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Questions that don't deserve their own thread.

Discussion in 'Fanfic Discussion' started by Quick Ben, Feb 1, 2012.

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  1. Bill Door

    Bill Door The Chosen One DLP Supporter

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    Dude. How the fuck are you arguing with me on this? What I'm saying is canon, it's what actually happened.

     
  2. Sesc

    Sesc Slytherin at Heart Moderator

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    And I still think you have some odd idea about how there was a fix point in time where Voldemort suddenly was a Dark Lord o_O
     
  3. Quick Ben

    Quick Ben In ur docs, stealin ur werds.

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    I've been thinking apart from Immortality, what was truly Voldemort's end game or ambition to be more specific. Was he just using the death eaters as a way to get power? I mean does he truly believe in what the Death eaters stand for or are they and the message of the group itself merely pawns to a much larger scheme?

    Also, what happened to the rest of the Potters? Uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents, were they somehow all wiped out or something? Is Harry more or less the last surviving Potter, because try as I might I honestly cant remember any mention of other Potters in the whole series.
     
    Last edited: Apr 28, 2012
  4. Carmine

    Carmine Unspeakable

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    Pretty sure Dumbledore specifically refers to the Dursleys as the only family Harry has in Chapter 1 of PS. So yeah, from that I'd think they're all dead.
     
  5. Bill Door

    Bill Door The Chosen One DLP Supporter

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    There's never any mention of any other Potters so it's assumed that James was an only child who's parents died, it's quite a common theme in marauder era fics.

    My personal take on Voldemort's ambitions is that he first and foremost wanted power for himself, he wanted to be the biggest bully in the playground, so to speak. Secondly he wanted the superiority of magic; the whole Magic is Might idea. I never thought that he cared about blood, as in pure-blood vs half-blood vs muggleborn, but he did care about wizards vs muggles.

    I think his overall endgame would have been an entirely magical society with him as the supreme ruler.
     
  6. KHAAAAAAAN!!

    KHAAAAAAAN!! Troll in the Dungeon –§ Prestigious §– DLP Supporter

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    It's relatively clear that the Death Eaters are just a means to an end for Voldemort; the end being the domination of the wizarding world. From the many HBP flashbacks, one can assume that he does indeed believe that muggles are scum (which most likely stems from his experience at the orphanage / opinion of his father), but he also believes that he alone is special, that he is better than everyone, muggle and wizard alike. The Death Eaters aren't his allies... they're his servants; to be used and manipulated as he saw fit.
     
  7. Quick Ben

    Quick Ben In ur docs, stealin ur werds.

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    Don't find it odd that a well established family like the Potters(or at least its implied) just stops at James Potter, no other form of extended Family, or are the Potters not as prominent as we are led to believe? Oh and how do you think they got their hands on one of the Hallows?

    I agree with you on Voldemort, which raises another Question why do men of high intelligence like say Lucius Malfoy(not sure if Fanfiction hasn't somehow colored my perception of him) allow themselves to follow someone who is clearly slef serving as Voldemort and is clearly manipulating them, for all intents and purposes the Malfoys and the Blacks and so on seem like they would have been better off without joining him?

    Also does it speak highly of Lucius that despite the bad reputation he must have surely garnered from being a suspected death eater, he still somehow made sure his family was prominent and respected?
     
  8. Bill Door

    Bill Door The Chosen One DLP Supporter

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    There are several canon examples of old pure-blood families dying out. The Blacks only have one male left, who dies meaning the name itself dies out. So it's not that unlikely that the Potters are in a similar position. I imagine that there are some freakily distant relatives, but none that are really close enough to count, and they probably don't have the name Potter. They got their hands on the hallow by passing it down through the generations from Ignotus Peverell, incidentally another family that has died out.

    I think that Lucius followed Voldemort for the same reason that Voldemort himself did what he did; namely power and lots of it. Before Voldemort the Malfoys were just a very wealthy family, which did give them a certain power but it certainly wasn't absolute, as some fanfics seem to say. But imagine if Voldemort had succeeded, Lucius as his right hand man would have been the second most powerful person in Britain, and, as an arrogant motherfucker, that's something he wanted.

    I think it speaks highly of his bank balance but that's about it. His family was prominent because he bought his way to prominence. They were respected out of fear for his political power, which he bought.
     
  9. Sesc

    Sesc Slytherin at Heart Moderator

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    Well, that was, you know, kinda the point of the series :p
    Harry went to Petunia, since she was the only remaining family and could provide the blood protection.


    Edit: BillDoor, read DH again! That world is Voldemort's world, and you cannot possibly say that it's a world where your blood status doesn't matter. The opposite is the case -- purebloods are well regarded, while Muggleborns are scum, with halfbloods somewhere in between.


