Riddle, Voldemort, and Harry (was: Re:Dumbledore's Philosophy)

[KathyK]

No: HPFGUIDX 81716

Iggy McSnurd:
 
>The greatest evil is love turned to hatred.  I feel that Tom was 
loved by his mother and loved her back, yet she was taken from him 
at a very early age, which turned him bitter.  That bitterness about 
his lot in life festered, and he saw his father and grandparents as 
the first cause of his life being so terrible.  He no longer had 
anyone in his life, as a young boy, who cared about him... much less 
loved him.  By the time he got to Hogwart's, he had pretty much made 
up his mind about the kind of person he was to bevome.<
 
KathyK:

I don't mean to get all nitpicky here...Oh who am I kidding?  Yes I 
do.  

GoF US Paperback p 646:

Voldemort:

'He left her and returned to his Muggle parents before I was even 
born, Potter, and she died giving birth to me, leaving me to be 
raised in a Muggle orphanage...but I vowed to find him...I revenged 
myself upon him, that fool who gave me his name...*Tom Riddle*...'

CoS US Paperback p 244:

Riddle:

'They told me at the orphanage she lived just long enough to name me'

I don't know how much of his own mother's love Riddle experienced or 
remembered in those few moments before she died.  But Riddle grew up 
in that orphanage.  I also think he just grew up bitter and angry at 
his father and at Muggles in general and this led him to become Lord 
Voldemort.  But I don't think the intense desire for vengeance came 
from experiencing his mother's love and then being deprived of that 
love.  

Rather the bitterness more likely comes from finding out his wealthy 
Muggle father rejected his witch mother and their unborn child, 
abandoning him to the awful fate of being raised in an orphanage.  
He became hateful of all things Muggle because of his father's 
rejecting him rather than because he blames his father for taking 
away his mother's love.

I don't think Riddle had the chance to experience love.  He's all 
hate and has been since he was a child.  A bleak outlook, I know, 
but that's the way it appears.  And I don't think that Lily's love 
for Harry and Harry's love for people and life will spark any sappy 
emotions from a dormant Tom Riddle craving love and affection.  

Salit:

>>I can't see Harry showing mercy to Voldemort. But obviously LV 
can't be killed in the normal fashion, as he is immune to death. So 
he will die in some unexpected way - akin to how Harry destroyed Tom 
Riddle in CoS by destroying the diary.<<

Iggy McSnurd:

>Hence my theory that Riddle will be, ultimately, the one who 
destroys Voldemort due to Harry's influence.
 
He had no reason whatsoever to spare Wormtail, and had every reason 
in the world to kill him.  Yet he spared WT because it's who he is.<

KathyK:

He spared Wormtail because he cared about what would happen to Lupin 
and Sirius, not because he had any love for the nasty little rat who 
helped kill his parents.  Harry was perfectly content to send him 
off to the dementors.  I agree with Salit here that Harry will not 
be showing Voldemort any mercy.  That's not to say Harry's going to 
relish destroying him because he isn't like that, but if it comes 
down to that, he won't be worrying about the little boy Tom Riddle 
once might have been if he even existed.

Salit:

>>Oh please. He has met Tom Riddle. He was that kid who set the
basilisk on muggle-borns, who framed Hagrid, who possessed Ginny, who
so enjoyed seeing Harry bitten by the basilisk that he was going to
sit and watch him die slowly and painfully, who killed his family
just for the heck of it.<<

Iggy McSnurd:

>Like I said, that was after Riddle had made his decision to become 
LV.  As I also said, it's entirely possible that the boy who was Tom 
when he was still with (and loved by) his mother can very well be 
buried deep inside LV.
 
Harry met the memory of Riddle, not the real Tom... Even Tom himself 
admits that.  What was infused into the book was what LV WANTED to 
be infused into the book, not necessarilly every part of himself.<

KathyK:

Even if deep down Voldemort's got some spark of a pre-racist 
innocent, loving Tom Riddle, that doesn't change who Voldemort is 
and what he has done since *making the choice* to become that power-
hungry mass murderer we all know and love.

KathyK (who should go get her drivers license renewed as it expired 
last week)