#degrades himself and just generally both treating him like the worst character‚ while simultaneously taking the bite out of him

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Why do you think Voldemort never hooked up with another woman but Bella ? Were his choices limited to his ranks ? Were most women afraid of him ? Did he find Bella convenient since she was his DE and married? Don't men get bored with too much devotion ? She let him know how much she cared about him . Was she simply good in bed so he didn't need to look elsewhere? Was her being married another thing he found convenient? Was she convenient or special ? How was he as a 'lover' in your opinion ?

well, you provoke me and i oblige - or as i like to call it: the 100th novel-length essay on bellamort.

the reasons that in my eyes ultimately made bellatrix “the only one” for voldemort are many and various, but at the end of the day it has everything to do with who and how i think he was as a person.

as i said many times before and i feel the duty to keep specifying, over the years i started to consider these characters in a more adult and complex way, imagining them as real life persons and not fairy-tale villains and that’s where my analyses of them come from. sadly what jkr told us about their relationship is close to nothing, so all we have here is thought processes and fervent opinions about their few, filtered by harry’s eyes and painfully public interactions.

now, voldemort’s character, if looked at beyond the pure ideal of power and darkness that he so carefully built around himself, is clearly a human being as deep as the very pit of hell and full of contradictions, twistedness, beauty and voids to fill.

bear with me, because you cannot really understand what i think bellatrix was for him without explaining how i see his psychology first, which i think many many times is overly simplyfied and excused with a shrug and a “well, he’s evil”:

voldemort was born with a genius intelligence and magical talent, the most handsome looks and yet he was not only completely and utterly alone, but also a completely broken human since birth. his mother porpuselly conceived him putting his muggle father under a love potion, so he’s basically the direct offspring of the worst kind of rape: not only his mother abused his father physically, forcing him to have sex with her without his consent, but even emotionally, because she forced him to have feelings for her - as untrue as they might have been. not only that, but voldemort was clearly unloved by his parents from the very start, abandoned by them both in different ways before he was even capable to remember them. he had then been raised and abused since the most tender age in a filthy orphanage where everyone shunned and feared and made him believe he was insane, treating him god’s knows how badly, because he was able to do “things” no one else could, things that made people uncomfortable (think at how bigots can abuse children nowadays with the excuse of possession without magic or the devil even existing, i wouldn’t be surprised if tom as a child was put under monstrous rituals with the hope of exorcising him, it was after all the 30s in a really degraded and poor environment). imagine the hate, the resentment, the fear, the basic instinct to survive and only caring about himself that must have started to boil inside of him in the most dangerous of ways. he surely had the inclination to became what he ultimately became from birth, but goodness how life helped him. he learnt to defend and avenge himself from such a hostile world from the very start, it was a matter of surviving or succumbing. and then, at some point of his young age, he finally started to master and taste something that made him feel good, that made him feel right about himself, he started to enjoy the feeling of being in control of his abusers, of manipulating them, of hurting them, of taking what he wanted from them, the feeling of power - and moreover, a power that directly originated from inside himself - his power. he obviously started to consider himself his own savior, he started to intimately feel special, better than anyone, superior. at the same time he started to hate muggles, because muggles had been his first real source of utter isolation and pain (thing reinforced by the discovery, many years later, that his father, the reason he had to go through all that, was one of them). then, out of the blue, he was told that “more” he had so strong inside of himself was indeed magic. imagine the feeling of validation he must have felt about his uniqueness and superiority, imagine how powerfully his addiction to this wondrous thing he could finally name must have taken definitive root inside of him. magic became his everything, his religion, his purpose, his assurance of never having to feel weak, vulnerable or defenseless ever again. magic was the fuel that alimented everything he literally had in the world and that he ever felt comfortable to ever want (uniqueness, power, superiority, extraordinariness). human relationships were ludicrously out of the question in his eyes since he was a child. human beings were not reliable nor trustworthy. human beings were an utter disappointment, everyone was beneath him and no one really deserved his consideration anyway. magic was everything that really mattered. without magic, he was literally nothing - or at least that’s what life had convinced him of. an existence of his not desperately clutched on and inextricably intertwined with it was not something he even dared to fathom for himself. if you understand this, if you understand the perversion of his dependency towards magic, everything he ever did becomes painfully clear. magic for him was something so fundamental, so deeply mingled with his very being (and this is probably also the reason he indeed was the most powerful wizard that ever lived), that growing up he became more and more desperately obsessed about preserving and strengthening it. this is the root of his every choice, from venturing into the dark arts turning out completely disfigured but incredibly more powerful, to believing he could actually be the first immortal in history, to his entire anti-muggle politics. not only muggles were inferior and disgusting to him, but their mingling with wizards was in his eyes a dreadful threat to the very existence of magic and therefore everything special he ever had been. as a result, he ventured deeper and deeper into it, never to come back. no magic act seemed against nature to him, because he considered himself one with it. this is where his iron-rooted god complex comes from and i think it’s something a little more complicated than simple megalomania. but this is also where his problems with his own humanity (and other’s) started. at some point he really considered himself more than human, of a different species. no aspect of humanity meant anything to him, on the contrary, i think he had terrible problems with every basic human behavior, from caring, to having to eat and drink to survive, to sweating and having sexual impulses - and, of course, to the ultimate form of humanity, dying. i think he was profoundly disgusted by his and other’s physicality, to anything that could remind him of his mortality, even a breath.

