Voldemort, Voldemort, Voldemort… you’ve got some lessons to learn if you’re truly going to be the Dark Lord of the Wizards.

In the final book of the Harry Potter series, Lord Volderface dies at the hand of a wizard many years his junior and dissolves into a haze of magic dust. His death signals the true end of the Death Eaters and the rise of a new age in the wizarding world.

However, before he died Lord Voltageman managed to undermine the entire wizarding society, amass an army of magical beasts and where to find them, and make hundreds of people simply disappear… like magic.

Considering his rise to power occurs over a three year period and that he’s dead one year after becoming the world’s Sith lord is kind of crazy. Usually we have madmen and madwomen controlling countries for decades before they’re usurped.

So, what did Vaultboy do wrong and how can we help him win?

Well we can help Vantagemorgue win his cause pretty easily by just changing a few of his egotistical ways, but what exactly was Vegamask trying to accomplish in the first place?

Unlike Grindelwald, who wanted to put Muggles under the biggest boot heel he could find, Vaultermop’s main goals were to kill Harry Potter, kill Harry Potter, and kill Harry Potter.

His ultimate goal was killing the Boy Who Lived and when he achieved it all he could do was gloat about how he was stronger than everyone else. His other goals were purging wizarding society of muggle-born wizards and anyone who would seek to interact with them, but it doesn’t take a genius to see that in a possible bid for world dominance his forces wouldn’t stand a chance without a higher population.

There just isn’t enough “pureblood” left to successfully create a new generation of witch and wizard soldiers. Plus there’s some evidence that severe inbreeding like with the Gaunt family can have some seriously weird outcomes when magic is put into the mix.

Ok, so you’re strong and semi-immortal, but that doesn’t stop other wizards and witches from trying to assassinate you if you’re simply going to turn into a screaming mass of fog and disappear like you did before.

While sneaky, underhanded, and pretty good at what he does, Volnuttmaster leaves a bit to be desired as a leader.

What he should have done

For starters, put a little more trust in Lucius Malfoy. The slithering, greasy haired father of Draco Malfoy is one of Mouldyvort’s most powerful followers, but perhaps not the most loyal.

Lucius threw away a Horcrux to avoid getting in trouble with the Ministry of Magic, he didn’t try hard enough to get the prophecy from Harry Potter, and he also didn’t bother to look for his Dark Lord when he was defeated in the First Wizarding War… but he’s still useful.

He has clout within the Ministry of Magic, people respect his family’s name, and he sits upon more magical boards than the Surfing Club at Hogwarts. The point is, by alienating Lucius Malfoy, by putting him into harm’s way, and by getting him sent to Azkaban, you lost your King-side rook.

At the Battle of the Department of Mysteries, Lucius is captured along with a number of other Death Eaters and sent to Azkaban. Once Vampiricmountain releases him from Azkaban, he starts to ridicule him and take more power away from Lucius. In what is perhaps the ultimate immasculation, the Death Eaters also start to use his home as a base and they decide to send his son on a suicide mission to kill Dumbledore.

I would daresay that he did more to advance the cause of Pure Blooded wizards than Vitaminman ever did when he was in power, and he did it through cunning not militarism. This brings me to the first major problem with Visualmud’s plan for his personal war with the muggle borns.

Money = Power

Gringots, the Wizard Bank! Aint no safer place. Not one. Except maybe Hogwarts. And yeah, bald snake man tries his best to take over government services and publications, but he doesn’t seem to exert much control over his world’s banks.

It’s common knowledge in this magical world that goblins run the banks, but wouldn’t it be better if humans did? I mean, you can control humans in a way that you simply can’t with goblins who have long held a grudge against witches and wizards.

If you paid attention in History of Magic, you’d know that during the goblins worked against the Ministry of Magic for their rights to wield magic, but were ultimately denied this privilege as per Code Three of the Code of Wand Use… blah, blah, blah.

Basically, goblins hate you and they control all of the money. That means their bank gets the dividends of all the wizard mortgages, witch loans, and half-giant debt owed to them through interest. If you were Vortexmouse, you’d be wondering what would be the best way to leverage your power without having to resort to building up a military.

A wizard council member on some board giving you trouble? Up the interest rate on his mortage. McGonnagal wants more funds to buy magic desks at Hogwarts? Deny her the right to take out a loan. Weasley twins trying to get bailed out of bankruptcy? Foreclose their shop.

Whoever has the most money also has the most power. Unfortunately, the Death Eaters seem to have gotten this formula mixed up by using all of their power to gain control over the government first instead of being a little more insidious and taking control of the world’s economy.

Horcruxes

The moon. Take whatever Horcrux you’ve got in your pocket and put it on the moon. Heck, it might take a brave dark magic user to sacrifice their life in order to transport it up there, but good luck to Harry Potter in using his snake power to find that one.

Vanillameter’s plan to make himself the most powerful wizard in the world was to seek immortality. He split his soul into seven parts and placed them into a number of hidden objects including some famous wizarding objects. It mostly has to do with the Dark Lord’s egotistical side of wanting to corrupt all of wizardom, but it made him an easy target.

Seriously, Rowena Raven Claw’s Lost Diadem of Rowena Raven Claw? That was one of the items you chose to hide your soul in? Maybe it’s like Elder Scrolls rules and every magic item has a different charge level it can take, but there’s still something dumb about putting your soul into a series of items that fit into a pattern.

