[HPforGrownups] Voldemort and Riddle

[Peg Kerr]

No: HPFGUIDX 2917

Joywitch wrote:

> Dumbledore doesnt go around telling anyone is because of his
> experience, noted several times in the book, that it can be very,
> very difficult to get people to listen to and understand the truth.
> He probably figures that no one would believe him, or if they did,
> Rita Skeeter would write try to make a scandal out of it.  I can see
> the article in the Daily Prophet:
>
> *You-know-who learned all he knows at Hogwarts*
>
> Are our children being taught by the same teachers who taught the
> greatest evil wizard of all times?  Is your little witch listening to
> the same History of Magic lectures as Voldemort?  Hogwarts
> Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, could not deny that the evil one was
> once a Hogwarts student, but denies responsibility for his
> training.......

Good point:  Again, for the upteenth time, I refer people to one of my
favorite critical articles about the HP books, the one by Alan Jacobs at

http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0001/reviews/jacobs.html

which includes the remark:

The educational quandary for Albus Dumbledore, thenthough it is never
described so overtlyis how to train students not just in the
"technology" of magic but also in the moral discernment necessary to
avoid the continual reproduction of the few great Dark Lords like
Voldemort and their multitudinous followers.

The fact that Voldemort was trained at Hogwarts is probably something
they leave out of the alumni (oops, we had that discussion already), no,
the former student fundraising/promotional brochures.

Peg