Lord Voldemort

* Movies
* Books

### Goals

Become the greatest sorcerer in the entire Wizarding World (partially succeeded; temporarily).
Create Horcruxes in order to to become immortal (temporarily succeeded).
Kill Albus Dumblemore (succeeded).
Kill Harry Potter at all costs to prevent his foretold defeat (temporarily succeeded; ultimately failed).
Become immortal.
Eliminate all Muggles and Muggle-Borns, and establish a pure-blood supremacist world (both failed).

### Most Entertaining Features

Being intelligent and manipulative.
Having an interesting, fleshed-out backstory behind his motives.
His hammy and amazing looking uses of magical power moments (films)

### Most Detestable Traits

Being incredible arrogance and megalomania to a degree that sets back his own plans.
Acting needlessly sadistic and petty.
Being bigoted against muggle-borns and hypocritical about hating half-bloods in spite of being one.

### Type of ED

Immortality-Seeking Sorcerer

**Tom Marvolo Riddle**, better known as **Lord Voldemort** or simply **Voldemort**, is the main antagonist of the *Harry Potter* franchise.

## His Qualities

### What Makes Him Entertaining?

* Even if this is just hindsight, due to the success of the *Harry Potter* franchise, Voldemort is an incredibly iconic villain.
* He was noted to be very charismatic during his years at Hogwarts, as he was able to sway countless people to his cause. He was even able to keep a good reputation at the school despite his crimes committed under the staff's noses. While he later resorted to fear more often than charisma, he is still considered by his followers to be a charismatic leader.
* Though not the most complex character, he has a surprisingly fleshed-out backstory. He was born from a witch who used the Imperius Curse to force a Muggle man to have sex with her under magical mind control, he grew up in an overcrowded orphanage, he held false assumptions about his parents, and he was disillusioned when he learned the truth. It was this upbringing that led to him believing that love has no value, death is to be avoided at all costs, Muggles are contemptable, and magic power solves everything. Even still, it is made clear by the narrative that Voldemort is evil by his own choice.
* He is a master manipulator who devised several great schemes across multiple books:
	+ As a child, he manipulated Horace Slughorn and used a convincing facade to hide his psychopathy from everyone except for Dumbledore.
	+ He convinced Quirrell to offer his body as a host despite being at his weakest at the time.
	+ His Horcrux, despite having the cognitive capacity of a teenager, cunningly left various clues for Harry to discover and targeted Harry's friends in order to manipulate him into coming to the Chamber.
	+ He tricked Harry into coming to the Ministry of Magic with fake images of Sirius being tortured. In the same book, he began systematically killing off members of the Ministry of Magic to silently take it over, and by the time of *Deathly Hallows* he successfully had the Ministry under his control.
	+ He set up a Xanatos Gambit that would kill either Draco or Dumbledore.
	+ Once armed with the Ministry's resources, he left traps for Harry and even had Nagini lay in wait at Godric's Hollow.
* He is very intelligent. Dumbledore noted that, even as a child, Tom Riddle was perhaps the most brilliant student educated at Hogwarts. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of magic which Dumbledore described as vaster than that of any other wizard alive.
* While his fighting prowess is mostly left to the imagination, he is still a powerful wizard who spams Killing Curses and brews potions that even Dumbledore cannot overcome. Because of his unprecedented psychopathy, everyone else is terrified of him, to the point they never said his name nor accepted anyone else doing so.
	+ While one could argue this is only because of the Taboo being around before Godric's Hollow, this doesn't add up because Dumbledore kept encouraging people to say the Dark Lord's name.
* His ultimate demise, though not played for sympathy, is played for pity. This is underscored where Dumbledore tells Harry to "pity the living, and above all, those who live without love."

