Building a Better Voldemort

[sunnyskywalker]

Last December, charlottehywd asked if there was a list of things that would make Voldemort a more effective villain. I figured there's no better place to compile one!

Some initial ideas to kick things off:

He could have Apparated into the Potters' house right past the anti-Apparition wards which would stop any normal wizard.

He could have actually killed Arthur with Nagini.

He could have arrested one or more Weasleys in DH and released stories about how they were being subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques" on suspicion of blood treason in the Daily Prophet to lure Harry out. (Hey, dangling a loved one as bait worked on the kid before, why not give it another shot? It's not like it'll cost Voldemort much even if it doesn't work.)

He could have Imperiused someone close to Harry - Ron, Hermione, Lupin, Molly - making it hard for Harry to know whom to trust.

He could have turned someone close to Harry to his side by other means, either coercion or brilliant manipulation.

He could have unleashed the Inferi instead of leaving them boxed up in the garage.

We could have seen more of the damage the Dementors caused after they went AWOL after the DE breakout from Azkaban.

I'd love to hear more ideas!

Comments

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

I'd say that it's because Umbridge is not an *epic* villain. And JKR is clearly going for the Tolkienesque epic Good Vs Evil fight-to-the-death with Voldie, especially in the later books (where Voldie becomes even thinner and less believable). But JKR just isn't very good with creating that genuinely epic feel - she relies too much on tropes and doesn't think about what they mean or what's behind them, and lets them stand in for actual characterization. Whereas Umbridge isn't really a trope like the Dark Lord is; she's an individual character working within and reacting to a limited environment/situation. Which lets JKR focus more on giving her depth.

I might also wager that, with the ridiculous pacing of books 5-7 coming out, JKR spent her best energies on creating Umbridge and the other bits of decent material, and made the mistake of relying too much on the hints about larger things dropped into earlier books, without realizing that she needed to *fill in* the rest of what those were supposedly pointing *to*.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

Well said! What is it with the whole idea that fantasy has to be epic? I know that that's what Tolkien did, and it worked, but not every story or world really makes sense being "epic" in the sense of being larger than life or full of concretely good and bad guys. And even Tolkien had a lot of gray areas- it's part of what made the Lord of the Rings work.

I also feel like JKR has too much of a tendency to micromanage and not let readers decide for themselves about the characters. That's probably part of why Voldemort is so bland- perhaps she feared people would like him if there was anything relateable about him. All of the interviews that people keep citing just give me the impression that she doesn't feel like she can trust her readers to enjoy her stories in the "right" way. I wonder how many problems with her characters ultimately stem from this.