Summary
- In the Harry Potter books, Harry's sacrifice protected all of his loved ones, rendering Voldemort unable to harm them. This crucial detail was left out of the movies.
- Harry offered Voldemort a chance to stop and feel remorse for his actions, but the Dark Lord's evil nature prevented him from doing so.
- The movies altered Voldemort's death, changing the themes and meaning behind it. In the books, Voldemort brought about his own downfall, while in the movies, Harry carried more responsibility for the villain's death.
Harry and Voldemort's final battle in the Harry Potter movies decided the fate of the wizarding world, but the Dark Lord lost his war by the time they face off in the books. Of course, book-to-screen adaptations often need to cut or change important moments to fit the time constraints of film, and the Harry Potter series is no exception. This is especially true for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, full of complicated twists and turns that couldn't fit in Warner Bros' movie. This means that the resounding after-effects of Harry's sacrifice have been forgotten by many, as well as the cautionary tale that the Dark Lord's story represented.
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry learned through Severus Snape's memories that, in order for the fragment of Voldemort's soul within him to be destroyed, he would need to sacrifice himself to the Dark Lord. As the Chosen One, it had always been his destiny to die at Voldemort's hand. So, he walked into the Forbidden Forest and stood before his enemy without raising his wand. Thankfully, the power of Lily Potter's sacrifice lived on in Voldemort's blood, creating a loophole that once again kept Harry alive. This allowed the Boy Who Lived to face the villain again and come out victorious, but it did much more than that.
Harry Potter’s Sacrifice In Deathly Hallows Rendered Voldemort Harmless In The Books
Harry allowed Voldemort to kill him without raising a wand or attempting to flee or protect himself in any way. This is precisely what Lily Potter did when she stood between Voldemort and her infant son, and it is the reason that Voldemort's Killing Curse backfired—her sacrifice had left a lasting protection over Harry. Even though Harry didn't die in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, he had intended to so that all those at Hogwarts would be spared. This means that the very same magical protection that Lily had unknowingly placed on Harry was then placed on all of Harry's loved ones—and this is precisely what Harry told Voldemort during their last battle in Deathly Hallows:
“You won’t be killing anyone else tonight,” said Harry as they circled, and stared into each other’s eyes, green into red. “You won’t be able to kill any of them ever again. Don’t you get it? I was ready to die to stop you from hurting these people —”
“But you did not!”
“ — I meant to, and that’s what did it. I’ve done what my mother did. They’re protected from you. Haven’t you noticed how none of the spells you put on them are binding? You can’t torture them. You can’t touch them. You don’t learn from your mistakes, Riddle, do you?”
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
When Voldemort forced Hagrid to carry Harry's body back to the castle from the Forbidden Forest, the Boy Who Lived noticed (as he pretended to be dead) that the Dark Lord's efforts to silence the crowd at Hogwarts kept failing. Later, when the battle broke out, Voldemort's spells (and even those of his followers) missed their targets since they were all protected by Harry's sacrifice. This meant that even without a final battle, Voldemort had lost. He could never harm his enemies ever again. If he had laid down his weapon, that would have been the end of the Second Wizarding War, but the Dark Lord was far too proud to do so.
Voldemort Defeated Himself In The End (& Harry Tried To Stop Him)
Since Voldemort was rendered harmless by Harry's sacrifice, there was no real reason for a final battle. Harry knew this. Though it was left out of the Harry Potter movies, Harry offered his enemy the opportunity to stop and reconsider his actions. He encouraged Voldemort to lay down his wand and try to experience some remorse for all he had done. The only way to reform a fractured soul such as Voldemort's is to truly experience pain and regret for the murders that had caused the fractures to begin with—otherwise, a Dark wizard who had created Horcruxes would be doomed to never on to the afterlife, a fate worse than death.
Of course, Voldemort could not feel remorse. He was far too evil. Despite Harry's warnings about the effects of his sacrifice, as well as those about the loyalty of the Elder Wand in Voldemort's hand, the villain cast the Killing Curse again. Harry, on the other hand, only cast his trademark Disarming Spell, Expelliarmus. Voldemort's curse backfired just as it had before the events of Harry Potter, but this time there were no Horcruxes to save him. He fell dead thanks to his own attack—not Harry's.
How The Harry Potter Movie Series’ Ending Altered Voldemort’s Cautionary Tale
The Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows movie saw Harry and Voldemort end their rivalry very differently. Though Harry did sacrifice himself, there was never any mention of it protecting those at Hogwarts Castle. Additionally, Harry never warned Voldemort that the Elder Wand had changed its loyalty or that remorse was the only way the Dark Lord could be saved. The villain's death itself also looked very different. While Voldemort's body simply fell to the ground in the book, proving that he had never been more than human, he disintegrated away in the Harry Potter movie.
Ultimately, this significantly changed the major themes Voldemort's death was supposed to resolve in the Harry Potter books. The entire point of Harry being the Chosen One was that he was never anything special—he was just a boy who had been profoundly and truly loved by his mother. Voldemort had brought about his own end at every turn. He heard a prophecy, acted on it, and therefore brought about its conclusion. In the end, Harry never took fatal action against Voldemort—the Dark Lord killed himself in his effort to secure power. Voldemort's arc in Harry Potter was meant to be a cautionary tale, but the movies missed it entirely.
