What Voldemort should have done. (Slight spoilers)

[Zombie Badger]

Yes, Voldemort should have been willing to make more Horcruxes...or should he? Even aside from the motivation of "7 is a magical number," how many times can you split your soul in half before you become non-functional?

He still shouldn't have gone for the serial-killer 'must collect trophies' thing for horcruxes. What he should have done would be to pick a fairly normal object, make it a horcrux and then store it in a bank vault somewhere in the world. Then store the others in other bank vaults. Not give them to his minions or hide them in a cave he went to on an occasion interesting enough to be recorded.

And yes, Voldemort monologues. If you're not only colossally arrogant, but immortal to boot, you can do that.

Not completely immortal. The Golden Rule of Villany should be 'Never Monologue'. Even if you have already finished your plan because the fucker strapped to the chair in front of you might have a time machine.

 

[NeutralDrow]

J.K Rowling is a great author, but the characterization of Voldemort and the ways he is determined to kill Harry sometimes give the feeling that he's a bit over dramatic.

He's a charismatic psychopath with magic powers. He's overdramatic because he can get away with it. It's pointed out that his underlings don't really agree with his obsession to kill Harry personally (except the ones as nutty as he is), but he's too scary for them to cross.

But the problem with shooting him is that the wizerds eschew everything muggle, technology-wise. To them, the magic is the important part, so using a gun would be "below" them, especially Voldemort. However, they can use magic to cut things, so why not just use that spell to slit a throat or two? Instead of leaving it to a cursory check from a trusted lieutenant.

I've always wondered this for anyone with telekinesis. Sylar, why the fuck are you throwing doors at someone, when you could make their heart explode, their brain turn to pate or the lower half of their spine strangle them?

I believe that the biggest problem with Voldemort, and basically any evil character similar to him, besides stupidity, is the need to kill his nemesis in person. I mean, sure, that?s really anticlimactic and everything? but seriously, is it really necessary? If I?m not wrong, in the fourth book, Goblet of Fire, Voldemort had an infiltrator in Hogwarts (Someone which took the identity of Mad-Eye Moody if I?m not mistaken). So, if I was Voldemort I would simply order my servant: ?Kill the little fucktard in his sleep and let there be happiness for us? (Ok, maybe the happiness part is too much) But seriously? I really don?t understand those baddies that desperately need to kill their enemies face to face.

Personally, I would just want my enemy dead.

This has always confused me as well. Killing my enemies face to face is a stupid idea when I am the evil emperor of the universe. I like Dragan from Layer Cake's methods. Lure the bastard who wants to kill you to a park, saying that you'll meet them there, hide in a bush with a rifle, and wait for them to do the same looking for you at the meeting place. Simple.

The Avatar: The Last Airbender show, he fights his enemies by blowing pitiful little gusts of wind at them.

BLOW UP THEIR LUNGS! See how well they fight when they are surrounded by a vacuum, or their lungs have so much air they burst.

People don't know how to use their powers.

I remember participating in a discussion about this.

Counterpoint 1. I'm fairly certain that (the lungblasting) wouldn't work. If bloodbending is any indication, it takes a serious amount of power to affect elements inside someone else's body. Aang would probably have to be in the Avatar state to reach that level of strength...and why bother taking the time to collapse people's lungs when you can char, freeze, crush, slash, and blast them much faster?

Counterpoint 2. Aang hates killing. It's clear that he accepts that people die based on his actions, but the concept of deliberately fatal attacks goes against his philosophy so much that the one time it became unavoidable, he had to talk to four previous Avatars before he accepted that he had no other option.

Incidentally, I'm also pretty sure vacuumbending exists in the Avatar world. After all, Monk Gyatso was surrounded by an asston of corpses when they found him...

Voldemort can set people on fire with a thought, his weakling minion (the rat guy, can't remember his name) blew up an entire street AND THAT WAS JUST TO ESCAPE SOMEONE!.

He has the magical equivalent of a grenade at his finger tips, and decides to use the magical equivalent of a sniper rifle against a baby a foot in front of him.

He really should've just blown up the entire house or set it on fire. Or imperiused Harry's parents to kill each other...

