Tom Riddle grew up in the shadow of WWII. He saw much of the Muggle world unite against a threat they all called evil, and he saw Europe’s savior, the US, eventually treated as the new world leader afterward, though it was somewhat contested, of course. That threat strongly defined it’s own presentation and style, and so that style and presentation were associated with evil afterward.
Tom didn’t want to be Hitler. Tom wanted to actually win and to rule in the longer term, not just until people got tired of his shit and went all Guy Fawks on his ass. He knew that life isn’t easy for great rules, but thought that was worthwhile. He knew that life was even harder for great rulers who ruled by fear, so that wasn’t his plan.
So Tom needed two sides, good and evil. To this end he needed two identities, a hero and a villain.
I guess he didn’t think the villain didn’t need to have any kind of history. Maybe he didn’t think the villain would matter much or for long. Voldemort was just there for the hero to strike down. Thatwasamistake, because he lacked a decoy his enemies were eventually able to discover his identity.
Then there’s this hero. The hero is a what passes for a minor noble in magical Britain. He’s from a ‘cadet’ branch of the family, which means he doesn’t stand to inherit anything substantial because he’s not main line.
Most importantly, he goes missing in Albania. That’s a shout out to canon and a code phrase for “became Tom RIddle’s bitch.”
As Voldemort, Tom sows terror and reaps fear. He’s ridiculously evil and for Dumbledore redefines evil because he is apparently evil without necessity. Dumbledore can’t tell what function that outrageous evil serves because Dumbledore thinks that evil is done sincerely. He doesn’t know it’s just a show.
Tom stages a dramatic entrance into the drama for his hero: he saves the president’s daughter, or something like that. Totally Horatio Alger. It’s a cliche, which may be EY’s way of helping us to understand that Tom is fallible, more then than now.
Tom promotes his hero from Minor Noble to Last Scion of House X by killing off the rest of his hero’s family. Tom simultaneously builds legitimacy for his hero’s authority and leverages the tragedy to build sympathy for his hero’s cause.
Tom’s mistake was thinking that would be enough. There was a threat to the peace. There was a solution. The people instead chose to wallow in their failure and doom. He made it all so clear, so simple, and yet the morons justdidn’tgetit.
I’m sure anyone whose been the biggest ego in the room during improv could sympathize.
When Tom realizes that his plan has failed and cannot be made to work in the intended fashion, he exits his hero, stage left. At that point, 75 or so, he doesn’t have a good plan to leave the stage as his villain, so he kind of kicks it for a few years, tolerating the limits of his rule and getting what meager entertainment he can out of being a god damned theater antagonist.
When Tom gets a chance, he pulls his villain off the stage and may or may not have done something to the infant Harry Potter.
Now he’s using the Scion of X as an identity layer to keep the fuzz off his back, while manipulating Harry into a position of power, and I’m guessing he plans to hit Harry with the Albanian Shuffle a little while later and give World Domination another try.
Tom Riddle is a young immortal. He makes mistakes but has learned an awful lot. He is trying to plan for the long term and has nothing but time, and so can be patient.
That’s a really good explanation for how Dumbledore’s recollection of the purposeless evil of Voldemort can be reconciled with the clearly purposeful evil of Quirrell.
I believe he intends to upload into Harry after arranging for Harry to “kill” Voldemort and take power. He showed up just in time for Harry’s first year at Hogwarts—first year in public. Then creates the whole army business which propels Harry to leadership.
Also, even though he “was winning” the war, finishing off Dumbledore, holder of the Elder Wand, is non trivial. Much better to become Harry and have Dumbledore pass on his power to you.
The post where put down the theory this grew from only has 2 points. Don’t go voting it up just because I mentioned that. I don’t want anything ‘fixed’ I just want an explanation.
This isn’t written any better than my other posts, which commonly stay under 3 points and go negative often enough. Those other posts are totally contributions to the conversation. Some of them are even helpful.
I left points hanging. I didn’t defend what I was saying. I just told a story. That’swhatyouwant?
I’m not even the first to revisit this speculation since my low vote theory post. Chris Hallquist was saying pretty much the same thing and he didn’t get over 40 upvotes.
Because votes come more from the location in the thread than from quality of the post—sheer numbers of people reading it swamp a better post made 400 spots downthread. Also, it puts down in decent fashion a thesis that’s getting kicked around a lot and that is rather appealing.
One factor is that it’s a top-level comment to a popular post, and once a top-level comment outcompetes most others it’s shown more prominently and read by more people.
The post where put down the theory this grew from only has 2 points.
I don’t think your current post “deserves” as many upvotes as it got, but that other post is just bad. Badly written, badly argued, makes lots of unsupported random claims, like “Voldemort killed Narcissa”.
I downvoted the previous post because it was a needlessly complicated, poorly justified plan. Crucially, there was little indication of why Voldemort would want to pretend to lose, when he was already winning the war. By contrast, your more recent post is a good analysis of the new insight into Voldemort’s history and motivations provided by the latest chapter.
I liked the story you told, I found it interesting so I upvoted (but your post was like at 5 or 6 when I upvoted it, I wouldn’t have upvoted it if it was already above 30, I tend to avoid upvoting posts which are already too high, unless they are really wonderful).
I didn’t see the first one—I don’t read all the comments, depends of my schedule. Maybe since you posted your new one earlier in the thread, when it wasn’t too bloated, more people saw it ?
I guess he didn’t think the villain didn’t need to have any kind of history. Maybe he didn’t think the villain would matter much or for long. Voldemort was just there for the hero to strike down. That was a mistake, because he lacked a decoy his enemies were eventually able to discover his identity.
Perhaps not so much. We may believe Voldemort to truly be Tom Riddle for the following few reasons.
The Order of the Phoenix thinks Voldemort is Tom Riddle.
