A son is born as the year, and his mother, dies. Merope Gaunt Riddle, discarded wife of Tom Riddle, “wishes” for her son his father’s looks, and gives him a name—Tom Marvolo Riddle. We know him by another name, one he gave himself—Lord Voldemort.
Who is he, really? Why is Voldemort bent upon destruction of the world he was so eager to join? Why does the Wizarding World call him “He Who Must Not be Named”?
Tom Riddle, through the blood of his mother, is a descendant of one of the Founders of Hogwarts (and perhaps its most controversial), Salazar Slytherin. Blood counts in the Wizarding World; those who consider themselves “purebloods” look down upon those who are not. Tom Riddle, because his father was a Muggle, is therefore a “half-blood”, like Harry.
That’s the short answer. The other, longer, answer is more difficult. For that answer, we must look to the words of the author for a clue.
“I’m writing about shades of evil. You have Voldemort, a raging psychopath,devoid of the normal human responses to other people’s suffering, and there ARE people like that in the world.”
(JKR, Entertainment Weekly, 2000, via Accio Quote!)
“Well, I believe that almost anyone can redeem themselves…However, in some cases, as we know from reality –if a psychologist were ever able to get Voldemort in a room, pin him down and take his wand away, I think he would be classified as a psychopath (crowd laughs).
So there are people, for whom, whatever you’re going to call it –personality disorder or an illness — for whom redemption is not possible. They’re rare.”
(JKR, An Evening With Harry, Carrie, and Garp #1, via Accio Quote!)
So, Voldemort is a psychopath and is beyond redemption. On the Bell curve of Good and Evil, Voldemort is at the end; he is Evil. How did he get that way?
Riddle Me This…
One of the memories Dumbledore shows Harry in the Pensieve is the first meeting between the (then) Transfiguration teacher and a young London orphan named Tom Riddle. An interview (helped with a little gin) of Mrs. Cole, the head of the orphanage, reveals the tragedy of Merope gaunt Riddle’s final hours, and the nature of her offspring.
Tom Riddle was a child who seldom cried. The other children in the orphanage were afraid of him; two children in particular had good reason. Small animals were the subject of gruesome ends—a rabbit was hung from the rafters, but no one knows how—they just know that Tom had “something” to do with it. Dumbledore finds that Tom has collected what a psychologist would call “souvenirs”–small items stolen from the other children.
Tom Riddle has discovered that he has peculiar talents, as well—and has started using those talents to overawe and frighten those around him. By age eleven, Tom Riddle was well on his way towards an evil life. One of the most striking things about this particular memory is that Tom was convinced that Dumbledore was there to take him to an institution—it took a display of magic to dissuade him of the fact. The other notable piece of the puzzle that is Tom Riddle is that he subsequently unburdened himself to Dumbledore—probably the only instance in his life where he opens up to another.
It is a terrible thirst for understanding and knowledge that we see from Tom Riddle, unchained. Boasting about his powers, asking questions about his antecedents—in this memory we see the fatal assumption that magic= immortality. His mother couldn’t have been magic—she died.
We also see the absolutism of Tom Riddle, and his hatred of liars. Although he does not hesitate to lie when necessary, Tom Riddle hates for others to lie to him. After this astonishing transformation, Dumbledore starts to lay down the rules of the world the youngster is entering. Tom Riddle retreats into his Universe of one, and we never see him as animated, or as unguarded, ever again.
The Riddle of Steel
The child who attends Hogwarts that autumn is a different being. Studious, modest, brilliant, polite, he wins the hearts of all the staff, save Dumbledore.
Dumbledore was wise to be wary; Tom Riddle had a mission. Early on, Tom discovers that his magical bloodline is spectacular—he is, de facto, a prince of the Wizarding World, scion of the Slytherin line. The mother he despised for dying was, in fact, his claim to magical fame.
Tom Riddle also heard of the Chamber of Secrets, his forefather’s “legacy” left for him at Hogwarts. Some time in or after his fifth year, he opens the Chamber of Secrets, and a girl dies. He re-arranges the letters of his name in that time frame, too—no longer the hated name of his Muggle father, Riddle – now his name is Lord Voldemort, lord of the flight from death. His choice has been made, and his path clear to the evil of He Who Must Not Be Named. He seals this pact with Evil by making his first Horcrux at about this time, encapsulating his sixteen-year old self into the pages of a diary. The mask of the brilliant but poor student gives way to the wizard who immerses himself in the Dark Arts, becoming so changed in his visage that his former classmates would find it difficult to remember the boy student. The die had been cast. There was just one real chink in the Dark Lord’s armor—Dumbledore, and that inconvenient slip of a boy of eleven.