From a prophecy sense, no. On the other hand, telling Voldemort that he is insufficiently ambitious, and having arguments to back that up, would really sting, and make him more likely to engage with the idea rather than just brushing it off and forcing Harry to go back to the original interrogation.
I’m throwing Quirrell’s very words from that chapter in his face :). It doesn’t sound like he has a clear idea of what to do with the world after he achieves domination of it.
If Harry can’t quite say in Parseltongue that the Dark Lord has no ambition, he can nevertheless be confident that the particular ambition of discovering the magical theory of everything is unique to HJPEV. I think it’s reasonable to call this his true hidden power, as it’s the meta-power behind his invention of partial transfiguration, and a key ingredient in his power over Dementors (expecting death to be solvable). I suspect his honest answer to whether V would ever discover this ambition is that he doesn’t know.
It doesn’t sound like he has a clear idea of what to do with the world after he achieves domination of it.
No-one’s ever asked. He might have lots of plans.
And while he claims he doesn’t enjoy things (other than killing idiots), and so it could be argued he only acts to prevent bad things but has no positive ambitions, I think this is false. He was visibly, emotionally proud about his Great Invention. He enjoyed fighting the Wizarding War so much he postponed winning, and he laughed when he defeated Dumbledore. I put a high probability on him having lots of concrete ideas for two days from now.
If Harry can’t quite say in Parseltongue that the Dark Lord has no ambition, he can nevertheless be confident that the particular ambition of discovering the magical theory of everything is unique to HJPEV.
On the contrary, when Harry asked Quirrel about the nature of magic, Quirrel said there was dozens of non-secret theories. Which means lots of wizards spent time inventing them. Which means many wizards shared this ambition—which seems very natural.
So it certainly isn’t an ambition LV doens’t know about. And I don’t think you can call an ambition LV knows about and has seen in many people, but doesn’t happen to share, a power he knows not.
I very much doubt that the power the Dark Lord knows not is ambition. See: chapter 70.
From a prophecy sense, no. On the other hand, telling Voldemort that he is insufficiently ambitious, and having arguments to back that up, would really sting, and make him more likely to engage with the idea rather than just brushing it off and forcing Harry to go back to the original interrogation.
I’m throwing Quirrell’s very words from that chapter in his face :). It doesn’t sound like he has a clear idea of what to do with the world after he achieves domination of it.
If Harry can’t quite say in Parseltongue that the Dark Lord has no ambition, he can nevertheless be confident that the particular ambition of discovering the magical theory of everything is unique to HJPEV. I think it’s reasonable to call this his true hidden power, as it’s the meta-power behind his invention of partial transfiguration, and a key ingredient in his power over Dementors (expecting death to be solvable). I suspect his honest answer to whether V would ever discover this ambition is that he doesn’t know.
No-one’s ever asked. He might have lots of plans.
And while he claims he doesn’t enjoy things (other than killing idiots), and so it could be argued he only acts to prevent bad things but has no positive ambitions, I think this is false. He was visibly, emotionally proud about his Great Invention. He enjoyed fighting the Wizarding War so much he postponed winning, and he laughed when he defeated Dumbledore. I put a high probability on him having lots of concrete ideas for two days from now.
On the contrary, when Harry asked Quirrel about the nature of magic, Quirrel said there was dozens of non-secret theories. Which means lots of wizards spent time inventing them. Which means many wizards shared this ambition—which seems very natural.
So it certainly isn’t an ambition LV doens’t know about. And I don’t think you can call an ambition LV knows about and has seen in many people, but doesn’t happen to share, a power he knows not.