Chapter 27 Discussion / Why LV is bad / How TMR found the CoS / Cup Soul Bit

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 184164

Jen summarized Chapter 27 in 
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/184119>:

<< dabbing essence of dittany on their many burns  >>

Carol replied in 
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/184126>:

<< dittany, a substance whose powers have been considerably enhanced
since HBP >>

Did I ever mention how much it annoyed me that dittany, which is a
real herb and in HBP served only to prevent scars once a wound had
been closed up by other means, in DH suddenly turned into a miracle
cure-all for any wound?

Jen wrote in Chapter 27 summary in 
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/184119>:

<< and for hearing about the golden cup. >>

If the killings had been a secrecy measure rather than a temper
tantrum, he would have killed the escapees even after he calmed down.

Potioncat replied to Jen in 
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/184122>:

<< It was a very scary scene. What kind of leader just kills his own
ramdom people in a rage? In a way it prepares us for LV's murder of
Snape. No it doesn't, but it shows how very little LV values life. >>

And SSSusan replied in 
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/184124>:

<< the Voldy we are seeing in the last year or two of the story. He's
IRRATIONAL. He's always been someone who frightens even his closest
followers, but I wonder if even they had always believed that he
really would do – or even if Voldy always *would* have done –
something like he did when he got the news about the cup and started
AKing everyone in sight. >>

I agree that killing one's followers because of a temper tantrum is
not an effective technique for having a large number of followers or
deeply loyal followers. But I think it was part of Voldy's personality
at least since he turned into a snake-man. Tom may have been equally
eager to massacre, but he used self-control for the sake of
self-preservation. 

If Voldy the first time around rarely was in the presence of a large
number of followers at the same time, then his temper tantrums would
have killed fewer followers in front of fewer witnesses, and those who
heard it second or third hand would have thought that the victim had
failed in some assignment or otherwise done something else to deserve it.

Jen wrote in Chapter 27 summary in 
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/184119>:

<< Dumbledore knew his middle name and might have traced Tom Riddle to
the Gaunts. >>

Lord Voldemort doesn't know that Diary!Tom told Harry that his name
was 'Tom Marvolo Riddle', that Riddle was a Muggle name, and that he
had been abandoned to a Muggle orphanage. I'm pretty sure that a smart
Muggle like Hermione would find that enough information to find out
which orphanage, check its records, and interview any survivors of it,
but maybe LV doesn't know about Muggle records.

Olivier wrote in 
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/184121>:

<< [Voldemort] is in fact not overtly concerned with power, in the
sense of having the ability to make other people do his bidding.
(snip)  Nor does he seem to really believe in pure-blood supremacy or
in any coherent political ideology (snip). And love or the
appreciation of others leaves him apparently supremely cold (snip).
Yet he is not totally devoid of motives either. What Voldemort is
after is another sort of power: that of negating the external reality
of the world. (snip) And the ultimate frustration being that he is
going to die, he will leave no stone unturned to escape death. Others
around him, he simply doesn't care, and if he kills the or torture
them, it is seemingly just because they are obstacles to the
satisfaction of his desires or because he needs their deaths. >>

The authorial voice agrees with you, but it seems to me that Voldemort
greatest desire is not to live forever, but to hurt and kill people,
The text shows him so much enjoying hurting and killing people that he
does it unneccesarily and even counterproductively, but never shows
him putting that much energy into hating or fearing his own death. 

I think he continued also the ambition Diary!Tom expressed, to be
feared by all wizards but all he needed to do to achieve it was to do
what he wanted anyway.

BTW Diary!Tom's quote is 'a name I knew wizards everywhere would one
day fear to speak'. And only Britain (and maybe Ireland) knew of him,
but 'feared to speak' was literal. I don't know if that is because LV
and all other wizards and possibly Rowling have a habit of not saying
the name of what they fear. Maybe not - maybe it is because LV himself
took steps during his first reign of terror to make people fear to say
his name, by punishsing some of the ones who did. He could had had the
same Taboo in the first Voldie War as he did in the second, and sent
DEs to respond to the Taboo's signal by massacring the people who said
it. If so, it was remarkably stupid of Dumbledore if he didn't know
there was a Taboo. If he did know, it was remarkably stupid of him to
encourage the Order members not to fear saying the name: he was making
them targets, possibly explaining why so many of them were killed by
the bad guys.

Lesley wrote in 
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/184123>:

<< Why did Voldemort go bad? (snip) Ok so he was an orphan, the
childrens home (from the little we saw of it) seemed like a nice
place, at least it wasn't a bad one anyway! (snip) LV seemed to be
evil from an early age, it was never explained why, and even when he
entered Hogwarts things could have been different for him, he could
have changed if given support. (snip) LV in my opinion was capable of
love, he loved Hogwarts and it remained in his heart for the rest of
his life >> 

Kamion replied in 
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/184142>:

<< If Riddle was capable of love because he loved Hogwarts I doubt, if
it's love it's a very selfish kind of love, more a playground for
using and learning new skills to gain power. >>

I agree with Lesley that TMR's orphanage tried to be kind. It was not
a cruel place that could have turned ordinary children bad. I agree
with Kamion that TMR's didn't really LOVE Hogwarts, just wanted to
possess it.

