Albus&Gellaert/Merope&Voldemort/Albus's nose/Y Voldemort's Power/A &G Again

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 182579

Phlytie and Blinky Elves asked questions after the Discussion of
Chapter 18 in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/182518>:

<< 9. This is the only place where we see Dumbledore interacting with
Grindelwald. Did you see enough, were there enough hints to indicate
that Dumbledore may have loved Grindelwald for more than just his
mind? What about those five years it took DD to finally confront GG?
Did you think DD was gay and in love with GG after this chapter? >>

After the severe disappointment of Remus and Tonks, I thought that
Rowling had deliberately created a fictional world with no gay people
in it. So as I grinned over young Albus's middle of the night owl
letter to young Gellaert (it made me remember being young myself), I
thought 'How can it be that Rowling doesn't realize how close this
depiction is to a romantic (not merely intellectual) passion? It's a
gift on a silver platter for the slash writers."

At the same time, and even more so when Aberforth explained it all, I
was thinking that this love of baby sister Arianna is starting to
verge on incestuous pedophilia. It was a relief when Herself announced
that Albus was gay (instead of in love with Arianna).

Meanwhile, I want to know what Gellaert did to be expelled from
Durmstrang, and how evil he actually was at the time. I think he might
have been not all that evil at that time, and gradually gotten more
and more evil.

On the other tentacle, could he have been a deceptive psychopath just
like young Riddle, who also charmed adults and classmates, except
without the excessive fear of death? Young Riddle seems to have
succeeded in concealing that his true desire was to kill rather than
to rule. If Grindelwald was a deceptive psychopath whose desire was to
rule, killing only a means to that end, would that have been just as
evil as Riddle?

Niru wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/182523>:

<< If [Merope] had lived, would Tom have become Voldemort? >>

I am sure that Tom was born a psychopath. Recall Mrs Cole the
orphanage manager's account: as a little baby, he rarely made any
noise and he disliked being cuddled. That orphanage was not a
wonderful place, but it wasn't bad enough to make a normal baby act
like a psychopath before he's six months old. That orphanage allowed
the children to have toys, and even pets (the murdered rabbit), and
took them on an annual outing to someplace (the seaside in the example
we saw) that the staff thought would be fun for them. When they could
instead have taken the children on an annual outing to visit a prison
and observe the fate that awaited them if they were disobedient.

It seems to me that, for the most part, any difference would have been
if Merope had lived to raise him in the wizarding community. I think
the only difference it would have made if Merope had lived to raise
him as a Muggle beggar would have been that he might not have been so
very terrified of death. Seeking earthly immortality is not an
inherent part of psychopathy.

If he had been raised in the wizarding world, there would have been
adults around who should have noticed what he was doing with his
underage magic and at least spanked him for it, maybe even be able to
bind his magic in some way so that he couldn't do it without
permission, or it would burn him when he did it, or something. I feel
that he might have been a little less certain that he was the most
powerful person around if he hadn't in fact been the most powerful
person in his early childhood.

If he had been raised with his mother adoring him and telling him how
wonderful his father was, he might felt less hatred of people in
general and Muggles in particular, but I fear not, that he wouldn't
have cared that his mother adored him, because she was such a
pathetic, ugly, impoverished loser despised by the other adults.

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/182526>:

<< She does inform us correctly that Aberforth broke Albus's nose at
Ariana's funeral (all this time, I just thought he was born with a
crooked nose!) >>

And I had thought that his long, thin, nose had been broken at least
twice because that nose is as much a part of the stereotypical image
of a wizard as the long white beard and the medieval style robes.
Broken at least twice? Did both happen at the funeral?

Tandra wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/182527>:

<< What exactly makes Voldermort so powerful? His father was a Muggle
and his mother we never see that she was overly powerful. So I don't
see that it could have been in his genes.

The same with Harry really, though it seems we see his parents were
talented in their own ways, nothing suggests the combo of their
abilities would make a "great" wizard. >>

Maybe it's hybrid vigor. That's a real phrase that I learned in my
freshman Biology Class at university long ago. It means that the
offspring from crossing purebreds of two different breeds of the same
species are often healthier than either parent, and may be larger,
more intelligent, more fertile, or other advantages. 

The reason is that the process of developing a purebred breed involves
a lot of crossing closely-related parents who have the desired trait,
in an effect to make sure that all offspring inherit it, not just some
offspring. A side effect is that the pureblood is homozygous (both the
paternal and the maternal copy of a gene are the same allele ('allele'
is a fancy word for what flavor an instance of a gene is, like albino
or not albino) f0r many genes that the breeder never thought of, as
well as for the genes that the breeder was trying for. 

So the cross of two different purebloods (pure Wizard and pure Muggle)
will have lots of heterozygous genes. I don't recall if the textbook
ever explained what's so healthy about being heterozygous.

SSSusan wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/182532>:

<< The five years was VERY distressing to me and that, particularly,
was where I thought it would have been helpful for JKR to have
revealed DD's gayness in text. That is, I think being best buds with
someone vs. being in love with someone is a different thing, and the
delay in confronting GG made a WHOLE lot more sense to me after the
nature of the relationship/feelings was revealed. >>

I thought there was an implication that the reason that Albus waited
so long to take down Grindelwald was that Albus was afraid that
Grindelwald would say something that would give away Albus's shameful
secret that they had once been friends. I can't remember whether it
was Skeeter's implication, or it was Albus's in King's Cross.

Another, and to me more likely, but then I don't see the secret as
being so shameful as all that, possible embarrassing reason for Albus
to have procrastinated taking out Grindelwald is that he was far from
sure he would win.

A lot of people think the reason was that he didn't want to kill his
long-ago friend. I often get things wrong, so that probably is the
reason that JKR intended. 

The thing is, as far as erotic (romance) and non-erotic (friendship)
love are concerned, either can be a temporary infatuation that soon
burns out. which can leave a pleasant memory, or can leave one so
ashamed of having been such a fool of such bad taste and judgment that
one would prefer to forget it ever happened, and if that is not
possible, resentful hostility to the person about whom memories are so
unpleasant. 

And both erotic and non-erotic love can be a life-long connection.

But it seems to me that the non-erotic love is more likely to last for
years and influence one's values and the erotic love is more likely to
temporary and leave a bad memory.