The horcruxes are: Tom Riddle’s Diary, Marvolo Gaunt’s Ring, Helga Hufflepuff’s Cup, Salazar Slytherin’s Locket, Rowena Ravenclaw’s Diadem, Nagini, and Harry Potter (accidentally).

Wouldn’t it be a better list of it was: Tom Riddle’s Diary, Marvolo Gaunt’s Ring, Helga Hufflepuff’s Cup, Salazar Slytherin’s Locket, Rowena Ravenclaw’s Diadem, Nagini, Harry Potter, and a Tea Kettle.

There are thousands upon thousands of tea kettles made each year. I defy all of the wizard world to find my soul if it was hidden in some random tea kettle now residing in some muggle’s house in London. Maybe because of the evil presence it would make some awful-tasting tea, but then it would just get thrown away and tossed into a landfill making it even harder to find.

Corrupt Harry Potter

Yeah, you.

Villagemortage has an unhealthy obsession with killing Harry Potter, the boy who originally defeated him years ago. It gets to the point where he’s fully able to revive himself from his horrible man-fetus self, but he won’t go through with it unless he has Harry’s blood. It becomes a debilitating obsession.

What if he didn’t do that and rose to power like in Harry’s second year at school?

Imagine that, Voldemort could have had an entire two-year heads start on his plans and he could have undermined most of Harry’s education directly instead of relying on idiots like Barty Crouch Junior. He could have been back to his full power and all he’d have to do is make sure Harry didn’t touch him.

Heck, why not start even earlier?

Verymark met Harry Potter right when he was 11-years-old at the Leaky Cauldron, so why not just zap him there? You see him standing right in front of you! Just take out your wand and *boom* he’s dead. Sure, you’d have to quit your job as the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor’s headmate, but that would be one big nuisance out of your way.

The point is: without Harry finding the horcruxes would be impossible. After years of search, Dumbledore only manages to find two and one places a curse on him that will kill him in a year’s time. If the most powerful wizard in the world can only find two, what chance does Neville Longbottom, the other Chosen One, have of finding these magic items without snake powers?

Also, Dark Wizards can bewitch magical objects, so why not just bewitch the Sorting Hat to place Harry Potter into Slytherin? Quirrel was right there during Harry’s acceptance thing into the magical school. He had a great chance to confound the Sorting Hat.

In the best case scenario, he’s so brainwashed after seven years in the house that he believes all muggle-born witches and wizards should die. In the worst case, he drops out of school because he’s bullied so much making him an easy target as he doesn’t have a magic education.

I guess Dumbledore could have apparated next to Vapormuffin and just thrown Harry at him to make him dissolve into a muddle of Dark Lord slime.

Freaking dragons

You think I’m kidding, but I’m not. I am dead serious… kind of.

Well you have to admit that a whole horde of dragons is a lot scarier than a bunch of spiders, some giants, useless chavs with wands, and the other idiots Valuemart ends up getting for his dark army.

Why not just go over to Romania, mind control a whole bunch of dragon tamers, get them to fly in a whole lotta dragons right into the middle of the Battle at Hogwarts, and they’ll just eat everyone. They’re resistant to magic, they’re huge, and they breathe fire.

As we also saw at Gringotts, dragons can also be tamed. Starting right during his first reign, the Death Eaters should have been training dragon-riding soldiers who could have used these winged beasts to do their dirty work.

This one is more of a matter of hindsight is 20-20, but it certainly makes you wonder why Voldemort chose Nagini to make one of his horcruxes. Wouldn’t it have been smarter to have made a dragon into one or even that basilisk in the basement of Hogwarts?

Open a competing school called Hogwartz

I know, right?

Do you know how long it took me to learn that Hogwarts was actually spelt with an “S” and not a “Z”? It took a while and I’m not exactly proud of myself, but imagine if witches and wizards made the same mistake. You could have a bunch of students coming to your evil school from platform 10 3/4…

Well maybe giving your school a similar name isn’t the right way to go about this, but the principle of the idea is sound. You want to teach people about the importance of blood purity, killing all muggles, and world dominance, open your own school.

Witches and wizard parents from around the world would line up to send their kid to a place where people like Lucius Malfoy would be headmaster because of the connections it could provide their son and/or daughter with in the future. They’re probably also muggle-hating arses, so they could find other arses to hang out with and that would probably make their childrens’ lives easier than at Hogwarts where the Slyherins are hated, for the most part.

It’s also a good way to stick it right to Dumbledore who made Hogwarts a safe haven for the people Valuablemortar hates the most. His school would be for the select few that the Dark Lord would deem worthy enough to attend and they would be under his control forever. I also don’t think it’s illegal to start your own school like this in the wizarding world, so it’s something he could do publicly while reaping in the money from tuition.

And this idea of competition is something that applies across the board in the wizarding world. They have one bank, they have one type of animal to deliver mail, and they only have one school. Free-market capitalism is where the heart of darkness truly lies.

***

I want to stress that I don’t condone the maniacal actions of Vomitmouse, but I can say that if it were down to me to become the Dark Lord I think things would have gone much better.

While Tom Riddles sticks to the shadows, his rise to power is far too quick and far too open to the public. He should have bided his time, whittled down the Order of the Phoenix, and played the long game instead of looking to short-term solutions to his immediate problems. Heck, he’s immortal, so why not just wait for Harry to get a little older and a little less powerful and then kill him?

There are almost too many ways Voldemort could have succeeded in his crazy plans.