Voldemort is Tom Riddle in canon
In Chapter 70, Quirrell, who we are to understand is Voldemort, talks about a witch taking advantage of a muggle man, which is part of Tom Riddle’s tragic backstory in cannon.
He just can’t seem to help himself from punning his damn name, between the references to ‘riddles’ and his godawful anagram.
But canon doesn’t count, this fic diverges strongly in places.
And knowledgeable, otherwise competent characters are wrong about things.
And, most tellingly, we now know that Voldemort in his Quirrell mask has been dropping hints that he is actually your Scion X (or David Monroe or whomever). He could just as easily be falsely hinting at the Riddle identity.
Yes, I am suggesting that the student that opened the Chamber of Secrets in ’41 was not Tom Riddle, but someone else. Why pick one patsy, when you could have two? It’s just one more murder, hardly anything at all.
This means that Voldemort, whomever he really is, had a backup identity behind ‘Voldemort’ just like he has a backup identity behind Quirrell. It means that he didn’t get discovered back in the ’70s. And it means that he’s just as slick and awesome and I hope he is, as I wish he is.
Oh, damn. I have far, far too much affection for this character. 84 is my new favorite chapter.
That sounds unsolvable with only the information we’ve been given.
If it was another kid in Hogwarts that opened the chamber then why haven’t there been any hints in the text to this man behind the man who is also the man behind the other man who is pretending to be the man behind yet another man.
And if it was an adult then also who because there are not hints and how did they get into Hogwarts and the Chamber and I don’t think you mean it was someone who was already grown up in 41.
When Tom realizes that his plan has failed and cannot be made to work in the intended fashion, he exits his hero, stage left. At that point, 75 or so, he doesn’t have a good plan to leave the stage as his villain, so he kind of kicks it for a few years, tolerating the limits of his rule and getting what meager entertainment he can out of being a god damned theater antagonist.
This strikes me as the least characteristic part of your idea. Quirrellmort doesn’t seem like someone who would have taken a few years kicking it around trying to come up with a new plan.
ETA: I think that for the most part this seems like a pretty likely outline. I think the evidence stacks up in favor of the new character being a dupe of Voldemort, and this strikes me as the most plausible motivation for him to be playing both sides. I think his plan would probably even have been workable in the sense of making the heroic identity the de facto leader of the country, but he called it quits when he realized that the prize for heroism was not being lavished with adulation, but being treated as responsible for being a hero all the time, whereas the prize for being a Dark Lord was fawning obedience. There are all sorts of directions he could have gone from here, including him deciding that the world seems particularly hateful and so why not keep up the villain role, when the benefits are so much better? But spending a few years in an “okay, now what?” slump seems out of character.
There are all sorts of directions he could have gone from here, including him deciding that the world seems particularly hateful and so why not keep up the villain role, when the benefits are so much better? But spending a few years in an “okay, now what?” slump seems out of character.
Yeah, I get that now.
I’ve amended my suspicion to be that Riddle enjoyed himself in the Voldemort role, for maybe a little less than eight years. I still think he intentionally left the stage and didn’t somehow end up on the losing end of a Nuts roll vs.. infant. Tom Riddle bites it in a cutscene? Lame.
My primary hypothesis is still that getting cindered by Harry was the consequence of some unknown unknown, some event that Voldemort wouldn’t have been able to predict in advance by being really good at planning.
I’ve been thinking along the same lines, probably because I watched Code Geass not too long ago, and this is basically the “Zero Requiem” gambit employed by Lelouch. He creates a totem of pure evil as a target of the world’s hatred, then publicly destroys it, establishing a hero as savior-king. Riddle, like Lelouche, is portrayed as a “Byronic hero”—mysterious, cynical, cunning, arrogant, and brilliant. If this interpretation is correct, Harry might not be his future meatpuppet, but actually the “chosen one”, who will fulfill the role of the hero and unite the world as savior-king after destroying the risen Voldemort.
But of course it could have just been a “Palpatine Gambit”. In this version, Riddle was using his Voldemort persona to create fear, which his other persona takes advantage of to turn Magical Britain into the Empire, consolidating all power to himself. But in this version, much to the consternation of Tom Riddle, the “Republic” actually doesn’t give up power to the obviously qualified hero (due to diffusion of responsibility, political maneuvering, etc.) So instead he decides to just seize power as Voldemort, but by bad luck, he is struck down by Lilly Potter’s self-sacrifice. Now he is back, and wants to use Harry as his new hero, but he needs to make it plausible, by convincing Harry of his political views, and making him super-formidable. That way, when “Harry” (actually Riddle acting via Imperius/polyjuice, etc.) takes over Britain and strikes down the resurrected “Voldemort” in his 7th year, people will believe it was possible. Riddle will then rule Britain (and eventually the world as “Harry Potter”.
I don’t see any need for a sacrifice or a Voldemort who goes alone to confront the kind of threat he takes seriously enough to take seriously the threat posed by an infant.
The circumstances we are given in MOR do not require or imply a sacrifice. There are no hints that Harry was saved by a sacrifice. I can’t think of any hints about any reason at all that he was saved, really.
If Vodlemort hears of a threat that is an infant and he takes that threat seriously enough to do something about an infant, we are not told anything about Voldemort that makes it in character for him to confront a threat like that alone.
That is, there is more than one problem with the story we have concerning the night Harry’s parents died.
People protect babies and it would be reasonable to expect that people would work especially hard to protect babies that are prophesied to save the world from an evil villain. It turns out that his enemies were idiots and suffered a single point of failure, but even if he thought he knew that the target would be under protected the smart thing to do is not to depend on his quisling and go in alone.
And yes, the sacrifice story comes from canon, not MoR. Still, with no other hints, that gives it a pretty high prior probability.
