I'm still not convinced, frankly. It would be one thing to send the head to HJ or Dumbledore to make the point, but to the embassy dinner?

It just seems that it was made far too public to be a reasonable course of action. Flags have got to be going up everywhere with this - within Britain and without - and even if you are planning a massive war in the future this doesn't seem to be a good move on the part of LV.

It's a small point, but it rubbed me wrong.

 

While I disagree with the general consensus on the duels, I do have to agree somewhat in regards to the head.

If Pettigrew knew about Harry and enough to know of Piers Polkiss than he would understand how little that little gesture would bother him. I might be remembering incorrectly, but the Dursleys did sell Harry's ancestral lands, right? I don't see Harry caring at all about this move, I mean its not like he can do anything about it if Voldemort decides to kill mostly random muggles.

It seems like even if it was a minimal amount of effort for Voldemort and his followers, it was ultimately wasted energy at that. In this case one severed head would be as good as the next I'd think.

Also, I was amused by the response to my earlier comments, something about protesting too much fits in there I think.

 

Everyone would still believe that Hj is Harry.
They all think he would be
"Its my fault he's dead. My fault. He woulnt be dead if it wasnt for me. Oh what a cruel and dark world we live in. What injustice that Sirius being blamed for vile act of villainy"

So the plan might have worked if Hj was still Harry. But he isnt and it didnt.

 

Harry hated Dudley's friends. Its hard to care about someone who used to beat you up in school.

 

I disagree. When you found out that a guy who bullied you in your childhood died, you are much more shocked than a random classmate from second grade who you weren't friends with anyway.

 

Speak for yourself. If I discovered a childhood bully died, I would think he deserved it.

 

...If you think a kid deserves to die for picking on you, you have an unrealistically high opinion of yourself.

 

Or you just hate the fucker, and hope that he dies.

Nothing about arrogance in there. Bias is fun.

 

I often befriend my ex-bullies.

*shrugs*

Edit: When I say often, I mean twice, and that's all of them...

 

I agree that sending Piers' melon to the Embassy wasn't a very smart move on LV's part, but to almost everyone, HJ is still "just" Harry, who Pettigrew would know to be the doe-eyed innocent from canon Books 1-3, a boy who didn't let Sirius and Remus kill the person who betrayed his parents to Voldemort.

It would be perfectly plausible to think that kid would be more than a little rattled to see the head of someone he knew - even if it was a kid who'd bullied him - in a box. And to say the implications would be lost on a 14-year-old, well that's stupid. A head in a box is a head in a box, and even for all you "ultra-hardcore first-person shooter gamer dudez", seeing a real head in a real box would push you out of your comfort zone. And the implication is crystal clear: I know a lot about you, and I can get a lot closer to you than you think.

You apparently got the shit kicked out of you.

 

But I thought that Voldemort didn't view 14-year-old Harry as a threat? What's the point of sending heads to someone who you view as completely beneath you? He doesn't see Harry as a worthy adversary, unless his prowess in the Triwizard Tournament is actually starting to rattle LV.

Either way you look at it, it just seems wrong. Harry is either a worthy opponent, in which case LV should be laying low until he's restored, or Harry is a pathetic child who survived solely thanks to Lily's sacrifice and who frankly isn't worth the effort to intimidate.

 

You're discounting the possibility that the head-in-a-box served multiple purposes. Canon Harry never attended diplomatic functions as the companion of a politically/socially important French citizen. Given where it was delivered, the head-in-a-box could have been meant not only to unnerve Harry, but also as a method of nudging the French into staying out of English affairs. It is ghoulish enough to make people wary while the fact that the head belongs to an English muggle means that the elitist French leaders won't be willing to use the incident as an excuse for more interference.

An interesting implication of this theory is that the death eaters may wish to be extra careful about fighting Fleur, as they don't want her to become a martyr and drag the French into their war.

 

You're also discounting the possibility that LV is bat-shit crazy and of inducing fear in harry he pulls the and this is what I'll do to the people you don't like, or this is independent action/ass kissing.

 

Personally, I think that killing a bully and sending his head as a message to an embassy dinner while you're trying to get a body back to conquer the known world is pretty damn stupid.

Voldemort needs constant care and still hasn't risen to power yet. To mail off a head is to prove what?

 

It might have been said before I aint going back and lookin through 2 or 3 pages of posts to find out but seriously if you got a fucken human head in the mail at the age of 14 how would you react?? You would run screaming like a banshee and try your damnest to crawl back up your mommy's pussy to hide.

That is likely the purpose. To scare the shit out of a 14 year old kid. Voldemort doesnt realize that James is in there. The fact that the head is someone that said supposedly 14 year old kid knew just makes it have that much more of an impact.

 

What you forget is just how well HJ has been performing in the Tr-Wizard Tournament. The tournament is not exactly a low profile affair. Assuming that LV's little spy in training Draco hasn't given explicit information on what harry has been capable of in the tournament, then the wizarding media certainly has.

 

He is both fourteen year-old boy and twenty year-old man. He can stay cool in that situation.

 

The point is that Voldemort doesn't know that.

 

^^^
True that

 

Correct me if I am wrong but LV hasn't got a body yet right? So the question is who is cutting off heads of Harry's neighbors? and who knows where Harry lives? Snape perhaps?