Pity for Voldemort

[Wanda Sherratt]

No: HPFGUIDX 104961

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214"
<dumbledore11214 at y...> wrote:

> Hmmmm. Let's put it this way. (Keep in mind that I am not set in 
> stone on that issue, I may rethink it over again. :))
> 
> I guess I do feel pity for Tom until certain moment of his life. I 
> fully realise where is he coming from, etc, BUT when he decided to 
> become Lord Voldemort and go on the killing sprees, even though I 
> understand what may influenced his choices, I still have no pity for 
> him.

I'd go along with that.  One can pity, say, the 8-year old Tom Riddle,
alone and abandoned in a horrible orphanage - obviously he's not
Voldemort THEN.  But at some point he makes a decision:  "Evil, be
thou my good," - doesn't Satan say that in 'Paradise Lost'?  From that
point, he's the enemy of goodness.  The only pity I can have for him
then is sort of a retrospective pity - a "How could you have done this
to yourself?" feeling about someone who didn't have to end up this
way, but did.  It's more pity for the lost Tom Riddle who might have
been than for Voldemort himself.

Wanda