Voldemort being killed is more like Hitler dying (given Voldemort is a blatant expy of Hitler) and the collapse of the Nazi system. It's not necessairly that evil ended with him, it's more that what was perceived as the greatest evil of that age, and perhaps the greatest evil of all ages, has been at last vanquished and his legacy destroyed.
We do see that there was evil before Voldemort with Grindelwald (who actually seems to have been a far darker menace than Voldemort, as Grindelwald terrified and tyranized all of Europe rather than just the British Isles).
"All you Fascists bound to lose."
Ok I had to ask...Didn't read all tv trope post...Being around for one year...But I like most of the posts...Especially Everybody hates the Hades... ,,I just want to belong''LOL
A similar trope is The Man Behind the Man, where seemingly independent acts are revealed to tie in with a single villain's plan. The Separatists in Star Wars were created that way, and the canon works in general can conceivably be summed up with a "blame the Palpatine" assertion.
I'd say sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, since it can reduce an otherwise potentially complex tale to a simplistic "it's all the bad guy's fault" story. The aforementioned galactic conflict has been reinterpreted time and again as to whether the Republic's demise was largely self-inflicted (what with the top-heavy bureaucracy and over-reliance on a caste of warrior-monks to enforce order), or if the Sith were really behind it all, because they're bad like that, seduced by The Dark Side. A similar thing happens in the Nolanverse Batman films, where the League of Shadows is poised to violently purge Gotham from it's corruption... that they themselves apparently have been orchestrating and spreading for over a century.
All in all, these are easy ways to keep the premise morally unambiguous, but they also rob a lot of characters from any independent agency they have, becoming mere puppets for the villain's plans. It's indeed like if someone were to blame WWII on Hitler alone, ignoring the decades' worth of turmoil that precipitated his appearance in the first place - useful for propaganda purposes, but hardly proper history in its own right.
edited 4th Sep '14 2:39:49 AM by indiana404
I noticed that in some work of fiction(Harry Potter is poking my eyes) everything what is bad is centered around one guy... For instance in normal life there is not everything black and white... People like Hitler were not born that way they were product of their time, and Hitler was not only bad guy, evil does not starts and end with him...I notice peticulary in Harry Potter the world of magic is described as normal place...And they whole off sudden comes evil Lord Valdemort...I mean it is presented as evil never existed before him and that after he is destroyed there will be no evil... Now I know this sounds stupid, and that every story is subject of same fenomen, there is hero, there is a big bad, and he is defeated and end of story...But what I am thinking is that in some works it is not said that after defeat of big bad there is not going to be any evil no more...I thought more of trope where one guy is blamed for everything bad, while in normal life there are many more villains... To compare in Digimon in every new season there is a new villain, while in Harry Potter the evil starts with the Voldemort and it ends with Voldemort, like as if no one like him was or ever will be born... I don't know is there such a trope...
edited 2nd Sep '14 10:42:08 AM by BaronSamedi