How high is this canon bonus to probability of yours? Would you say that Aberforth was probably a zoophile just because he was in canon? Or that Ron and Hermione will probably get together because they did in canon? Or that Snape will kill Dumbldedore because he did in canon?
What was idiotic about the way Harry was protected? They were betrayed to a superior force by someone highly placed, and there’s no good defense against that. And Voldemort was knowingly superior to every possible defender, so why would he worry about it?
And re prior probabilities, it’s obviously dependant on the issue in question. On something where MoR is silent, canon carries a lot of weight. On something where MoR spends time adjusting expectations, canon carries very little weight. So it’s quite likely that Aberforth loved goats(though even more likely that MoR will stay silent on the topic), but quite unlikely that Ron and Hermione will get together(because the story is explicitly listed as Harry/Hermione, and has been proceeding accordingly). And Snape killing Dumbledore...actually that one’s not implausible, because both characters seem quite similar to their canon versions. If they were put in the same position, they’d likely do the same thing. I don’t think the story will run long enough to get there, but if it does somehow, I can see it. I’d certainly put the probability higher than McGonagall or Flitwick doing him in.
What was idiotic about the way Harry was protected?
Did you miss the part about a singlepointoffailure?
Fate of the whole fucking world and the critical security decisions and on site protective services are trusted to a crew of twenty somethings who were really close in school. Idiots.
And Voldemort was knowingly superior to every possible defender, so why would he worry about it?
The only reason to work alone is if working with others means watching your back more. We have no evidence that Vodlemort executed his other raids singlehandely, so we should believe that he did it the smart way with backup. So why the sudden switch from terrorist to cheap slasher monster?
On something where MoR is silent, canon carries a lot of weight. On something where MoR spends time adjusting expectations, canon carries very little weight.
MoR is not silent on the question of sacrifice, it is coveredundertheprimarythemesofthestory. Throwing your life away futilely not smart and should not be rewarded in a story with rationalist aspirations. There’s no exposition on the subject of mother’s love sacrifice charms, so if this is what happened it will be unforeshadowed. EY has said that is a bad thing to do so we should guess that he probably doesn’t intend to do that.
Find me a protection scheme that applies to the situation at hand with a second point of failure, and I’ll accept your criticism of the plan they had. Highly-placed traitors are really, really hard to defend against.
Similarly, find me an example of Voldemort having backup on any of his attacks, and I’ll believe that him lacking it here is relevant.
Rationality is about winning. Lily Potter won that night, as much as she believably could have. I’d say she did okay by “throwing her life away”.
So you want to replace a single point of failure for defending a baby with a single point of failure for the entire Order? Remember what happens when the Secret-Keeper dies, after all.
And there’s a bit of a difference between hitting a single-family house and a large battle.
So you want to replace a single point of failure for defending a baby with a single point of failure for the entire Order?
How would Dumbledore be any easier to kill as a Secret-Keeper than otherwise? Wait, before that, how would Dumbledore’s death be any more crippling to the Order if he was a Secret-Keeper than otherwise? He dies, they’ve pretty much lost the war, baby Harry Potter or no baby Harry Potter.
Remember what happens when the Secret-Keeper dies, after all.
I am. Are you?
(Dumbledore’s death resulted in everyone read into the Secret of 12 Grimmauld Place becoming Secret-Keepers themselves; the Fidelius was still in place.)
Edit: The wiki claims- unfortunately without attribution- that Dumbledore offered to be the Potters’ Keeper, and was turned down.
Edit2:
Similarly, find me an example of Voldemort having backup on any of his attacks, and I’ll believe that him lacking it here is relevant.
The Ministry raid at the end of OotP.
And there’s a bit of a difference between hitting a single-family house and a large battle.
The wiki claims- unfortunately without attribution- that Dumbledore offered to be the Potters’ Keeper, and was turned down.
I definitely remember this from the third book. The adults are talking about the Potters’ deaths in the Three Broomsticks Inn and someone mentions that Dumbledore himself offered to become the secret keeper, but was turned down with insistences that Sirius Black would never betray them.
EDIT: Found it.
“So Black was the Potters’ Secret-Keeper?” whispered Madam Rosmerta. ”Naturally,” said Professor McGonagall. “James Potter told Dumbledore
that Black would die rather than tell where they were, that Black was
planning to go into hiding himself… and yet, Dumbledore remained
worried. I remember him offering to be the Potters’ Secret-Keeper
himself.”
World War II had a different story in Harry Potter, and it’s a bit clearer in MoR. It was sparked by Grindlewald’s desire to have dominion over the muggles—the muggle war was just a reflection of the wizarding war going on at the same time. Grindlewald was the real power in Germany, and Hitler just a pawn. The reason Dumbledore couldn’t take down Grindlewald until the war was over, was that Hitler was fueling Grindlewald’s power using dark rituals involving the blood sacrifice of millions of muggles.
The world didn’t know about the Holocaust and had trouble believing it had happened. Much of the Nazi higher ups didn’t know about it. A particular high ranked Nazi officer kept a diary while he was in Nuremburg throughout the trials. Among other things, it records him being told about and shown evidence of the Holocaust, denying it, confronting it, and reconciling it with his beliefs. If I remember correctly he remains loyal to the cause, all except the Holocaust, which he thought was terrible even when he thought it was fake.
Tangent aside, Hitler was hated by many non-Germans before he started losing. He was hated by some of his own people before he lost. He didn’t lose because he was hated, he lost because war is decided by logistics, strategy, morale, and luck. Even when his side could keep up the others, it couldn’t sustain logistics against giants like Americans and Soviets.
Wait… was that another tangent?
Oh, yeah. So villains act and heroes react, right? Tom wanted to be the hero because he thought people love heroes and promote them to positions of power. And Tom wanted power. So first you make a villain who makes a mess, then you make a hero who rallies the people around himself, cleans up the villain, and sustains his momentum and rally to take over the world!
