[HPforGrownups] Re: The power in Voldemort's name

[John Walton]

No: HPFGUIDX 8868

Charmian wrote:

> --- 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

The name-as-power theme runs not only through LeGuin (one of my FAVORITE
writers!) but through Eddings. For instance, in the first two books of the
Belgariad (the first series), Our Heroes avoid saying the name of the Grolim
Apostate (type of sorcerer) Zedar. Apparently, he can hear his name being
said all over the land.

Perhaps, therefore, this is why nobody says Voldy's name.

--John

========================================
John Walton     john at walton.to

Campaign spending: $184,000,000
Coke habit in your youth: $300 per day
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