"Voldemortist"

[GulPlum]

No: HPFGUIDX 44078

At 07:47 16/09/02 -0400, eloise wrote:

>The title has been customarily conferred on the Heir Apparent (to the English
>throne in those days, now the British throne) since 1301, following Edward
>I's defeat of Llewelyn and his subsequent annexation of Wales as a
>principality.

As a matter of pure pedantry (and completely OT, purely for information) 
AFAIK (as ever, I'm open to being proved wrong) there is no "British" 
throne. "Britain" is a geographical and topographical entity, not a 
constitutional one. There is the English crown (which includes the 
Principality of Wales, a few English Protectorates and Northern Ireland - 
the whole of Ireland "belonged" to England prior to the Act of Union) and 
the Scottish crown (which includes a few Scottish possessions, such as 
islands in the North Sea). Of course, by dint of the Act of Union, both 
English and Scottish crowns are held by the same person (ER II was 
technically crowned twice). Thus we have the United Kingdom, which is the 
only name for the constitutional and political entity we know, and some 
even love. :-)

>BTW, if we are to associate Harry with Henry IV, some might think it
>significant that, as well as having problems with rebellions in Wales, Henry
>had a lot of trouble with the Percy family in the north. He eventually
>defeated Sir Henry Percy ('Hotspur'), but the family continued to cause
>problems for the monarchy until the head of the family was killed a few years
>later.

So, by extension, Harry is the nearest thing the Wizarding World has to 
royalty! That brings on several interesting thoughts! :-)

>Richard (Gul Plum):

(as a matter of pedantry but of absolutely no significance other than to 
myself, there is no space between the "l" and the "P") :-)

<snipo>

>But... sources, such as they are, say that Vortimer was the eldest son of
>Vortigern and there *is* a legend about Vortigern meeting the young Merlin,
>who fortells his defeat.

Oh, indeed. That meeting is actually very important to Arthurian canon, and 
(as far as I've been able to ascertain) always formed part of the core 
legends, unlike some of the later Merlin back-story which Geoffrey of 
Monmouth (not to mention even later writers) came up with, mostly of his 
own invention.  However, Vortimer isn't part of any of the core Arthurian 
legends, and his inclusion only comes up because he was Vortigern's son.

(Just for completeness, whilst Vortigern is generally accepted to have been 
a real historical character, Vortimer as we know him, like Arthur, is 
considered to be a purely mythical construct based on a concatenation of 
several real people; Merlin is generally considered to be based on two or 
three real "wise men" or bards of the time.)

In any case, the relevance of this whole story to HP is that some people 
have presented Vortimer as an etymology for "Voldemort" (at least I assume 
it's Vortimer, as his is the only possibly vaguely similar-sounding name). 
The point is that Vortimer (whose name, incidentally, very roughly 
translates as "king of kings") would have been considered by Merlin, Arthur 
and Geoffrey as very much a Good Guy - Vortigern brought in the Saxons and 
then caused himself all sorts of trouble with them, while Vortimer tried to 
make peace with them and unite the Celtic tribes. 100 years later, Arthur 
achieved *exactly* that, for which he was (and is) considered a hero. Some 
of the legends have Vortimer being poisoned by his step-mother for his 
troubles...

So why Vortimer (and especially his name) should be put forward as the 
inspiration for the HP series' ultimate Bad Guy is simply beyond me.

>While we're on the subject of Voldemort's name, there's Marvolo to contend
>with.
>Has anyone ever come up with an etymology for this? Is it just a handy name
>for constructing Voldemort (I suspect so).
>I confess that it amuses me, as it sounds just like a stage magician's name:
>Roll up, roll up for the Great Marvolo! I take great delight in imagining
>that Voldemort's grandfather wasn't a wizard at all, but merely a music hall
>entertainer!

My own views are that you're on the right lines there, although I'd take it 
a step further. The Great Marvolo was a stage magician, but the "twist" is 
that he was actually a real wizard.  My own imagined back story for him 
goes a little like this:

He was little more than a Squib and so the wizarding community held no 
future for him. So, with the few abilities he had, he formed his own "magic 
trick" show to amuse the Muggles. Considering Tom's d.o.b. and thus a 
plausible age range for his mother, Marvolo would have been active at 
around the beginning of the 20th century (I still can't get used to calling 
it the last century) ;-) which was a major time not only for stage 
magicians, but also the "golden age" for spiritualism  etc. A 
barely-competent wizard could have made a killing in those circumstances. 
His daughter (thus far un-named in canon) had true wizarding talent and was 
sent off to Hogwarts and it was at one of (by this stage quite elderly) 
Marvolo's stage shows that Tom Riddle Sr. met her.

I know it's fanciful, but what the hell. I could've written it up as a 
fanfic, but I'm no good at that kind of thing. :-)