New!TOM - Fight or Rebuild? You be the Judge.

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 117532


Steve/bboyminn wrote:
" The first thing he would have done is left that castle as soon as
possible. The second thing would have been to re-unite with his old self.
 
The combination of Old!Voldemort and New!Tom would have been a
substantial adversary. You would be combining the exprience of a 70
year old, well versed in the Dark Arts, with the youthful body and
idealistic mind of 16 year old Tom. 

Assuming they could actually merge themselves into one corporeal
person, I think the new combined Voldie!Tom would have been more
powerful and dangerous than either of them separately, and I think
that is what JKR was referring to when she made the comment about this
eventuality hypothetically occuring."

Del replies :
That could very well be, indeed. But it's only an hypothesis, and it
relies on quite a few assumptions (that Tom would go and look for LV,
that he would find him, that they could be reunited). It's not a fact,
it's not even a certainty, and that's why I say that I don't count
Harry killing Diary!Tom as saving the world : because it's not sure.
It *is* sure that Harry saved Ginny, but it is not sure that he saved
the world.

bboyminn wrote :
"We can speculate that since it seems to be L.Malfoy who put this
whole plan into motion, that he and Diary!Tom had cooked up the scheme
together, both to discredit Mr.Weasley, to deal with Harry, and to
regain a physical form that Voldemort could use. "

Del replies :
That's indeed a very possible explanation of why Lucius gave the Diary
to Ginny to start with. However, Tom being Tom, I'm not sure he would
have carried on with the entire plan.

bboyminn wrote : 
"In addition, once Tom Riddle had a body, even if he ignored the
existing Vapormort, there was nothing to stop him from taking 5 or 10
years to learn from his mistakes, to gather data on his previous
transformations, to rebuild his army, and to rebuild himself bigger
and better than he was before."

Del replies :
Mabye I underestimate Tom but you seem to overestimate him ;-P
Judging from what we know of LV, such an intelligent approach isn't
very likely.

We've seen LV make many strategic mistakes over the years. His last
one was a biggie : after cleverly spending a whole year pretending he
doesn't exist, he blew it up *for no reason* by showing up at the MoM !

He seems to have problems learning from his mistakes. He gets
vaporised after attacking Harry, and yet the very next time he comes
face to face with him, he attacks him again ! With catastrophical
results. And even when Quirrell wanted to stop because touching Harry
burned him, LV kept pushing him on !

He's not good at gathering data : it took him several months to figure
out that only those concerned with a Prophecy can pick it up. That's
Prophecy 101. A little Legilimency in the mind of any Unspeakable
would have taught him that.

Moreover, we have to remember who and what Tom Riddle is
*fundamentally*. Tom is completely self-centered, he's supremely
arrogant in that he thinks he's better than anyone else, he relies
only on himself, he cannot envision beforehand that he might be wrong.
As such, I just don't see him managing to improve on what LV Mk.1 did.
Especially not in 5 or 10 years, when it took decades to the original
Tom to turn into LV.

Del