Voldemort: Born or Made Evil?

[Tonks]

No: HPFGUIDX 131277

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Tamara" <buffyeton at y...> 
wrote:
> Do you think Lord Voldemort was born so terribly evil, or was he 
made that way by his circumstances?
> 


Tonks:
First one is not born evil. And JKR has even said that. One could 
argue the point that what we have here in the books, books written 
for children, is a discourse on Bullying. 

First we have Tom Riddle, mistreated in the orphanage by we assume 
his peers and perhaps by the adults as well. Tom was different than 
the other kids; he acted differently because of his magical 
abilities. This would have caused other to react. The adults may 
have been like Vernon, afraid of magic. The kids may have been like 
Dudley, bullies.  And see what happened to poor little orphan Tom. 
See what all of his anger and rage made of him. (In the U.S., as 
most of you know, kids have killed whole groups of their classmates, 
even innocent people, because they were the victim of bullying and 
couldn't take it anymore.) Tom would have been justified to feel 
this type of hatred towards the kids in the orphanage who mistreated 
him. So we are left with the question, who is to blame for the 
existence of LV?  Tom is the most to blame because he chose to react 
by returning evil for evil.  But I do not think that it is Tom's 
fault alone.  I think that LV exist because of the mistreatment of 
Tom Riddle.  I think that the bullies have a part of the blame and 
the society that allows it to happen also has a part.  We are asked 
to think about what kept LV from dying?  I think one answer can be 
the inhumanity of man to man.  As was once said: "We are all 
involved in mankind, what happens to one happens to all. Never send 
to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for ye" (pardon my poor 
paraphrasing.)

Next we have Snape.  He too was the victim of bullying.  And see 
what his anger has made of him. A man not able to let go of the 
past. A man able to master his emotions enough to be a good spy, but 
not able to get over his feelings towards James. (And I am beginning 
to wonder just what kind of a nasty piece of work James really was, 
to be frank.  But that is another post.)

Then we have Harry. Harry is an example of someone like the other 
two who has somehow (??) managed to rise above it all. And the 
mystery is just how has he been able to do that? I think that the 
books are about many things, and one of them is the developing the 
ability to overcome the evil done to us by other so that we do not 
give it back to the world.

Tonks_op