Here’s Proof That Voldemort Is Sort Of Stupid
Voldemort is supposed to be a genius. Graduated at the top of his class, got all the OWLs and NEWTs, prefect and Head Boy, destined to be the next Minister of Magic, pushed the boundaries of the magical world further than they’ve ever been pushed before… you’ve heard the whole spiel.
Sure, we know he’s not emotionally intelligent – he can’t love, and he always seems to forget about things like “thoughts” and “feelings” – but brainpower, cold hard academic mastery, is supposed to be his strong point. He devises ingenious protective systems for his Horcruxes, invents the spell to bring himself back from the purgatory of losing his body, puts a “taboo” on his own name that seems to be able to break pretty much every other protective enchantment, and creates the entire Dark Mark communications system, which is basically a skin-based, always-on cellular network.
He’s a genius. But somehow, to an extent that’s almost shocking, he’s also really dumb.
When Voldemort is trying to track down the Elder Wand, what happens? He tracks it to Gregorovitch, then to Grindelwald. Then he interrogates Grindelwald about where the wand went next, and when Grindelwald won’t reveal the answer, Voldemort gets so annoyed that he kills Grindelwald – even though the answer he needs is literally on the back of a Chocolate Frog card.
When Voldemort assigns Malfoy to kill Dumbledore, likewise, what happens? The plan succeeds, even though it was supposed to fail; Dumbledore reveals to Draco that he knew about the plan the entire time; Dumbledore does absolutely nothing to protect himself and makes no attempt to escape; Snape shows up and kills him. There should have been about 19 red flags!
“Huh,” Voldemort should have thought to himself. “Dumbledore seemed perfectly fine with dying – I wonder why that was?” But instead, he seems not to worry about it at all, apparently assuming that his ingenious plan must have just worked out even better than he expected.
The examples really don’t end. Voldemort thinks that no one could possibly know he’s related to the Gaunts because he had “hidden the connection,” even though Dumbledore knows his middle name, which isn’t exactly rocket science. He assigns the Carrows, probably his dumbest and most brutal Death Eaters, to be the chief teachers and disciplinarians at Hogwarts, which seems completely unnecessary and disproportionately likely to incite rebellion – you know, when little Jimmy gets home for the summer and says, “Hey, Mom, did you know we practiced the Cruciatus Curse on each other in detention?” Voldy sends a group of Death Eaters to the Ministry to retrieve the prophecy, but he somehow lets them get it into their heads that they can’t use “Accio” after Harry has removed it from its shelf – and sure enough, that plan fails too.
Yes, examples of Voldemort’s stupidity abound. But there’s one in particular that I want to highlight: one that proves beyond doubt that Voldemort is absolutely terrible at critical thinking.
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, we learn that on the night Voldemort came back to Hogwarts for a job interview, he hid the Diadem of Ravenclaw – which he’d turned into a Horcrux – in the Room of Requirement in its capacity as the Room of Hidden Things. From Harry’s description in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, here’s what the Room of Hidden Things looks like:
“He was standing in a room the size of a large cathedral, whose high windows were sending shafts of light down upon what looked like a city with towering walls, built of what Harry knew must be objects hidden by generations of Hogwarts inhabitants. There were alleyways and roads bordered by teetering piles of broken and damaged furniture …there were thousands and thousands of books … there were winged catapults and Fanged Frisbees … there were chipped bottles of congealed potions, hats, jewels, cloaks … what looked like dragon eggshells, corked bottles … several rusting swords, and a heavy, bloodstained axe.” (HBP 526)
Meanwhile, in Book 7, here’s how Voldemort remembers hiding the Diadem:
“He alone knew where in Hogwarts he had stowed the Horcrux, because he alone had plumbed the deepest secrets of that place.” (DH 550)
So basically, Voldemort runs into a room where students have been hiding things for centuries, to the point where there are mountains and mountains of hidden items that are starting to turn into a city, and thinks to himself: “No one else could possibly use this place to hide something.”
I don’t really know what more to say because I think the point proves itself. In the end, Harry and Dumbledore defeat Voldemort through the power of love and loyalty. But it certainly helps that throughout their long battle, Voldemort spends a lot of time doing things that are really stupid.
