There is no good or evil. There is only power, and those too weak not to seek it.
Come Friday, the legacy of Harry Potter will end. And along with it will end the years of anticipation that preceded the release of any new film or book in the series. And as we prepare for this final showdown, I cannot help but feel sad and gloomy. Yes, it the end of Lord Voldemort too.
Well, I know I will be doing an infinite amount of injustice to the entire Harry Potter clan by choosing Lord Voldemort as a better character over him, but then anyone who’s read the books would agree that J.K.Rowling always gave Voldemort’s character that extra bit of depth which Harry Potter simply lacked. Accepted, Harry Potter is the hero and all, and that he was the Chosen One, not dear old Voldy, but almost as if by design, these very things worked in favour of Lord Voldemort for me. He rocked and did so unpredictably. You never knew what he would do next. And though he was evil, he was just so awesomely evil.
I am certainly not the only person who feels that Voldemort was the greatest character of the entire Harry Potter series. But I haven’t really thought much about whether he is really the greatest character our generation has seen. But of one thing I am sure. I wouldn’t be able to think of another alternative without having to rack my brains for hours together with a critical mind focussed on making Lord Voldemort sound any lesser than the most evil, the most focussed and brilliant wizard to have studied in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry since Albus Dumbledore himself.
Voldemort’s rise to greatness (in my mind and in his own life) all happened in the course of the Half Blood Prince which I believe is the best book of the series, primarily because it tells us the story of how some half-blood at an orphanage, quite imaginatively called Tom Marvolo Riddle (yeah, ‘I am Lord Voldemort’, one more Ulti thing about him), becomes the most feared wizard of all times. When Ollivander says in The Philosopher’s Stone, “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was great.Terrible yes, but Great!”, he certainly makes a point. After all, the colloquial his ‘terror’ is such, people don’t like to call him by his name even years after he was at large and prefer calling him “You-Know-Who”.
Rowling is usually accused of deriving too many plots, subplots and characters from the Lord of the Rings (which is quite a different masterpiece altogether), but at least in that respect, I think Lord Voldemort wins over Harry Potter and Co. Albus Dumbledore was like totally Gandalf (even the actor who played both roles) and Harry Potter was a kind of dull shadow of Frodo. But then Lord Voldemort was certainly a more effective and detestable negative character than that Sauron guy who for me simply wasn’t complete enough, quite literally so – the only part of Sauron we could possibly fear was his eye (there again, not even both eyes, just one).
While talking of the greatness of Lord Voldemort, it would be totally unfair to leave out Ralph Fiennes from the discussion. Across the globe, Harry Potter fans identify the evil that Lord Voldemort represented with the face of Ralph Fiennes, the actor who played the character in the last few parts. And that has been one of the significant achievements of the franchise. His facial make up (the slits for nostrils especially), his voice modulation, his delicate handling of the character and his appearance of pure evil, all were right out of the book. Having said that, the movies have always been too hollow in their portrayal of Lord Voldemort. The only book in which the focus was on Lord Voldemort was Half Blood Prince and quite contrary to the book, the movie was the worst of the lot. The filmmakers handled his part very lightly, almost as if to suggest he was insignificant. And that deservingly failed terribly.
Overall, it comes down to what I said earlier. Whether you like Harry Potter, or like Lord Voldemort, on July 15th, it all ends. Yeah, Rowling keeps speculating it hasn’t ended yet, but still, it’s been too good to last any longer. But certainly, Lord Voldemort will not return this time (unless its a prequel). It’s certainly a painful adieu to the boy who lived and more so, to You-Know-Who.
