Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Voldemort's Motives: Is He Right?

The answer to this question is "No".

But it's not a solid, definite, unarguable "No".

Anyone who has read the books knows about what Voldemort wants, on a basic level. Exterminate the Muggles, rule at least Britain, subjugate not-Purebloods.

I've already talked about how pure the Purebloods are, but in the future, I'll probably prove myself wrong, or not-as-right, so we'll talk under the basis that Purebloods are generally stronger than those who aren't, but only generally, with lots of room to wiggle around in power levels.

*totally not foreshadowing something*

As I spend unhealthy amounts of time exploring the depths of internet fanfiction, I find this:
[About the old habit of burning those accused of witchcraft in the 1600s and earlier, from the viewpoint of Voldemort.]

"Do you know how to cast a fireproofing charm?
Neither did most of the magical children in the middle ages. Neither do many adult wizards. There have always been many, many more Muggles than magical folk, and it can be dangerous for us if they find out - and it also scares them to know how much more powerful we are...."

While, yes, witches in particular were burned at the stake, as the story of Salem goes - although, apparently, they were actually stoned, but the same idea rather applies here - real magical people might be able to make themselves fire/stone proof, but the children wouldn't, which is perhaps the reason why the Statute of Secrecy was even made, so as protect magical children and magical adults from the perceived despicable Muggles.

But that was over 3 centuries prior to the events in Harry Potter. With the induction of many Muggleborns into the Wizarding society, the mindset of Muggles themselves being entirely bad and prenatally prone to evil or whatever should be gone.

I'm not going to argue my personal beliefs about human nature here, or anywhere, generally.

But it's a safe assumption to gather that initial dislike towards Muggles came from witch-burning practices in the 15-1600s.

In terms of newer ideas about the dislike towards Muggles particularly by Voldemort and Death Eaters...Riddle was raised in a paltry and fairly horrid orphanage, and knew from a young age that he was special among the Muggle orphans, so that's where his hatred came from as a personal opinion.

But other Death Eaters very undoubtedly had such concrete reasons for their dislike.

Or do they?

From the same source:
"[The Ministry of Magic] makes Muggles seem childish and harmless, and they ban useful magic from witches and wizards. And when Muggles do learn of our world, when they don't bother to learn about our traditions or our culture - when they make demands - when they complain that our rituals seem strange to them - when they say this is immoral or that seems wrong - the Ministry races to abase itself before them. They enforce their insanity against our people. They can't give in fast enough...because any one of those Muggles could expose us. So the Ministry scampers like frightened rats under the floorboards, cowers for their approval - and slights the very people it should protect. We, who are the naturally superior beings!" (From Here, close to the very bottom)

If you don't know, Yule, or Yuletide, is a Pagan holiday in the wintertime. We openly know that witches and wizards used to celebrate this holiday due to how there is a Yule Ball in Goblet of Fire which is an obvious nod towards that holiday. Similar holidays are Samhain, the equivalent of Halloween, and celebrating the Winter and Summer Solstices and the Autumn and Spring Equinoxes, with the Spring Equinox perhaps becoming Easter, as the modern holiday is the Sunday after the equinox.

Heck, a few internet sources say that the old Christian Church made Christmas the time it did because it would overlap with other Pagan celebrations:
"December 25th might have also been chosen because the Winter Solstice and the ancient pagan Roman midwinter festivals called 'Saturnalia' and 'Dies Natalis Solis Invicti' took place in December around this date - so it was a time when people already celebrated things." (From Here)

Whether this is true or not is debatable, but the time did match up with other Pagan celebrations, and if that is true, it was likely so as hopefully get converts from the Pagans themselves, for having similar holidays. For the record, Yuletide did happen on or near the Winter Solstice, which nicely lines up to right by Christmas; in 2015, the Solstice is December 21st. Samhain is actually on October 31st, and lasts through the night, which fits exactly to modern Halloween. And, for the record, how do we get from the birth of Jesus - Christmas - to, like, trees and lights and presents and fat old guys earning figurative awards for breaking into people's houses? To steal Pagan followers, obviously.

Merry Christmas?

But admittedly Voldemort makes an excellent point here. Muggleborns would be very likely to get confused about the Yule/Christams distinction, especially earlier on, when people were more naturally religious. The cultural difference between those who did and did not grow up with magic, too, would cause complaints, because the entire legal system is different, as is the government, currency, technology, and even lifestyle. Part of the reason people tend to avoid moving out of the country is because of changes in all these things, except the difference here is that suddenly everyone can use magic.

That's like going from America to Britain, and then realizing that they have entirely different words for essentially every word in the dictionary, or that they just don't have computers, like at all.

The former is true, actually. There's some funny comedy videos about the confusion over the word 'sausage'.

So, yes, there's going to be complaints.

Disliking the Muggle culture isn't entirely confounding either. We don't exactly have much enviable when the witches and wizards can Levitate while we are only just starting to be able to do that, with Electro-Hydrodynamic Thrust. (and like, magnets, but that doesn't work very well for hover-boards. A SciShow video about that here!)

Comparatively, yes, Muggle technology still can't completely outshine wizard magic, although, hey, we have electricity, so we can be lazy. And also we've seen the surface of other planets and have stood on the Moon, and I'm pretty sure you can't Apparate to the Moon, just saying. And even if you could, there's no oxygen there, and they don't have space suits, nor any foreknowledge about the lack of oxygen in space...so wizards would explode on the Moon.

But the lack of attention by wizards on that sort of thing doesn't explain it either, since, again, Hermione would know about the lunar landing, as would other Muggleborns.

The facts just don't add up, really. Why isn't there a more warm disposition towards the majority population of the Earth? And no, I don't me to be talking about the majority v. minority power struggles, it's just that the hatred is unfounded, like really unfounded.

While, yes, ideas of Blood Purity rather point towards Muggles being inferior, and that those with magic are in fact, naturally superior, perhaps just this idea itself is just the cause? Wizards do have a history of mis-treatment of non-humans.

Whatever reasons Voldemort and those who support him and even those who don't for the anti-Muggle dogma, I'd hope it's singularly based on the fact that the Muggleborns have modified their traditions. In the end, though, perhaps if they were informed in the first place, or if there was, you know, a Wizarding Studies class for those Muggleborns, rather like there is a Muggle Studies class, then perhaps there wouldn't be complaints in the first place! In the end, it's the wizards' negligence that seems to be the culprit, and it's wizards' negligence that has never fixed the problem.

Or it's just something that we don't know about.

It's alright to dislike them on principle of them forcibly changing your and your life, but Voldemort takes this hatred to a new level. Murder isn't going to fix this problem.

That is all.

--Shiizumi Valé, or WillowEye10329, now signing off.

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