Downvoted because I don’t see where thomblake is supposed to have said that the Holocaust was why Hitler lost, so I don’t see what you’re responding to.
I think this is right in broad strokes, but what you call “a few years” is ’73 to ’81, kind of a long time to “kick it” because your plan went astray.
Furthermore, Quiddle also often talks about his motives in terms of what he found “amusing,” “felt like,” or “pleasant” (in conversation with Hermione). Then there’s this:
“You know, Mr. Potter, if He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had come to rule over magical Britain, and built such a place as Azkaban, he would have built it because he enjoyed seeing his enemies suffer. And if instead he began to find their suffering distasteful, why, he would order Azkaban torn down the next day. As for those who did make Azkaban, and those who do not tear it down, while preaching lofty sermons and imagining themselves not to be villains… well, Mr. Potter, I think if I had my choice of taking tea with them, or taking tea with You-Know-Who, I should find my sensibilities less offended by the Dark Lord.”
I think he’s not quite so given to long-term planning as you imagine.
So the quote is not the best illustration of Quiddle’s character. But does seem to have abandoned the “hero” plan (at least in its initial version) on the basis of what was “more pleasant.”
“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.”
I can think of ways to be vanquished much quicker than he did, especially if he’s willing to be reverted to horcrux. Challenge Dumbledore to a duel and lose. Be seen doing some dark ritual, which then goes out of control, killing him. Hell, I’m sure someone as competent as Voldemort could have faked a prophecy about his doom. I don’t see why you think that Voldemort wasn’t willing to use villainhood to achieve total dominance - he was winning, he would have gotten what he wanted.
I can think of ways to be vanquished much quicker than he did, especially if he’s willing to be reverted to horcrux. Challenge Dumbledore to a duel and lose. Be seen doing some dark ritual, which then goes out of control, killing him. Hell, I’m sure someone as competent as Voldemort could have faked a prophecy about his doom.
So in this scenario, why is he dying? Before, we were unsure that his cataplexy was getting worse; I pointed out that on-screen he seems as active or more active than ever. But Bones says: “And you seem to be resting more and more frequently, as time goes on.” and she would know. Are we speculating that whatever dupe’s body that Riddle stole is breaking down 60-odd years later after Albania?
That is a good question. I don’t know why heappears to be dying.
Maybe Riddle was put Scion of X’s body on ice when he put an Albania with a nail through it up side his head. Then he trotted it out for a few years in the seventies, then put it back on ice. And it turns out that’s not good for a body and so it’s kind of falling apart or something.
Maybe Quirrell wants the appearance of weakness, for all the right reasons.
Maybe Scion of X has been alive the whole time, imprisoned in his own usually motionless flesh. And since the only thing he could do was wait there, motionless, he practiced being lethargic. And he became strong and wise in the ways of lethargy, so that Voldemort must ration his own strength and only force Scion of X to action when absolutely necessary.
Maybe when Quirrell is ‘resting’ he’s actually busy in the Dream Place leading the Crunch Rebellion against the Evil Empire of Sogg.
My interpretation of the book is that the Defense Professor looks just like Quirrell. If this is the case, then maybe it takes more and more out of him to maintain the illusion that he is someone else. Or maybe he actually inhabits the body Quirrell, and Quirrell is slowly fighting back.
Then again, I still have a hard time reading the DP as actually being Voldemort, so take my instincts with a grain of salt.
I really like your theory of what happened, but have a different idea about Tom’s motives. When the hero disappeared, people were already speaking of him as the next Dumbledore. He had two easy paths to world domination. Put yourself in his place and his personality, what would you do? I’d probably get bored and set about creating the only thing I don’t have: a worthy adversary. This also explains why Harry Potter is so overpowered.
Put yourself in his place and his personality, what would you do? I’d probably get bored and set about creating the only thing I don’t have: a worthy adversary.
I wouldn’t. Sign me up for unworthy adversaries all the way.
In my understanding of fun theory, you have worthy adversaries, but low consequences in case of failure. Like a video game, where if you lose, you lose a few hours of gaming at worse. Not that if you lose, you end up in Azkaban feeding the Dementors.
At least for myself, I like hard games, not easy ones, but I like it when defeat isn’t too severe; I do sometimes play games in “iron will” mode (no saving, if you lose, restart all from the beginning), but not often, it’s really the upper limit to what I accept when losing.
Just to put slightly differently what others have already said: We’re talking here about a version of Voldemort who has read the Evil Overlord List (or written his own version or something of the kind). It is hard to reconcile either half of that with taking considerable trouble and risk to raise up a “worthy adversary”.
Asking for a worthy adversary is asking to lose. Quirrell taught his ‘worthy adversary’ Harry to lose as an attempt to weaken him, not to make him stronger. Harry is just too caught up in his Quirrell worship to see that.
Pretending to lose can be a good move, and if you are able to play it at the right moment, it makes you stronger.
Did Quirrell ask Harry to accept some unrepairable damage? No. It was only about signalling, and temporary pain (any resulting damage is guaranteed to be healed magically later). Quirrell taught Harry that signalling defeat is not the same thing as being defeated. Just like Voldemort, pretending to be killed by a baby, is not really dead.
(I agree that asking for a worthy adversary is suicidal. Having a sparring partner can be useful, but you should be able to destroy them reliably, when necessary.)
EDIT: Though, you have a good point. Willingness to simulate defeat may reduce emotional barriers against (real) defeat, which in some circumstances could weaken one’s resolution to fight. Humans are not perfectly logical; when we do something “as if”, it influences our “real” behavior too. That’s the essence of “fake it till you make it” self-improvement… or perhaps, in this specific situation, self-weakening.
