Character Throwdown: Voldemort vs. Bellatrix

When it comes to the characters of Harry Potter we often peg Lord Voldemort as the big bad villain on the playground. We take into account his ruthless murder of wizards and muggles over the years and his endless desire to end the life of the main character. Yet we skate over other characters in the series who have redeeming evil qualities, like Bellatrix Lestrange. She's crazy, yes, and that alone makes her a threatening presence in the Wizarding World. In the books was it not true that other witches and wizards cowered in fear of her? She could walk through the streets of Diagon Alley while the Dark Lord was forced into shadows, but who's to say that didn't work in her favor?

Welcome to the first ever character throwdown. Who's the evilest character of the Harry Potter series: Lord Voldemort or Bellatrix Lestrange? You decide!

Throughout the entire series we see Voldemort as a man bent on taking over the Wizarding World to cleanse it of unpure blood. He had big dreams, sure, but would they have existed if he hadn't been Salazar Slytherin's last descendant? His evilness took the shape of pureblood dominance. Voldemort killed those who were against him, those who wouldn't do as he said, and those who dared to defy him. He didn't kill for the sheer joy of killing, he killed for purpose. At the end of the seventh book he was content with not killing a single person if, and only if, the staff and students of Hogwarts handed Harry Potter over to him. This is a man who was considered the most feared wizard of all time, yet he, himself, allowed a prophetess to scare him into attempting to kill a baby and thus ended his own life in the long run. Voldemort might have been a terrifying killing machine, but should a man so powerful allow his existence to be ruled by the mere presence of a boy who knew so much less than him it was almost comical?

Known for using the Cruciatus Curse on the Longbottoms until they went insane, Bellatrix was a follower of Voldemort. She was devoted to him in a way that made many wonder if she had feelings for the soulless man. In that way alone she's weaker than the Dark Lord because he didn't need people the way Bellatrix needed him. Yet she was his right hand, his greatest soldier, because she would do anything that he asked. She was happy to slice Hermione up like a ribbon to get answers instead of probe her mind the way Voldemort would have. J.K. Rowling said that she went insane while in Azkaban, but there's a good chance she was crazy before entering the prison. After all, she tortured the Longbottoms. Even Voldemort had enough heart to kill Severus Snape quickly, while she probably would have left him to die in the most painful way her devious mind could think of.

Is it number of kills that define the more evil character? In which case Voldemort wins hands down. Or lack of conscience? Because while both of these two exceptionally fearsome characters exhibited that quality, it can be said that Bellatrix capitalized in that area in a way the Dark Lord did not.

So who was the most evil character in the Harry Potter series: the man who killed for power or the woman who killed for sport?