    As for what Voldemort wants, I believe the posts above are grossly oversimplifying the matter. It became pretty clear in DH what Voldemort wants, and it's not merely the domination of all wizards.

    I thought the way Rowling captured the world under Voldemort's reign was pretty impressive, exactly because it went further than that. That was one of the few bits I really liked. The darkness and fear across the land, the wandless begging in the streets, the trials against Muggleborns ... I think that comes pretty close to the world Voldemort envisioned. So of course he used the Death Eaters, but his goals really were to get rid of Muggleborns and install a pureblood dominated society (with himself at the top, but still).

    It's also worth noting here that the role Voldemort has, in the above context, is to a major degree defined by your own views. To every pureblood who actually felt threatened by Muggleborns and believed the world in which they lived allowed them far too many privileges at the pureblood's expense, Voldemort would be a revolutionist, not a terrorist. And in turn, that answers the question as to why people like Malfoy followed him.

    The issue of who is right and who is wrong is, if we take away narrator-bias (Harry), more or less in the eye of the beholder; and whoever is currently on top gets to define the rules and the laws. I said this occasionally, but I do not believe that what Voldemort achieved in DH would have been possible if it was only a tiny minority that backed him.

    The question of the Muggleborns and what to do with them remains an unsolved and highly divisive issue, and I believe it splits society more in the middle than most would care to admit. You don't need to look any further than Slughorn, who in my view functions well as an average wizard: the latent racism is always there (the surprise of having a well-performing Muggleborn, his pride in being not dismissive of them etc.)

    That's another reason why the cheesy 19-years-later epilogue stinks, because the "all was well" bullshit didn't fit at all with the dislocations the wizarding world is shown to have. By end of DH, you had two sides with completely contrary views that cannot ever come together, one championing Harry, the other championing Voldemort. Evidently, Harry's side won, but this doesn't resolve the problem.

    It actually solves nothing at all. All the issues are still there, and ending it on an "all was well" note is just nonsense.
     
  10. KHAAAAAAAN!!

    KHAAAAAAAN!! Troll in the Dungeon –§ Prestigious §– DLP Supporter

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    Discussions of Lucius' motivations and psyche exist purely as fanon. We know next to nothing about his intrinsic character apart from his being a prideful and bigoted pureblood who isn't afraid to throw around his wealth to get what he wants.
     
  11. Evon

    Evon Seventh Year

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    We could take Draco as an example of Lucius's beliefs and views...possibly his intelligence as well. He's really not all that impressive, if you ask me. He is more of a pretentious bastard than anything else, or that is how Lucius has developed in my mind. It's not all that surprising that one pretentious bastard would follow another.
     
  12. Sesc

    Sesc Slytherin at Heart Moderator

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    There is no problem with Lucius following Voldemort at all, stop making it one >.<

    Lucius Malfoy believes that he, and purebloods in general, are inherently better than Muggleborns and that they therefore should have a society which reflects this. Furthermore, he sought power for himself. Voldemort offered both. You don't need to like someone to decide that it'd be a good idea to join him. And regarding who is using who, I think that remains quite open. Bellatrix was the one who walked into prison for the cause, not Lucius. He strikes me as perfectly practical; Voldemort to him might've been only a means to get what he wanted.

    Of course, this backfired when Voldemort said lolno and just pulled out brute force against him to get him to behave. And of course that backfired when Voldemort pushed him too far and Narcissa directly became responsible for Voldemort's demise. But the fact that it didn't work out doesn't invalidate the possibility of that reasoning at the beginning.
     
  13. Bill Door

    Bill Door The Chosen One DLP Supporter

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    No, not at all, they are very different characters. Draco is an easily manipulated, weak minded, coward. Maybe coward is the wrong word but he wasn't a strong character. He joined Voldemort's cause, not because he believed in it, but because it was the easiest thing for him to do. Lucius however joined before Voldemort had power, and showed enough ability and competence to be one of Voldemort's trusted servants. While not exactly an admirable achievement, it does show a certain strength of ambition and belief that Draco lacked.
     
  14. Evon

    Evon Seventh Year

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    While what you say may be true, I still think that Lucius's wallet had more to do with him gaining a top spot in Voldemort's ranks than his abilities did. IMO, Lucius was a bit full of himself. Harry and five other underage wizards were able to thwart Lucius and his team of Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries. Then after, Lucius was nothing more than a doormat for Voldemort to wipe his feet on.

    Yes, Lucius wanted power and had ambition - I don't doubt that - however, I do doubt his overall capabilities and do wonder exactly how successful he would have been in the Death Eaters, if he didn't have such a large wallet.