I had this idea about Tom Riddle’s plan that I appreciated having criticized.
Tom Riddle grew up in the shadow of WWII. He saw much of the Muggle world unite against a threat they all called evil, and he saw Europe’s savior, the US, eventually treated as the new world leader afterward, though it was somewhat contested, of course. That threat strongly defined it’s own presentation and style, and so that style and presentation were associated with evil afterward.
Tom didn’t want to be Hitler. Tom wanted to actually win and to rule in the longer term, not just until people got tired of his shit and went all Guy Fawks on his ass. He knew that life isn’t easy for great rules, but thought that was worthwhile. He knew that life was even harder for great rulers who ruled by fear, so that wasn’t his plan.
So Tom needed two sides, good and evil. To this end he needed two identities, a hero and a villain.
I guess he didn’t think the villain didn’t need to have any kind of history. Maybe he didn’t think the villain would matter much or for long. Voldemort was just there for the hero to strike down. That was a mistake, because he lacked a decoy his enemies were eventually able to discover his identity.
Then there’s this hero. The hero is a what passes for a minor noble in magical Britain. He’s from a ‘cadet’ branch of the family, which means he doesn’t stand to inherit anything substantial because he’s not main line.
Most importantly, he goes missing in Albania. That’s a shout out to canon and a code phrase for “became Tom RIddle’s bitch.”
As Voldemort, Tom sows terror and reaps fear. He’s ridiculously evil and for Dumbledore redefines evil because he is apparently evil without necessity. Dumbledore can’t tell what function that outrageous evil serves because Dumbledore thinks that evil is done sincerely. He doesn’t know it’s just a show.
Tom stages a dramatic entrance into the drama for his hero: he saves the president’s daughter, or something like that. Totally Horatio Alger. It’s a cliche, which may be EY’s way of helping us to understand that Tom is fallible, more then than now.
Tom promotes his hero from Minor Noble to Last Scion of House X by killing off the rest of his hero’s family. Tom simultaneously builds legitimacy for his hero’s authority and leverages the tragedy to build sympathy for his hero’s cause.
Tom’s mistake was thinking that would be enough. There was a threat to the peace. There was a solution. The people instead chose to wallow in their failure and doom. He made it all so clear, so simple, and yet the morons just didn’t get it.
I’m sure anyone whose been the biggest ego in the room during improv could sympathize.
When Tom realizes that his plan has failed and cannot be made to work in the intended fashion, he exits his hero, stage left. At that point, 75 or so, he doesn’t have a good plan to leave the stage as his villain, so he kind of kicks it for a few years, tolerating the limits of his rule and getting what meager entertainment he can out of being a god damned theater antagonist.
When Tom gets a chance, he pulls his villain off the stage and may or may not have done something to the infant Harry Potter.
Now he’s using the Scion of X as an identity layer to keep the fuzz off his back, while manipulating Harry into a position of power, and I’m guessing he plans to hit Harry with the Albanian Shuffle a little while later and give World Domination another try.
Tom Riddle is a young immortal. He makes mistakes but has learned an awful lot. He is trying to plan for the long term and has nothing but time, and so can be patient.
That’s a really good explanation for how Dumbledore’s recollection of the purposeless evil of Voldemort can be reconciled with the clearly purposeful evil of Quirrell.
And why Voldie’d lay low for TEN YEARS waiting for a hero.
(Still… see Chris Halquist below. ’73 to ’81? He must’ve had some plan going.)
Yeah. He did. And yeah, that’s odd. There’s probably something else going on there that we don’t know about.
He’s patient?
I believe he intends to upload into Harry after arranging for Harry to “kill” Voldemort and take power. He showed up just in time for Harry’s first year at Hogwarts—first year in public. Then creates the whole army business which propels Harry to leadership.
Also, even though he “was winning” the war, finishing off Dumbledore, holder of the Elder Wand, is non trivial. Much better to become Harry and have Dumbledore pass on his power to you.
Right now this post has 53 points. WHY?
The post where put down the theory this grew from only has 2 points. Don’t go voting it up just because I mentioned that. I don’t want anything ‘fixed’ I just want an explanation.
This isn’t written any better than my other posts, which commonly stay under 3 points and go negative often enough. Those other posts are totally contributions to the conversation. Some of them are even helpful.
I left points hanging. I didn’t defend what I was saying. I just told a story. That’s what you want?
I’m not even the first to revisit this speculation since my low vote theory post. Chris Hallquist was saying pretty much the same thing and he didn’t get over 40 upvotes.
What are you upvoting?
Why hello there! We are called humans, have you met us before?
Because votes come more from the location in the thread than from quality of the post—sheer numbers of people reading it swamp a better post made 400 spots downthread. Also, it puts down in decent fashion a thesis that’s getting kicked around a lot and that is rather appealing.
Maybe the illusion of transparency doesn’t let you see how much clearer this comment [EDIT: I mean the parent comment] is.
Did you just get burned by the Illusion of Transparency while referencing the Illusion of Transparency?
Well. Done.
You’re probably right. I have no fucking clue what you’re thinking.
One factor is that it’s a top-level comment to a popular post, and once a top-level comment outcompetes most others it’s shown more prominently and read by more people.
I don’t think your current post “deserves” as many upvotes as it got, but that other post is just bad. Badly written, badly argued, makes lots of unsupported random claims, like “Voldemort killed Narcissa”.
Well, I thought it was!
I downvoted the previous post because it was a needlessly complicated, poorly justified plan. Crucially, there was little indication of why Voldemort would want to pretend to lose, when he was already winning the war. By contrast, your more recent post is a good analysis of the new insight into Voldemort’s history and motivations provided by the latest chapter.
I liked the story you told, I found it interesting so I upvoted (but your post was like at 5 or 6 when I upvoted it, I wouldn’t have upvoted it if it was already above 30, I tend to avoid upvoting posts which are already too high, unless they are really wonderful).