### What Makes Him Detestable?

* He is a wholly evil psychopath who has no redeeming qualities whatsoever with an entire montage of definitive "Kick the Dog" moments that put his sadism, pettiness, and cruelty on display:
	+ Even as a little kid, he would use his powers to bully his fellow children, such as killing someone's pet rabbit and terrorizing two kids in a cave.
	+ He killed Myrtle just for telling him to go away after mystaking him for the girl that made fun of her glasses.
	+ He killed his entire family after learning his father was a muggle, even though his mother was a rapist and he was right to leave her.
	+ He cursed the Defence Against the Dark Arts post at Hogwarts out of spite. Even if Lockhart and Umbridge deserved their fates, Lupin most certainly did not.
	+ He drowned Barnaby Lee's pet.
	+ He almost got Kreacher killed in an horrifying way.
	+ On his way to the Potter house, he almost killed a random kid, and only stopped from doing it because he was busy.
	+ He made Quirrell murder unicorns, which considered the most innocent of all life forms in the wizarding world.
	+ To say his Horcrux blatantly exploited an innocent 11-year-old would be an understatement, and it enjoyed every moment of it.
	+ He tortured Bertha Jorkins out of sadism. In the same book, during his battle with Harry, Voldemort also went out of his way to taunt, mock, humiliate, and torment him.
	+ He tortured Garrick Ollivander, Charity Burbage, and Mykew Gregorovitch. He also used the Cruciatus Curse on Harry's dead body out of spite.
	+ He sent Draco Malfoy on a suicide mission just to psychologically torment Malfoy's parents.
	+ His Horcrux tortured Ron mentally and made him see a vision of his crush Hermione making out with his best friend Harry.
	+ He robbed Dumbledore's tomb.
	+ He had Nagini kill Snape even though he was (from Voldemort’s perspective at least) his most beloved confidante.
	+ Sometime before “The Deathly Hallows”, he slept with Bellatrix, who was a married woman, to conceiving an heir for himself.
* He has three villainous breakdowns in the books:
	1. He was terrified and enraged at unexpectedly being in *Priori Incantatem* with Harry, which allowed Harry to mentally overpower him.
	2. He killed several of his followers in a fit of rage after learning that Harry stole Hufflepuff's Cup and thus knew about the Horcruxes.
	3. He refused to believe that the Elder Wand belonged to Harry, and then furiously tried to kill Harry with said want, only for it to (expectedly) backfire and kill Voldemort instead.
* Even without his reckless suicide, the dude still took several measures to become his own worst enemy.
	1. Convinced that he's the greatest wizard who ever lived, Voldemort thinks magical talent is all that he needs to succeed, and is virtually incapable of understanding why things like love or friendship might be beneficial.
	2. He specifically chose Horcruxes that were famous artifacts out of his narcissism, which made them easy to find.
	3. He broke his promise to Snape to use *Petrificus Totalus* on Lily instead of killing her, resulting in her Sacrificial Protection.
	4. If his Horcrux just kept its mouth shut, Harry never would have thought to stab the diary with the Basilisk fang at all.
	5. Then he made a potion with Harry's blood to regenerate himself, making it impossible to kill him.
	6. He let Harry duel him despite having the exact same wand core (a feather from Fawkes), humiliating him in front of all his followers. The kid had a fourth-year education in the magical arts and he was so insecure he wanted to show off his ability to best vulnerable children in combat.
	7. He spent an entire year having a bizarre obsession with Trelawney's prophecy when he could've spent that time sneakily infiltrating the Ministry of Magic.
	8. He expected a teenager to be stronger than him and get the better of Dumbledore.
	9. He got played by Severus Snape on dozens of occasions.
	10. He is insistent upon killing Harry in person, just to prove that "the Boy Who Lived" isn't stronger than him and so he can absorb his Horcrux.
	11. He killed Gregorovitch when he could just buy a wand from him and solve the ever tedious issue of having twin cores with his nemesis.
	12. He thought explicitly of Ravenclaw's Diadem, alerting Harry to its existence. If he was as smart as he thought, he would have Nagini looked after by an Imperiused Canadian zookeeper until he could deal with Harry; if he hadn't kept her so close all the time, Dumbledore would've never assumed she was a Horcrux in the first place.
	13. He had Narcissa Malfoy confirm Harry's death because Thanos was way too lazy to just do it himself.
	14. He accidentally killed himself while trying to kill Harry with the Elder Wand, even though Harry had just explained to him how using the Elder Wand would backfire, since he wanted to prove Harry wrong. And in the film, he choked him by Transfiguring his cloak into octopus arms but then released him so he could kick and punch him. He was just in a silly mood at the time, it seemed.
* Even if Voldemort is not a Hate Sink, that doesn't stop him from being an idyllic epitome of detestability since J.K. Rowling's writing still frames him as pitiful, contemptable, and overall *far* from "magnificent." The narrative emphasizes how Voldemort's megalomania, desire for power, and disregard for the idea of love ultimately led to an ignoble and pathetic existence. His narcissism, bigotry, desire for power, pettiness, and (most of all) lack of love is frequently highlighted.

## External Links

* Lord Voldemort on the Villains Wiki
* Lord Voldemort on the Pure Evil Wiki

**Both Continuities:**
Nagini

**Book Only:**
Mundungus Fletcher

**Film Only:**
Bellatrix Lestrange

**Other:**
Ismelda Murk