and that’s why i don’t really think even as a most handsome young men he even spared girls or women a glance. i think he considered the whole thing far beneath him, as if a god was interested in exchanging fluids with worms. i also think deep down there was simultaneously an intellectual and not only a physical element in his disgust: i think he considered his good looks something pleasant to look at in a mirror (he only deserved the best, even in a face), quite useful, but in general absolutely meaningless and void. not to mention that was his muggle father’s face, the revolting beauty that doomed it as a child and that shamed him every day looking back at him in the mirror. the entire crowds of girls that without any doubt must have fawned over him at school were probably amusing to him in rare particularly good days and insufferable and despicable the rest. no one deserved to be around him, no one could understand his real greatness or void anyway, no matter how low they rightfully bowed - and they had to bow, but from a fair distance. i think the mere thought of sex was something absolutely revolting to him.

until.

now you are probably starting to understand why i needed this endless preface to answer your question.

i think bellatrix was something really unexpected for him, that came relatively late in his life while he was busy with everything else, building an empire and becoming a most powerful immortal creature, and it was extraordinary enough to enkindle something in him, in his humanity, at first even without his consent or him even noticing.

yes, you heard me right, despite all i have just written, lord voldemort was still human being and of a really damaged and flawed kind, no matter what he stubbornly wanted to believe about himself.

i think the first immediate reason that sparkled voldemort’s interest was that bellatrix somehow reminded him of himself. and we do know that he was really able to love only himself. this is the ultimate narcissistic thought process. she was everything he admired of his own qualities: beautiful, dark, incredibly intelligent and magically skilled, proud, ambitious, ruthless, power-angry. they were incredibly similar. but she was at the same time somehow more than him, she actually was what he thought he was supposed have been: the heir of one of the most noble and ancient magical families of britain, pure powerful blood in her veins. it’s obvious he took her under his wing, thinking such a talent was a most valuable addiction to his cause, especially because along all that, bellatrix was able from the start to show him a loyalty, usefulness and adoration of a different, truer kind from all the others. and i think he really valued that, i think he was completely aware she was the only person he could really trust and i think it wasn’t a secondary thing for someone who had never really trusted anyone from the day he was born - that he was aware of it or not. one thing is believing your followers are loyal to you and your cause (an example is snape), another is having the absolute certainty that someone will always be at your side, no matter how desperate the situation - and only bellatrix was ever able to provide him that. he was intelligent enough to tell the difference. i think bellatrix’s unfaltering loyalty and mind-presence at azkaban for fourteen years after his apparent demise was something that really won his respect and admiration. and no, i don’t really think voldemort was the kind of person that gets tired of too much devotion, at least not a true, sincere one, as the kind bellatrix’s provided him from day one. i actually think he was in desperate need of it, consciously or not. voldemort probably had, in my vision, a peculiar relationship with devotion and servility: he thought everyone owed him as much, but was at the same time quite annoyed by too much of it (killing people who said too much “my lords”). but not too much of bellatrix’s, and it’s probably because of the fact hers was of a deeper and more honest kind of devotion.

