Tom Riddle's Birth (Re: JKR Chat "The Crucial ...")

[naamagatus]

No: HPFGUIDX 92401

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Jen Reese" <stevejjen at e...> 
wrote:
<snip>
> I think what you're saying above is Riddle's mom may have suffered 
> and died, but not in an attempt to save her child, so somehow 
> the 'love sacrifice' turned on Tom? 
> 
> "I don't believe anybody was born evil, you will find out more 
about 
> the circumstances of his birth in the next book"---this basically 
> says to me that Voldemort's whole transfiguration from Tom Riddle, 
> orphan, to Voldemort the evil overlord, has its roots in something 
> around his birth. It could be a charm-gone-wrong like David 
> mentioned, or an actual curse upon Tom at birth. (That might negate 
> the Choice theory somewhat). Perhaps his mom didn't even die in 
> childbirth, but rejected him or even tried to kill him at birth and 
> Tom survived but was 'scarred' as well, the curse 'in his very 
> skin'. His AK bounced off baby Harry from the force of the love 
> sacrifice in Harry's very being, and sought out the skin of the 
> cursed Lord Voldemort instead.
> 

<snip>

JKR is clearly portraying Harry and Tom as very similar in their 
basic nature and temperament (outward appearance, talented, brave, 
ambitious, charismatic). However, who they become is (or will be) the 
opposite poles of good and evil. I'm wondering whether we shouldn't 
apply this basic opposition to their very beginning as babies. If 
Harry received the gift of love from his mother, maybe Tom received a 
gift of hate? 
What if his mother, before she died, did indeed cast some kind of 
protective charm on him, but it was based not on her love for him, 
but on her hatred of his father? 
If we see the magical as a metaphor for the psychological (this is 
clearly the case with the protection that a mother's love provides), 
it does happen in real life - parents raising their child to hate, 
almost base their whole personality, on a hatred of a betraying 
spouse. I think this fits better with the Good/Evil and Love as the 
Greatest Force scheme than with Tom's mother protecting him with her 
love.



Naama