Tom Riddle's Origins (was No Sex, Please)

[erinellii]

No: HPFGUIDX 84115

> <<<In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Geoff Bannister" wrote:...If 
> Tom had gone to the trouble to find out about his family (even only 
> with revenge in mind perhaps), then I would have thought that he 
> would have covered this angle. Surely you're not expecting 
Voldemort to produce a marriage certificate from his back pocket?>>>
> 
> The Sergeant Majorette says
> 
> But why are we taking Tom's word for anything? The child's not 
right,  as the old folks say. I think he constructed an elaborate 
fantasy from a few scraps of evidence. If there *was* a marriage 
certificate and his mother *was* an abandoned wife, why not just show 
up with a lawyer and a tabloid reporter?


Why not just show up with a tabloid reporter???  Hello!  We happen to 
be talking about the most evil dark wizard in a hundred years.  When 
Voldemort wants revenge, he wants REVENGE.  Humiliating his father 
wasn't going to do it for him.  
  And also, have you forgotten that the wizarding world doesn't want 
muggles to know about the existence of witches and wizards?  Exposure 
is never an option for Riddle.

As for taking Tom's word on it, don't forget he had to track his 
father down in order to murder him.  I would assume he did that by 
either looking up his mother's marriage certificate or his own birth 
certificate, which would probably have told him they were married.  



Sergeant Majorette:
> Tom Riddle cannot possibly have been the only kid stuck in an 
> orphanage because his/her father abandoned his mother when he found 
> out she was a witch/pregnant/the wrong religion/underage/other/all 
of the above, and *they* didn't turn out to be psychotic evil dark 
> lords/ladies.


 You are correct in saying that he isn't the only kid ever whose 
mother has been abandoned by his father.  But how many of those 
mothers actually die as a direct result of abandonment?  Not too 
many, I would think.  And when you add in that abandonment was a lot 
less common back then, probably it was pretty rare for a kid to end 
up in an orphange *just* because his mother had been abandoned.  

And when you add in that he was a magic kid, heir of Slytherin, and 
being sorted to Slytherin House, the house that has turned out more 
dark wizards than any other, I don't think it's so surprising he 
turned out evil.

Erin