we don’t have to forget bellatrix was almost as egocentric, proud and vain as him, this is the woman who sits on chairs as if they were thrones. she was wizarding royalty and she sure as hell acted accordingly, she was used to have everyone bow to her (and if they didn’t, she made them). and the fact that she, this fearless tigress, only bowed to him, out of admiration and not blind fear (even if a healthy component of fear was indeed present in her as well), was certainly a reason of great pleasure and amusement to him. don’t even forget i totally believe bella amused him as hell. can you imagine anyone else rendered a blathering idiot in front of him, following him so closely, too closely, speaking without asking, etc, who would have lived to tell the tale? bella was allowed things no one else was, pet name included.

she was one hell of a woman, painfully like him, that literally melted and would have died any moment for him. this started to move things inside of him that i’m sure at first he didn’t like, especially the physical impulses. i said many times i’m convinced at first he was resolute into killing her. the fact that in the end he didn’t tells the tale for me. who knows, maybe the killing in the middle turned into other primordial activities. sexually, i do think he had the need to use a fair amount of violence, not so much because he wanted to hurt her, but to deal with the mortality/humanity aversion, and i think bellatrix was the only woman who was mentally built to not only understand, but enjoy that. i think bella’s legs went week in front of his displays of power, no matter if the victim was her. i wasn’t really a matter of dominating her spirit, but totally possessing her body for him. funnily enough, i think he absolutely respected her in his own twisted way and that she totally thought the same. that respect had nothing to do with their physical and political power dynamics.

again, they were absurdly similar and well-matched. i think at some point she became invaluable to him in a similar way magic was, so much he actually risked his own life and failure to ensure she wasn’t captured again. everyone else was disposable, but not his bella. he could have punished her the rare times she let him down, but as a death eater, not as a person. i think bellatrix was the only case in which the two things in his mind were actually separate even if linked.

they fond each other in darkness and voldemort, lover of uniqueness, surely understood the extraordinary quality of such a relationship. he wanted only the best for himself, he deserved as much, and bellatrix was the actual best in his mind. she, having a similar thought, had inside of her a dramatic and overwhelming pull towards darkness, power and violence, and he embodied them all and much more in her eyes.

so, in conclusion (because i could go on for several other hours), for sure bellatrix was also, along with all the other things, convenient to him, not so much because she was married, because i think neither of them gave an effing fuck about it, but because she was perfect for him in basically every single way (best death eater, genius, skilled, pureblood, devious, not afraid of his darkness but drawn to it, loyal, submitted to him but only to him), as if he himself had carefully molded out of clay his ideal match.

as to how i think voldemort was as a lover - really, really painfully disturbing, as his whole character. i don’t think him really able to separate passion and violence, for example, and i see him really prone to dangerous mood swings, trust issues and destructive tendencies. he was also surely overly possessive of bellatrix, his bella. he was the only one entitled to treat her as he pleased, no one else, no matter if he had just crucioed the hell out of her. lay a finger on her and you are dead. also, i don’t really think he ever told her just how much she meant for him, on the contrary i think whenever he thought she was getting too close and him too attached, he would mercilessly push her away, even violently.

but at the same time i see him quite thoughtful and appreciative of everything bellatrix was, much more than any other man or husband of that society. he really thought she was the best besides himself. that he told it out loud or not, i think he was well aware of all bellatrix’s qualities, especially the ones she directed towards him, and was intimately and very deeply proud of her. i think he was really grateful for her existence and the moment she died he just knew everything was lost.

[fortunatelylori]

Thoughts on Otis Molyneux

I hesitated somewhat before making this post because the fandom seems to have settled on Otis being “a good man who made one terrible mistake” and who am I to rain on anyone’s parade?

Inner goddess: A very opinionated woman … that’s who … No one keeps baby down!

