[HPforGrownups] Re: Possession / Entering the Chamber

[Carolina]

No: HPFGUIDX 90607

Kneasy:

> A few more thoughts on the theme that Voldemort is more than just Tom
> Riddle after a make-over.

On random thoughts, the 17th chapter is not titled Tom Riddle, just 'The Heir 
of Slytherin', which can have an entirely different meaning. Quotes are from 
CoS Bloomsbury paperback (1999)

Tom was not only charming. He was very convincing. I believed Diary!Tom the 
first time I read it. His intensity in some points(ie why he changed his name 
to Voldemort), his cruelty, the picture he was creating. Quite a manipulator, 
wasn't him?

The big head of Slytherin, between its feet Ginny and a tall, black-haired boy 
leaning against the nearest pillar. That's a picture and how Harry knows 
Diary!Tom in 'person'.

A big part of what we know about the Chamber has been told by Diary!Tom, so in 
an analysis I can't trust that information. Diary!Tom should be doing his 
work and not letting Harry know the real problems of the Chamber, if there 
are. 

I don't believe Tom when he sais he was searching the Camera for years. I've 
tried to do it, but questions arise if I try to imagine how he did it. How 
did he know  he was a parsel, if the last known was so long ago? And, 
supossing that he knew it and could control it at will, I'm sorry if I find 
ridiculous the idea of Tommie walking up and down corridors and H's empty 
spaces during years saying 'chamber, will you open? I summon you, open to the 
Heir...' 

Yes, he could have spent 5 years looking for information about the location of 
the chamber, not just wandering up and down, but that brings more questions, 
because that implies the location of the chamber could be found not being a 
parsel, at least have a good guess of where it was, so it contradicts Binn's 
statements about how the chamber was searched for, that, if he is so prone 
that he bores to give facts as exact as he can, should be somehow different, 
telling the chamber can be more or less located but it can't be found because 
you need a parseltongue to prove if that's true.

"It had taken me 5 whole years to find out everything I could about the 
Chamber of Secrets and discover the secret entrance... as though Hagrid had 
the brains, or the power!"(17:230)

Now what is he telling here? That brains count because trough investigation 
the chamber can be found? Either that or it's little Tommy running up and 
down corridors... but if brain counts, is he telling that there hasn't been a 
wizard with brains in nine centuries? He's lying. I think he was attracted to 
the Chamber somehow and he's trying to cover that fact up. 

> But  all  we see  is a Basilisk. That's it, is it? One measly  Basilisk
> is the sum total of the malice of a twisted old looney? Come now,
> surely he could do better than that. 

One basilisk quite easy to kill. With Fawkes help, of course, but you don't 
leave a secret weapon like that. Hermione said Wizards are not the best at 
logic, but they usually are at setting different protections, see the trials 
to get to the philisophers stone. I can't imagine old Salazar thinking, ok, 
I'll left the typical creature that is doomed if blinded and can be killed 
with my enemy's sword. My (possessed or not) heir will dominate the world 
with it. No, really, just a monster is not enough. 

> And possession is how you do it. An Heir inherits possessions ('scuse
> the pun) and the first to enter gets possessed. Can't  have some
> do-gooder ruining Salazars little plan, can we? So  there was something
> in there that trapped whoever entered and took them over for Salazar's
> own ends.


That brings a new light to the scene in Diary!Tom when we see Tom having 
nothing to say. 

<<
"What do you mean?" said Dippet, with a squeak in his voice, sitting up in his 
chair. "Riddle, do you mean you know something about these attacks?"
"No, sir," said Riddle quickly.
But Harry was sure it was the same sort of 'no' that he himself had given 
Dumbledore.
>>(15:The Very Secret Diary:182)

I think it was Pippin who suggested that MWPP's big fault was the secrecy. It 
could also be what left Tom without more chances to choose and turned into 
Voldie. 

That secrecy play could have lasted months, with Tom losing a bit every day. 

"In my fith year, the Chamber was opened and the moster attacked several 
students, finally killing one"(15:180)

Then we have Aragog. Why precisely an indicator of basilisks right there? Why 
a +900 years period of complete silence and then a unique parseltonge case  
is concurrent with Aragog? What are the chances of that?

And how do we know there have not been previous parsel tongues? We are told 
only about Salazar and Tom, but we are also told of parseltongues in the FB 
entry about Runespoors. So either Tom was the second or knowledge of others 
has dissapeared.  Are they more frequent in other world areas, maybe the 
parseltonges previous to Tom were found too 'good' or unqualified to serve, 
so why bother possessing them? 


>I was re-reading CoS and I was struck by the number of times that 
>Diary!Tom refers to Lord Voldemort in the third person, as if he were 
>someone else entirely. It could be a verbal tic, but  I wonder. Twice 
>Diary!Tom proclaims the greatness of himself and of Voldy. He says that 
>he is the greatest wizard in the world, and of course Harry puts him 
>straight. Everybody remembers that passage.
>But a few lines earlier he
>says that Voldemort is the greatest wizard in history. Wow! That is
>something else. Do  you really think that Tom believes he is greater
>than his hero Slytherin? Not from the way he refers to Salazar, you
>wouldn't; he talks like a disciple not a superior.

No, really, it would be as a war leader discrediting a national hero from 
centuries ago, and it doesn't get well with the lines:
"[...], so that, one day, with luck, I would be able to lead another in my 
footsteps, and finish Salazar Slytherin's noble work". (17:230)

and
"Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four" (17:234) -- we don't 
see the head talking, but it's curious the 'summon protocol' includes a 
'speak'.

There is something that the Diary says, that can be a hint if the name you are 
born with matters in the WW (that seems to happen in the books). 

"You see?" he whispered. "It was a name I was already using at Howgarts, to my 
most intimate friends only, of course. You think I was going to use my filthy 
Muggle father's name for ever?[blablabla]No, Harry, I fashioned myself a new 
name, a name I knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak, when I 
had become the gretest sorcerer in the world"(17:131)

How well he expresses himself. But ignoring the excuse he makes, it stands 
that he renounced to his name. He was Tom no more, he was the Heir of 
Slytherin, The Dark Lord. If I were prone to possess my Heir, I would change 
his name too, my names have more Dark Style than 'Tom', to start, and I don't 
want him remembering he's human, also. Since when is 'Anakin Skywalker' a 
good name to terrorice and be manipulated?  

If a birthname is tied to something in the WW, then Tom lost that something.

Enough for know.

Silmariel