Skip to main content

harry potter - Why didn't Voldemort use the Unbreakable Vow with his Death Eaters?


I don't remember how it was called in English, I guess it was like "Unbreakable Vow" or whatever, that charm that forced you to do something or die.


Well then, why didn't Voldemort use it with his Death Eaters to guarantee their loyalty?


Had Voldemort used it, his Death Eaters would have spent their days (after his incident with baby Harry) doing their best to find Voldemort, instead of hiding or pretending they were being controlled by the Imperius Curse.


Of course, it is possible that Voldemort did use it with some of them, but they really thought that Voldemort was truly gone forever, so the charm was pointless since Voldemort seemed to have gone. But I still think he didn't use the charm, because, as a minimum, he would have used it with Snape. And Snape undoubtly betrayed him.


Now then, maybe the charm can only be done once? Some kind of restriction? I don't remember any reference about that though...




Answer



One thing you must remember is that Big V was in it for himself. He was not willing to give others any form of power over him, and he was quick to promise power, wealth, etc to his underlings to gain their support, and threaten them to guarantee it.


As DVK said, the vows also had to be specific - Snape vowed to do specific actions. It's certainly reasonable to assume that vows have to be specific.


It's also reasonable that an intelligent underling, if promised something for his service, would make that part of the Vow. "I will do as you have commanded, and be rewarded as you have promised," or similar. The Vow would then bind both parties - and Voldemort was not one to easily surrender his freedom.


Voldemort is also smart enough to know that a clever subordinate or opponent might try to trick him into breaking a Vow, if they learned of it. I don't know if his Horcruxes would have let him survive breaking the Vow, but losing his body sure did inconvenience him. It's likely he'd be very leery of giving anyone power over his physical form, no matter how tenuous.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...

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.

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...