That ugly baby thing.

[dwalker696]

No: HPFGUIDX 173629

> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Sandra Collins" 
> <sandra87b@> wrote:
> >
> > Having put down the book after reading the King's Cross chapter 
> > again, I still don't get the whole ugly baby thing. From what 
I've 
> > read of the many many many enjoyable, varied and informative 
> > posts regarding a wide raft of subjects to do with the book, is 
> > how Voldermort was meant to be an ugly baby under a bench. I 
> > don't understand the symbolism or maybe the reality? Could 
> > anyone enlighten me as to what it all meant because it's all been 
> > lost on me. 

My interpretation of the baby thing is not that it is Voldemort 
himself, it is only that part of his soul (the accidental horcrux) 
that was in Harry. That piece can't be reunited with Voldemort, so it 
is doomed to exist in it's afterlife as exactly what it is - a 
broken, damaged, fragment of a soul, not a whole entity. So, at that 
point in time, we get the idea that the rest of LV's soul shards, the 
other destroyed horcruxes, are miserably writhing around, 
lost...unable to rejoin the soul, but certainly unable to enjoy 
a "functional" afterlife experience. And when the last piece of soul 
that is in LV is sent off when LV dies from his own rebounded AK 
against Harry in the end, I get the distinct impression that the 
creature under the bench (whether literally or metaphorically 
speaking) is the fate of that last piece of soul in LV as well; Harry 
tries to save LV from that fate, he tells him "Think, and try for 
some remorse, Riddle...It's your last chance...I've seen what you'll 
be otherwise". Dumbledore warned Voldy as well, "...your failure to 
understand that there are things much worse than death has always 
been your greatest weakness." (OOP pg 814)

Personally, with the anticipation of DH, I had been waiting to see 
what kind of anguished fate LV would be left to endure. (I was also 
rather hoping for an ending of retribution for the Durselys as well. 
Not death, mind you...but I used to humor myself imaging that the 
Dursley's fate would be to be stuck with LV and conversely that LV 
would be stuck with the Dursleys for all eternity ;0) Just makes a 
humorous image.) Anyway, I knew LV's fate would be "much worse than 
death", but I was curious to know what JKR had in store for him, and 
I am personally pleased with what she came up with. I was imagining 
torture and torment, enduring what he made all his victims suffer as 
his fate, but the idea of Voldemort suffering as a miserable and more 
importantly HELPLESS creature is gratifying, though certainly sad. 
Particularly Voldemort, who valued power so much, would be very 
miserable as powerless, helpless. And I kind of liked Harry going to 
him like the Ghost of Christmas Future, warning him to repent or 
forever wear the chains of his misdoings.

Donna