1) When Harry was a baby.
2) In the Goblet of Fire book following Cedric Diggory's death at the graveyard (it didn't work because of something called priori incantatum).
3) When Harry was fighting Voldemort in the Department of Mysteries, he attempted to use the Killing Curse again. It was prevented when Dumbledore arrived and animated a golden statue to cover Harry and shield him from the curse.
4) When Voldemort tried to kill Harry in the Forbidden Forest (Narcissa Malfoy lied to Voldy saying Harry was dead in the hope of being able to be reunited with her son Draco).
5) And again in the final battle where his spell rebounds upon himself, which at this point is just stupid because it sure as hell would have occurred to me that using this particular spell will probably not work since it hasn't worked during the last four times I tried it.
Seriously. How many times do you need to try and do something and it doesn't work and then you just keep trying to do it the same way? Anyway, it's not that I think these books or this story is particularly bad. It's just that I think Voldemort had an IQ of about 80, which means that despite all of his supposed natural talent, he really should have been riding the "short train" to school.
Thoughts? I know all of you "Lovers of Harry Potter" are probably in shock out there that I would dare call J.K. Rowling's penultimate villain "stupid," but get over it. At the end of the day, Voldemort was as dumb as a box of rocks.
Stupidity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results...
ReplyDeleteI don't think any of the fans would be offended. They find him to be stupid anyway. Take a look at "Potter Puppet pals" on You tube. you will see him there. Have fun.
ReplyDeleteIf he was in X-Men, he would keep trying to attack Magneto with stuff made of metal
ReplyDeleteDid you already post this a while back? Or was it one with just a similar theme?
ReplyDeleteTeehee--ah, Grasshopper, you forget the stuff Voldemort was made of. He had to prove to his followers he was A SUPERIOR WIZARD to Harry Potter and his followers despised ALL THINGS Muggle. He needed to kill Harry with HIS magic. He may have been wiser to go the Nagini route like he did with Snape, but that wouldn't have had the same publicity effect.
ReplyDelete@Pat: No, I made comments about it to people, and then a post on io9 convinced me I had to make a point about it in a blog post.
ReplyDeleteVoldemort was not one of the great villains of all time. He just couldn't seem to do anything new, could he?
ReplyDeletelol...when you're reading the books, it seems such a long time between attempts that you miss this fact. Seeing it condensed like this makes it all clear. Stoopid :)
ReplyDeletei mean, most of them you can kind of write off. After the priori incantatum mishap, he probably just thought he needed to make sure to hit him while Harry was not trying to deflect. Hence, he kept trying.
ReplyDeleteBut after he "killed" harry in the forest and Harry still lives, that's when he really should have tried something different. Like, dude, you hit this kid twice witht the killing curse and it didn't kill him. Take a hint.
But also, what Hart said.
Maybe I read one of your comments then.
ReplyDeleteHey, not every one can be the Winchester bros. I never really thought about this. I like HP but I'm not one of those super fans so I guess I'm agreeing with you.
ReplyDeleteHaving a father-in-law who is a criminal attorney has reaffirmed that criminals continually do the same things over and over. That's why most of them get caught.
ReplyDeleteI think they call that the definition of insanity.
ReplyDeleteI guess badass doesn't mean smart. Look at the Joker and the Penguin. They never outright killed Batman. As a kid I wondered why. I knew it was because the show would end, but the elaborate plots to kill the Batman seemed dumb.
ReplyDeleteVoldemort believed in his own infallibility. That was his major downfall. He couldn't understand how he could fail. Which is how he failed in the end. (But yeah, I hadn't thought of the whole killing curse thing before.)
ReplyDeleteCome on Mike, if it worked the first five times, we wouldn't have a seven book series. Duh.
ReplyDeleteYou make a good point, but then a super villain does need to have some sort of weakness to bring him down. What always got me was how addled Dumbledore was. Dear God, he'd have hired Satan to teach Potions if Satan had applied. There was absolutely no quality control in hiring at Hogwarts.
ReplyDeleteOr you can stay with the magic of the story and just be like, Voldemort was too egocentric to find out how to use a muggle weapon such as a gun. There are plot holes and annoying bits in all fiction. If you want the story to remain entertaining for you, just fill in the blanks with your own creativity.
ReplyDeleteYour point about the killing curse repetition is really sharp, but I think Hart had the best reply. And maybe Voldemort insisted on using the same curse over and over because he was furious that Harry wouldn't succumb to it as an infant, so Voldemort was determined ever since then to show Harry who's boss. That and yes, the curse thing is a plot hole.
ReplyDeleteMaybe he really needed the closure when he killed the boy who lived with the curse that let the boy live. . . which. . . yeah. Not the best move.
ReplyDelete