Copyediting Errors - Listed? (was:Voldemort killed personally?)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 157209

> Mike responds:
> 
> Um, Carol are you saying that this *isn't* a admitted mistake by 
> either JKR or he publishing houses? Because, I thought you were 
> saying that this was an *admitted* mistake as opposed to a 
> *perceived* mistake. 

Carol responds:
I'm saying that it's an obvious inconsistency that should have been
caud=ght and corrected but wasn't. I don't think that JKR even knows
about it, but the canon evidence I've cited shows that it's an error.
We *know* that Tom was sixteen when he killed Myrtle (or the Basilisk
killed her, if you insist). He would have to have been near the end of
his fifth year at that time. We know that he killed the Riddles after
that, either a few months later or the following summer. I think it
was just a few months later because in Slughorn's memory, he's wearing
Marvolo's ring (which is not yeat a Horcrux) and the narrator states
that he's "by no means the oldest of the boys." If that's true, and,
granted, it's Harry's perception, he must be a sixth-year. He'd be
among the older students in his year, given his December 31 birthday,
so the boys who seemed older must have been seventh-years.
Speculation, I realize, but it's the best explanation I can come up
with. But absolutely, he was at least a fifth year in the diary memory
because he's wearing a prefect badge. He says he's sixteen, and that
fits the evidence I've already cited. It's *canonical* that he's
sixteen at that point and *canonical* that he has a December 31
birthday. The line about being "in his sixteenth year" has to be
simply a typo or mathematical error based on JKR's misconception of
the concept of "sixteenth year." (A *lot* of people think it means
that he was sixteen. It's a common misconception.)

Mike:
See, I too think this whole thing plays better 
> if Tom kills his elders after his fifth year, after he openned the 
> CoS. But here's the problem:
 
> We have plenty of evidence that Tom openned the CoS in his fifth 
> year, and Diary!Tom says he preserved his 16 year old self in the 
> diary, but there is no reference whatsoever to when or if he killed 
> his father. Diary!Tom only says that he wasn't using his "filthy 
> Muggle fathers name", he'd benn calling himself "Lord Voldemort" 
> already. In fact, Diary!Tom told us that his father had abandoned 
> his mother. What book would he read this in? Yes, he could have 
> deduced it since he had deduced his father was a muggle. But, we 
> also know that Morfin told him this very thing at the Gaunt shack, 
> right before Tom kills his dear Pa.
> 
> So Diary!Tom knows about his father abandonning his mother, and 
> Penseive!Tom found out this same thing (and got confirmation that 
> his father was a Muggle) just before he kills his father. Based on 
> this evidence, it does appear that Tom killed his father *before* 
> his fifth year. But, more importantly, it's canon.

Carol:
No, it isn't. See below.

 And unless 
> someone of authority tells us it was a mistake, we shouldn't be 
> assuming it was, no matter how well the alternate version plays. I 
> know JKR admits she's bad with math, and I agree she's no whiz with 
> time lines either. But, unless she comes out with a correction, like 
> she did with the GoF priori scene, we're stuck with canon.
> <snip>

Carol responds:
Diary!Tom, like the real Tom Riddle, knows what the people at the
orphanage told him, that his mother lived just long enough to name him
(Tom Riddle after his father; Marvolo after his grandfather).
Dumbledore tells us that Tom at first believed that his mother must
have been a Muggle or she wouldn't have died, but after failing to
find any record of his father at Hogwarts, he started trying to find
information on his father's family. 

We *know* that he was trying to find a link between himself and
Slytherin once he discovered that both of them spoke Parseltongue.
Research on the Heir of Slytherin and the Chamber of Secrets would
have led him to the Gaunts, Slytherin's only known living descendants.
He was looking for Marvolo Gaunt, with no intention of killing anyone,
when Morfin spilled the beans about Merope running off with "that
Muggle" and Slytherin's locket. At that point, the plan changed, and
Tom killed his father and grandparents in revenge, framed Morfin for
the murders, and took Marvolo's ring from Morfin. (He still didn't
know how to make a Horcrux, as we know from the conversation with
Slughorn, which takes place after the murders, as we know because he's
wearing the ring. He *isn't* wearing a ring in CoS, or surely the
narrator would have mentioned it.) He knows that "the blood of Salazar
Slytherin" runs in his veins through his mother's side (CoS Am. ed.,
314) because he's done his research. He could not have located the
Gaunts otherwise.

Of course, he doesn't mention having killed his father in CoS. In his
view, it hasn't happened yet. But we know he did, not only from the
scenes Dumbledore shows Harry in HBP but because Voldemort himself (as
opposed to Diary!Tom) says so.

Frank Bryce sees "a teenage boy, dark-haired and pale," near the house
on the day of the murders (GoF Am. ed. 3), and Voldemort tells Harry
in the graveyard, "I revenged myself upon him, the fool who gave his
name" (646). 

There's other evidence throughout the books that Tom killed his father
and grandparents and framed Morfin for the murders, and we know that
he made the ring into a Horcrux, probably using his father's murder,
some time later. (I would guess that it was done after he left school
and had started working at Borgin and Burke's.)

I don't see the problem, actually--just a small error ("sixteenth
year" for "age sixteen"). He certainly killed the Riddles, and he must
have done so in the summer following Myrtle's death. The diary,
associated with her death, became his first Horcrux. The ring,
associated with the Riddles and especially his "filthy Muggle father,"
became the second.

To repeat, Diary!Tom knows that his father was a Muggle and his mother
was a witch who died in childbirth. He knows that no one named Riddle
ever came looking for him. Therefore, his father was either dead or
abandoned her. He deduces that it was because she was a witch. Morfin
says no such thing, only that the Muggle came back, that Tom looks
"mighty like him," and that the Muggle lives on the hill. So Tom goes
hunting for his father to seek vengeance.

There is no canon whatever except the "sixteenth year" statement,
which is similar to the error in "Spinner's End" indicating that Snape
had taught for sixteen years when we know that it should be fifteen,
to indicate that Tom killed his parents when he was fifteen. Logic and
canon indicate that it occurred when he was sixteen, after he had
killed Myrtle.

Call "sixteenth year" canon if you like. I call it an inconsistency,
almost certainly a Flint. We do *not* have a canonical statement that
the murders occurred before he killed Myrtle, and all the evidence
indicates that they occurred afterwards. Diary!Tom would have
mentioned an important matter like killing his father, don't you
think? Instead, he merely tells Harry that he created a new name for
himself rather than using his "filthy Muggle father's" name (CoS Am.
ed. 314).

Carol, sorry to have created a hornet's nest with a simple statement
about copyediting