My shocking idea - the case for Tom Riddle

[Wanda Sherratt]

No: HPFGUIDX 73084

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "vecseytj" <vecseytj at t...> > 
Me:  I don't think that Tom Riddle turned *evil* because of something
> silly.  I think TR turned into LV, because of *love* or better 
said:
> hatred of LOVE.  See Tom's Mother dies from: love.  Tom never 
wanting
> to be "stupid" like his Mother; so he hates love or maybe, better 
put
> despises love. (snip)> Tom's mum names him with her last breath.  
What does she name him? 
> After her family?  No.  She names him after his father, after the 
man
> she loves.  Strange how good old Tom turns out just like his 
> nasty old Father.  Not his loving Mum. (BTW, anyone know the name 
of
> TR/LV's Mum?)  I've never seen it.  I think it is *important*.  I
> think she it DD's sister.  (but, that is a really wild idea, with
> completly no canon.. so i'll stop)
> 
> So while TR/LV despise love.  Harry respects love.  (and Harry's 
Mum
> died for Love just as TR Mum did).  

This is possible.  But it would mean switching the main focus of the 
story away from where it appears to be going.  For several books, 
the theme has been developing that actions have consequences, and 
the way we treat people can end up influencing the way they turn 
out.  It is a sort of "Am I my brother's keeper?" theme; no one 
develops in isolation, we are all continually acting upon each 
other, for good or ill.  To turn Tom's downfall into a rejection of 
Love, because he sees it as weakness, would be to remove him from 
this equation; it would be to make his evil something he 
deliberately chose, which I think is the opposite of what Rowling is 
intending.  I think she wants us to see that Tom could have been 
different; that he was wrong, but he was also wronged.  And I don't 
think we know enough about his mother to say for sure that she was 
loving or not.  She definitely fell in love, and it ruined her 
life.  But we have no way of knowing what state of mind she was in 
when she died; she could have named her son after his father because 
she still loved him, or because she was defiantly proclaiming his 
responsibility for fathering him.  In any case, it doesn't matter to 
Tom; he never experienced her love.

But, Harry took the different
> road.  

I don't know that he has taken that road *yet*. I think Harry is at 
the same turning point Tom Riddle was at at one point.  Especially 
when he shouts at Dumbledore "Then I don't want to be human!"  That 
is his first response to all the suffering and pain that being human 
entails (only his first, mind you - I think he'll change his mind).  
I think that Tom once said the same thing, and it was in response to 
some overwhelming emotional pain.  But Tom does choose that dark 
path - he turns away from his own humanity, and tries to escape from 
everything that being human entails: pain, suffering, death, but 
also love.  I don't think that he didn't want love; I think he found 
that the pain that goes along with being able to love was too hard, 
and he chose to escape from it.


But, to say that Harry is going die to save TR/LV is silly.
> Honestly, what is to save?  TR was a nasty guy from a very young 
age.

Well, I don't know about that. Dumbledore doesn't sound like he 
thinks that there's nothing left of Tom Riddle; I think that's the 
reason he addressed him as "Tom". Because there was still some 
remnant of a human being there.  Many have said that it shows that 
he wasn't afraid of Voldemort, and I think that's true; but I think 
it shows that he also wasn't impressed by him. That to him, the REAL 
person was still the one he'd known, and he was talking past all the 
built-up layers of Voldemort to address the human being underneath.  
I don't know if such a person can be "saved", but I think that Harry 
will one day see him as Dumbledore does.  Maybe "saving" Tom Riddle 
will really consist of releasing him from Voldemort, so he can 
finally die.  (But really, by this point we're practically writing 
our own volume 7!) 

Wanda