I didn’t see the first one—I don’t read all the comments, depends of my schedule. Maybe since you posted your new one earlier in the thread, when it wasn’t too bloated, more people saw it ?
Perhaps not so much. We may believe Voldemort to truly be Tom Riddle for the following few reasons.
The Order of the Phoenix thinks Voldemort is Tom Riddle.
Voldemort is Tom Riddle in canon
In Chapter 70, Quirrell, who we are to understand is Voldemort, talks about a witch taking advantage of a muggle man, which is part of Tom Riddle’s tragic backstory in cannon.
He just can’t seem to help himself from punning his damn name, between the references to ‘riddles’ and his godawful anagram.
But canon doesn’t count, this fic diverges strongly in places.
And knowledgeable, otherwise competent characters are wrong about things.
And, most tellingly, we now know that Voldemort in his Quirrell mask has been dropping hints that he is actually your Scion X (or David Monroe or whomever). He could just as easily be falsely hinting at the Riddle identity.
Yes, I am suggesting that the student that opened the Chamber of Secrets in ’41 was not Tom Riddle, but someone else. Why pick one patsy, when you could have two? It’s just one more murder, hardly anything at all.
This means that Voldemort, whomever he really is, had a backup identity behind ‘Voldemort’ just like he has a backup identity behind Quirrell. It means that he didn’t get discovered back in the ’70s. And it means that he’s just as slick and awesome and I hope he is, as I wish he is.
Oh, damn. I have far, far too much affection for this character. 84 is my new favorite chapter.
That sounds unsolvable with only the information we’ve been given.
If it was another kid in Hogwarts that opened the chamber then why haven’t there been any hints in the text to this man behind the man who is also the man behind the other man who is pretending to be the man behind yet another man.
And if it was an adult then also who because there are not hints and how did they get into Hogwarts and the Chamber and I don’t think you mean it was someone who was already grown up in 41.
This strikes me as the least characteristic part of your idea. Quirrellmort doesn’t seem like someone who would have taken a few years kicking it around trying to come up with a new plan.
ETA: I think that for the most part this seems like a pretty likely outline. I think the evidence stacks up in favor of the new character being a dupe of Voldemort, and this strikes me as the most plausible motivation for him to be playing both sides. I think his plan would probably even have been workable in the sense of making the heroic identity the de facto leader of the country, but he called it quits when he realized that the prize for heroism was not being lavished with adulation, but being treated as responsible for being a hero all the time, whereas the prize for being a Dark Lord was fawning obedience. There are all sorts of directions he could have gone from here, including him deciding that the world seems particularly hateful and so why not keep up the villain role, when the benefits are so much better? But spending a few years in an “okay, now what?” slump seems out of character.
Yeah, I get that now.
I’ve amended my suspicion to be that Riddle enjoyed himself in the Voldemort role, for maybe a little less than eight years. I still think he intentionally left the stage and didn’t somehow end up on the losing end of a Nuts roll vs.. infant. Tom Riddle bites it in a cutscene? Lame.
My primary hypothesis is still that getting cindered by Harry was the consequence of some unknown unknown, some event that Voldemort wouldn’t have been able to predict in advance by being really good at planning.
I’ve been thinking along the same lines, probably because I watched Code Geass not too long ago, and this is basically the “Zero Requiem” gambit employed by Lelouch. He creates a totem of pure evil as a target of the world’s hatred, then publicly destroys it, establishing a hero as savior-king. Riddle, like Lelouche, is portrayed as a “Byronic hero”—mysterious, cynical, cunning, arrogant, and brilliant. If this interpretation is correct, Harry might not be his future meatpuppet, but actually the “chosen one”, who will fulfill the role of the hero and unite the world as savior-king after destroying the risen Voldemort.
But of course it could have just been a “Palpatine Gambit”. In this version, Riddle was using his Voldemort persona to create fear, which his other persona takes advantage of to turn Magical Britain into the Empire, consolidating all power to himself. But in this version, much to the consternation of Tom Riddle, the “Republic” actually doesn’t give up power to the obviously qualified hero (due to diffusion of responsibility, political maneuvering, etc.) So instead he decides to just seize power as Voldemort, but by bad luck, he is struck down by Lilly Potter’s self-sacrifice. Now he is back, and wants to use Harry as his new hero, but he needs to make it plausible, by convincing Harry of his political views, and making him super-formidable. That way, when “Harry” (actually Riddle acting via Imperius/polyjuice, etc.) takes over Britain and strikes down the resurrected “Voldemort” in his 7th year, people will believe it was possible. Riddle will then rule Britain (and eventually the world as “Harry Potter”.
I don’t see any need for a sacrifice or a Voldemort who goes alone to confront the kind of threat he takes seriously enough to take seriously the threat posed by an infant.
I cannot parse that.
The circumstances we are given in MOR do not require or imply a sacrifice. There are no hints that Harry was saved by a sacrifice. I can’t think of any hints about any reason at all that he was saved, really.
If Vodlemort hears of a threat that is an infant and he takes that threat seriously enough to do something about an infant, we are not told anything about Voldemort that makes it in character for him to confront a threat like that alone.
That is, there is more than one problem with the story we have concerning the night Harry’s parents died.
Why would he need backup to kill a baby? We’ve seen him do more dangerous things(e.g., sitting in Hogwarts for a year scheming) without backup.
And yes, the sacrifice story comes from canon, not MoR. Still, with no other hints, that gives it a pretty high prior probability.
People protect babies and it would be reasonable to expect that people would work especially hard to protect babies that are prophesied to save the world from an evil villain. It turns out that his enemies were idiots and suffered a single point of failure, but even if he thought he knew that the target would be under protected the smart thing to do is not to depend on his quisling and go in alone.
