Wizarding World under Voldemort?

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Sunnyskywalker's last post inspired me to do a bit of thinking about our dear Voldie and to play with what-ifs. So let me put the question out there: what do you think would have happened had Voldie been a competent Dark Lord? How would the war(s) have been different - what would Voldemort and the DEs done differently? And, let's say he won or at least managed to hang onto power for a substantial length of time (perhaps Harry vanished mysteriously? Or died somehow?), so what would the WW have been like under a competent Dark Lord?

Some ideas:

- perhaps Voldemort would have made much greater use of the Dementors during the war. (Given Jodel's theory that his fear of death and psychopathy were caused by Dementor-haunting during his infancy, it could be very interesting to posit a connection between him and the Dementors, or their using each other - the Dementors maybe wanting a better bargain that what they've currently got....) This might have had particular consequences for Harry and his role in things.

- Voldemort might have softpedaled the Muggleborn angle where necessary, and/or brought up other issues that were of concern to a greater segment of the populace - perhaps the savage ridiculousness of condemning people to insanity-inducing torment for small crimes? (There is apparently only the one prison, after all.) Economic issues? - They have to pay for Hogwarts and the Ministry somehow, so that means taxes. Also possible restrictions on what can be done with cheaper mundane goods. Annoyances over restrictions on kinds of magic/objects allowed (ex. dark in the 'non-crude' sense Xenophilius mentions)? Concerns with other magical populations, human and not? And so on.

- Together with the above, more public rallies/demonstrations/leaflets/articles in the Prophet designed to gain sympathy from the public?

- After victory, how would he gain the loyalty of the public? One thing I suggested in comments to the earlier article was some sort of bread-and-circuses deal like the Nazi Strength Through Joy program. Trips, sporting events, medals to earn, useful goods?

- How would daily life have changed, including been curtailed? Censorship of the Prophet and other publications is an easy one - though perhaps putting out a rival and *better* publication might be another thing the DE government could do. (And Voldie would employ a competent and non-terrifying staff for the 'front desk' jobs.)

- How would the staff of Hogwarts, St Mungo's, etc. change?

- Did Voldie really want to break Secrecy? If not, how would that impact the WW? If so, how does he manage the other international governments bound by it, and how does the actual announcement go? What does the world look like then?

Anyway, some questions to play with!

Comments

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Recruitment rhetoric aside, I think what Voldie really wanted long-term was a world in which the Dark Lord reigned supreme, immortal and unchallengeable, with everyone on earth as his abject slaves. (Not that he needed slaves to DO anything, but he was still human enough to crave social interaction--but being a psychopath, there's only one kind of interaction he could actually appreciate.)

I doubt he saw us mundane folk as being able to act effectively to thwart him, so his first objective would have been the conquest of the WW, and then, yes, he would have ended Secrecy so all on earth could know and tremble at their dreadful Master.

Hence his promotion of Pureblood Supremacism, and his playing on the fears of the old families that their status and power is slipping away. Divide and conquer, of course, but also...

Well, long-term his genetic program would have been two-fold: encourage inbreeding among the existing Purebloods to weaken them (and encourage existing mixed bloods to start inbreeding--it'll take generations, but any genetecist will tell you it'll eventually have its result, if the base population is small enough--particularly if you have an outside pressure consistently weeding out the smartest and strongest).. As to Muggle-born witches as wizards, first discredit them as potential mates, then accuse them of stealing magic from the (increasingly prevalent) Squibs born to the Purebloods, and eventually start a program to identify and eliminate them at birth or shortly after.

Start in Britain, of course, but consolidate his hold on all the WW (possibly before moving on the his "final solution" for the Muggleborns) before addressing taking over the Muggle world too.

His regime, before he manages world domination, would probably have been a model of restoring those with Pure Blood (or pretensions there to), to what they felt to be their rightful positions of influence, while promoting a few token, extremely talented half-bloods.

In short, sort of what we did see in DH, but carried off without letting his loyal followers realize that they were really his slaves, and would be discarded as such once their misplaced loyalty was no longer useful to him. (In short, making his dupes think the window-dressing positions were real. Umbridge may possibly have thought she wielded real power, but Snape and the Malfoys surely harbored no delusions. They knew who was, not the glorious Leader of a movement of his peers, but the Master.)

Really, Tom's biggest mistake was not realizing that terrorized obedience was less useful than fanatical loyalty, and mis-managing his followers so as to turn the latter into (he expectedt) the former. He abandoned the carrot for a bigger stick. Consider: if Severus, like Peter, had expected the Dark Lord to win--which he once must have, to have joined--and if Severus trusted the Dark Lord to reward his most loyal followers, Sev's best option for saving Lily's life was to be the best possible little DE to earn her as a reward. Only Tom's own untrustworthiness made him desperate enough to turn to Albus.

Tom's second biggest error was Albus's, getting so lost in admiration of the cleverness of his own over-elaborate plans that he doesn't stay focussed, simply and brutally, on what would best and fastest achieve his goals.

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/I doubt he saw us mundane folk as being able to act effectively to thwart him/

Why, though? He grew up in the Muggle world. He was living in a Muggle orphanage during World War II. Surely, even if he still viewed Muggles as weak and stupid, he’d know enough about them to know that their weapons were not weak or stupid. Unfortunately, JKR had him pretty much act like a pureblood wizard the moment that he went to Hogwarts, so he never really utilized any knowledge about Muggles from his days at the orphanage when trying to take over the wizarding world.

[maidofkent.livejournal.com]

There have been a number of fanfics (I remember an interesting Snape/Karkaroff) in which Tom used Muggles' lethal effectiveness as a recruiting tool - so there were lectures on topic such as the Holocaust (ironically), Hiroshima, environmental damage, encouraging wizards to take steps to gain power to save themselves. After all, magic wouldn't be of much use if you were in the vicinity of a nuclear explosion. It made sense as a way in which Tom could recruit the more intelligent of his followers (until JKR decided in DH that he didn't have any intelligent followers).