It was confirmed multiple times that the story in Hogwarts Legacy takes place hundreds of years before the Harry Potter series. While the franchise’s history dictates that Tom Riddle (aka Voldemort) or Gellert Grindelwald were the Wizarding World’s most evil spellcasters, the story in the brand-new video game may very well change this established lore significantly.
Reddit user u/Kommander-in-Keef shared a revelation on r/HarryPotterGame, saying that the main character has “a much higher body count than Voldemort.” The reason for this is because, unlike in Harry Potter or Fantastic Beasts, where our heroes would find peaceful solutions to stop the conflict, our main character in the game just straight-up kills everyone. The worst part is that the character is so aware of what they’re doing that they’re making punchlines and quips whenever they attack an enemy.
This revelation led to more theorizing about why our main character is more ruthless than the dark wizard himself. One pointed out that since our character enters Hogwarts in their fifth year, they might have missed out on their “wizard ethics” class that was taught to first-year students. This theory made the most sense considering that our companions don’t obliterate the bad guys in the game.
But others argued that killing wizards isn’t a big enough deal to warrant therapy. One pointed out Harry’s kill count when he was 11 years old and he didn’t need to talk to someone about that traumatic event. If that was the case for a first-year student, it wouldn’t be a stretch to suggest that a fifth-year student isn’t bothered by death as well. Others also theorized that history might play a role in this since Hogwarts Legacy takes place in the 1800s, and children were a different breed back then.
Before the game came out, fans joked about “becoming the next Voldemort” after learning that they could use the unforgivable curses. But perhaps OP’s realization revealed everyone’s dark nature — perhaps we are the dark wizards we were supposed to fight against.
