Breakdown: Voldemort

Oscar:
Welcome to The Potter Discussion.

Oscar:
Welcome back to Deep Potter discussion discussing Harry Potter Fantastic Beasts and the Wizarding World. Fandom I am your host, Oscar, and this is episode 140. We have made it. We are in the 140 territory. This is going to be a lovely episode because today we are going over everything to do with Voldemort. Tom Omar Volvo, riddle in honor again, another Deathly House focused episode just in honor of the 15th birthday of the Death Day hollow, I think passing just this past day. I think actually as I'm recording, this is the 23rd maybe, I think it was the 22nd, maybe sometime around then. But I figured because Voldemort is now dead, in the 15 year lens of things, we might as well go over his life and just really look at what he did, what his motivation was, his early life, his childhood, really how he grew and molded into the evil wizard. We know him as in the future Harry Potter books. So make sure you stick around because there's a lot of good stuff coming your way. Before we get into this episode again, I will remind you that if you have any questions, comments, jokes like I've been saying, I would love to hear what you have to say. So if you want to send me over anything, you can go ahead and shoot it to thepotterdiscusion@gmail.com that is thepotterdiscusction@gmail.com and for DM, just go over to at thepotterdiscusion on Instagram or TikTok. Okay, let's get straight into today's episode. So to kick off today's breakdown of Voldemort episode, I think we should just get a timeline kind of fixed here because the Voldemort timeline is quite complicated, especially with all of his names and all of his wrongdoing and famous acts that really set him apart from everyone else. I think just making sure that we understand really where he's coming from and actually how he's coming from I think would be helpful. So this timeline is thanks to Harrypotteralexicon.org. The link to this will be in the show notes. This is from we're going to go up to about 1998, which is the Battle of Hogwarts. I'll be brief. I promise. So starting off kind of the baseline here the start of kind of the memories that Harry saw with Dumbledore. We are in kind of the Gaunt era. This is September of 1925 is when Morphine Gaunt attacks Tom Riddle Senior with the hives jinx tom Riddle Senior and I believe is it Cecilia, his kind of like maybe fiance or wife at the time. So they're riding horses and everything and Morphine just kind of jumps out and gets them. And then that's actually the same year that Morocco gives Tom Riddle Senior the love potion to trick him into marrying her. And then that's March 19 26th is when Marvellogant returns from Askaban to find Maropi gone. And then that same March 1926. Is when Ropey gets pregnant with Tom Marvolo Riddle. The Tom riddle Jr. And then 1926 is also when Ropegan sells Slytherin's locket to Borgen and Burke to kind of get some money to make the trip to Wolf Orphanage where Tom Riddle was born on December 31. 1926. Carrier is born and Moropi dies a couple of years later in 1928. Is when Morphin gone. Returns from Afghanan. And that's kind of pretty much the end of his story. Now, jumping ahead a little bit too is when Tom Riddle terrorizes the Fuchsia in the Sea Cave, but also when he stashes well, not when, but that's the place he stashes his locket, the Horcrux, that has some meaning to him, and that he is ten in 1937 and then eleven in August of 1938 when Tom gets his wand at Alexanders. And that's also the year that Dumbledore visits Tom Reynolds orphanage, because then he is told to go off to Hogwarts. And he does. He starts September 1 of 1938. Yay, lovely. And following this, we're jumping ahead to July of 1942. Tom Riddle murders his father and grandparents. Yay. That's also when he takes the ring off of Marvolo's finger and makes that into his Horcrux. I think it's not directly afterward, but he has to ask Slughorn, who was made heterose filler in the 1940s, how to make Horcruxes. But he had the ring and was preparing to make it, and Tom actually managed to frame Morphine for the Riddle murders in that same month, July of 1942. August of 1942, tom Riddle returns marvellous ring into his first horcrux. Done. Done. And then he's made it a a prefect. That is a smart move. On September 1, 1942. So much is happening this year. He meets Professor Slughorn and asks him about the Horcruxes, kind of learns that whole spiel. Then Tyranno learns to open the chamber secrets. He learned about the Chamber of Secrets in his first year, but now he actually learns to open it and releases the Basilisk. Now that same year, 1943, is when Moaning Myrtle dies and Hagrid is falsely accused of opening the Chamber of Secrets and is kicked out of Hogwarts. Tom is given a special award for services to the school. Hagrid is expelled, and that is that. And again, in September of 1943, that whole same year, tom turns his diary into a Horcrux. And that's also when the Gray Lady reveals her secret to Tom. And that's kind of