I believe that Tom M. Riddle / Lord Voldemort was bad because he was
born bad. I believe he was born with a specific defect in his brain
that made him a psychopath, unable to feel any concern (never mind
love!) for other people and thus coming to believe that all
expressions of concern he saw other people doing were a big fake,
which he also learned to fake. He wanted to get his own way and didn't
care what it cost other people, not because he chose not to care about
other people, but because he was built that way. He was amused by
manipulating people, because that is said to be a symptom of
psychopathy. I don't know why he was so full of anger and resentment
(emotions that even psychopaths can feel) even before he came to
Hogwarts and was treated like a Mudblood and also looked down on for
his poverty. The one thing that confuses me is that he seems to me to
show real affection for Nagini.

I suppose Kamion is right that in the Potterverse, TMR was born a
psychopath because of 'bad blood'. I believe that in Real Life, it is
kind of random when a baby is born a psychopath. 

Either way, it kind of conflicts with the Potter ouevre's alleged
moral that people have a choice of doing good or evil. 

Asking Voldemort to repent or feel remorse was asking him to do
something he was physically unable to do. Rowling's excuse is that the
drop of Harry's blood inside Voldemort mystically gave Voldemort the
ability to repent.

I don't know, I believe there may be techniques of raising children
born with psychopathy so that they don't grow up to be serial killers.
I believe things MIGHT have turned out different for TNR if he had
been put with wizarding foster parents instead of in a Muggle
orphanage because the wizarding foster parents would have understood
that he was doing magic and known how to control children's untrained
magic, so he wouldn't have been the most powerful person around like
he was among Muggles. Maybe it wasn't too late when he came to
Hogwarts, if the people there had seen through him and subjected him
to the same rules and punishments as everyone else (which is what I
assumed was meant by 'if given support'), he might have learned to
behave himself for reasons of self-preservation.

In <http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2000/0900-ew-jensen.htm>,
Rowling said: "You have Voldemort, a raging psychopath, devoid of the
normal human responses to other people's suffering, and there ARE
people like that in the world."

In <http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/news_view.cfm?id=80>, someone
asked: "Has Voldemort or Tom Riddle ever cared for or loved anyone?"
and Rowling answered: "Now, that's a cracking question to end
with—very good. No, never. [Laughter.] If he had, he couldn't possibly
be what he is."

In <http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/faq_view.cfm?id=122>, Rowling
said: "the power of Lily's sacrifice is a positive force that not only
continues to tether Harry to life, but gives Voldemort himself one
last chance (Dumbledore refers to this last hope in chapter 35).
Voldemort has unwittingly put a few drops of goodness back inside
himself; if he had repented, he could have been healed more deeply
than anyone would have supposed. But, of course, he refused to feel
remorse." 

Donna wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/184141>:

<< Okay, how did Tom Riddle find the entrance to the Chamber of
Secrets? We know it's in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom so, what was Tom
doing in a girls' bathroom? >>

Joey replied in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/184147>:

<< He had a special reverence for Salazar Slytherin (as per some of
his statements in CoS climax and DH climax scenes) - this would have
driven him to find out a lot of information about him and CoS. So, he
would have found out about the entrance to the CoS as well using his
usual researching methods, I guess. >>

Adding more detail to Joey's answer, TMR would have looked up the
layout of the Castle during the time of the Founders. That room may
not have been a bathroom then, or may have been Salazar's private
bathroom; the castle may have been smaller then. TMR would have looked
up everything he could find about where Salazar hung out and where had
he hidden other treasures. If he learned that Salazar had a habit of
using Parseltongue as a password for hiding places, or if a legend had
lingered in Slytherin House that Salazar's secret chamber was opened
by speaking in Parseltongue, TMR would have gone everywhere he could
in the Castle, at the least the parts that had existed in the
Founders' time, speaking Parseltongue just to see what happened. When
he spoke Parseltongue in that bathroom, maybe the engraved image of a
snake responded by sparkling at him, so he knew he was on the right track.

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/184150>:

<< wondering how the cup and tiara soul bits would have manifested
themselves if they had not been destroyed >>

The cup responded, just off-page, when Hermione destroyed it because
Ron decided it was her turn to destroy a Horcrux. I feel sure it put
up illusions to prey on her insecurities, just as the locket did to
Ron. Maybe her insecurities were about Ron not loving her, and maybe
Ron and Harry mocking her for having no wizarding ancestors.