I think MoR!Voldemort is probably better-intentioned than canon!Voldemort (not that that would be hard; the latter is a cardboard-cutout evil-for-its-own-sake villain) but I don’t think well-intentioned people who want to make the world a paradise act like MoR!Voldemort seems to have acted. (Unless, perhaps, that were truly the only way to bring about the good outcome, but really, how credible is that?)
Rowling did take pains later to point out that had he grown up in a loving household, the sociopathy would not have developed as it did. It was the combination of a loveless, non-consensual conception and loveless, neglected childhood.
IIRC it’s worse than that — Tom Riddle Jr. was born bad due to his mother’s abuse of love potions.
That’s actually rather plausible as such things go. Some of the genes that contribute to violent sociopathy allegedly do so by increasing the amount of seratonin present in the brain of the developing fetus and thereby causing the neurons to develop less sensative to seratonin.
True, but he could have started out with somewhat good intentions. Tom wants to kill people. So he takes a pill that helps him kill people by letting him cast AK on anyone. At the time, he didn’t know this would rule out any spells—he already ‘knew’ he couldn’t cast a Patronus—and he figured (correctly?) he’d still want to preserve wizard society. At the very least he’d still want to preserve himself, which is a step up from the total destruction of humanity.
Hypothesis: Quirrell/Voldemort/Monroe’s goal is to protect his people (Wizards) from other people (Muggles). I’m sure we can all recall actual historical and current figures who have acted with such a goal, successfully and unsuccessfully, and with greater and lesser degrees of good and evil.
Quirrell, however, has shown no sign of having a “his people” of any sort. It’s fairly clear that Harry is the only person whose welfare he cares about other than his own, and that might well be for purely instrumental reasons.
With that said, a wizard-Muggle war would risk doing catastrophic damage to the world, and as he’s mentioned, he does happen to live in it and thus have a vested interest in its survival.
Yes, a misanthrope can still what the world and humanity to survive, and Quirrell has expressed both fear of Muggle weapons and a desire to see space travel succeed, both of which are very unusual for any wizard to even consider, much less care about. Draco, for instance, doesn’t even know humans have been to the moon until Harry tells him.
I think MoR!Voldemort is probably better-intentioned than canon!Voldemort (not that that would be hard; the latter is a cardboard-cutout evil-for-its-own-sake villain) but I don’t think well-intentioned people who want to make the world a paradise act like MoR!Voldemort seems to have acted. (Unless, perhaps, that were truly the only way to bring about the good outcome, but really, how credible is that?)
IIRC it’s worse than that — Tom Riddle Jr. was born bad due to his mother’s abuse of love potions.
Rowling did take pains later to point out that had he grown up in a loving household, the sociopathy would not have developed as it did. It was the combination of a loveless, non-consensual conception and loveless, neglected childhood.
It was because his father was raped? I thought Tom’s sociopathy was just a random result of generations of incest on his mother’s side.
That’s actually rather plausible as such things go. Some of the genes that contribute to violent sociopathy allegedly do so by increasing the amount of seratonin present in the brain of the developing fetus and thereby causing the neurons to develop less sensative to seratonin.
True, but he could have started out with somewhat good intentions. Tom wants to kill people. So he takes a pill that helps him kill people by letting him cast AK on anyone. At the time, he didn’t know this would rule out any spells—he already ‘knew’ he couldn’t cast a Patronus—and he figured (correctly?) he’d still want to preserve wizard society. At the very least he’d still want to preserve himself, which is a step up from the total destruction of humanity.
Hypothesis: Quirrell/Voldemort/Monroe’s goal is to protect his people (Wizards) from other people (Muggles). I’m sure we can all recall actual historical and current figures who have acted with such a goal, successfully and unsuccessfully, and with greater and lesser degrees of good and evil.
Quirrell, however, has shown no sign of having a “his people” of any sort. It’s fairly clear that Harry is the only person whose welfare he cares about other than his own, and that might well be for purely instrumental reasons.
With that said, a wizard-Muggle war would risk doing catastrophic damage to the world, and as he’s mentioned, he does happen to live in it and thus have a vested interest in its survival.
Yes, a misanthrope can still what the world and humanity to survive, and Quirrell has expressed both fear of Muggle weapons and a desire to see space travel succeed, both of which are very unusual for any wizard to even consider, much less care about. Draco, for instance, doesn’t even know humans have been to the moon until Harry tells him.
I would think that he would want wizards to win sheerly because they don’t have nuclear devices resting upon the whims of their politicians.