Re: He's not as dumb as you think!
- From: "Here in Minnesota!" <neverwillicheckthis@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2010 21:06:49 -0500
"Benjamin Esham" <bdesham@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:slrni36i9a.11d1.bdesham@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Here in Minnesota! wrote:
There is always these discussions on "how could LV be so dumb?"
I think he mostly made if not smart the "reasonable move"
[...]
6. Book 6. His main plan seem to kill DD. DD was one of Harry's main
protectors and helper. He was successful.
yes, a reasonable choice
Killing Dumbledore was definitely a good idea for him. Leaving it to a
sixteen-year-old, however, was not. Over the course of the series a number
of people expressed doubt that Voldemort would be able to take Dumbledore in
a duel; why would Voldemort think that Malfoy would be able to do any
better?
There are a couple of possibilities: (1) Voldemort thought that Malfoy would
have some special advantage over Dumbledore; (2) Voldemort wanted Malfoy to
show his loyalty by performing a difficult (!) task; (3) Voldemort was
scared of doing it himself. I think we can throw out (3) immediately, at
least from a story-internal perspective. That leaves:
1. What "special advantage" would Malfoy have over Dumbledore? Would
Voldemort really have guessed that Dumbledore would not be willing to
kill a student in self-defense? If Voldemort were in that situation he
would kill the kid without a second thought. He continually
underestimates the power of love, and this is what would keep Dumbledore
from blasting Malfoy away the second a threat arose--certainly
Dumbledore's magical abilities far outstrip Malfoy's, so that if they
actually were in an all-out fight Malfoy would be gone before he knew
what hit him.
Could Malfoy's position as a student (i.e. with continual access to
Hogwarts) be a special advantage? Sure, but then why not make Snape kill
Dumbledore? Snape is more trustworthy, levelheaded, resourceful, and
powerful than Malfoy. Malfoy's "resourcefulness" seems to have been
limited to finding a way to get other DEs into the castle--if he was
going to need backup right from the outset, then why not set the task to
Snape, who wouldn't have needed backup? Obviously JKR's plot wouldn't
have worked this way, but Voldemort should have had Snape kill Dumbledore
back at the end of GoF--or at least the end of OotP, if he wanted to keep
his return secret until then.
2. Some characters expressed the idea that Draco's task was set mostly as a
punishment to Lucius. Fine, get his son killed somehow, but is Voldemort
really so bent on punishing Lucius that he is willing to wait for eight
months for Draco to figure out how to kill Dumbledore? If he had any
sense he would have stepped in after six or eight weeks, killed Draco for
his failure (still bad for Lucius!), and killed Dumbledore himself.
I think that any way you slice it, Voldemort made a major strategic error
not in having Dumbledore killed--that was a Good Idea--but in having him
killed by a pansy sixteen-year-old with less skill than just about any other
Death Eater.
--
Benjamin D. Esham
bdesham@xxxxxxxxx
"Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur."
(Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.)
lots of good points... especially Draco's position as a student
.
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