't hold up against real world evil people who didn't have anything like that.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

Also, your 12 year old self was quite sharp!

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

It sorta makes me wonder if they expect Voldemort to appear if they speak.

And after 10 years...you'd think the terror would be down a bit.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

There are a lot of things that you would think would be true about the HP world. I don't think that most logic applies there.

[sunnyskywalker]

There's also the Last Apprentice/Wardstone Chronicles series. There villain in the first book alone scared me more than Voldemort (especially after she gets to Tom's house). Learning to be a "spook" (basically a ghostbuster) is dangerous, as in, of Tom's master's previous 29 apprentices, ten have died and ten have burned out or gone evil. And then by the fourth book you have "the Fiend," ie the Devil himself, loose in the world - and it is entirely possible and tempting for your protagonist to sell his soul to save his friends.

There's also clearly something going on with Tom's mother, who is the active and influential parent in his story (and even once you think you've learned it all, there's still another doozy to come). And while the old mentor is very vehemently suspicious of all women (witches!), and for a while it seems like the book is supporting him, it grows increasingly clear that he's deeply screwed up in a lot of ways and isn't entirely rational on some topics, and he kind of does a Sam Gamgee with not trusting a trying-to-be-good young witch when he really ought to have to do some good. Even Tom realizes the mentor does some incredibly shady things (especially in the third book, where one girl who's kind of a secondary protagonist points out the OMGWTFBBQ aspects of his behavior while Tom is still trying to rationalize it so he won't be so freaked out), and eventually that he's just plain gotten old and weak and can't be relied on anymore to save the day. The series isn't finished yet, so I'm still preparing myself for it to end disappointingly DH-style, but right now I'm enjoying it.

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

So excited to read it, I ordered the series for new years!

[sunnyskywalker]

I hope you enjoy it! It does have its frustrating elements (my main worry is that the long, subtle set-up for how the Spook is so very wrong about many things, especially his distrust of women, will fizzle out and not get addressed properly), but it's a lot of fun, and I really love how the parent Tom takes after and inherits knowledge (and some other stuff) is his mom.

The British and US versions have different titles and covers, but I don't think it matters particularly unless you have an aesthetic preference. (I know the US versions have copious interior illustrations, but don't know whether they're different in the UK. I like both sets of covers, so I expect the interior illustrations would be just as cool even if they are different.)

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

Just took out the first book!

[sunnyskywalker]

Now I really hope Delaney doesn't pull a DH for the last book and say all the subtly I see are just Martian canals :D But unlike Harry, Tom has a living family who really are put in danger due to his job (and they didn't choose it, and are mostly helpless to stop it), so he actually has good cause to worry and feel guilty, which is a nice change! It really is a choice between "what's right" (protecting the County) and "what's easy" (just staying home and keeping his family safe).