the beginning of his 7th year. So September 1, 1944 is Tom's 7th year at Hogwarts and he's made Head boy, whoever's making it, dip it. What are you doing, man? That should be made into a T shirt. Okay? And now moving right along to June of 1945, tom finishes his 17 year and applies for a job teaching at Hogwarts, which then he is denied, as we all know has had, the story goes. And now jumping ahead a little bit to 1956, tom kills Hepsubsmith and frames her house health hokey and then he uses the cups to make his next Horcrux. Now that next year, 1957 is when Tom Marvolo Riddle disappears. He kind of goes under the radar, he's kind of sleuthing all around the world. He makes his Locket Horcrux, puts it in the cave. That's when Morphin dies in Azkaban and then 67 is kind of when he's coming back into the world. Voldemort turns Ravenclaws died em into a Horcrux and he also hides the Dyadem in the room of requirements. He also goes back to ask for a teaching job and he is denied. So this is when he's like no. So he begins to transform into Lord Voldemort and by the time three years have Passed, lord Voldemort is in power and he is Voldemort. At this point he's pretty much Voldemort when he goes to Hogwarts as for the teaching job, but he is 100% Voldemort. He's got the snake like features, the Red eyes, the flattened nose. In 1970, unable to deal with the rise of Voldemort, the Minister of Magic is forced to retire from office. And this is also when in Creature and Voldemort visited the Sea Cave. And then in the next year, in 1980, snape over here as part of the Proxy and goes to rush to tells Voldemort. This is also when Peter Pedagur starts passing information to Voldemort in about 1980 and 1981, October 1, the infamous date is when Voldemort is defeated finally by James Lilly Potter are killed and Harry is pretty much the one that does it. And of course this went wrong. Part of Voldemort souls watch in Harry another horcrux Then 1990, Coral takes his year off and encounters Voldemort and they are kind of intertwined. They fail to steal the Philosopher stone. In 91, Voltemored starts to possess Quarrel and also in 91 and 92 Harry confronts Quarrel, defeats Wilmart again and in that following school year jeannie is possessed by Tom Riddle. The Chamber of Secrets is reopened and he kind of comes back. Tom comes back in the form and his soul kind of manifests from the diary and that is destroyed. Harry stands with a basket fang and that is it. And then moving on to 94, Bertha Jorkins is murdered by Voldemort. I think this is Goblin of Fire at this point. No, maybe it's a prisoner of Azkaban. So then the Voldemort uses the murder of Birthday Jorgens to create his well, what he believes to be his final Horcrux nagini in 94, Voltmorth then moves to Riddle house and that's pretty much It for the person of Africa man now into the Galvana fire again in 94, Frank Bryce is killed. And then a year later well, I mean about a year later is the duel in the graveyard between Harry and Voldemort and they're kind of kidnapped and they're taken and then Voldemort is reborn but Harry escapes with foiling Voldemort's plan. And this is kind of the first Master broke out from astor band. Later in the fifth book in the Order of the Phoenix, ten Dead Heaters, Escape from Azkaban, and then this is moving into kind of the showdown area of the story. We had the battle of the Department of Mysteries, and then Amelia Bones was killed by Voldemort. In that same year, Alexander is kidnapped, the second war begins, and that kind of then it's pretty much history from there. I try to keep that in brief. That's a pretty bare bones timeline here, but we're pretty much caught up now. So now you kind of understand really what's going on here. I think this part is kind of interesting because we really see how much time has kind of elapsed in between really Voldemort's childhood and his adulthood and his evil doing years. And of course. In the Battle of Hogwarts in 1998. I think it is. That kind of is accentuated the amount of time passing because he's 72 when he dies. Voldemort. Which is kind of crazy to think about because in our minds. In my mind. I've always seen Voldemort as this kind of like timeless. Evil. Just kind of entity. This being of just power. Almost untouchable. Because even he has subjects. He's pretty much royalty in his circle. So that was kind of for me, looking at this timeline, is really seen as this kind of huge, almost like mass of a life because Tom has had a more hectic life than some, moving around from orphanage to orphanage, from house to house, killing and being like he's a murderer, like 1415. So I don't know what I was doing at 1415, but it was not this. Very few people I think, are murderers in their teens, especially 1415. So that's a bit of a strange little situation here. But I think looking back and really seeing how much he saw the evil that could be done and kind of knowing that he knew he wanted to make a mark on the world and had this grudge and he had this hatred for a very