Dumbledore and Tom Riddle WAS: Re: CHAPTER DISCUSSION: COS Chapter 18

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 189279


3. Among many other things I hold Albus Dumbledore responsible for is him not
shouting to Wizarding World about Tom Riddle being Lord Voldemort, while IMO
telling useless nonsense to Harry about calling him one imaginary name instead
of another imaginary name. But in this chapter Dumbledore easily shares such
information and while he does it within limited circle of people, he does not
ask them to keep it a secret or anything like that. Should I cross off this
offense (my opinion of course) off the list and maybe realize that he may have
shared such information more than once and people were not interested in sharing
such information with each other?
Potioncat:
And what good would it have done anyway? Tom Riddle was only known by his
teachers and fellow class mates, and he vanished a few years after leaving
Hogwarts. So, yeah, cross it off your list. (It's a very long list anyway.)


Alla:

Well, personally I think it would have been done a great job of shrinking mysterious great wizard Lord Voldemort to a human Tom Riddle who as you said supposedly vanished a few years after leaving Hogwarts. See if Dumbledore did not talk about that fear of the name increases fear of the person (or whatever the exact quote is), I would have never put this offense on my long list lol. But he did talk about that and here I am thinking for a long time really, why the heck would he not insist everybody call him Tom Riddle, Tom Riddle? A usual ordinary person and not a an enigma, a mystery Lord Voldemort. I remember Pippin had the theory in the past discussions about people being threatened who knew his name if Dumbledore did disclose him, but I was just not buying it and still not buying it. However this is why this reminder here is so important to me, it looks like that at least Dumbledore trusted more than one person with this "secret" and did not insist it should be kept a secret, so I am thinking well, maybe he tried and people could care less and ignored this piece of knowledge, which to me yes would have been a great symbolic and more than symbolic act of bringing evil down to manageable size.  IMO of course. But due to the fact that Dumbledore actually opens his mouth here, I promise to seriously consider crossing this one hehe, especially as you said, the list is very long anyway.

Pippin:
<SNIP>
All Voldemort's initial followers knew him as Riddle. He didn't pick the name to
deceive them, he picked it because he didn't want to be reminded of his Muggle
father. When he first returned, Riddle was the name that people had heard and
Voldemort was the secret one -- IMO it would be a much bigger propaganda point
for Dumbledore to show that he knew the Voldemort name and wasn't afraid to use
it than it would have been to publicly insist on using the name Tom Riddle.

Alla:

Who are those initial followers who knew him as Riddle? Very few people who went with him to school, right? Right after he comes back even if very young he chooses the name Voldemort and who ever joined even fifteen years ago (or whatever time is till his first disappearance) has no clue that he is an ordinary human creep who learned how to do magic well and not that Mystery person, he used to have family till he killed them, he used to have everything AND be afraid of everything just as his targets are. He grew up in orphanage for crying out loud, why not to bring this up in the air, again to show case how absolutely ordinary he is?

No, I do not think I have seen an argument yet that would convince me that talking about Riddle as Riddle would be a bad idea, or at least that it would have fewer benefits than not talking.

JMO of course,
Alla