I think this whole discussion makes more sense when you take the outside-of-the-story perspective. Rowling wanted to put an anti-racism spin on the books, so she made the villain (apparently) a pureblood fanatic and a hypocritical one at that. His psychopathic indiscriminate contempt of anyone that is not him was a feature that had to stay in place, though, and so was a cast of non-pureblood villains like Snape. His ascent to power is explained by him having hijacked an ideology that was not of his caste, and his moral qualms with doing so are explained away by his insanity.

But the whole theme of discrimination based on magical heritage is something that is not inherent to the story (with the exception of CoS); you could rewrite the Harry Potter books to remove references to it and the story wouldn't change all that much. The Death Eaters would be the dark magic clique rather than the pureblood clique; they work just as well, probably better, with the practice of the Dark Arts as a cause. The entire oppression-fest in DH is to me a way of shoehorning the anti-racism theme in rather than something that arises naturally from the characters.

Within the story, it makes sense if you think of Voldemort as someone who would use any excuse to hate somebody. Hey, it even happens to normal people. You may not have a problem with a trait in the abstract, but if there's any sort of social proof around that it could be a bad trait, it becomes an inexcusable flaw when it is embodied by an enemy.

 

Yes I am acknowledging all the earlier made points. But can you really ignore the points I've made? I mean the guy fancied himself the heir of Slytherin (which to be honest he was) who himself was a pureblood bigot. Blood purity mattered to him and muggleborns were too impure to belong in his world.

 

Assuming Voldemort's motivations to be consistent seems a bit of a stretch, though.

The closest thing to a principle Voldemort consistently applies is that power is an end itself rather than just a means to an end.

 

Not to sound like a broken record but blood purity was the one point he was consistent on. The only argument made to refute this is him offering Lily a place in his ranks. Something I'm not convinced with yet.
But let's assume for a second that he did offer her a place. Then it is possible she was the exception and not the rule.
I agree with his main motivation being that of accumulating power and everything else secondary. Then practically he had nothing to gain by securing their allegiance.

---------- Post automerged 02-23-2015 at 12:34 AM ---------- Previous post was 02-22-2015 at 10:07 PM ----------

I apologize for bringing this up. The only reason I hadn't before was because I didn't want to derail the thread anymore than it had. But I felt I needed to say this.
Does my use of '......' comes off as trying too hard? Probably....... I'll admit I like being dramatic...... some may even call it theatrical.

However

It is how I express myself. Last I checked that wasn't against the forum rules. If I am breaking any, call me out on it and I'll humbly accept and apologize.
But if not then I'll just say that telling people how they should or shouldn't express themselves only makes you look....... and I am being very polite here.... conceited and incredibly self-important.

 

Jesus fuck, you ARE a stubborn bastard, aren't you? If Rowling herself said it happened, it fucking happened.

I feel like you'd argue with Rowling herself that Voldemort offering Lily the chance to become a death eater due to her sheer talent didn't actually happen, due to her being a muggle-born.

I also feel like your arguing for the sake of it. Just fuck up, and accept you're wrong in this regard.

 

Stop being juvenile. I've accepted that Lily might've been offered a position despite my scepticism. But you seem to be too stupid to actually go through the posts before making your rather crude observations.

 

The Hall of Shame is strong in this thread.

A few suggestions from someone who has only skimmed a little bit of this discussion. Crimson.

1. Use ellipses rarely and do it properly. That's three dots. "..."

2. Mind your attitude lest you incur the wrath of the mods, which you probably eventually will.

3. Learn when not to post. Seriously. If there's ever a lesson to learn, it's when your post isn't going to add shit to a discussion.

4. Voldemort is a crazy fucker whose ultimate goals, if he has any at all, are alien to use. They are never really explained in the story. He goes on some about blood this and blood that, but still has Snape in his service as a half-blood and still considers half-blood Harry his equal.

Furthermore, if Rowling says something, that's the way it is.

 

This will be my last post on this thread. I seem to have offended a lot of people here and I wanted to apologize.
If you go by my previous posts you will find I wasn't trying to deny Lily being offered a place among his ranks by Voldemort. All my arguments were made keeping that in mind. I probably did give the impression that I was denying it and for that I am sorry but the crux of the debate which was That just because Voldemort wanted Lily doesn't mean he didn't hate muggleborns. Somewhere down the line this was lost in all the hullabaloo. And I'll take responsibilty for it because It was my inability to to keep things focused on this point that allowed shit to go out of hand. On a side-note half-bloods while not held to the same standards as the purebloods have a lot more acceptance in the wizarding world and by extension into Voldemort's group.

Moving on

As for my attitude, well I'll leave that to the moderators. If they decide that I've broken any rules I'll take whatever punishment they deem fit with humility.
In my defence I'll say that I tried not to make personal attacks and only made my displeasure known when I felt I was being baited.
Still this place is run by rules and as a member I promise to abide by them now and in the future.

 

Voldemort didn't mind having half-bloods, magical beings, and the like under his purview...so long as they were of use to him and in tune with what he wanted out of the world.

Voldemort was a half-blood, but everything he did in canon suggests that he tried very hard to reject his Muggle half. He seemed to hate that half, considering it weak.

Even if he was amenable to Lily joining his organization, I strongly suspect that the only way it would have happened is if she, too, renounced her Muggle past. Merely saying she rejected it probably wouldn't be enough for him; he'd want to see her 'walk the walk', so to speak.***

So in response to the original question: Yes, the blood purity stuff matters to him, but for purely self-centered reasons. He first rejected and hated part of himself, and then applied that rejection to the outside world. He would demand the same from anyone who aspired to be an underling. Given enough time, perhaps he envisioned a world where blood purity was enforced so there would be no need to have impure blood working under him.

***You know, that sounds like a rather grim fic. Voldemort gains access to the Potter hidey hole, but avoids the blood sacrifice death by physically separating Lily and Harry, and threatening to kill Harry first. Lily gets the chance to save her son. All she has to do is join his organization, and prove her resolve by killing her parents and all the rest of her Muggle family.

 

I suspect that if Voldemort had a particularly useful Muggleborn, he would go to some effort to reclassify said servant as non-Muggleborn. Something like digging up family records which "prove" that said Muggleborn actually has proper wizarding blood a couple generations back.

Given the obvious parallels on display with Harry Potter, I am reminded of how the Nazi definition of "Aryan" always seemed flexible enough to accommodate any nation that was willing to ally with Germany.

 

Wrong thread. Suffice to say there's a bunny in the Plot Bunny thread that has to do with V&Bstatus.