Is Voldemort really evil?

[Independent voter]

Have been thinking about moral relativism lately and I recently re-watched the Harry Potter series.

Say there is this tribe in Borneo who believes that you should only wipe your butt on a tree trunk, to use your hand is evil. You're thinking that using your hand works perfectly fine for wiping your butt and it's not evil at all. Evil in this case is relative to the beholder. The tribe thinks we're evil and we think they are silly.

Voldemort cavorts with snakes. Not his fault as he was born with an affinity to snakes and can speak their language. Sure the snake is a symbol of evil in Christianity, but the animal could've been a crow just as easily.

Voldemort researched forbidden knowledge in the library's restricted section. Forbidding technology is silly. Would you restrict the knowledge of gun powder? Did Noble restrict the knowledge of TNT? No, he made millions of dollars off of it. Who get's to call knowledge "restricted"? Didn't Voldemort do a service by exposing forbidden knowledge?

Voldemort killed Harry Potter's parents. Well, they were trying to kill him.

Voldemort plotted the death of Dumbledore. True but Dumbledore was plotting the death of Voldemort.

Voldemort was different. If we kill everyone who is different, we're in for a long day.

Voldemort caused a war and people died. People die in war all the time. Voldemort might've had reasons to declare a war.

I think using a fictional well know character like Voldemort is better than using someone like Hitler cause Hitler carries a lot of emotional baggage.

[Mectrid]

Of course he was evil, whether it was deemed right in his own mind doesn't make him not evil. People only wanted to take him down because he despised muggle borns and wanted to raise a genocide against them. If there was no plotting for genocide, no one would have been after his head.

So yeah, he was evil but his early life made him that way. TLDR: Racism is bad and we shouldn't force it upon our children growing up as they could easily become the next Voldemort.

[Deleted]

What is with the torture part and murdering infant childrens without need?

The racist supremacist part is of course too what makes him so much worse.

[Deleted]

Voldermort wanted to live forever. Even as a kid when he began to make enquiries as to the nature of horcruxes he learned he would have to split his soul to make one. He also learns that murder is a way of splitting ones soul. Even at this point he knew he would have to commit murder to achieve his goal.

Plotting deliberate murder to achieve ones goals is pretty evil in the traditional sense of the word.

The people who wanted him dead or defeated only wanted him dead as punishment for his past actions anyway.

[Draeth]

I think using a fictional well know character like Voldemort is better than using someone like Hitler cause Hitler carries a lot of emotional baggage.

The irony of ending this post with this sentence... Did you actually read the books you're talking about?

You do realize Voldemort is a Hitler allegory, right? He's a genocidal xenophobe who wants to kill all muggles and non-pureblooded wizards, which is the overwhelming majority of the population of Earth and even the majority of wizards.

He wasn't "different," he was a whiny, entitled sociopath who, much like Hitler, blamed his mundane problems on the existence of an entire people and decided they all had to die for it.

[Independent voter]

Didn't Tom Riddle, Voldemort's younger self, have a muggle parent?

Voldemort could of just been using the hatred of muggles to further his own agenda. Or if he hated muggles he hated the magic bloods too.

[Jester Joe]

Voldemort wasn't trying to kill Harry's parents, he was there to kill Harry himself because of the prophecy that Harry would be the one to kill him.

[zenkai]

He was essentially the Wizard Hitler, not 100% pure evil but evil enough to commit genocide and murder people to fulfill his dream. And he was a huge hypocrite as he wasn't pure blood.

[Megalonfaria]

The whole Parselmouth "prejudice" is real, and the books/movies covers it.

But the thing with Voldermort is that he actually attacked people he tough as inferiors and killed people to gain immortality... From an early age he screwed people around him, so yeah Rowling wrote him to be evil.

[Deleted]

Didn't Tom Riddle, Voldemort's younger self, have a muggle parent?

Voldemort could of just been using the hatred of muggles to further his own agenda. Or if he hated muggles he hated the magic bloods too.

You didn't read the books?

Most missconceptions you might hold might come from the movies where the backgrounds are a bit spongy.

[Independent voter]

Forcing your will on someone via death, and torture is evil in my eyes.

Dumbledore and Harry spied on people's memories and against the owner's will.

[Deleted]

Dumbledore and Harry spied on people's memories and against the owner's will.

When did they do that against an innocent bystander?

The pensieve are dumbledores memorys.

[zenkai]

Dumbledore and Harry spied on people's memories and against the owner's will.

Nothing that wasn't willingly given up

- - - Updated - - -

When did they do that against an innocent bystander?

The pensieve are dumbledores memorys.

Mostly, there where some from other wizards like the one wizard who went to investigate Voldemorts grandfather/uncle/mom

[Independent voter]

Nothing that wasn't willingly given up

Didn't they have Voldemort's memories? I don't think he would've agreed if asked.

[Deleted]

Didn't they have Voldemort's memories? I don't think he would've agreed if asked.

Dumbledore visited him in the orphanage, Harry got some by being a horcrux by accident and the diary was voldemort doing it himself.

[Independent voter]

Dumbledore visited him in the orphanage, Harry got some by being a horcrux by accident and the diary was voldemort doing it himself.

Well, they should've got a signed waiver before using the memories without permissions. Maybe a warrant from a judge.

[zenkai]

Didn't they have Voldemort's memories? I don't think he would've agreed if asked.

Sorry no, they was always of someone else's who were talking to him

[Jester Joe]

Didn't they have Voldemort's memories? I don't think he would've agreed if asked.

They had Horace Slughorn's memory that Harry used the good luck potion thing to successfully get from him, that ended up revealing he was the one who told Voldemort about horcruxes.

[Puupi]

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who hasn't watched any Harry Potter movies or read any of the books....

[Deleted]

Well, they should've got a signed waiver before using the memories without permissions. Maybe a warrant from a judge.

You are being silly in here are you really saying a genocidal, cruel, megalomanic person without any remorse or conscience was only missunderstand and a rebel who acted against the establishment by trying to claim world supremacy?

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who hasn't watched any Harry Potter movies or read any of the books....

This is true we didn't want to tell you but you are in fact the only person.