10 More Movie Villains Who Would Have Won By Doing NOTHING

There's nothing more deliciously ironic in fiction than a villain who attempts to prevent their prophesised undoing and in turn only ensures that it happens. And there's perhaps no more famous example of that than Harry Potter's Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes).

Voldemort is centrally preoccupied with the idea that Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) has the power to vanquish him, and so seeks to murder Harry as a child to prevent it.

The irony, of course, is that Voldemort's assassination attempt goes spectacularly wrong, with the Killing Curse ultimately rebounding off Harry and disembodying Voldemort himself.

This in turn tees up the rest of the events of the series, with Harry rising to eventually defeat Voldemort, when if the Dark Lord had simply ignored the prophecy and not tried to kill Harry, and in turn not killed Harry's parents either, he and his Death Eaters would've surely ruled the world unchallenged.

Instead, Voldemort's arrogant desire to wipe out someone with the potential to defeat him ironically led to his defeat.

And in the very least, why risk a rebounding Killing Curse when you could just, you know, smother defenseless baby Harry with a pillow or something?