Skip to main content

harry potter - How many people did Voldemort kill?


Albus Dumbledore stated in HP6 about Inferi and Voldemort:



They are corpses, dead bodies that have been bewitched to do a Dark wizard's bidding. Inferi have not been seen for a long time, however, not since Voldemort was last powerful ...He killed enough people to make an army of them, of course.




Is there a way to estimate from canon just how many people (muggles, wizards, or both) Voldemort personally killed?


What is included in "Personally": Cast a spell resulting in death. Ordered his pet to do the killing (e.g. Nagini). Imperiused someone else and ordered them to do the killing while imperiused.


What is NOT included: ordered a person with a free will (non-Imperioused) to kill.



Answer



Coming in three years later, in the advent of Pottermore ...


By my count, Voldemort killed a minimum of eighteen people and upwards of hundreds more.


Voldemort's known victims:



  1. Tom Riddle Sr


  2. Thomas Riddle

  3. Mary Riddle

  4. Hepzibah Smith (by proxy via poisoned cocoa; Hepzibah's house-elf, Hokey, was blamed for her murder)

  5. An Albanian peasant

  6. Bertha Jorkins

  7. A Muggle tramp

  8. Moaning Myrtle (by proxy via the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets)

  9. James Potter

  10. Lily Potter

  11. Wormtail (by proxy via the magical silver hand Voldemort gave him in Goblet of Fire)


  12. Snape (by proxy via Nagini)

  13. Dorcas Meadowes (Order of the Phoenix, Ch. 9)

  14. Charity Burbage (Deathly Hallows, Ch. 1)

  15. Frank Bryce (Goblet of Fire, Ch. 1)

  16. A woman in the wandmaker Gregorovitch's house (Deathly Hallows, Ch. 12)

  17. The wandmaker Gregorovitch (Deathly Hallows, Ch. 14)

  18. Gellert Grindelwald (Deathly Hallows, Ch. 24)


I counted eighteen confirmed deaths from the books (please feel free to check my math).


Implied deaths by Voldemort:



As well, it is strongly implied that Voldemort himself killed Amelia Bones, Head of the Department for Magical Law Enforcement (Half-Blood Prince, Ch. 1), and Order of the Phoenix member Emmaline Vance (Half-Blood Prince, Ch. 1). Bathilda Bagshot is also a likely victim (Deathly Hallows, Ch. 17), but it is not explicitly stated that Voldemort killed her. Also, Cedric Diggory was killed by Wormtail at Voldemort's command; while Voldemort didn't kill Cedric himself, he was complicit in Cedric's murder.


The Inferi:


J.K. Rowling writes on Pottermore:



The Inferi whom Harry and Dumbledore encounter in the depths of the lake in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince were, when alive, mostly vagrant, homeless Muggles whom Voldemort had murdered for the purpose during his first rise to power, although some were the earthly remains of wizards or witches who 'disappeared' without explanation.

Pottermore - Inferius - Half-Blood Prince Note: Pottermore requires users to have a (free) account. If you don't have or want a Pottermore account, I guess I would suggest Googling "What is an Inferius?" to be redirected right back to Stack Excange confirm.



Estimating the number of Inferi:


So J.K. Rowling's comment about the Inferi states Voldemort killed vagrant and/or homeless Muggles for the purpose of turning their bodies into Inferi. I checked Half-Blood Prince to see if Harry estimated how many Inferi came out of the lake in the chapter The Cave, when he touches the water as he tried to get a drink for Dumbledore. There is no estimate, but it was clearly a good number. I read through the sections on the Inferi and Half-Blood Prince, looking for a number, in Bob McCabe's book Page to Screen: The Complete Film Making Journey. Visual Effects Supervisor Tim Alexander merely says, "The underwater world was difficult because of [the sheer number of Inferi] and the interactive light from the fire." (Page 192)


Judging from the concept art, Voldemort had to have killed at least hundreds of Muggles and wizards to create the number of Inferi that guarded his Horcrux in the sea cave. J.K. Rowling also describes the lake in the cave as "vast" on Pottermore; a vast and, presumably, deep lake could conceivably hold thousands of Inferi, all killed, then bewitched, by Voldemort.