It was his trademark attack, the thing he had the most experience with, and the thing that had never, ever failed before (not just to him, never ever).

 

[NeutralDrow]

Yes, Voldemort should have been willing to make more Horcruxes...or should he? Even aside from the motivation of "7 is a magical number," how many times can you split your soul in half before you become non-functional?

He still shouldn't have gone for the serial-killer 'must collect trophies' thing for horcruxes. What he should have done would be to pick a fairly normal object, make it a horcrux and then store it in a bank vault somewhere in the world. Then store the others in other bank vaults. Not give them to his minions or hide them in a cave he went to on an occasion interesting enough to be recorded.

Did anything ever seem to indicate that Voldy had something besides a serial killer mindset?

That ultimately was his fatal flaw: pride. He was the strongest wizard of all time, heir to a powerful magical tradition, had become a level of unkillable no one before had ever reached, and he was proud of it. Sure, horcruxing a rock off the ground and throwing it into the ocean would have been the most rational thing to do...but he's not the most rational guy in the world. If he was, he'd probably have chosen a different career path.

And yes, Voldemort monologues. If you're not only colossally arrogant, but immortal to boot, you can do that.

Not completely immortal. The Golden Rule of Villany should be 'Never Monologue'. Even if you have already finished your plan because the fucker strapped to the chair in front of you might have a time machine.

Sadly, villains don't read the books they're in, and Voldy probably wasn't a big moviegoer.

 

[Washboard]

just changing the part in the goblet of fire where he teleports harry to the graveyard to him teleporting harry to 1000ft above the graveyard would do it... so easy

 

[Zombie Badger]

Did anything ever seem to indicate that Voldy had something besides a serial killer mindset?

That ultimately was his fatal flaw: pride. He was the strongest wizard of all time, heir to a powerful magical tradition, had become a level of unkillable no one before had ever reached, and he was proud of it. Sure, horcruxing a rock off the ground and throwing it into the ocean would have been the most rational thing to do...but he's not the most rational guy in the world. If he was, he'd probably have chosen a different career path.

Very true. This is what I always say when someone says 'Why don't serial killers follow several obvious steps to making sure they never get caught?' Because no-one who thinks like that is a serial killer.

just changing the part in the goblet of fire where he teleports harry to the graveyard to him teleporting harry to 1000ft above the graveyard would do it... so easy

Or space. Or instead of teleporting him, ripping him into several pieces.

 

[la-le-lu-li-lo]

You know it would be cool to kill Harry as soon as Voldemort found out about him, than write the books from his perspective as he takes over the Wizard World with ease.

Maybe she'll do it and make even more millions.

 

[EeveeElectro]

He should have done the conga in the moon.

 

[IxionIndustries]

I would have cursed Harry with a god damned plague! Or used a spell that summons deadly amounts of radiation! Let's see how magic will cope with CANCER!

 

[Lord Krunk]

#3: At Hogwarts, Harry is under the direct protection of Albus Dumbledore, the most powerful wizard in the world, and the only being that Voldemort fears. Albus is actually stronger than Voldemort, the two have a direct battle in "Order Of The Pheonix" and Dumbledore beats him. Later when Dumbledore dies there are extenuating circumstances, and it took a while for Voldemort to get his guys ready to attack Hogwart's directly.

Everything you said there was correct, but you have to remember that most of Dumbledore's power came from his wand (as you find out in Book 7).

Also, Voldy has indicated like a bajillion times that he hates Muggles. Why would he use anything associated with them? Seems like a waste when you have reality at your every whim.

 

[Mylon]

What the heck are you guys talking about? Voldemort didn't even want to kill Harry. I mean, as long as Harry was alive, Voldemort was immortal. I mean, by being so special and loved that's what made Harry so powerful a horcrux. No one would want to hurt him to kill Voldemort.

So, the reason why Harry wasn't offed early on is pretty obvious.

So why the repeated attempts to kill him early on? After killing him and Dumbledore, no one would know about the Horcruxes, so he'd be safe.

Voldemort didn't really expect anyone to take out his horcruxes. And Dumbledore didn't seem to make it very public about his plan to cut Voldemort from his immortality.