specific kind of person muggles, and he just wanted to kill them. Just like playing out like, all right, I don't like you. I'm just going to do the easiest, simplest, first thing that pops my mind. I'm going to kill you. There you go. That's a very interesting way of coming up with a solution to things. So I don't know why that's what his first instinct was, death as a solution, which, I mean, even in the real world, that is almost never the answer. But we see really looking at his entire life kind of spread out, we see just how much influence he has had over so many people and really how much influence he kind of has over the world because he tries to control everything in his life and tries and succeeds, which is kind of the scary part. And I think the main reason why he eventually rises to power because he knows how to talk, he knows how to influence, he knows what spells to you. He knows how to control people with fear, with loyalty and with admiration at the same time, which is a very difficult thing to have traits that world leaders even strive to achieve. So Voldemort was really the perfect killer. He was the perfect leader since day one, which I think is a bit of an interesting thought. There we have it. A little bit of an introduction, kind of really going over what was he thinking? But now let's get into some deeper topics because there's some more to go over. So now I want to go over. Sunday night was pretty apparent to me like pretty much the first time I ever watched the films and read the books. And that is that I think Voldemort has some kind of complex, like an inferior complex. Like there's so many different kinds of complexes, if you don't know what I mean. It's pretty much just this series of thoughts that a person has. It could be a series of doubts, like an inferior conflict with someone who always believes that they are lower than the person that they are talking to or interacting with. But I think Voldemort pretty much has two and that's his personality. Pretty much for most people you can pretty much describe their personality as just a certain collection of complexes they have, which is pretty much the definition of personality. So there you have it. But what I think Voldemort has here is kind of a need to prove himself. And this is kind of combined with his need to prove himself. And kind of his hatred of muggles is kind of combined with his positive traits. Now, he is a horrible person, but he does have positive traits and that is he's a good talker. He can charm people, he knows how to interact. He's just a great person. Now, the only problem here is that he uses those skills for absolute evil. If he was a better person, perhaps maybe those would be awesome. Maybe his headboy and his prefect would be deserved. Sorry, Tom, but these are very bad combinations right here. Of a sly person, of a sneaky, of a sleuth, of a spy, combined with the misgivings and just absolute torment of someone like Voldemort with the ideals of a wet mole rat. Sorry, Tom. I think it is important here to point out that he was faced with much difficulty because especially with the certain ideas he had and certain ideas of the future and kind of his empire, I guess you call that he wants to carry out. Noticing here that it was not easy to achieve everything is definitely an important part of the story because like with a timeline, which is kind of why I was over just how much hardship people went over. We saw how much he cared for the things that elevated him, and we saw just how little he cared for the things that didn't. His parents. He killed him. His grandparents. He killed his grandparents. He kills people offhand if they annoy him, if they speak out of turn, they're dead. That kind of thing is the kind of gunpowder in a fire. Voldemort was pretty much this powder cake about to explode. And the only problem is he exploded multiple times. Which is exactly why he managed to rise so far to the top. The blast has carried him so far, and he attracted the attention of so many people. That's not a good combination. I mean, this actually has a pretty much pretty good real world application. Let's take, like, a person running to be a political leader. Their ideas appeal to a certain group of people and what they are aiming to do is attract that group of people and kind of build enough of a base and a following of people to elevate them into the office that they are chasing. If it's a popular vote. The political figure wants to gain as much popular as they can. Their ideas attract a certain group of people. And the only problem is that that group of people might be really small or even nonexistent. And the key there is that they are shown to millions upon millions of people similar to Voldemort. If you take ten people and you say, I want to kill all the Muggles, and I want to destroy Hogwarts and make a school that is just Slytherin, and I won't have horses and they won't practice the Dark Arts, probably about eight or nine out of ten of those people would be like, no, I mean, just