Well … since you put it that way …

My very first meta on Sanditon revolved around the idea that this show is Andrew Davies’ homage to Austen’s entire body of work. And since I discovered a very interesting link between Otis and one of the more misinterpreted Austen characters, I couldn’t resist. Particularly since every time I read a remark on Otis, I end up going:

He is a most fortunate man! Everything turns out for his own good! He meets a young woman at a watering place, gains her affections, she consents to an engagement! He treats her abominably, she bares it like a saint! His aunt is in the way, his aunt dies! He has used everybody ill and they are all delighted to forgive him! He is a most fortunate man indeed!

Emma is perhaps Jane Austen’s most transgressive novel and, while it is not my favorite (that’s Persuasion in case anyone was wandering), I think it’s the clearest indication of her genius. In Emma, Austen not only spoofs herself, as the old maid Miss Bates, but also pulls off a master stroke in concealing her villain, Frank Churchill, not only from the characters but also from the audience.

Austen villains are usually charming, fun and attractive, most of the time far more so than the hero that will eventually win the heroine’s heart. What Austen does with the likes of Wickham and Willoughby is show that superficial charm and a pretty face are poor substitutes for substance, integrity and a value system.

In order to drive that point home, her villains usually suffer a fall from grace: Wickham gets exiled to Newcastle (the degradation!) and is stuck with Lydia for the rest of his life; Willoughby gets ousted by his aunt, told off by Eleanor and publically canceled by Mrs. Jenkins.

Whatever it may be, all of her villains suffer some consequences (even if it’s just not getting the girl as is the case for William Elliot in Persuasion). All except one: Frank Churchill. As Mr. Knightley’s frustrated speech above shows, Frank is so fortunate that by the end of Emma, he gets everything he’s ever wanted and everyone continues to love and cherish him as if nothing had happened (with the exception of Emma and Knightley).

And because the characters move on from his betrayal so quickly you can barely get a glimpse into their POVs, so does the audience. By the end of the book, most of the readers are as pleased with Frank as the people of Highbury.

I can just imagine Jane Austen cackling with joy at our silliness.

Just because there are no consequences for Frank and because all ends well despite his efforts to the contrary, it doesn’t follow that he should be absolved of responsibility. For all his professed love for Jane, Frank involves her in an imaginary extramarital affair, flirts with Emma in front of her and ultimately humiliates her at the picnic. For all his friendliness and affability, he is less than generous to his father, uses Emma for his own motives and is secretly chopping at the bit to see his aunt, the woman who raised him, dead so he can inherit her fortune. Despite what his endgame would suggest, Frank Churchill is an immature, selfish man who is used to getting his own way with little thought or care about how that might hurt other people.

Which brings us to Otis “I fell in love with your soul” Molyneux.

But, but … I hear you say … Fortunatelylori, he did suffer consequences. He lost Georgiana!

To which I say don’t bring out the pity parade just yet. Because in losing Georgiana, Otis’ actions are reduced to an unfortunate youthful indiscretion by the characters (Georgiana and Charlotte) as well as by the people watching. Because he shed some resigned tears and spoke prettily about how much he loved Georgiana’s soul, everyone is “delighted to forgive him”.

But just as with Frank, is his love for Georgiana enough to absolve him of his wrongdoings? Should we cheer for their potential reunion or think she deserves better, the way Mr. Knightley thinks about Jane? And while we’re on the subject, what are Otis’ crimes? He clearly never meant to cause Georgiana’s kidnapping so what’s the big deal?

What gets lost in Charlotte’s “you are insensible of feeling” rebuke of Sidney is that Otis isn’t a victim of circumstances nor is him honestly being in love with Georgiana a get out of jail free card. Otis is a gambling addict who has amassed debts so vast that the man who is trying to collect them resorts to kidnapping a teenager to get his money back. And that’s just one guy he owes money to.

Does he love Georgiana? Yes, in his own way he loves her just about as much as he loves losing money at cards. What do you think would have happened if they married? Because me thinks Otis would run through that 100.000 real quick while simultaneously loving the hell out of Georgiana’s soul.

Which brings me to Otis’s less than agreeable character traits: lying and manipulation. He lies to Georgiana from the first moment he meets her. Worst yet, he takes advantage of her vulnerability and he encourages her to rely solely on him for emotional support:

Georgiana: I was uprooted. Lost. In despair. Otis restored me to life. Those 3 months were the happiest I’ve known.

