[HPforGrownups] Voldemort's Names

[Kelly Grosskreutz]

No: HPFGUIDX 60195

> In a message dated 6/12/2003 10:07:49 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> honeycakehorse03 at hotmail.com writes:
>
>
> > We all noticed that Voldemort is called different things in the
> > books, from Lord Voldemort, to only Voldemort, to You-Know-Who, to
> > He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, to the Dark Lord.
> > I looked through the books and tried to determine if the name you
> > use for Voldemort has any parallels with your opinions about him or
> > how you feel about him.
>
> What's interesting in this context is that, so far as I can recall, we
have
> not yet seen Snape refer to him in any way or by any name at all.  If, as
you
> postulate, the name one uses to refer to Voldie is a reflection of your
> opinionof/belief about him, Snape's mode of reference should be quite
telling.  My
> guess -- Voldemort.
>
> Sherrie

It's telling in that it shows he once worked for Voldemort.  In his mind, he
still thinks of him as "the Dark Lord" because that's how he has always
thought of him.  To take a real-life example, I have a cousin named Lisa.
Years ago, she moved away, then decided she wanted to be called Lexa
instead.  As far as I know, anyone who lives by her, all her friends, call
her Lexa.  Yet to my family, she will always be Lisa.  We call her Lisa, we
think of her as Lisa.  I see this to be pretty much the same thing for
Snape.  He thought of Voldemort as "the Dark Lord" for so long.  It's hard
to make yourself change the way you think of a person.

And before someone decides to turn that into an argument for, "Well, in that
case, then Snape might even still be working for Voldemort because he hasn't
changed how he thinks about him," that's not what I mean.  Returning to my
Lisa/Lexa example, we can see how she has changed and how she isn't exactly
like she was when she moved away.  In other words, we don't still see her as
being exactly like she was when she used to live by us.  We see her as being
closer to the person she is now, but we still think of her under the name
with which we are most familiar.  Therefore, Snape can now see Voldemort as
being closer to the way we see him (nasty, evil, etc), but he still thinks
of him with the name with which he is most familiar:  the Dark Lord.

Kelly Grosskreutz, who wonders if Snape would say the name Voldemort without
flinching
http://www.idcnet.com/~ivanova