Was Tom Riddle, Sr. Selfish?

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 148590

> >>Carol:
> <snip> 
> We have no evidence that Tom Sr. was similar to Cedric in any way
> except that he, too, was handsome.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
We've some evidence of kindness in his willingness to interact with 
Merope.  It's not much, but the fact that she blew him up into her 
knight in shining armour suggests that Tom was not, at least, cruel.


> >>Carol:
> <snip>
> But she, too, is a victim, and I would argue that the abuse she    
> suffered from her father for most of her life, both physical and   
> emotional, was at least as bad as being seduced into marriage with 
> an ugly, poor, uneducated woman who had not been taught that you   
> don't practice magic on Muggles. 
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
It's hard, if not impossible, to play the "who's the bigger victim" 
game with Tom and Merope.  They both had a very hard time of it.  
However, Tom was not seduced.  He was raped. Repeatedly.  Calling it 
anything else is hiding the ball, I think.

> >>Carol:
> He didn't suffer the traumatic effects of forced sex or unwanted   
> pregnancy that a woman would have suffered, only the blow to his   
> pride of having been "hoodwinked" by the ugliest girl in the      
> village (and perhaps in all of England). 
> <snip>
> And I don't understand why he didn't have the marriage annulled   
> and marry his beloved Cecilia...
> <snip>
> Instead, he returned to the house of his rich parents and
> married no one. 
> <snip>
> "Nobody wasted their breath pretending to feel very sad about the
> Riddles, for they had been most unpopular. Elderly Mr. and Mrs.    
> Riddle had been rich, snobbish, and rude, and their grown-up son, 
> Tom, had been, if anything, worse" (GoF Am. ed. 4).

Betsy Hp:
Evidence of the trauma Tom suffered?  From the sounds of it, Tom 
crawled home and never left it again.  He may well have ended up 
highly fearful of strangers (anyone not his parents) and was thereby 
seen as a snob by the villagers.  The Tom described in GoF is very 
different from the outgoing boy in HBP.  There's a pre-Merope, post-
Merope difference and I don't think it's unreasonable to think the 
total loss of self Merope put him through had something to do with 
it.

> >>Carol, whose sympathies lie mostly with Merope and who wonders   
> what Tom Sr. would have thought of his lookalike son had he chosen 
> to raise him

Betsy Hp:
I think Tom, Jr. would have terrified his father.  Tom knew what it 
was to be at a wizard's mercy.  He'd have been a horrible father, 
I'm betting.  Especially with Tom, Jr.s early skill with magic.

Betsy Hp