How high is this canon bonus to probability of yours? Would you say that Aberforth was probably a zoophile just because he was in canon? Or that Ron and Hermione will probably get together because they did in canon? Or that Snape will kill Dumbldedore because he did in canon?
What was idiotic about the way Harry was protected? They were betrayed to a superior force by someone highly placed, and there’s no good defense against that. And Voldemort was knowingly superior to every possible defender, so why would he worry about it?
And re prior probabilities, it’s obviously dependant on the issue in question. On something where MoR is silent, canon carries a lot of weight. On something where MoR spends time adjusting expectations, canon carries very little weight. So it’s quite likely that Aberforth loved goats(though even more likely that MoR will stay silent on the topic), but quite unlikely that Ron and Hermione will get together(because the story is explicitly listed as Harry/Hermione, and has been proceeding accordingly). And Snape killing Dumbledore...actually that one’s not implausible, because both characters seem quite similar to their canon versions. If they were put in the same position, they’d likely do the same thing. I don’t think the story will run long enough to get there, but if it does somehow, I can see it. I’d certainly put the probability higher than McGonagall or Flitwick doing him in.
Did you miss the part about a single point of failure?
Fate of the whole fucking world and the critical security decisions and on site protective services are trusted to a crew of twenty somethings who were really close in school. Idiots.
The only reason to work alone is if working with others means watching your back more. We have no evidence that Vodlemort executed his other raids singlehandely, so we should believe that he did it the smart way with backup. So why the sudden switch from terrorist to cheap slasher monster?
MoR is not silent on the question of sacrifice, it is covered under the primary themes of the story. Throwing your life away futilely not smart and should not be rewarded in a story with rationalist aspirations. There’s no exposition on the subject of mother’s love sacrifice charms, so if this is what happened it will be unforeshadowed. EY has said that is a bad thing to do so we should guess that he probably doesn’t intend to do that.
Find me a protection scheme that applies to the situation at hand with a second point of failure, and I’ll accept your criticism of the plan they had. Highly-placed traitors are really, really hard to defend against.
Similarly, find me an example of Voldemort having backup on any of his attacks, and I’ll believe that him lacking it here is relevant.
Rationality is about winning. Lily Potter won that night, as much as she believably could have. I’d say she did okay by “throwing her life away”.
Have Dumbledore be the Secret-Keeper.
The Ministry raid at the end of OotP.
So you want to replace a single point of failure for defending a baby with a single point of failure for the entire Order? Remember what happens when the Secret-Keeper dies, after all.
And there’s a bit of a difference between hitting a single-family house and a large battle.
How would Dumbledore be any easier to kill as a Secret-Keeper than otherwise? Wait, before that, how would Dumbledore’s death be any more crippling to the Order if he was a Secret-Keeper than otherwise? He dies, they’ve pretty much lost the war, baby Harry Potter or no baby Harry Potter.
I am. Are you?
(Dumbledore’s death resulted in everyone read into the Secret of 12 Grimmauld Place becoming Secret-Keepers themselves; the Fidelius was still in place.)
Edit: The wiki claims- unfortunately without attribution- that Dumbledore offered to be the Potters’ Keeper, and was turned down.
Edit2:
Emphasis mine.
I definitely remember this from the third book. The adults are talking about the Potters’ deaths in the Three Broomsticks Inn and someone mentions that Dumbledore himself offered to become the secret keeper, but was turned down with insistences that Sirius Black would never betray them.
EDIT: Found it.
In case it’s relevant, remember that Hitler was just a muggle pawn of Grindlewald, and the Holocaust existed to fuel Gindlewald’s dark rituals.
I’m sorry. I don’t understand what you’re suggesting. Please say more about your point.
World War II had a different story in Harry Potter, and it’s a bit clearer in MoR. It was sparked by Grindlewald’s desire to have dominion over the muggles—the muggle war was just a reflection of the wizarding war going on at the same time. Grindlewald was the real power in Germany, and Hitler just a pawn. The reason Dumbledore couldn’t take down Grindlewald until the war was over, was that Hitler was fueling Grindlewald’s power using dark rituals involving the blood sacrifice of millions of muggles.
Yeah, that is one of the holes in this thing.
Riddle probably got his idea to exchange heroism for power from somewhere else.
The Holocaust wasn’t why Hitler lost.
The world didn’t know about the Holocaust and had trouble believing it had happened. Much of the Nazi higher ups didn’t know about it. A particular high ranked Nazi officer kept a diary while he was in Nuremburg throughout the trials. Among other things, it records him being told about and shown evidence of the Holocaust, denying it, confronting it, and reconciling it with his beliefs. If I remember correctly he remains loyal to the cause, all except the Holocaust, which he thought was terrible even when he thought it was fake.
Tangent aside, Hitler was hated by many non-Germans before he started losing. He was hated by some of his own people before he lost. He didn’t lose because he was hated, he lost because war is decided by logistics, strategy, morale, and luck. Even when his side could keep up the others, it couldn’t sustain logistics against giants like Americans and Soviets.
Wait… was that another tangent?
Oh, yeah. So villains act and heroes react, right? Tom wanted to be the hero because he thought people love heroes and promote them to positions of power. And Tom wanted power. So first you make a villain who makes a mess, then you make a hero who rallies the people around himself, cleans up the villain, and sustains his momentum and rally to take over the world!
I guess.
But doesn’t have to be about the Holocaust.
Downvoted because I don’t see where thomblake is supposed to have said that the Holocaust was why Hitler lost, so I don’t see what you’re responding to.
Yeah, I totally don’t know what thomblake meant. I just tried to spread the words around and hope they caught some rain.
I’m not REALLY retracting this in that it remains true. But I am taking a different approach.
