Skip to main content

harry potter - What does the rudimentary body potion do to you?


Voldemort uses a Rudimentary Body Potion to return to life as a shriveled, scaly man-child horror.


enter image description here


Later on Voldemort has access to a Regenerative potion to bring give himself a true form, but afterwards he looks very similar to a snake.


enter image description here


Clearly one of the potions do something other than bring him back to life, because when he possess a normal face:


enter image description here


The first potion however uses Nagini's blood, is it this ingredient that provides his new face or is it purely the later that makes him look that way?



Answer




Well, I think the confusion comes with mixing movie canon with book canon. In Philosopher's Stone, here's what Harry sees when Quirrell unwraps his turban:



Harry would have screamed, but he couldn’t make a sound. Where there should have been a back to Quirrell’s head, there was a face, the most terrible face Harry had ever seen. It was chalk white with glaring red eyes and slits for nostrils, like a snake.

Philosopher's Stone - page 212 - UK - chapter 17, The Man With Two Faces



This was before Voldemort started taking Nagini's venom as part of the potion that restored him to rudimentary form.


In Goblet of Fire, prior to taking the Regeneration Potion, Voldemort is described as looking like this:



The thing Wormtail had been carrying had the shape of a crouched human child, except that Harry had never seen anything less like a child. It was hairless and scaly looking, a dark, raw, reddish black. Its arms and legs were thin and feeble, and its face – no child alive ever had a face like that – was flat and snake-like, with gleaming red eyes.

Goblet of Fire - pages 555-556 - UK - chapter 32, Flesh, Blood and Bone



And after he takes the regenerative potion, Voldemort looks like this:




The thin man stepped out of the cauldron, staring at Harry... and Harry stared back into the face that had haunted his nightmares for three years. Whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes, and a nose that was as flat as a snake’s, with slits for nostrils...

Lord Voldemort had risen again.

Goblet of Fire - pages 558 - UK - chapter 32, Flesh, Blood and Bone



Voldemort didn't have a "normal" face at any time, according to JKR and the books. The difference between Voldemort in the movie Philosopher's Stone and Goblet of Fire is signficant; the former has a rather silly (IMO) Voldemort created with poorly done animatronics or something, while Ralph Fiennes's makeup and prosthetics for Voldemort are far more chilling and sinister. Ralph Fiennes's look is more true to the books.


Anyway, to answer your question about the first potion, Nagini's venom was used, not her blood. It was unicorn blood and Nagini's venom that were essential to the first potion. I don't know if Voldemort's look in the movie Philosopher's Stone was a result of poor planning, of not wanting to scare small children (it is a Chris Columbus film, after all), or of limited technology, but that look is noticeably inconsistent with canon.


Comments

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.

aliens - Interstellar Zoo story

I vaguely remember this story from my childhood: it was about an interstellar zoo that came to Earth with lots of bizarre and unusual species, and humans would file through and gape at all the crazy looking creatures from other planets. The twist came at the end when the perspective shifted to the other side of the bars and we discovered that the "creatures" were traveling through space on a kind of safari. They thought they were the visitors and we were the animals. Neither side knew that the other side thought they were the zoo creatures. Answer Got it. Zoo, by Edward D. Hoch. Published in 1958. Link to Publication History Link to PDF

harry potter - What is the difference between Diffindo and Sectumsempra?

In the Harry Potter books, Diffindo is called the 'Severing Charm' and it’s most commonly used to cut ropes and the like. However, in the last book Hermione uses it on Ron but misses, creating a 'slash in his jeans' and his knee gets cut, causing him to 'roar in pain'. We've only seen Sectumsempra used once on screen when Harry directly uses it on Malfoy in the sixth book, but there it's mentioned that he is 'waving his wand wildly'. Wouldn't Diffindo, if used in such a fashion also cause a similar effect? Similarly, if it was able to cut Ron, it would also be able to, say, chop off an ear (George's)? In that case, how are these two spells different, except for Sectumsempra seemingly used exclusively to hurt humans? Answer While Diffindo and Sectumsempra both can be countered by other spells, Diffindo is far more easily countered. Reparo, a relatively common spell, can completely reverse its effect when used once. “He pulled the old cop...

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 !...