What Voldemort should have done. (Slight spoilers)

[Zombie Badger]

The problem with the Harry Potter books is that, like bond films, the villains are, if you think about it, stupid. When I was reading them, I was thinking 'Why does Voldemort bother with all this curse bollocks? There are far better ways of killing Harry'. Why not post him a letterbomb? Or just teleport him somewhere and shoot him in the back. All the wizards have, killing people-wise is a curse that can be dodged, is difficult to aim (the lack of iron sights on a wand make it pretty crap) and is easy to see! Us muggles have been coming up with ways to kill each other easily and remotely for centuries. Even in the battle in the last book, all either side needed was a few wizards 800m away with Barret M82s.

I find that the problem with books that have magic or supernatural creatures but are set in the real world, is that for the hero to win, the bad guy has to be stupid, or the hero would die in the first paragraph - Watchmen points this out beautifully. Are there any ways of getting around this problem?

 

[Fat Hippo]

Yeah, kill the good guy in the first paragraph and then write a book about the evil guy. Much more interesting that way.

 

[EscapeGoat_v1legacy]

Even in the battle in the last book, all either side needed was a few wizards 800m away with Barret M82s.

I'm sure it says somewhere in one of the books that anything vaguely mechanical doesn't work anywhere near Hogwarts, so, in terms of the final battle, I don't suppose that would've worked, although I don't see why Voldemort didn't, say,

Spoiler: stab Harry with a knife when he

"killed" him during the final battle of Deathly Hallows (that bit with the dream sequence and Harry comes back to life) and Voldemort's busy gloating and cursing the body - I'd have just gone in, boom, yep, he's definitely dead, rather than relying on a lackey with a son inside the school to check for me.

 

[dontworryaboutit]

Yeah, kill the good guy in the first paragraph and then write a book about the evil guy. Much more interesting that way.

Voldemort was a much more interesting and compelling character. He had more depth.

Harry was just an angsty teen.

 

[Zombie Badger]

Even in the battle in the last book, all either side needed was a few wizards 800m away with Barret M82s.

I'm sure it says somewhere in one of the books that anything vaguely mechanical doesn't work anywhere near Hogwarts

That just covers electrical stuff. There are no electrical parts in most guns.

I don't see why Voldemort didn't, say,

Spoiler: stab Harry with a knife when he

"killed" him during the final battle of Deathly Hallows (that bit with the dream sequence and Harry comes back to life) and Voldemort's busy gloating and cursing the body - I'd have just gone in, boom, yep, he's definitely dead, rather than relying on a lackey with a son inside the school to check for me.

Yeah. Just buring the corpse 20ft under the ground would have worked.

 

[Tehpwnsauce]

Yeah, kill the good guy in the first paragraph and then write a book about the evil guy. Much more interesting that way.

Voldemort was a much more interesting and compelling character. He had more depth.

Harry was just an angsty teen.

This. A thousand times this.

 

[kaziard]

he couldnt kill harry at the beginning because he was protected by his mothers wuv!!!!......typing this actually makes me want to punch myself in the crotch untill i touch my lungs. In any case i would have just told him theres a few "chocolate frogs" down a dark alley... in glasgow... at night... wearing luminous skegs.

 

[LaughingTarget]

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.

 

[Radeonx]

Yeah, kill the good guy in the first paragraph and then write a book about the evil guy. Much more interesting that way.

Voldemort was a much more interesting and compelling character. He had more depth.

Harry was just an angsty teen.

This. A thousand times this.

I second this statement.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Even in the battle in the last book, all either side needed was a few wizards 800m away with Barret M82s.

I'm sure it says somewhere in one of the books that anything vaguely mechanical doesn't work anywhere near Hogwarts, so, in terms of the final battle, I don't suppose that would've worked, although I don't see why Voldemort didn't, say,

Spoiler: stab Harry with a knife when he

"killed" him during the final battle of Deathly Hallows (that bit with the dream sequence and Harry comes back to life) and Voldemort's busy gloating and cursing the body - I'd have just gone in, boom, yep, he's definitely dead, rather than relying on a lackey with a son inside the school to check for me.

Why didn't he have some kind of disintegration spell?
If he was supoosed to be the big evil why was his most evil thing a 'make you dead now' spell. You'd think he'd have a 'fuck you up good and proper then obliterate the charred remains' spell lying around somewhere wouldn't you.