Concept art by Rob Bliss from the Bob McCabe book (Page 193). The photo quality isn't the greatest, as I took it with my phone in low light, but it should show the general idea:



Inferi


Additional Information


03.06.15 - While researching a different question I came across the following bit where Dumbledore explains what Inferi are to Harry:



‘They are corpses,’ said Dumbledore calmly. ‘Dead bodies that have been bewitched to do a Dark wizard’s bidding. Inferi have not been seen for a long time, however, not since Voldemort was last powerful ... he killed enough people to make an army of them, of course. This is the place, Harry, just here ...’

Half-Blood Prince - page 63 - Chapter four, Horace Slughorn - Bloomsbury



An army is not a small amount of people (or Inferi, as it were.). This reiterates Voldemort's murderous exploits were extensive and extremely far-reaching¹.


¹Oops, I forgot DVK included the above quote in his original post. I'm going to leave it in my answer because it really demonstrates how violent Voldemort was, and how little he valued life, which, I think, bolsters my answer. Anyone is free to edit it out, though.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

harry potter - How could Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra?

I want to be very careful about how I ask this question – I am not asking How did Voldemort die? [CLOSED] Below the text is the relevant passages from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows if anyone wants to review them (I'm sorry for the amount of text). How did Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra and kill Voldemort? I feel the reason Harry's Expelliarmus overpowered Voldemort's Avada Kedavra curse has to do with who was master of the Elder Wand and how the Elder Wand works. I've always had trouble understanding fully how the Elder Wand works, though. How much did the fact that Voldemort never truly won or mastered the Elder Wand factor into how Expelliarmus reacted to Avada Kedavra and caused Avada Kedavra to rebound and kill Voldemort? An answer based in book canon would be especially welcome, but any canon source really is fine. Harry heard the high voice shriek as he, too, yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing Draco’s wand: ‘ Avada Kedavra !’ ‘ Expelliarmus !...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is there good canon evidence for the "Nightmare Matrix"?

On the Matrix wiki, there's an article about the Nightmare Matrix which says: The Nightmare Matrix was the second prototype Matrix, designed by The Architect after the massive failure of the Paradise Matrix in the hope that human minds would more readily accept an imperfect world with suffering. Unlike the first version, this Matrix instituted a basic cause-and-effect programming and forcibly made those connected to it accept the program. Vamp Prime, a possible remnant of the Nightmare Matrix. It also featured programs that resembled mythical evil creatures in various human mythologies such as vampires, werewolves, zombies, aliens, etc. It also failed, but many of the programs who were designed for it survived deletion in exile. The Merovingian and his wife, Persephone may have had their roots in this version of the Matrix. Upon its failure, the Merovingian started a smuggling ring of programs and information to provide a haven for exiles that would last for 6 cycles in the final ...
Post a Comment
Read more

story identification - Anime with a boy hiring a creature from a stone, meets a man named Dante and starts a journey to collect crystals

I am from India, this anime or animated series (I can't remember this was made by the Japan or other countries) was aired between 2009 and 2012 probably in Jetix/Disney XD (but I'm not sure). This anime starts with a boy (the main character, I forgot his name) who find a stone (or crystal like thing) in his dad's property, his dad was missing that time. Some day he accidentally hire a creature/monster from that stone. Other day some creature attack him and he was saved by his creature and the story begins. In his journey to solve the mystery he meets a middle aged man 'Dante' (probably that was the name; this is the only character name I can remember). He had also some stone. After that they meet with one girl and a women (one of the girls is same age with the main boy character and probably will become his partner as the story goes on). Another women probably Dante's partner. Four of them started their journey to collect all the stone/crystal. They are collecti...
Post a Comment
Read more