That sounds great and all but what happens after he’s gone from her life is that Georgiana feels like she suddenly has no one and nothing. Because her entire sense of self was tied to Otis.

He also allows Georgiana to believe that her guardian is a racist monster who is keeping them apart because of the color of his skin when he knows full well that’s not the case and also that Georgiana needs to have a good relationship with Sidney for the foreseeable future at least.

In order to keep up the charade, he takes active part in poisoning Charlotte against Sidney and very much enjoys playing the wronged party in this whole scenario:

Otis: But then your friend, Mr. Parker, took it upon himself to rip us apart.

Charlotte: However painful that might have been, Mr. Parker must surely have had Georgiana’s best interest at heart.

Otis: Then you clearly don’t know Mr. Parker as well as you think.

 Lying is so ingrained in Otis’ modus operandi that he can’t help himself from doing it even when there’s not even the slightest chance that he can get away with it:

Beecroft: Oh, yes! The famous Miss Lambe! Mr. Molyneux speaks of little else. Miss Lambe this, Miss Lambe that.

Otis: That is a lie! If I mentioned her it was only in passing …

Beecroft: I’m not the liar here. You told me a wedding was imminent. That her fortune was as good as yours. I never would have let him run such a debt otherwise.

Otis: All I wanted was to buy a little time … If I had known even for one moment …

What was that about Sidney not having good reason to keep you away from Georgiana, Otis?!?

Also look at him running the eluding responsibility obstacle course like a pro:

Otis: He’s sold her! The villain has sold her!

Charlotte: What?

Sidney: In return for a promise to buy his debt, she’s been handed to some dissolute named Howard. Even now he’ll be dragging her to an altar.

Charlotte: An altar? But that cannot be allowed without your permission.

Sidney:  No. They have no such laws across the border. There they will marry you with impunity.

Otis: Had you only allowed us to marry!

Otis has gambled himself silly, bragged about Georgiana’s money to the worst possible people, disappeared from public view (he hasn’t picked up his mail in weeks because he’s in hiding from the debt collectors) and his reaction is to put all the blame on Sidney. That is not the behavior of a well-balanced adult. This is the behavior of a gambler who thinks he can talk his way out of anything because he has “game”.

This brings us to his last scene with Georgiana when everything comes into focus. If you really think about it, there is not a single moment during their relationship where Otis isn’t lying to her, including the romantic separation that hit everyone in the feels:

Otis: I’ve gambled. That is true. But whatever they tell you, I never gambled with your name.

Notice how the first thing out of his mouth is manipulative. “Whatever they tell you” i.e. turst no one but me. I’m the only one who is telling the truth so listen to me as I lie my ass off right now.

Otis: I never boasted of your wealth. I boasted of you.

Two lines in and he’s already lied twice. You can actually do a play by play of what he says here and what he says in the Beecroft scene.

And then comes the coup de grace!

Otis: It was pride. That is all! And Lord knows, I have paid for it!

As consequence of his gambling, hiding from his creditors and running his mouth about Georgiana’s fortune, the woman he loves was kidnapped, Charlotte almost got raped and Sidney is however many thousands of pounds lighter for paying off his debts. So bring out the waterworks for Otis, guys! Let’s not forget who the real victim in all of this is!  

Alexa, play Despacito.

Otis lies so much he has ended up internalizing his lies to such an extent that he has turned himself into a victim. His narrative is ultimately rejected by Georgiana, leaving him pained but that shouldn’t fool you into thinking he’s a good guy. Neither he nor Frank are moustache twirling villains but their flaws and the way they allow those flaws to affect the people they supposedly love speaks volumes about their character.

Maybe, eventually, they both grow up. Maybe Frank becomes more selfless and starts treating others with respect. Maybe Otis never gambles again and becomes the responsible civil rights leader he wants others to see him as.

But as things stand at the end of their story line, I, for one, am not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. It’s sadly too late for Jane to pick herself another husband. But I haven’t given up hope that Georgiana will shake Otis off like a spot of English rain.