5 things the Harry Potter movies got wrong
1. Voldemort flaking away
We can’t fully explain why, of all the terrible changes in the Harry Potter series, this one makes us the most angry. But here we are.
The entire point of the Harry Potter series is that Voldemort is just any old guy. He’s powerful, but he’s not more powerful than Albus Dumbledore. His quest for power rests on a good pseudonym and a bigoted idea that flatters the Wizarding Elite while looking like populism. He could be you, or me, or the President of the United States. He’s not exceptional.
In fact, he’s quite the opposite. Wizards have a lengthened lifespan, if Albus Dumbledore is anything to go by, and Voldemort died aged 71. He’d have had a longer life if he hadn’t spent almost all of it trying to make become immortal. He’s honestly the most useless wizard, bar that one who ended up with a buffalo on his chest.
He’s not the all-powerful deity he wants to be. He’s just Tom Riddle. You wouldn’t believe that if you saw how he died in the movies though, would you?
It’s one of the most haunting parts of the Deathly Hallows book, and it’s done in a single sentence. Lord Voldemort just falls to the floor, lifeless. It’s a no frills death — he’s just gone like anyone else, because that’s all he is.
In the films, for some unknown reason, Voldemort is hit by the Killing Curse and immediately flakes away as if he’s been alive for 1000 years. Again, he’s 71.
He ends up floating away like a binbag in the wind, and while he is objectively a trash person, that isn’t the point! The point is that he’s mortal! Having him flake away makes him seem inhuman and extraordinary when he’s anything but.
There’s also the flawed logic of it. J.K. Rowling wrote it so Voldemort would be killed by his own hubris as much as any plan Harry came up with, and so he believes his own brilliance is enough to keep his Horcruxes secret.
If Voldemort becomes less human each time one of his Horcruxes is destroyed, to the point where he can feel it when they are, then surely he would have known Harry and Dumbledore’s plan sooner.
Destroying the Horcruxes makes Voldemort more human, not less so. Making him flakier than a pastry ignores the eeriness of watching a man so evil, with a legend so strong that people dare not utter his name aloud, thud to the ground dead like anybody else.
Voldemort lives his life myth-making — his death should destroy it for good.
Next: 20 reasons the Harry Potter movies are Christmas movies
What’s your biggest Potter pet peeve?