don't. But maybe the one or two people who have had a similar hard life as Tom and want to show their people around them, they are more powerful than they are, we'll say yes, maybe that's something I do want. And say that ten people is maybe 1000 now. It's maybe 100 or 200 people now say that's 100 million. Now you kind of see where I'm going with this. The people that like the things that Voldemort is doing, that like, the thing that the political figure is doing will expand proportional to the size of the audience. And unfortunately for everyone else, there are a lot of wizards and witches. Not a whole lot, but a lot for sure. Now, this has been unfortunate because that one or two people even like a one or 2% of the population that's millions upon millions upon millions of which is, well, maybe just millions upon millions. Just two. But those couple of million people are going to be hardcore diehard voldemort fans. They're going to be at his beck and call every hour of the day. And of course, that changes a bit. But in the kind of beginning stages of his career, I guess you call it, he is kind of this figure of just absolute power. He is almost worshiped as a god in his followers because he does exactly what everyone that follows him wants, which is a very dangerous thing. It's this kind of group mindset, mob mentality function kind of kicking in here, and it is no fun for anyone when they're kind of ganged up on. And this is kind of the wizarding world being completely ganged up on. And perhaps there are not nearly as many death leaders as good people, but I think this is where that serious quote definitely comes into play. And that is that the world is not split between Death Eaters and good people. There are bad people, there are good people. There also there's the gray area, there's the gray area passed. And before the good, there's a greater before and past, and everywhere in between the bad there are. So the spectrum for the quality of a person is, I mean, way too big to calculate. It's not on a scale of one to ten, how good is this person? It's on a scale of one to infinity, what are the likelihood of them committing a murder in the next four weeks? It's impossible to quantify the actual goodness of a person, which is why Voldemort managed to have this huge following, because people weren't like, I'm a good person. And then they saw Baltimore and they're like, I'm going to fight you. It's like, well, I have ideas, and I'm not sure if they're good or bad, but I want them to be carried out. And this fine gentleman here with a bit of a skincare issue definitely has some ideas that I share appreciation with. So I'll join him. It's someone in Voldemort. I don't know what he is. With someone with complete indifference to Voldemort, there's no telling just how far they might go with him. And with a group like the Death Eaters, being radicalized, like within your first hour, even of being kind of inducted into the cult alike atmosphere is likely almost expected just because of the people that are there. I mean, Bellatrix, you can imagine, would pounce on the new people and just give them of course she would give them a detailed and caring PowerPoint presentation, but then she would show them how to properly slit a person's throat. And that kind of thing is probably why Voldemort managed to gather such a huge following, because he has him his close group of followers, and then they're kind of spreading the message, creating more followers and more passionate people. It's like the most genius marketing campaign that the world had, I should say, has ever seen, which is a bit unfortunate, like I was saying, for everyone else but Walmart, so that is just absolutely peachy. And now kind of feeding off of this, kind of going deeper into his complex. I want to talk a bit about his Elder Wand. Why do they need the Elder Wand? What's the deal with this? Well, the answer on the surface here is he wants to be the most powerful person in the world. It's frank enough, it is apparent, it is obvious he wants to be powerful, he wants to have control over other people. He wants to be the highest person in the room in the world and he wants to command a very large amount of respect especially for a person at his caliber of person pretty much. But what this kind of means deeper is what I want to get into. So he wants to be the most powerful person in the world. Why? I am going into therapist mode here why does Voltmort want to be the most powerful person in the world? Well, I think the classic answer here, the classic therapy lying down on the calendar here is that he for his entire life Tom was lesser. He was the youngest kid in the playground. He was the last person picked, he was the servant, he was the castaway, he was the nothing just the gust of wind people walk by the shadow and that irritated him very much and I think this kind of led to his becoming of Voldemort as well. He saw that if he became this person that was idolized by not only one or two people but like I've been saying, millions