Hog’s Head PubCast #14: Psychology of Voldemort and Harry

I found this pubcast interesting.

I was particularly interested in Tricia’s comment about Rowling writing Voldemort similarly to how Tolkien wrote Sauron ie. an inhuman embodyment of evil. Umm, I’m not sold on that. I think Voldemort is so much more approachable or relatable with than Sauron. We never really meet Sauron outside of The Silmarillion except a brief time when Frodo claims the Ring and Tolkien writes from Sauron’s thoughts. Sauron is so other that he’s unrelatable. I think a better Tolkien character to compare Voldemort to would be Saruman or the Witch King or even better Ar-Pharazon, the last king of Numenor. He was a great warrior, mighty sorceror (even Sauron feared him)and furious that as a human he was destined to die. He went about doing what was forbidden to achieve immortality.

I realise that Tricia was saying that Voldemort is being used as the personification of evil in the stories, but I don’t think it’s an inhuman evil. Voldemort, I feel, is the epitome of “Human” evil. And this is why I think Dumbledore goes to such lengths to show Harry Tom Riddle’s life. Dumbledore is saying to Harry that given the same choices and decisions, Harry could have become as evil as Voldemort. Indeed anyone could, either through blind obedience or deliberate choice. I have the Nazi regieme in mind writing this ie. not necessarily evil people either being forced to or indifferent to the horrible acts that they committed.

Voldemort certainly does change to resemble something un-human including the sillibance and coldness of his voice. I think this is what CS Lewis wrote about in the Screwtape letters, change comes from within not without.

I hope all that didn’t come out all lame. It’s getting late after listening to such a long podcast.

Thanks for the though provocation.

Matt

Travis, I think that’s right. Although Saruman wasn’t human (just chose to appear that way) Voldeort seems to be somewhere between Sauruman and Sauron. More like Sauron in book 6 as he is the enemy working behind the scenes and co-ordinating his war like a chess-master.

Saruman certainly had the option to come good. I think Gandalf said that he had to give Saruman the option even though he knew he wouldn’t take it- Saruman preferred to gnaw the ends of his failed plots even though the decision came down to a hair’s breadth.

Like you say in the pubcast, Voldemort won’t do a Darth Vader and come back to the good side. He is the enemy who must be destroyed. Actually, I think that Voldemort will be somehow permanently imprisoned rather than slain. He deserves destruction, it’d be just, but the themes of mercy being more powerful than justice I think Voldemort will spend the rest of his existence in the proverbial “big house”.

I the pubcast you also mention about having discussed the possibility of Harry having to forgive Voldemort. I think this may be an important thing for Harry to have to do- not for Voldemort, but for himself. Voldemort would never come close to such a concept. Like Gandalf with Saruman he may have to offer it. Harry certainly has an amazing ability to love and forgive (mercy)- ie. Wormtail.

Can forgiveness ONLY be offered as an act of love?

Matt

Mary,
That’s an interesting point about Harry not showing mercy to Pettigrew. Just read the passage again and it certainly appears that you could take it like you suggest. But I’m not convinced.

1. Wormtail asks Harry for “mercy”.

2. Sirius and Lupin line up to kill Pettigrew.

3. Harry stands in the way and say that they should hand him over to the authorities.

4. Pettigrew thanks Harry.

5. Harry tells him to shut up and that he is not doing this for him, rather for Sirius and Lupin.

6. Sirius says that only Harry can choose what to do.

7. Harry decides to spare Pettigrew.

Now, you are definately correct. Harry doesn’t offer forgiveness. But, in my opinion, definately is merciful to Pettigrew. Harry’s motivation for this mercy was prevent his father’s friends becoming murderers. That doesn’t make Harry’s mercy to Pettigrew any less. People show mercy to others all the time for different motivation eg. not giving your best friend’s brother a hiding when he’s stolen your bike, just because he’s your best friend’s brother. That’s still mercy (also law-abiding).

Anyway, I reckon Pettigrew’s perceved debt to Harry will play a part in the defeat of Voldemort. I think Voldemort got a glimpse of this at the Riddle house when Wormtail tries suggesting some other option than Harry.

