Why didn't DD reveal Voldemort's identity? Some Tigana spoilers

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 186938

Magpie: 
> 
> But the thread was about Dumbledore, who has a stated goal of wanting to help the WW oppose Voldemort, not wizards that we never see who are complaining that Dumbledore isn't sharing information they don't know he is keeping from them anyway. 

Pippin:
It's relevant in that you're assuming that Dumbledore kept back information when it would be reasonable to think that other wizards would act on it if he gave it to them. The fact that no one else was interested enough to look for it, or indeed to volunteer what they knew to Dumbledore when he set himself up as Voldemort's implacable foe and the protector of those who were threatened by him, argues otherwise.

Outside Hogwarts, the WW Establishment, the social order of the wizarding world,  was not a meritocracy -- it was a semi-feudal, patronage-driven oligarchy.  Many of those who had the power and authority to organize opposition to Voldemort were more interested in protecting or extending their spheres of influence.  Even Scrimgeour, who took the threat of Voldemort seriously, couldn't think outside the box of empire-building. Only when his empire was already lost did he put protecting Harry first. 


> Magpie:
> So the last thing the Twins did was put up their You-Know-Poo signs? They were alive and well and running one of the only forms of resistance we saw in DH, which seemed to be doing a lot for morale. Laughing at LV doesn't have to mean laughing in his face when the two of you are alone in a dark alley. It's a normal part of resistance, usually. It helps people be brave.

Pippin:
We're getting a kind of tunnel vision in this discussion, as if telling people that Voldemort was Tom Riddle was the only way that Dumbledore could help them be brave. But as you point out here, there are lots of ways of doing that which wouldn't reveal Dumbledore's intentions or put people who have information about Voldemort  in additional danger. I think we've reached a consensus that these were reasonable concerns.

Anti-Voldemort humor  is a minor morale booster at best. You No Poo isn't going to change the way anyone thinks about the war, any more than spoofing a general's name was going to change anyone's opinion about the war in Iraq. 

Voldemort did have a strategy during the first war of denying his murderous intentions. According to Sirius, it was only during the last few years of his first rise to power that people understood how far he meant to go. So it is not like there was a lot of  active resistance to boost. 

For a long time, most people were happy to think he wasn't all that dangerous. At that period, making him a figure of fun would have been counterproductive, like the people who read Mein Kampf and jeered at Hitler's ambitions -- why, he'd have to exterminate every Jew in Europe and conquer half the countries in the world to carry out such plans! As if.

Strategically, Dumbledore was trying to get people to think rationally about Voldemort. If they are afraid to say "Voldemort" they are going to be equally afraid to say "Tom Riddle" -- so it hardly  matters which one of those they think is the real name. 

Nor does it exactly cut Voldemort down to size  to know that he was a phenomenal student, recipient of a special award for services to the school, Head Boy, one of Slughorn's exclusive club and tapped for a brilliant ministry career. Most wizards would envy even one of those distinctions. Riddle spent seven years learning everything Hogwarts could teach him, then he spent ten more years learning everything that Hogwarts wouldn't teach him. Pretty impressive, IMO.

You are making a different argument than Alla, who, if I may summarize, thinks Dumbledore should have used the name so that the Death Eaters would realize they were following a non-pureblood. But the only people who really care about that stuff would dismiss it anyway, by Bella's example. And  trying to get people to reject Voldemort because he's not pureblood does not further the goal of getting people to think rationally about him.

According to Snape, what matters to most of the DE's is that they have a powerful figure they can rally around. Voldemort is a symbol. When people put  the American bald eagle on top of a flagpole, do they care  that it is actually a scavenger bird that steals its food and is nearly extinct over much of its range? It still stands  for freedom and strength. It may help for a symbol to be a good example of what it stands for, but it's not absolutely necessary. (And so, too, people can be symbols of goodness even if they don't always set a good example.)

In his followers' eyes, Voldemort stands for more than pureblood supremacy. He also stands for resistance to the  restrictions that the Ministry places on the practice of magic. That he could have achieved success within the system and chose to buck it instead could have a certain appeal. Whatever he lost as an example of pureblood supremacy, he might gain as an example of resistance to Ministry rule.

Pippin