So let me follow along. It seems like one extra level to what I’ve been thinking in terms of plotting.
The whole Voldemort Dark Lord war is just part of a bigger plot. First he creates the Villain of Voldemort. Then he creates a prophecy about a child destined to kill him—the eventual Hero. Dumbledore walks right into it by trying to use the prophecy as a trap to kill Tom, with Lily sacrificing herself in a dark ritual as the trap. So Tom gleefully takes the bait to create his Hero, and either is really diminished, or just goes on vacation for a few years waiting for Harry to get older. But clearly he also does something to Harry—creating the ultra resourceful Dark Side which itself contributes to the Harry Legend. And then Dumbledore grooms his hero as well, because he believes that he is destined to be the Hero because of what Voldemort has done to him.
IN the end, he’ll lose to Harry again, once Harry is well on his way to being the Light Lord, but he’ll upload into Harry and become the Hero ruler instead of the Dark Lord, until he uses up Harry’s body. The end.
Another point in favor of this is Quirrell’s talk with Harry after the bully climax, where he said Harry has everything Quirrell had ever wanted—the love, fear, respect, and admiration of everyone in school. This is exactly what he is after again—to rule and be feared, loved, respected, and admired.
You may or may not be going for the Upload bit.
That’s a little bit of an evolution for me. I considered taking over Good Harry as a target of opportunity for Voldemort. That even the Voldemort persona is part of the scheme is new.
But I’ve got a new shiny toy. Evil for the Sake of Evil. In his contempt for the stupidity and weakness of people, I have a hard time seeing him even wanting to be the Hero anymore. He’s now the Joker. He’s Lord Foul—Corruption. He wants to corrupt Good. Corrupt Dumbledore into things like killing Narcissa. Corrupt Harry into being a Dark Lord. Corrupt Hermione and turn her away from Good. He wants Evil to be taken as Good. Then maybe he takes over.
I think it’s the other way: he wants good people to be seen as fallible and fallen.
My model of him is like: “So when I tried to be the hero, people disrespected me, but for some reason the same people respect Dumbledore, Hermione, Harry. Why?! Oh, they are probably better at signalling. So let’s manipulate them into difficult situations where even if they choose good, it will either ruin them or send bad signals.”
He does not want to redefine the words with capital letters. That’s a fool’s game. He is just jealous that other people succeeded in having a good image, where he failed despite his cool plans. He wants good people to have bad image, so that he can become a person with the best image, which is his preferred way to rule the world; probably because it seems safer in long run than being an evil overlord.
I believe his frustration at his inability to become a credible hero. But at least he is learning. He has learned that “a single super-heroic action” is not a good plan, so now he is trying “a child with magical destiny” plan. He cynically believed that he could fool all people; now he is even more cynical, because he believes that he cannot fool them by something that makes sense (killing a few Death Eaters and saving a princess? meh.), but could do it by a superstition (to kill Voldemort while being a baby? cool, and nobody suspects anything!).
So let me follow along. It seems like one extra level to what I’ve been thinking in terms of plotting.
The whole Voldemort Dark Lord war is just part of a bigger plot. First he creates the Villain of Voldemort. Then he creates a prophecy about a child destined to kill him—the eventual Hero. Dumbledore walks right into it by trying to use the prophecy as a trap to kill Tom, with Lily sacrificing herself in a dark ritual as the trap. So Tom gleefully takes the bait to create his Hero, and either is really diminished, or just goes on vacation for a few years waiting for Harry to get older. But clearly he also does something to Harry—creating the ultra resourceful Dark Side which itself contributes to the Harry Legend. And then Dumbledore grooms his hero as well, because he believes that he is destined to be the Hero because of what Voldemort has done to him.
IN the end, he’ll lose to Harry again, once Harry is well on his way to being the Light Lord, but he’ll upload into Harry and become the Hero ruler instead of the Dark Lord, until he uses up Harry’s body. The end.
Another point in favor of this is Quirrell’s talk with Harry after the bully climax, where he said Harry has everything Quirrell had ever wanted—the love, fear, respect, and admiration of everyone in school. This is exactly what he is after again—to rule and be feared, loved, respected, and admired.
You may or may not be going for the Upload bit.
That’s a little bit of an evolution for me. I considered taking over Good Harry as a target of opportunity for Voldemort. That even the Voldemort persona is part of the scheme is new.
But I’ve got a new shiny toy. Evil for the Sake of Evil. In his contempt for the stupidity and weakness of people, I have a hard time seeing him even wanting to be the Hero anymore. He’s now the Joker. He’s Lord Foul—Corruption. He wants to corrupt Good. Corrupt Dumbledore into things like killing Narcissa. Corrupt Harry into being a Dark Lord. Corrupt Hermione and turn her away from Good. He wants Evil to be taken as Good. Then maybe he takes over.
I think it’s the other way: he wants good people to be seen as fallible and fallen.
My model of him is like: “So when I tried to be the hero, people disrespected me, but for some reason the same people respect Dumbledore, Hermione, Harry. Why?! Oh, they are probably better at signalling. So let’s manipulate them into difficult situations where even if they choose good, it will either ruin them or send bad signals.”
He does not want to redefine the words with capital letters. That’s a fool’s game. He is just jealous that other people succeeded in having a good image, where he failed despite his cool plans. He wants good people to have bad image, so that he can become a person with the best image, which is his preferred way to rule the world; probably because it seems safer in long run than being an evil overlord.
I believe his frustration at his inability to become a credible hero. But at least he is learning. He has learned that “a single super-heroic action” is not a good plan, so now he is trying “a child with magical destiny” plan. He cynically believed that he could fool all people; now he is even more cynical, because he believes that he cannot fool them by something that makes sense (killing a few Death Eaters and saving a princess? meh.), but could do it by a superstition (to kill Voldemort while being a baby? cool, and nobody suspects anything!).