Tom Riddle wasn’t a hero. He was a villain whose villainous plot was to create a fake villain named Voldemort for him to defeat. He arranged for there to be a kidnapping attempt on the daughter of the minister of magic so that he could save her and be propelled into herodom. But things did not go according to plan:
“Long ago, long before your time or Harry Potter’s, there was a man who was hailed as a savior. The destined scion, such a one as anyone would recognize from tales, wielding justice and vengeance like twin wands against his dreadful nemesis.” Professor Quirrell gave a soft, bitter laugh, looking up at the night sky. “Do you know, Miss Granger, at that time I thought myself already cynical, and yet… well.”
The silence stretched, in the cold and the night.
“In all honesty,” said Professor Quirrell, looking up at the stars, “I still don’t understand it. They should have known that their lives depended on that man’s success. And yet it was as if they tried to do everything they could to make his life unpleasant. To throw every possible obstacle into his way. I was not naive, Miss Granger, I did not expect the power-holders to align themselves with me so quickly—not without something in it for themselves. But their power, too, was threatened; and so I was shocked how they seemed content to step back, and leave to that man all burdens of responsibility. They sneered at his performance, remarking among themselves how they would do better in his place, though they did not condescend to step forward.” Professor Quirrell shook his head as though in bemusement. “And it was the strangest thing—the Dark Wizard, that man’s dread nemesis—why, those who served him leapt eagerly to their tasks. The Dark Wizard grew crueler toward his followers, and they followed him all the more. Men fought for the chance to serve him, even as those whose lives depended on that other man made free to render his life difficult… I could not understand it, Miss Granger.” Professor Quirrell’s face was in shadow, as he looked upward. “Perhaps, by taking on himself the curse of action, that man removed it from all others? Was that why others felt free to hinder his battle against the Dark Wizard who would have enslaved them all? I still do not understand even now. My cynicism fails me, and I am left silent. But there came a time when that man realized he might do better fighting the Dark Wizard alone, as with such followers at his back.”
“So—” Hermione’s voice sounded strange in the night. “You left your friends behind where they’d be safe, and tried to attack the Dark Wizard all by yourself?”
“Why, no,” said Professor Quirrell. “I stopped trying to be a hero, and went off to do something else I found more pleasant.”
At this point, he decided to go full-time as the fake villain persona, and did so for the next eight years, when he decided to abandon it.
He was a villain whose villainous plot was to create a fake villain named Voldemort for him to defeat.
The reason I think this is odd is because, in canon, Voldemort was a name change, not a new person. So instead of Tom Riddle getting together with his Slug Club friends and saying “hey, maybe we should run this country, and by the way I never liked my old name,” Voldemort is some external actor that managed to get the loyalty of a bunch of Britain’s nobility.
Really? In canon I thought Voldemort = Riddle was a pretty well-kept secret. But as per Eliezer’s comment elsewhere in the thread, it looks like Riddle’s hero persona wasn’t called “Tom Riddle,” he impersonated (possessed?) a descendent of some more respectable house to create that identity.
That could be- I haven’t read the books since the last one came out. This is what I’m seeing on the HPWiki:
Having embraced the Dark Arts he encountered in his travels, the former Tom Riddle, now known exclusively as Lord Voldemort, raised an enormous army comprised of followers he recruited both at school and afterwards,
That suggests to me that the early Death Eaters grew up with him as Tom Riddle, and it was just a name change. If the “Voldemort = Riddle” thing is poorly known, it’s probably because no one has reason to know that his name was Riddle (like, for example, most people have heard of Stalin but haven’t heard of Dzhugashvili).
It isn’t a very complex plan—it just required that he play two roles; this gave him two avenues of success (if resistance to Voldemort is strong, take over as the hero—if resistance to Voldemort is too weak take over as Voldemort). And it fits in perfectly with the plan that he has already suggested to Harry Potter (find an actor to play Voldemort, have him cast Avada Kedavra at you, block it with Patronus, be hero), so it’s perfectly consistent with Quirrel’s way of thinking.
When we talk about too complex plans, we talk about plans with multiple points of possible failure. You call this complicated because it had multiple points of possible success.
Tom Riddle wasn’t a hero. He was a villain whose villainous plot was to create a fake villain named Voldemort for him to defeat. He arranged for there to be a kidnapping attempt on the daughter of the minister of magic so that he could save her and be propelled into herodom. But things did not go according to plan:
At this point, he decided to go full-time as the fake villain persona, and did so for the next eight years, when he decided to abandon it.
The reason I think this is odd is because, in canon, Voldemort was a name change, not a new person. So instead of Tom Riddle getting together with his Slug Club friends and saying “hey, maybe we should run this country, and by the way I never liked my old name,” Voldemort is some external actor that managed to get the loyalty of a bunch of Britain’s nobility.
Really? In canon I thought Voldemort = Riddle was a pretty well-kept secret. But as per Eliezer’s comment elsewhere in the thread, it looks like Riddle’s hero persona wasn’t called “Tom Riddle,” he impersonated (possessed?) a descendent of some more respectable house to create that identity.
That could be- I haven’t read the books since the last one came out. This is what I’m seeing on the HPWiki:
That suggests to me that the early Death Eaters grew up with him as Tom Riddle, and it was just a name change. If the “Voldemort = Riddle” thing is poorly known, it’s probably because no one has reason to know that his name was Riddle (like, for example, most people have heard of Stalin but haven’t heard of Dzhugashvili).
That seems spectacularly stupid for someone as smart as we’ve observed him to be.
You should say what part is stupid.
Creating a plan that complex and prone to failure?
It isn’t a very complex plan—it just required that he play two roles; this gave him two avenues of success (if resistance to Voldemort is strong, take over as the hero—if resistance to Voldemort is too weak take over as Voldemort). And it fits in perfectly with the plan that he has already suggested to Harry Potter (find an actor to play Voldemort, have him cast Avada Kedavra at you, block it with Patronus, be hero), so it’s perfectly consistent with Quirrel’s way of thinking.
When we talk about too complex plans, we talk about plans with multiple points of possible failure. You call this complicated because it had multiple points of possible success.