Orphans - Harry and Tom

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 150836

Alla:
> 
> Lovely post, Ceridwen. I am not sure I agree with your ultimate 
> conclusions though, if I understand them correctly. Are you saying 
> that with Tom's story JKR basically changes the "orphan story set 
> up" completely?

Ceridwen:
She changed the window dressing of the orphan story with Harry, even 
before she changed it with Tom.  Harry doesn't act like a house elf, 
which is what all those poor but honest orphans (and partial orphans, 
since I do own a copy of The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew) 
sound like.  Thankful for a moldy crust of bread, dew-eyed and 
subservient.  Harry made the orphan realistic, with feelings and 
pride.  Tom completely upended it, yes, in contrast with Harry. who 
gave the traditional orphan more believability.

Alla:
> You see, if Tom was the only orphan in the story , I would probably 
> agree with you, but as you said she contrasts Tom and Harry and 
> between those two, her sympathies lie with Harry. SO, I am afraid 
> that my answer will sound trivial and I indeed thought about it, 
> because I wanted to do your post justice, but I could not change my 
> answer.

Ceridwen:
Even with Tom not being the only orphan in the story, we all knew he 
was orphaned, and I think very few of us expected the completely evil 
from day one child we were shown.  Our expectations of the orphan set 
us up to be surprised.

Alla:
> Oh, and are you sure that Tom (just as any oprhan in the stories 
you 
> listed) is not searching for the family?
> 
> I mean, he is searching for the family with the evil purposes, but 
> he still wants the family, no? He wants to know who his father and 
> his mother were.

Ceridwen:
Tom gives up on his family when his expectations are destroyed.  
Unlike Harry, who still reveres his father, though sees him as more 
human after Snape's Worst Memory.  Tom only wants to know, so he can 
validate his impressions.  His mother couldn't be a witch, she 
*died*, for Pete's sake!  His father must have been the wizard 
because of the power he exercised over Tom and his mother.  He is 
tentatively happy to be named for his father when he thinks that his 
father is as powerful as he is.  Once he finds out that he was 
a 'mere' Muggle with no magic, he does not want to have the name of 
Tom because it is too common.  He must have known that there were 
others who were named Tom before then, but when it symbolized a 
father with power, it was all right.

But, yes, he does go after his relations on both sides, for evil 
purposes.  He frames his maternal uncle, he kills his paternal 
grandparents and his father.  To me, this does not show him as having 
any of the usual feelings of curiosity about his past and his 
ancestry.  These were only people who had wronged him, I think, after 
Dumbledore's revelations.  His interest in them peaks when he finds 
out about his own powers.  After that, they're nothing.

Alla:
> I mean, sure, I guess if we look only on Tom's character, it is a 
> different "orphan" from what we know and from what we expect, but 
if 
> we look at his place within the story, that he is  supposed to be 
> the main Evil of the story, I guess I think that JKR brought him up 
> ( besides to be Harry's rival) to show Harry's likeability more.

Ceridwen:
But she didn't have to make him an orphan.  Such an amoral person can 
be shown in many ways, and there are many more common ways to do it.  
He could have been presented as someone like Draco, who had the money 
and the family name behind him to get him started on his path.  With 
his father being rich, she could have brought him from there.

Or, he could have been from a family of outright criminals.  The 
Gaunts are creepy and dark, but they don't come across to me as 
organized gangster types, or slippery politicians.  They are base.  
And the handsome, smooth-talking Tom M. Riddle doesn't seem to take 
after them in personality.  (I do think he got his crazy streak from 
them!)

There are many ways to show a lack of restraint, and a lack of 
constraining limits.  The orphan was a very different way of doing 
that, I think.  She took the allure of the orphan, which is his 
freedom from having to be home by dark and in bed by nine and so on 
(though the orphan longs for the parents who make those rules) and 
stretched it until it crossed into dangerous territory.

And, you're making sense just fine.  I think it's me who isn't!  *g*

Ceridwen.