I think this is right in broad strokes, but what you call “a few years” is ’73 to ’81, kind of a long time to “kick it” because your plan went astray.
Furthermore, Quiddle also often talks about his motives in terms of what he found “amusing,” “felt like,” or “pleasant” (in conversation with Hermione). Then there’s this:
I think he’s not quite so given to long-term planning as you imagine.
There’s a difference between using long term planning to develop a power base, and being willing to use your power base to indulge your desires.
So the quote is not the best illustration of Quiddle’s character. But does seem to have abandoned the “hero” plan (at least in its initial version) on the basis of what was “more pleasant.”
So you want this quote?
He had to wait for his exit. He could kill off the hero at any time, that’s easy. Heroes just die.
But villains need to be vanquished.
You think that someone as competent as Voldemort couldn’t have created a faster exit strategy?
The world was not offering him an opportunity to be vanquished in a fashion that would allow him to escape.
Moody and Dumbledore would be too thorough, and everyone else wasn’t good enough to touch him.
Or maybe he had reasons for staying Voldemort until he heard about the ‘prophesy’ and decided that was a good opportunity.
I can think of ways to be vanquished much quicker than he did, especially if he’s willing to be reverted to horcrux. Challenge Dumbledore to a duel and lose. Be seen doing some dark ritual, which then goes out of control, killing him. Hell, I’m sure someone as competent as Voldemort could have faked a prophecy about his doom. I don’t see why you think that Voldemort wasn’t willing to use villainhood to achieve total dominance - he was winning, he would have gotten what he wanted.
If I were Voldemort, I wouldn’t have waited on that prophesy until I needed to make an exit.
Love it!
So in this scenario, why is he dying? Before, we were unsure that his cataplexy was getting worse; I pointed out that on-screen he seems as active or more active than ever. But Bones says: “And you seem to be resting more and more frequently, as time goes on.” and she would know. Are we speculating that whatever dupe’s body that Riddle stole is breaking down 60-odd years later after Albania?
That is a good question. I don’t know why he appears to be dying.
Maybe Riddle was put Scion of X’s body on ice when he put an Albania with a nail through it up side his head. Then he trotted it out for a few years in the seventies, then put it back on ice. And it turns out that’s not good for a body and so it’s kind of falling apart or something.
Maybe Quirrell wants the appearance of weakness, for all the right reasons.
Maybe Scion of X has been alive the whole time, imprisoned in his own usually motionless flesh. And since the only thing he could do was wait there, motionless, he practiced being lethargic. And he became strong and wise in the ways of lethargy, so that Voldemort must ration his own strength and only force Scion of X to action when absolutely necessary.
Maybe when Quirrell is ‘resting’ he’s actually busy in the Dream Place leading the Crunch Rebellion against the Evil Empire of Sogg.
I will definitely have to put that in my General-Purpose Excuses File. :-)
Quirrell’s body is in its 30s.
My interpretation of the book is that the Defense Professor looks just like Quirrell. If this is the case, then maybe it takes more and more out of him to maintain the illusion that he is someone else. Or maybe he actually inhabits the body Quirrell, and Quirrell is slowly fighting back.
Then again, I still have a hard time reading the DP as actually being Voldemort, so take my instincts with a grain of salt.
I believe it’s the Dark magic, which requires a bit of sacrifice with every use.
I think you’re mixing up Dark magic and ritual magic.
I really like your theory of what happened, but have a different idea about Tom’s motives. When the hero disappeared, people were already speaking of him as the next Dumbledore. He had two easy paths to world domination. Put yourself in his place and his personality, what would you do? I’d probably get bored and set about creating the only thing I don’t have: a worthy adversary. This also explains why Harry Potter is so overpowered.
I wouldn’t. Sign me up for unworthy adversaries all the way.
This violates fun theory if the adversaries are really unworthy.
In my understanding of fun theory, you have worthy adversaries, but low consequences in case of failure. Like a video game, where if you lose, you lose a few hours of gaming at worse. Not that if you lose, you end up in Azkaban feeding the Dementors.
At least for myself, I like hard games, not easy ones, but I like it when defeat isn’t too severe; I do sometimes play games in “iron will” mode (no saving, if you lose, restart all from the beginning), but not often, it’s really the upper limit to what I accept when losing.
I would do other things for fun than risk losing.
Just to put slightly differently what others have already said: We’re talking here about a version of Voldemort who has read the Evil Overlord List (or written his own version or something of the kind). It is hard to reconcile either half of that with taking considerable trouble and risk to raise up a “worthy adversary”.
Asking for a worthy adversary is asking to lose. Quirrell taught his ‘worthy adversary’ Harry to lose as an attempt to weaken him, not to make him stronger. Harry is just too caught up in his Quirrell worship to see that.
Pretending to lose can be a good move, and if you are able to play it at the right moment, it makes you stronger.
Did Quirrell ask Harry to accept some unrepairable damage? No. It was only about signalling, and temporary pain (any resulting damage is guaranteed to be healed magically later). Quirrell taught Harry that signalling defeat is not the same thing as being defeated. Just like Voldemort, pretending to be killed by a baby, is not really dead.
(I agree that asking for a worthy adversary is suicidal. Having a sparring partner can be useful, but you should be able to destroy them reliably, when necessary.)
EDIT: Though, you have a good point. Willingness to simulate defeat may reduce emotional barriers against (real) defeat, which in some circumstances could weaken one’s resolution to fight. Humans are not perfectly logical; when we do something “as if”, it influences our “real” behavior too. That’s the essence of “fake it till you make it” self-improvement… or perhaps, in this specific situation, self-weakening.
This is remarkably internally consistent and consistent with the evidence available to us.
Is it possible that he disappeared as Tom Riddle not because his plan wasn’t working, but because Dumbledore had discovered Voldemort was him?