Do you think that the defeat of Voldemort will need to include the defeat of all the death eaters? Dumbledore has said that some of Voldemort’s supporters are nearly as terrible as himself. If VOldemort is defeated and there are still powerful dark wizards about the war will continue on.

Also, do you think that Harry will need to bring about a situation where the forces of “good” are united to such a degree that if any dark wizard raises their ugly dial, it’ll get smacked down hard and with much prejudice?

Matt

I LOVED THIS Pod-Cast. Travis, I have become hooked!

That was so in-depth, you’re wife really knows her job well.

The Harry Potter books were never all rosy and ‘happily ever after’, so I too doubt we’ll see that happen, but an optimistic look to the future will be at least hinted at.

Marry, Harry did spear Wormtail’s life though. Yes it was so those he cared for didn’t become murderers, BUT I think there was more there.

I love Joyce’s essays but I feel they can bee too.. clinical? There is so much we can read between the lines in the HP series… I would have preferred (and I think Marry will be surprised) if Voldemort had an even footing with Harry and Snape, was loved at some point as a child. It would have been far more intriguing then seeing his motives and his change to what he has become… But I too think that he epitomises all that he is wrong with the Wizarding world.

Travis and Matt, I go into much greater detail in the essay on my website, but Harry doesn’t offer mercy to Pettigrew. He says, “Let’s hand him over to the dementors.” As mercy, that’s rather problematic, isn’t it? Especially given that Harry fears the dementors more than anything else? And, in the WW, having your soul sucked out by a dementor is considered a fate worse than death.

I’m not going to start a rant about the war on terror; all I’m going to say is that I certainly hope Rowling does not intend any such analogy. Terrorism usually arises from oppressed, powerless groups who have legitimate grievances.* Using overwhelming violence against these groups is always wrong and counterproductive, IMHO. Certainly, terrorism is wrong and must be fought, but to try to fight it through violence against civilian populations is wrong and stupid, I believe. (* and I don’t think you could possibly call the purebloods, or even the wizarding world, an oppressed and powerless group!)

But I did say I wouldn’t rant about that. Sorry!

Getting back to Voldemort (about time!): Sauron, unlike Riddle, was not human, but a superhuman being. And he could not be killed either, having stored his life force in the ring. You could consider the ring a sort of horcrux, but, if so, it is (again) a much scarier and more subtle horcrux than anything we’ve seen from Rowling thus far. Even the diary, which was admittedly seductive, did not have the power or terror the ring carries for me.

Anyway, I still maintain that, to succeed, Harry will have to (1) accept his own capacity for darkness, for without acknowledging it, he won’t be able to fight it, and (2)*really* love and forgive his enemies. As of the end of HBP, he showed almost no capacity to do either of these things, especially the first. But we’ll see-

Thanks for letting me chime in here.

Travis, I dont’ really want to go on about this, but I do want to say that there is a difference between a reason for an act and a justification. For example, Voldemort has, in his own mind, very good reasons for everything he does. It is helpful to understand those reasons and (if, for example, the purebloods have a legitimate fear of dying out – something I don’t actually see in the books) address them to undermine his support. A reason is NOT a justification. There is, and can be, no justification for the Dark Lord’s actions.
(Keeping this very carefully in the fictional universe – let’s keep it there, please!)

Also, the ring did kill three people – Deagol, Isildur and Gollum. What it very nearly did to Frodo (twice) was a fate very much worse than death. Worse, even, (imho)than having your soul sucked out by a dementor. I don’t see the horcruxes as having at all that kind of seductive power. At least, not yet. But who knows what Harry will run into in “Deathly Hallows”?

And, as I think I said before, I hate, loathe and despise the very concept of a life debt. It comes across to me as something closer to the Unbreakable Vow than anything good should be. It hasn’t yet been explained, so I can’t begin to guess how Severus and Peter might be in Harry’s debt. I guess we’ll find out, though, in a few months.

