After seeing Harry Potter 6 for a second time today, I got into a very interesting conversation with my friend Jesse and his father. It helps to be familiar with the majority of the major movie franchises of the last few decades.
Jesse’s argument is that Voldemort is a one-dimensional and unrealistic character because he has no true motive – specifically a political ideology. When comparing him to other bad guys – both real and fictional – he is a simplistic character who is only there to be the bad guy, and has nowhere near the depth of other villains, like Palpatine from Star Wars – who is strikingly similar to Hitler.
My argument is that Voldemort doesn’t need a political ideology, or any ideology for that matter. What drives him is a lust for power, specifically the power of magic – this includes everything evil that he strives to do, including mass killing and becoming immortal. These acts of magic are examples of ultimate power to him, and he is addicted to it in the same way that anyone who possesses the ring in Lord of the Rings ultimately becomes attracted to it’s power. That idea of power, of being able to control the universe exactly as one wants to is the ultimate idea behind evil.
But no! Jesse says, he just likes power, that’s it? To be a credible villain, he needs to represent something – an idea or ideology. Like Hitler and Palpatine – both do evil things in the context of upholding a dictatorship. Otherwise, he is just a devil figure – a simple and one-dimensional representation of “bad.”
BUT! I say, the only reason dictators want a dictatorship is because they think that they can rule the world/galaxy in the right way, and because if fulfills their initial lust for power. The power obsession is not caused by their ideologies, but vice versa. They believe in a certain ideology because if fits their lust for power. Even the Joker, even though he doesn’t appear to believe in anything, really believes in chaos. And him causing that chaos is him having power.
There are hints of Voldemort’s political ideology in the books. In the last book he basically infiltrates the wizard government and ultimately becomes it. This of course came after much of his evil-doing, because the government he set up fit his evil personality. This power lust creates evil in government.
When you think about it, that lust for power is a part of everything that is wrong with the world and the human condition. Power is the money that bank robbers steal from banks. Power is the crops a farmer grows on a piece of stolen land. Power is the driving force behind people in high levels of government. Capitalism encourages people to strive for power, and that power is what gives us huge corporations and their vile tactics. Power is behind the flaws of capitalism, the throne of a dictator, and the natural human need for the universe to run just the way they want it.
Power is ultimately being God. Perhaps this explains why so many people are devoted to religion – because religion tells us that the main power in the universe is out of our hands. Therefore, so is any form of evil. And who doesn’t want a world without evil?
