Source of LV's evil nature

[Cathy Drolet]

No: HPFGUIDX 113517

> DuffyPoo wrote:
 >Especially since, IMO, TR's mother is much more in the wrong, yet 
> TR doesn't seem to include her in his wrath.  He appears to hold her 
> in higher regard in this situation. Considering that she deceived 
> Riddle, Sr for at the least, some weeks and at the most, possibly a 
> couple years, then once they were married, and she was pregnant, she 
> informed her Dear Hubby that 'oh, by the way, I'm a witch and I've 
> been lying to you for all this time.'   
> [Snip]
> 

Julie said:
"TR's mother is more in the wrong in her marriage, and vis a vis her
husband. But she's not the one who willfully abandoned her son 
and left him in an orphanage. Whatever happened between TR's
parents, and whoever is more to blame for the failure of the
marriage, that's really unrelated to TR, at least from his POV.
His mother died, so she couldn't prove or disprove her love, but
his father rejected him coldly and deliberately. That's no doubt
foremost in TR's mind when he's focusing his wrath on his father."

DuffyPoo:
I don't see that his father abandoned TR at all, except in TR's mind.  Divorce/separation isn't ususally about the kids but about the adults in the situation.  Did Riddle, Sr. even know his wife was pregnant or had she just told him she was a witch?  Did she even know that she was pregnant, at the time of the magical revelation?  That's the real question, especially since we have no idea where she lived from the time Riddle, Sr left her, until TMR was born and he was placed in an orphanage  LV says "and she died giving birth to me, leaving me to be raised in a Muggle orphanage."  TMR only assumes he was abandoned because he has no father in the picture.  Riddle, Sr may never have known a baby was on the way/born, until TR, at 18 or so, walked into the house in Little Hangleton.  Do you think TMR was going to listen to Dad, at that point, say 'I didn't abandon you, I didn't even know she was pregnant. I left because she lied to me!'  

" ... I revenged myself upon him, that fool who gave me his name .. Tom Riddle ..."(GoF)    Yet, according to CoS, it was his Mother who named him,  "My mother died just after I was born, sir.  They told me at the orphanage she lived just long enough to name me: Tom after my father, Marvolo after my grandfather."  Later in CoS Diary!Tom says "You think I was going to use my filthy Muggle father's name forever? ... I, keep the name of a foul, common Muggle, who abondoned me even before I was born, just because he found out his wife was a witch?"  This is way too much about Muggle/Wizard relations and not nearly enough about abandonment, IMO, for him to only blame his father for the situation into which he was placed. 

LV says "he didn't like magic, my father" but there really is no proof of that.  Perhaps if Mrs. R had not deceived him for however long, and had been up front with the magic, there may have been no problem at all.  It *appears* Riddle, Sr "didn't like magic" because he left his wife upon finding out that she was a witch, but the deception could have been the reason, not the magic.   Who among us would stay with someone who had deceived us in a similar manner for, let's say, a year?  (Personal story, my cousin and her fiance both agreed they did not want children.  They dated for about a year - maybe longer - and always agreed, no children.  Within only a few weeks of getting married, the hubby started in about when they were going to have kids.  She reminded him that they had agreed not to have children.  He informed her he'd only said that to go along with her and that he really wanted a family.  She filed for divorce about three months after the wedding.)

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