Merope's Selfishness

[M.Clifford]

No: HPFGUIDX 147090

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, bawilson at c... wrote:
>
> SSSusan:
> "But to call what she did at the orphanage "an act of utter
selfishness"?  I 
> can't go that far.  She had been left by Tom, she was flat broke,
she had no 
> family she could turn to for help, and no assets left.  Did you not
feel 
> despair in what she did? desperation? depression? <snip>"
> 
> 
> BAW:
> She could at least have left him at a WIZARDLING orphanage; I'm sure
they 
> exist. (We don't know that they do, but we don't know that they
don't, and 
> every society must make SOME provision for babies and children whose
parents 
> can't or won't properly care for them.)

Valky:
Why would she do that after having been raised by Marvolo Gaunt?
He was *all* wizard, and he never let people forget it, he was also
cruel and violent toward Merope all her life. Merope's concept of
Wizard will have been forever coloured by her experiences with her
father. Tom Riddle was also cruel to her, but she loved him through
his flaws, he was clean and gentlemanly unlike her father, and what is
most probable in Merope's case is that she honestly believed Muggles
were better than wizards and that she was doing the right thing for
young Tom by keeping him away from the world that had dealt her so
much cruelty.