of people that he was seeing as more desirable and more of a figure that could lead, that could be powerful, that could have the strength to take over the world and this was the absolute opposite of the spectrum opposed to his entire life. He used to be the least, now he is the most. Well, he is not the most because he doesn't have the most power in the world. That's Dumbledore, right? It is, but Dumbledore has the elder one so we need to get rid of Dumbledore. Well how do we do that? Let's kill them. Great. So they kill dumbledore. But that plan is kind of foiled because Snape gets in the way that ohdel but it's actually Draco, then it's actually Harry and then volunteer kills Snape. So why in the end does Voldemort want the older ones? Well, he wants to be the most of everything. He wants to be immortalized. He wants to be the person not the wizard, not the even witch. He wants to be the person who wants to take over the world to kill Muggles, to eradicate everything but pure blood and just repopulate the world with his people. That of course is I mean absolutely ridiculous. But if they get through the wizards it's not which is scary because if Harry had failed and had died and everyone at Hogwarts had been killed well. I mean the end of the world probably would have been Nigh and if Durhamstrang and Boba Tan and the school in Africa and South America and Japan if they hadn't been able to step in then that would have been the end of the world. Basically, it's not even nuclear. Assured destruction. It is assured destruction pretty much for everything. But the people that Voldemort has in contact with, even in a book, even reading about that is unimaginable. How could the world still spin? It spins for Voldemort. And as we all know, that is all that matters. So Good Job, Voldemort. But I think he's needed for the other one kind of stem, like I was saying, from his just absolute powerlessness, his absence of strength in the face of adversaries. And getting the other one was like defeating the ultimate bully. No one could beat him. He Was Absolutely Powerful. He Was Completely Indestructible. He had all of his horses. He had his army. He had the Elder Wand. He was a force to be reckoned with. He had control of the Ministry. He was gaining control of Hogwarts, and I'm sure he was reaching out to other schools, like I was saying in the Africa, South America, Japan boyton dreamstring. Hogwarts. He was kind of like an octopus, you know? Okay, this is perfect. I don't think many people will. But there's this famous British propaganda photo of an octopus that has kind of it's tentacles in every land. Labeled it's like South America, America, Canada, Africa. The British Octopus has its feelers everywhere. And of course, the British Empire was huge. So this is kind of what I imagine Voldemort doing. He is kind of sending out his messengers, his ideas. Kind of like missionaries. He's saying? All right, guys, go spread the beautiful message of me because I am your savior. I will brighten the day and I will make it beautiful. With killing many people and destroying the world. Go spread the message of beauty that kind of thing. Of course, at the opposite of a missionary. But that's Voldemort's idea. So that kind of thing, I imagine being exactly what he does and having that next sense of power. With the elder one. Like I said, with the elder one. With Horcruxes controlling the world, taking over hogwarts just starting to control everything. Literally everything is why he was doing it. He wanted to be the person. He wanted to take over everything. He wanted to control everything. He wanted to have the trees bought in. He wanted to have the tigers kneel and the Lions serve him tea. That kind of thing is what he was looking for. Just control of every particle of matter in existence, which, I mean, is absolutely ridiculous and is why he was pretty much doomed to fail. But he probably could have made a good dent of things on earth. But if he tried to expand, that probably would have been it for him. So. Good try, Voldy, but not quite that's basic. That's pretty much why I think pretty much. He won the other one because he wanted to control everything. Literally everything. Well, There We Go. I think I'm going to knock out one more thing. I Know we could finish the episode here, but I want to keep going for a little bit. So let's talk about one last thing, one final thing. Okay, let's do the age old question. Here my notebook, my preparation notebook. Why did he fear dumbledore? Here we go. This is kind of our last thing for breakdown. Voldemort, why did he fear Dumbledore? Well, I think this is a bit more complicated because it's a lot simpler on the surface and a lot more complicated in the depth. So on the surface Dumbledore is the only person that could have beaten Voldemort and eventually he did, proving the fact but just in one to one combat dumbledore is the only person that could have beat Voldemort at his strongest. And I understand most. Harry beat him. Well he wasn't the strongest. Every