But all this is very far removed from your original post, isn’t it? I really don’t want to tie up this thread further until I’ve listened to it and thought about it more. So I’ll stop now -

Thanks, Matt! If you click on my name, it will take you to my website, and there are two essays on the first page you’ll see that might be of interest. The first, of course, is the one titled ” a brief essay on Riddle’s psychology”, and the second, which compares the Potterverse and LOTR, is “To Love and Be Wise”. It’s towards the bottom of the page. I can provide direct links if you’d rather – let me know. )

Going now to download the podcast (it’s about time!)

I think Sauron is definately a worse baddie that Voldemort.
Voldemort, to me, is someone who is seeking power and immortality- and will stop at nothing to gain it.

Sauron, on the other hand, is an emmisary and lieutenant of Melkor, the renegade Valar. Their purpose is to actually fight against the correct ordering and correct government of the cosmos. A much grander and pursoseful evil than the self-seeking evil of Voldemort.

Travis, I think you’d appreciate reading The Silmarillion before reading Lord of the Rings again. With your interest in myth and legend you’d find it good eating.

Matthew

Well – I’ve read the entire LOTR saga at least 20 times, and all the HP books only 2 or 3 times, and I do find Sauron and the ring a great deal scarier than Voldemort so far. That’s precisely because Voldemort is a person, and a crazy person at that. All he can really do is kill the body. Sauron represents the killing of the soul; the ring is absolutely insidious and relentless in the way it tempts and corrupts every character (except Sam) who touches it. Of course, that’s just the way I see it!

I finally listened to the podcast and would like to congratulate you and your wife (and your extremely good little baby – I didn’t hear a peep out of her!). But I do think I wouldn’t alter my original comments. You see, though Harry’s normalcy does seem miraculous, he is not truly in opposition to Voldemort as yet – at least, not as much as he thinks he is. This is a damaged kid. There’s a very insightful essay over on livejournal about Harry’s resiliency and the damage he has nevertheless suffered; he is very slow to trust adults, extremely resistant to certain types of authority (thus his negative reaction to Snape) and he holds grudges like nobody’s business (like a couple of other characters we could name, who are also damaged.) But I do agree it’s remarkable that he can love at all, given his background, and also that, up until the sixth book, his intentions are surprisingly pure. And, like you, I really loved this boy in OOTP; his reactions were completely realistic to me. He was a lonely, scared, overwhelmed and grieving kid! Why on earth wouldn’t he be shouting and throwing things?!And the point Tricia made about his sudden loss of ‘family’ and how that affected him was very wise. Good job!

One comment, though, on the quote you used at the end. You say Harry is the lightbearer who must conquer the darkness by taking it into himself. I don’t disagree, but would say, rather, that Harry must recongnize and combat the darkness he already carries. And do you remember who the original lightbearer was? Lucifer!

I meant to post earlier that I enjoyed this podcast very much. I especially appreciated your wife’s insight (if I understood it correctly) that Voldemort’s diminished humanity (manifested physically by his increasingly snakelike appearance) is a factor in his unlikely redemption. That’s a very important point.

You may recall my comments in other places that I see glimpses of Milton’s Paradise Lost through the books, especially in the idea of Voldemort as a tragic hero along the lines of Satan in PL, who literally becomes a serpent at the end of the poem. There’s a scene in the middle of Book 9 in which Satan, who has been flying to earth with the single-minded intention of corrupting and destroying Adam and Eve, sees Eve in the Garden of Eden, and he is momentarily struck dumb by her innocence and beauty. Milton described Satan at that point as being “stupidly good” for a period of moments, and during that time, all thoughts of destroying the humans leave him. In the work as a whole, it’s a brilliant bit because Milton’s purpose in PL is to “justify the ways of God to man,” and in this scene, we see a double temptation; in other words, God’s purpose in allowing Satan access to the couple is not only to allow Adam and Eve to freely choose obedience when tempted to disobey but to simultaneously tempt Satan back to obedience by letting him see the beauty of goodness and innocence. After a few moments, Satan recovers from his reverie, his pride and anger once more become dominant, and his desire to destroy the couple is renewed. It’s a very powerful scene and my favorite part of the poem.

