Why didn't DD reveal Voldemort's identity?

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 186883

> Carol responds:
> 
> Voldemort knows that Dumbledore knows where the orphanage he lived in was and knows that he stole from and otherwise abused the other children. He knows that Dumbledore knows his achievements at Hogwarts and that DD suspects him of being behind some of the "accidents" that happened to various students, including, probably, the death of Moaning Myrtle. He also knows that Dumbledore can't prove any of it. He may know that DD knows he worked for Borgin and Burkes. But that's *all* that Voldemort knows DD knows.

Magpie:
And therefore, Dumbledore saying that Voldemort is Tom Riddle, who came to Hogwarts from that Muggle orphanage, worked at B&B and applied for and got turned down for a job as a teacher, is not revealing anything. If he also said, "Oh, and I found out that he's named after his dad and his mother's father, yeah, he'd be revealed he knew a bit more. But even if you want to make the rather unfounded imo assumption that Dumbledore must guard the secret of Tom's specific parents or else he'll change the hiding places of his Horcruxes (which he probably should already have been hiding in a paranoid way and was incapable from what we've seen of ever not hiding them in places connected with himself) that Dumbledore didn't know about throughout the first war (so why's he guarding his plan to find them? When did he even start this investigation into Tom's past?), that's no reason for hiding the fact that he was orphan Tom Riddle, former head boy and Prefect of Hogwarts who won an award there. He was already from a Muggle orphanage, so 

But to be honest, even the facts about his parents hardly indicate some deep, dangerous investigation on Dumbledore's part that must mean he knows about the Horcruxes. Tom Riddle's named after his family. They're not hard to find. And terrorizing the country is reason enough for people to look into your biography. In fact, if I were Voldemort I'd find it far more suspicious if Dumbledore was never saying anything about who my parents were. I mean, come on, they're painfully easy to find given they share all of my names, and the wisest Wizard ever hasn't ever been interested? (Granted, that's far more logical than Voldemort usually is.)

Carol:
> If Dumbledore revealed even the small fact of Voldemort's identity, the names of his parents and the fact that his father was a rich Muggle from Little Hangleton, Voldemort would not only suspect but *know* that Dumbledore was investigating his past. 

Magpie:
Which is not, imo, so huge a deal as to justify Dumbledore helping Voldemort hide everything about himself. But regardless, Dumbledore doesn't have to reveal this small fact. He's got plenty of other small facts that would do the trick--or at least be a start. Ordinary schoolboy underneath the Dark Magic.

> Magpie: 
> > To be fair, there is a canonical explanation for why Dumbledore and Voldemort act the way they do. I just has nothing to do with a logical plan. It's psychology. Dumbledore likes keeping information for himself so he knows more than anyone else (always vaguely telling them that this keeps it safe) and Voldemort is psychologically compelled to create all his plans around Important Moments in his personal history. Both of them often act against the interests of their own goals because they can't not act this way. 
> 
> Carol responds:
> That's certainly true. But psychological explanations are not the only explanations, and, surely, if Dumbledore, with his concern for the greater good, thought that the WW would be helped rather than hurt by being given this information, he would have given it. 

Magpie:
Dumbledore has a history of concealing information even when it would be helpful. I don't get how the WW would have been hurt during the first Voldemort War by Dumbledore letting them know this was Tom Riddle from Hogwarts. (Which I believe at the time was all he knew anyway.) Dumbledore never needs reasons beyond his penchant for secrecy. Or rather, his penchant for secrecy compels him to make up convoluted justifications in his own mind for hiding information that would actually have been pbviously helpful.

Carol:
So he must have had reasons beyond his penchant for secrecy for concealing it. And one of those reasons, surely, is his own investigations--as well as his knowledge, acquired through these investigations, of Voldemort's psychology, an advantage that he certainly would not want Voldemort to know that he had.

Magpie:
This seems to conflate Dumbledore telling people he's Tom Riddle from Hogwarts and therefore an ordinary Wizard before Dark Magic disfigured him, which he could have told any time between Voldemort's first rise and Dumbledore's death, and Dumbledore broadcasting the specific memories he shares with Harry in secret in HBP that relate directly to his plan to find the Horcruxes. That's a completely different set of information, information that I don't even know if Dumbledore himself had until the last months of his life. Iirc, he didn't even start to think of Horcruxes until the end of CoS gave him the clue. And then it seems like it was in HBP when he started his investigations. There were many years before that when Dumbledore wasn't investigating anything. Those years were all times he could have connected Voldemort with the kid who went to Hogwarts. Especially after Voldemort's first defeat. 