    I'm not a Snape fan, but I do think it say something about Lucius's abilities that Snape, a half-blood with no real wealth, was able to eventually usurp him and had gained Voldemort's favor from the very start for his abilities alone. I'd be more fearful of meeting Snape in a dark alley than I would Lucius.
     
  15. Bill Door

    Bill Door The Chosen One DLP Supporter

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    So I was writing this big old tl;dr about how Voldemort never did anything that targeted muggleborns specifically, but instead targeted muggles as he believed in magic, but didn't care about where that magic came from. When I remembered that all of CoS was about targeting muggleborns, and I literally headdesked. So yeah I was wrong on that one.
     
  16. Sesc

    Sesc Slytherin at Heart Moderator

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    Well, "where the magic came from" is actually a huge point in DH. The entire thing with the 'Muggleborns stole our magic'-rhetoric ... I suppose you could assume that it was more of Voldemort saying things he didn't actually mean, but seeing that he directly implemented that belief through Minister Thicknesse (the Muggleborn Registration Commision, were they supposedly tried to find out how the Muggleborn got to their magic) ... I guess the way I see it is that even if he didn't actually believe in blood status, it ceases to matter, because it doesn't reflect in his actions.


    Edit: The bit about believing in magic, and only discriminating Muggles actually reminds me more of young-Dumbledore and Grindelwald than Voldemort.
     
  17. Bill Door

    Bill Door The Chosen One DLP Supporter

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    I always thought that those sort of policies didn't come from Voldemort specifically. At the time he didn't really care about what the ministry was doing as long as they followed his goals. He was off searching for some sort of key to killing Harry. So I think that the idea of stealing magic came from the Pureblood supremacists like Umbridge, but not from Voldemort himself. And the people running the campaign never actully believed in it, they just used it as propoganda against the muggleborns. Playing on the fears of the old pureblood conservatives, who might never have actively supported Voldemort, but agreed with his aims.

    Maybe a young Grindelwald but not Dumbledore. He wanted to use magic to rule because he thought it was for the muggles own good. Voldemort wanted to rule over muggles because he actively hated them. Dumbledore wouldn't oppress the muggles, Voldemort would.
     
    Last edited: Apr 29, 2012
  18. Sesc

    Sesc Slytherin at Heart Moderator

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    Hm. I never looked at it that way. I'm not sure if I could see Voldemort letting them do whatever they wanted. And Thicknesse was put under an Imperius Curse so he directly executed orders, although I just remembered it was Yaxley's curse, not Voldemort's.

    So yeah, it really depends on how much you believe Voldemort is responsible. But I somehow can't imagine that he would not have given specific instructions when it comes to things as fundamental as these.
     
  19. Immet

    Immet Seventh Year

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    Hmmm...

    You're right. If Dumbledore was correct Voldemort had been making Horcruxes from the 1940s to 1981. He did take nearly 40 years to find 5 sacrifices as important to him as Myrtle.

    Of course this makes him a fucking retard, but then I'm expecting too much of canon.
     
  20. Blazzano

    Blazzano Unspeakable

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    I've always thought that the things Voldemort does - even when they appear to have complex, philosophical motives - actually boil down to some very simple desires on his part.

    Voldemort preaches and acts in favor of pure-blood wizardry, but we know from canon that he doesn't actually care about any other wizard, whether pure-blood or mudblood. Lord Voldemort only cares about Lord Voldemort. In Voldemort's eyes, you are either a wizard who can be used, a wizard who should be destroyed, or an animal (Muggle, non-human being, etc.) viewed as little more than an infestation.

    So how do we reconcile the philosophy (which is rooted in culture, and thus inherently concerned with the lives of others) with Voldemort's extremely psychopathic, self-centered nature? The key, IMO, is realizing that however interested Voldemort seems in the people and societies him, it's actually about him, first and foremost.

    Voldemort hates impure blood not for any logical reason, but because he himself is descended from a Muggle, and he happens to view that part as weak. So he first rejected any association with his weak Muggle blood. When he gained the power to influence the world around him, he attacked those who reflected the hated part of himself - the muggle-borns and their ilk - just as he tried to purge himself of those things.

    So, back to the original question: What does Voldemort want? It boils down to just four things. In order of importance:

    1. Immortality. Voldemort hates and fears death more than any other thing.
    2. Impure blood, Muggle-lovers, and perhaps Muggles themselves - those avatars of the parts of Voldemort that he wants to reject - crushed into powder. Shoved out of sight. Shoved out of mind.
    3. Any remaining enemies (or potential enemies) to have the same fate as the people in goal #2. Ditto for the non-human magical beings.
    4. All of the remainder are only relevant insofar as they continue to serve him.
     
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