I pick up strong echoes of this scene in Voldemort’s offer to let Lily live. My gut says Voldemort fully intended to kill the entire family when he arrived at Godric’s Hollow, but the sight of Lily trying to protect baby Harry triggered a latent “mother” moment (because there’s evidence in four places in the books that he felt sympathy for Merope) at the Potter’s house, and he experienced a “stupidly good” moment of his own (as psychotic as it was under the circumstances). Just as Satan’s desire to destroy Eve was temporarily overthrown by the sight of her wandering among the flowers, so Voldemort’s desire to destroy Lily was temporarily overthrown when he saw her trying to protect Harry.

So what does this have to do with the podcast and your wife’s excellent insights? My own reading suggests that it’s quite rare for a psychopath to have a *completely* inverted conscience–and I think that’s the case with Voldemort. There was, even at the time of Godric’s Hollow when he was in his 50’s and quite snake-like in appearance, some minimal ability in him to connect on a human level that was focused on Merope and that he transferred to Lily-as-mother-of-baby-boy in that moment.

To me, all of this explains the seeming contradition of Rowling’s statements that everyone is capable of redemption on one hand but that Voldemort is not capable of redemption on the other hand. After all, Voldemort is human, but the reason he is not capable of redemption at this point that is he has systematically destroyed the bulk of his humanity 1) by rebirthing his physical body somehow in a ritual that involved Nagini (Babymort), 2) by removing the majority of his soul through Horcrux-production, and 3) by freely giving himself over to his darkest impulses. I’m not saying it’s a given that he would have been capable of redemption had he not made the Horcruxes and rebirthed his body using a snake, only that at this point, he is too far gone for that to be a possibility.

I don’t know if my interpretations are supportable, but it’s what I’ve come up with to explain the complexity of Voldemort’s characterization as I see it and of the seeming contradition in Rowling’s interview statements on the subject of redemption in general and Voldemort in particular.

Side note – as for the argument that Dumbledore felt guilt and/or responsibility for allowing Voldemort to become what he is, I have to say I don’t agree. I don’t believe Dumbledore was at fault or that he worked as hard as he did against Voldemort because he felt responsible for not directly intervening in the form of a personal relationship when Tom was a student.

Young Tom Riddle was a definitely tricky case and Dumbledore knew about and was very concerned about his propensities for cruelty and control, but Dumbledore knew Riddle would not have permitted a one-on-one mentoring relationship, and I strongly suspect that Dumbledore the Good–in the seven years that he taught Transfiguration to Tom Riddle–used his time in the classroom to influence his students, especially Riddle and others who had darker leanings, to choose “right” over easy or tempting. After all, at the time Dumbledore was working against another powerful dark wizard and he knew that Riddle was drawing to himself a group of students who themselves were tempted to evil.

When Riddle entered Hogwarts, Dumbledore already had plenty of examples of dark wizards and knew that Riddle, while undoubtedly high on the list of young wizards who would be tempted to the dark side, by no means the only one. And given young Riddle’s resistance to Dumbledore early on, Dumbledore probably knew that the only way to reach him was indirectly in the classroom.

Of course, this is just my hypothesis, but I truly don’t accept the idea that Dumbledore washed his hands of Tom Riddle during his student years and after the emergence of Lord Voldemort suddenly realized he had squandered the opportunity to reach out to Riddle when he had the chance. They were in a classroom together for seven years. He probably regrets that he wasn’t able to influence Riddle or the students who eventually followed him and became the first DE’s (or all the Hogwarts students who ended up following Voldemort in later years), but Dumbledore is too astute and too good to have completely turned his back and hoped for the best. That’s not Dumbledore. More likely, IMHO, that he took the indirect approach (as the only one available to him).

to what everyone says, I must say that I believe some of this, but not all. As for the Dumbledore not trying to help Tom, I agree with Travis. But I cant say that I thought that there was anything he COULD do to help Tom, and that perhaps he knew this. But I dont think he knew that tom would become that severe, or that Severus would have the same situation. But back to Riddle, Dumbledore mightve known that he would come back, as he didnt at all seem surprised, and had it planned or something…

My point being that Morgoth is as dominated by his own passions as Voldemort. Sauron on the other hand is a plot-device on legs. He’s pathetic.

Plain old Tom Riddle? Are you so condemming of your own species? If humanity’s not jealous of God, no-one is!