Resolving (?) the Riddle

[naamagatus]

No: HPFGUIDX 124974


Since reading OoP, I've come to (slowly) realize that the main
questions in HP revolve, not Harry Potter, but Voldemort. Aftera all,
JKR often signals the reader via names (Sirius Black, Remus Lupin,
Dolores Umbridge, etc.) - surely "Riddle" must be significant?!

Then came the interview, where JKR directed us to think of the two
questions:
1) Why didn't Voldemort die in GH?
2) Why didn't DD try to kill him in the MoM? (
(Even before this I thought that since we had been given sufficient
information regarding Harry's survival, it was *Voldemort's* that
remained as a mystery. I have to admit, though, that DD not trying to
kill Voldemort didn't strike me as a mystery.)

If Voldemort is the main mystery, then resolving this should give us
the answer to these two questions. I.e., it's not about what happened
in GH (were Snape/Lupin/Pettigrew there? etc.) and it's not about
DD's convoluted strategies, or about ESE!Lupin - the answers should
arise from understanding Voldemort.

Voldemort's unique state of being

>From the very beginning, Voldemort is described as other than human.
The first intimation is Hagrid's "there's not enough human left in
him to die" (paraphrase). At the end of PS, in what seems almost a
fulfilment of this cryptic utterance, we get to actually see
Voldemort - and he is indeed described as having inhuman, *snake
like* features.

In the following books, every time Voldemort makes an appearance
there are allusions to his snake like appearance or to his snake
companion (or both).
Now it screams at me - as though JKR was hammering it into our heads,
but until OoP I didn't see the significance. However, when Harry felt
Voldemort's presence within him as a snake, I sat up and started
taking notice. If the emotional/mental presence of Voldemort is
snaky, then it has to mean that, in some very deep way, going a long
way beyond appearance, he *is* a snake. This special state - part
human, part snake, is unique to Voldemort.


Snakiness and Vol-de-mort-ism

When Harry meets Tom Riddle, he looks human. DD says that when Riddle
surfaced as Voldemort, hardly anyone reconized him as the boy he had
been, because he had undergone so many *dark and dangerous
transformations*. Since the DEs recognised Voldemort post-
resurrection, he must have been snake-like before. We know, from
Voldemort's words in the graveyard, that his transformations had one
purpose - immortality. From this we can conclude that his snakiness
is linked to the search for immortality.

Not long ago, I posted here on what I called snake immortality
and phoenix immortality (msg. 110260). In summary:
Snakes are symbols of immortality, due to their ability to shed their
skins. The skin that is left behind looks like the snake itself, but
is only a shell, a fake. The snake thereby "cheats" death by leaving
behind something that looks like it, but escapes with his essential
being (body) intact. The phoenix, on the other hand, truly dies. His
body turns to ashes. When the phoenix is born again, this is
therefore true resurrection. So, in contradistinction to the phoenix,
the snake would symbolise immortality achieved through fake dying or
cheating death .

This, then could be the answer to JKR's first question:
In GH, Voldemort, part snake, "shed" an external aspect of himself
(his body), but retained his essential being (some kind of spirit,
vapor..).

Snaky!Voldemort theory can also provide the answer to the second
question.
A snake sheds it's skin because it outgrows it. So each shedding of
the skin marks a stage in the snake's growth. This biological trait
connects with Sybil's (second) prophecy, in PoA: the Dark Lord will
arise *stronger and more terrible* than before.
If DD knew that when Voldemort resurrects again, he will have grown
stronger and more dangerous, then it makes moral sense to not try and
kill him. I say moral sense, because up until now, I could only
conjecture that DD hadn't tried to kill Voldemort because he knew
Voldemort would eventually return again. But it never really
satisfied me, because the moral choice would be to save lives *now*
by reducing Voldemort to vapor again: because if he did manage to
resurrect, then he's back at square one, not any worse than before.
But if Voldemort will return stronger, more difficult to fight, more
difficult to overcome - then it is was right for DD to not try and
kill him.

One person, dual nature

Another thing that made me sit up in OoP was the cryptic "divided in
essence". Several have conjectured that this refers to Harry and
Voldemort. It's possible, but not really satisfying. Harry and
Voldemort are two individuals. There is a connection between them,
but why should there be any question about them sharing essence? More
importantly, the one smoke snake divides into two snakes. It's clear
why a snake stands for Voldemort, but surely it's inappropriate as a
representing Harry?
There is no proof either way, but for now I'd like to consider a
different possibility - that it refers only to Voldemort. In fact,
going on what I've said before, we *know* that Voldemort is a being
that is "divided in essence" - part human, part snake.

Thinking of Voldemort in this way - one person, two essences, it
struck me quite forcefully how similar it is to the orthdox creed
regarding Christ - that he is one person, but two natures - human and
divine.

The negative parallels are striking. Where Christ is human and
divine, Voldemort is human and snake - where snake is the negative of
divine both in that divine is more than human and snake (as an
animal) is less, and in the Satanic connotations of snakes. Secondly,
Christ is *fully* human and fully divine. Voldemort is *partially*
human, partially snake. His double natures are both flawed,
imperfect, debased.

Once I started thinking of Voldemort as a dark, twisted mirror image
of Christ, several things fell into place, thematically.

For instance - Voldemort took the flesh and blood of others for his
own resurrection, where Christ giving his blood and flesh for the
redemption of others.
Or the really disturbing suffering Harry went through OoP because he
insisted on the truth of what he had witnessed. He is a martyr in the
original early Christian sense:
"The Greek word martus signifies a witness who testifies to a fact of
which he has knowledge from personal observation... The disciples of
Christ were no ordinary witnesses such as those who gave testimony in
a court of justice. ... the witnesses of Christ were brought face to
face daily, from the beginning of their apostolate, with the
possibility of incurring severe punishment and even death itself. ...
the term martus came to be used in the sense of a witness who at any
time might be called upon to deny what he testified to, under penalty
of death." (from www.newadvent.org/cathen/09736b.htm)

And the obvious - that the only character who resurrects is
Voldemort. And that where Christ is pure Love, Voldemort never felt
love at all (and therefore doesn't understand it), and basically
stands for Hate.


Which means... what?

The theory of Voldemort was meant to be a "theory of everything". But
while this prespective does reveal a coherent structure, I am still
very unclear as to it's final significance:
What does it *mean* that Voldemort is a dark Christ figure - when the
narrative is clearly about Harry?
How does the mysterious force that is Harry's (Love, I'm sure) fits
with this Voldemort theory?
The whole scar thing - the connection between Harry and Voldemort -
how will that play out?
Finally, how will Voldemort be vanquished?


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