single Horcrux was destroyed and pretty much his entire army was almost gone. So no, he was not the strongest. But in the battle of the Order of the Phoenix in the second part after the Order of the Phoenix kind of fights the Death Eaters when Voldemort and Dumbledore duel. Again, my favorite scene in the entire even I don't know the entire franchise or the entire Harry Potter series when they leave from Hogwarts on their festivals to when they get back from that time to the end is pretty much my favorite sequence. So there we go. I'm just going to get out of the way. But we saw then that Dumbledore was pretty good. He had basically the upper hand for most of the time and even in Voldemort like final attack so they were blocking at that point in time. Voldemort Dumbledore are the two most powerful wizards in existence so they were kind of going at it. The lightning was flying, the whole Ministry atrium was pretty much being destroyed and there was huge blasts of energy and fire snakes and huge spheres of water and all the windows of the Ministry shattered on the glass was shot at Dumbledore, Harry and Dumbledore blocked it. I mean that just goes to show and Dumbledore and Voldemort retreated. He was the one who left and granted he did come back but that was protected from Harry, or rather protected with Harry from Dumbledore in that sphere when he was possessing Harry. And then Harry was like, you will lose all that. That weird scene. That's the one thing I don't like about but we saw that Voldemort was the one who disengaged. He was the one who said, nope, sorry, I'm going to leave now. And that means a lot for again the man, the dude, the powerful, the ruler of the universe, voldemort with getting close to the Elder Wand to retreat from Dumbledore goes to show there's a lot more to it than just that. We see so deeper here, kind of going deeper into the depths of Voldemort's trauma. I think he really feels volatile because he didn't feel Voldemort. Voldemort. Fear Dumbledore, because Dumbledore was the only thing standing in his way as he saw it, was a bunch of school kids, a bunch of old men and women at Hogwarts. But one of the old dudes, Dumbledore, he might have been a bit more powerful than the rest. And this was early on and then later kind of saw that maybe he wasn't so old after all, in the sense that he is not just an old fart excuse me, more of a genius. And that kind of elevated Voldemort fears of him because he had never been challenged as Voldemort. He controlled everyone and everything in his sphere, and suddenly he didn't. It's a scary thing. Oh, no, you don't control everything. Boohoo. So that's kind of how it evolved. And I think it also stemmed from when they knew each other before. Because, of course, Dumbledore was the transfiguration teacher, or Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, if you ask Fantastic Beasts, but I'm going off of the books here. The transfiguration teacher at Hogwarts in Voldemort's time, in Tom's time, and all the teachers adored Tom. He was headboy prefect. She has a perfect student, but done with our stuff through him. And because he knew Tom from the very beginning, he knew he stole things, he hurt people, he knew how to put on a face. And even Dumbledore was there when Tom began his eyeing the perfect person act, we saw that Dumbdore was like, you will dress me as Serf now. And Tom was like and he was like, okay, yes, sir. And he was like, so composed. Dumlin was like, okay, all right. And kind of put him on the radar. So their relationship evolved kind of proportionally from there. And they span off. No, they spun off from each other and drew out of their previous roles into what we know them as voldemort and Albus Priscilla, Brian Dumbledore. So there we go. I think now we can cut off the episode. We have a nice foundation of Voldemort knowledge. That timeline that I spent a couple of minutes on, the beginning episode again, is in the show notes, if you want to check that out in more detail, because it goes on to 2020. So it's like 100 years of pure Voldemort timeline. Thank you, Harry Potter Lexicon, for helping me out this episode. That was a great time that's the website timeline is on and that pretty much covers the episode. Thank you for listening. I'm glad you enjoyed if you're sticking around for this long, 140 it is an honor to be in your ears for this long. And if you enjoy this episode, if you enjoy the show, consider leaving a review. It really helps out. This is a one man show over here, so anything you can do is really a great thing. I really appreciate to the bottom of my heart. So if you would just five stars if you really like it and less if you don't, then just let me know how I can make it better. Give me the rundown, give me the scoop. Because I want to make this show really awesome for you and for me. So that's it. Thank you for listening. And as always, remember that happiness can be found even in the darkest of times if one one only remembers to turn on the light. I will see you later.