My shocking idea - the case for Tom Riddle

[sofdog_2000]

No: HPFGUIDX 73047


> Sof:
<snip> If Voldemort is Harry's dark opposite, coming from similar 
circumstances as they do, then we need a fuller understanding of 
his [Tom Riddle's] descent than simply "he cannot understand love." >>>

Wanda:
> My theory is that the killing of the Riddles was the first step on 
> Tom's descent into darkness.  The more I think about Tom Riddle, the 
> more I start to doubt what I *think* I know about him.  It all 
> sounds like a very standard tale: the pregnant mother abandoned by 
> the magic-hating father, the young boy brought up in an orphanage, 
> the search for revenge years later.  But upon closer inspection, the 
> story doesn't hold together in this form.  First of all, almost all 
> of this story comes from Tom/Voldemort himself.  But the question 
> then arises: How does he know this?  How could he have learned the 
> details of this story?  It's such a plausible one, I tend to forget 
> how such a story would usually be learned: from the embittered, 
> abandoned mother.  But that didn't happen in Tom's case: his mother 
> died when he was born.  So he didn't hear it from her.  Next, he was 
> brought up in a MUGGLE orphanage; how could he have learned these 
> details there?  His wizard heritage would have been unknown.  They 
> might have been able to tell him the name of his mother, but not 
> that she was a witch - she would have hidden that information, if 
> only to protect her son.  So I believe that he found out about his 
> wizarding side the same way Harry did - when he received his letter 
> from Hogwarts in his eleventh year.  At this point, the parallels 
> between Tom and Harry start to get quite startling.  How much does 
> Harry know about his parents at the comparable age?  Very little - 
> and he's living with people who at least knew them.  Tom would have 
> started with even less information.  And yet, in just a few years, 
> he knows enough about his background to be able to tell Harry the 
> circumstances of his birth and the motive for his father's 
> abandonment of him.  
> 
> His words in GoF were, "but I vowed to find him...I revenged myself 
> upon him, that fool who gave me his name...Tom Riddle."  He doesn't 
> say, "I vowed to find him IN ORDER to revenge myself on him"; the 
> way it's written, they are two separate ideas, and I think they were 
> two separate incidents.  I think Tom Riddle had ALWAYS dreamed of 
> finding his father, because, like Harry, he was a boy who longed for 
> a family.  As soon as he discovered where his father was, he did 
> what Harry would have done - he went to find him.  Just as Harry had 
> a partially fantasized view of his parents, and was disillusioned in 
> OotP, I think that Tom had unrealistic hopes about the father he 
> would meet.  I'm sure he was angry, and the first words out of his 
> mouth were, "Why did you abandon us?  Why did you let me rot in an 
> orphanage all those years?"  But I think he still hoped that he 
> would find a family and a home.  But it all went terribly wrong.  It 
> was during that interview, I believe, that Tom found out the 
> horrible truth - that his father hated magic, hated his mother, and 
> hated HIM because of it.  Where else would he have learned that, if 
> not from his father's lips?  Who else could have known?  Tom Riddle 
> Sr. would not have advertised to the world that he'd been in love 
> with a witch and had a child by her.  I think that that interview 
> started with Tom hoping to find a father, and ended with him killing 
> the three Riddles, and it began his rage against Muggles, and his 
> journey into darkness.


Sofdog:

Off the cuff: bravo! Your attention to detail is excellent. The suppositions are intriguing. 

I'll question whether a confrontation with with his family began Riddle's descent. Here are my reasons: 

1) His memory, in CoS, states that he was already planning to be 'Lord Voldemort' a wizard so feared that no one would utter his name and that he had already set the basilisk on other students (killing Myrtle); 

2) He was still a teenager when he was sighted at The Riddle House; 

3) He must have been 17 or the Ministry of Magic would have tracked his use of a curse (likely the AK) in the presence of Muggles, and he was only seen by one person so he likely Apparated; 

4) The CoS memory states that it took him 5 years to learn all he could about the Chamber of Secrets, therefore he started researching at 11, which implies he must have known that he was Slytherin's heir - otherwise why bother? 

Which raises the idea that perhaps his heritage, like Harry's, was explained to him when he arrived at Hogwarts. At least enough to set him on the path to tracing his mother's heritage. His father's can't have been very hard to identify given the man was from the most prominent family in Little Hangleton, and he had the man's name. 

I love your theory. Its pretty exciting. There just seem to be some details that contradict. I do wish Rowling would do Voldemort book. 

You've given this more thought than I have (just finished all the books back to back last week). What do you think? 

- Sof