Carol: 
> With regard to the rest of the argument, I still see no advantage in revealing that Voldemort is a Half-Blood. By the time he's dangerous enough that the WW at large has cause to fear him, he's already gathered followers for whom his being a powerful Dark Wizard descended from Slytherin outweighs his being a Half-Blood, and the rest of the WW doesn't care what his blood status is, only that he's a dangerous psychopath and the leader of a terrorist gang.

Magpie:
The fact that he's a Half-blood isn't the important part anyway. But if there actually are people who are devoted to him because they believe in his Pureblood ideology, I don't think it's impossible that some of them might reconsider at this news. Certainly there's no reason to hide his true identity to cover up the fact he's lying about what he is.

> > Magpie:
> > I don't see how the information that we never hear of Dumbledore telling the Order who Tom Riddle is, and that the Order all call him some form of Voldemort proves that Dumbledore told them all who he really was and it made no difference to them. It makes a difference to the people we know he told. In fact, the whole winning plan depends on knowing who he is. 
> 
> Carol responds:
> I don't know of a single character other than Bellatrix, who refuses to believe it, and Voldemort himself, for whom Voldemort's blood status is important. 

Magpie:
I don't see how that relates to my point. I said that the only reference we get to anybody having just learned whether or not Voldemort is a Half-blood after Harry's Quibbler report is somebody afterwards being told he's a Half-blood by Harry and being shocked and angry he'd say such thing. I just see no reason to think Harry mentioned Voldemort being a Half-blood or not in the Quibbler article. Of course I see the logic of why it would come up, but the author didn't write anyone saying, "Wow, turns out the guy's dad was a Muggle--but I don't care, I'm still loyal to him/scared of him!" 

It reads more like the author didn't consider it as something in the article. She still writes as if only Dumbledore, Harry and Harry's friends know this guy is Tom Riddle or what his blood status is. That's more logical to me than thinking that everyone just learned the true identify of their own personal boogeyman but had no interest. Really? There wasn't a crowd in that trophy room the next day having a peek at Tom's trophy? That's far more bizarre human behavior (or Wizard behavior based on what we've seen) than Dumbledore liking to be the guy who knows everything. 

Carol:
Knowing it makes no difference in what the Order members call him. Harry, following Dumbledore, insists on saying "Voldemort," but he's not insisting on saying Tom Riddle. And the Order members still call him You Know Who rather than Tom Riddle. They're still, apparently, afraid of the Dark Wizard Voldemort. Unlike Dumbledore, they don't think of him as Tom.

Magpie:
We don't know if the Order members even know that his name is Tom. But yes, the Order members call him whatever, and are still afraid to say his name. There's a huge superstition that's grown up about the guy in the culture in which they live. Cultural pressure is pretty strong. (If not consistent--Hermione for some reason develops a fear of the name that Harry, also Muggle-raised, never does--and Harry's way makes far more sense as we read.) That, imo, is a pretty obvious reason to at least try to de-mystify him rather than decide there's no point because they're already scared.

And even so, the Order is a group of people who *don't* fear Voldemort the way other people do, so I don't see why they're a good example of why there's no point to this. They're afraid of what Voldemort can actually do, but they don't think he's invincible. Even if people continued to call him "You-Know-Who" it still might make a difference that they knew in their hearts they were talking about a human being. That seed might grow into something. The British are good at that sort of thing I've always thought.

If a small child is afraid of the shadow in the corner because he's thinks he's a giant thinking I think that's a good reason to turn on the light and say, "Look, it's just your coat on the chair." Maybe the kid will still be scared the next time he looks at it, but there was still a good reason to show him the truth for its own sake. And if enough people share the information, and get used to sharing this information, they should get used to it. 

This is the guy that's terrorizing these people. If I were one of them I'd feel I had the right to know everything I could about the guy. I wouldn't appreciate some bearded fellow deciding there was no point because I'd just not believe him and continue to be scared (How come Harry manages it?) I don't see any advantage in that for me. I *do* see a clear advantage to Dumbledore, who gets to assume a paternalistic position and cling to information that makes the rumors I get about Voldemort a bit silly.

-m