As for the repeated attempts, that's a bit of a mystery. I'd tie it into Voldemort toying with Harry and his arrogance. I mean, the two WTF moments (like the duel and his parents coming back to help him and the other where he meets up with Dumbledore towards the end...) were pretty much a Deus Ex, but neglecting that the rest seems to fit under normal arrogance.

I mean, like I said, if Voldemort really wanted to kill Harry, he had quite a few ways to do so, thus the rest of the thread.

 

[Mylon]

He still shouldn't have gone for the serial-killer 'must collect trophies' thing for horcruxes. What he should have done would be to pick a fairly normal object, make it a horcrux and then store it in a bank vault somewhere in the world. Then store the others in other bank vaults. Not give them to his minions or hide them in a cave he went to on an occasion interesting enough to be recorded.

Seriously.
Take a single, innocuous gold coin.
Put your soul in it.
Toss it in a vault with a million coins just like it, preferably in the middle somewhere.

It'd be like looking for a needle in a stack of needles.

Hell, I'm kind of pissed how arrogant sociopaths are portrayed in fiction.

I think it'd be fun to read a story about a 2nd gen villian. One that reads the story of ones before him and planes a little better ahead of time.

 

[G1eet]

<spoiler=Lol, I remember when everyone made a big deal of this> Snape kills Dumbledore

 

[Altorin]

He still shouldn't have gone for the serial-killer 'must collect trophies' thing for horcruxes. What he should have done would be to pick a fairly normal object, make it a horcrux and then store it in a bank vault somewhere in the world. Then store the others in other bank vaults. Not give them to his minions or hide them in a cave he went to on an occasion interesting enough to be recorded.

Seriously.
Take a single, innocuous gold coin.
Put your soul in it.
Toss it in a vault with a million coins just like it, preferably in the middle somewhere.

It'd be like looking for a needle in a stack of needles.

Hell, I'm kind of pissed how arrogant sociopaths are portrayed in fiction.

seriously, it's explained pretty thoroughly that making horcruxes was a very very personal experience. The objects that become horcruxes have to be personal items, and You don't put it somewhere where it can be destroyed.

Horcruxes are a huge part of fiction. Liches have phylacteries, which house their wouls. They keep them in the most protected of locations... anyone who would go through the trouble of shattering their soul into many pieces (Noone had done more then one before Voldemort, and he did 7), isn't going to just throw those peices away and hope that noone will find them.

 

[Altorin]

I think it'd be fun to read a story about a 2nd gen villian. One that reads the story of ones before him and planes a little better ahead of time.

You don't even need to do that.
You just need a villain with common fucking sense.

Seriously - if I were going to kill someone in real life, would I:

A) Dump the body somewhere it'll never be found (in the ocean, for instance, like Dexter,)
or
B) Taunt the police with artfully displayed corpses and engage in a game of cat-and-mouse.

Nurrr I fucking wonder.
To the ocean we go!

Things like that are so simple.

Villain B would be a lot more interesting to read about.

 

[Scrythe]

Don't think too much into it, the books were poorly written and required many deus ex machina just to get out of problems. Instead of coming up with a plausible, believable (in the sense of the world mechanics) way to kill the most powerful being on the planet, they relied on a ridiculous fetch quest to gather items that, if Voldemort were so powerful, would have just kept on his person instead of stuffing away where any teen moron could get a hold of them.

Of course Voldemort was suddenly rendered moronic when it came to the hero of the book. It would have been much more difficult and well beyond the abilities of J.K. Rowling to create a highly intelligent and competent villain that required cunning and skill on the part of the hero to overcome. Such is the trademark of a bad writer, relying on convenience to allow the hero to win.

This pretty much summarizes my theory that JKR just plays too many MMOs. I mean, item fetching? Grinding magic skills? Damn, I can almost play the books with a controller plugged in. Doesn't help that the Big Bad of every book was another predictable groaner of a character.

"Hey kids, this years Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher is an homeless ex-con we found raiding garbage bins for cigarette butts. There's no way in hell he's going to try to stab the staple protagonist, is there?". The painfully overused notion of everyone teaching that class turns out to be evil is worn down worse than Scooby Doo's "It was really a man in a mask! The man who had the least amount of screen time, too! Act surprised!"