The power in Voldemort's name

[Charmian]

No: HPFGUIDX 8858

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, "Jim Ferer" <jferer at y...> wrote:
<snip>
> 
> It isn't out in left field at all.  There's a notion in a lot of 
> magic-works-universe fiction that the true name of a thing is 
> powerful.  Usually, though, it runs the other way; you have more 
power 
> over a thing if you know its truename.  In LeGuin's Wizard of 
Earthsea 
> trilogy, people did not reveal their truenames except to their most 
> trusted friends.  Ged, the central character, was known as 
Sparrowhawk 
> to most people.  "How are you called?", people would say.
> 
> Maybe that's what it is -- if you use Voldemort's ("flight of 
death" 
> in French) name it will tick him off and he'll get you for 
attacking 
> him.

That might be it, but I don't think we've seen anything in the books 
that indicates that it really does anything. (In fact, isn't Tom 
Marvolo Riddle really Voldemort's name? I wonder how long it took JKR 
to come up with that anagram.) In SS/PS, ("Call him Voldemort, Harry. 
Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear 
of the thing itself.") doesn't Dumbledore encourage Harry to say 
Voldemort instead of He-who-must-not-be-named or You-know-who (the 
second, now that I think about it, is in fact rather silly sounding. 
What's next, that-really-scary-guy or the wizard-formerly-known-as-
Tom-Marvolo-Riddle? I suspect Voldemort shall soon, to celebrate his 
resurrection, insist that his followers refer to him by an 
unprounouncable symbol, which won't be a problem, since they all call 
him the Dark Lord anyway). But on the other hand, Dumbledore and 
Voldy are in the same class, power-wise, and Harry used to be off-
limits to Voldemort's magic. 

Charmian