 

[Spaceman_Spiff]

I would actually buy the book about Voldemort when he went to school.

 

[chefassassin2]

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.

 

[EscapeGoat_v1legacy]

Even in the battle in the last book, all either side needed was a few wizards 800m away with Barret M82s.

I'm sure it says somewhere in one of the books that anything vaguely mechanical doesn't work anywhere near Hogwarts

That just covers electrical stuff. There are no electrical parts in most guns.

Oh OK, I thought it was all mechanical stuff, not just electricals.

 

[s-l-u-g]

if i were voldemort, i would have bribed all the teachers to lock harry in his classroom at whatever time then i would jump in and be all "bah!" and obviously kids are no match, so he's fudged. mm... fudge.. anyway! He could also get a child to enter hogwarts and use a killing curse on harry whilst he slumbers, blissfully unaware that fate is about to come and piss all over his dreams. And his mattress -- oh, that was Harry.

 

[Beltom]

Voldemort should have killed Harry in his sleep, with a gun.
But seriously, having to do a zelda-esc gathering quest to kill him in the last book was a really bad move. About a third of that book was them setting up camp, sleeping, waking up, packing up camp, teleporting to a random place and then repeat, over an over, and not advancing the plot in any way until Weasley decided to do the sensible thing and go home.

 

[dontworryaboutit]

Yeah, kill the good guy in the first paragraph and then write a book about the evil guy. Much more interesting that way.

Voldemort was a much more interesting and compelling character. He had more depth.

Harry was just an angsty teen.

This. A thousand times this.

This. A thousand times this.

I second this statement.

Thanks to both of you. To elaborate, I'd go on to say that the whole "unloved" aspect of his character was rather interesting to me and offered a lot of insight into his character. Harry's backstory was pretty much "lol neo you are the chosen one".

 

[Jamous]

Yeah, kill the good guy in the first paragraph and then write a book about the evil guy. Much more interesting that way.

Voldemort was a much more interesting and compelling character. He had more depth.

Harry was just an angsty teen.

This. A thousand times this.

This. A thousand times this.

I second this statement.

Thanks to both of you. To elaborate, I'd go on to say that the whole "unloved" aspect of his character was rather interesting to me and offered a lot of insight into his character. Harry's backstory was pretty much "lol neo you are the chosen one".

You know what? I do agree entirely. If I were Moldy Wart then I'd probably have (this is using techniques available to him) just got one of his allies and imperiused. Or I would have simply made another horcrux if I really had to.

 

[Therumancer]

As I remember things:

#1: At the beginning Voldemort isn't even alive in a conventional sense. Thus the Death Eaters aren't really a factor until he returns and they can rally behind him. The Death Eaters aren't really organized until the third book. Hence why his (Voldemort's) possible resurrection/possesion is a big deal in the first book, and why he is acting indirectly though a fragment of himself left in a book in the second book.

#2: I believe it was mentioned that a very powerful spell was woven to prevent Harry from being located at his uncle's house until he turned 18 which is why the Wizards leave him with those morons despite how they treat him. They also apparently have him under constant suerveillance there at least to begin with which is why his applications to Hogwarts and can't be lost/destroyed by his adopted parents.

#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.

#4: Only a handfull of people in the Wizarding world know anything about technology, and experimenting with blending magic and tech is specifically prohibited (which is why a certain flying car is a big deal). With rare exceptions everyone is ignorant of it, and "Muggle Studies" goes seriously wrong.

This is why Voldemort doesn't just hijack a couple of nuclear missles, and put a giant mushroom cloud where Hogwart's is.

#5: Voldemort is also not sure what to make of Harry and to begin with doesn't know much about their link so he is cautious. From Voldemort's perspective he was about to annihilate a kid and then went "WTF, I'm suddenly dead".

As far as using curses, curses seem to be generic for very destructive offensive magic, and it's what Wizards use to beat on each other. Him throwing a curse at Harry was akin to putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger for all intents and purposes.

Also while they didn't cover the exact choreography of what happened, Harry's Mommy and Daddy were apparently pretty powerful (even if Daddy was a jerk as you find out). Voldemort went to fight them in person. It's hard to say what kind of shape he was in when he threw the curse at a certain baby and his mother's power was sufficient to protect him, but reading between the lines I am guessing he was at least a bit ragged around the edges from the fight he was just in.





>>>----Therumancer--->

 

[Agent Larkin]

Why didnt he just hire a hit-man?