Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Characters/Tom Marvolo Riddle
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| Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter - Character | |
| Tom Marvolo Riddle | |
|---|---|
| Gender | Male |
| Hair color | Black |
| Eye color | Unknown |
| Related Family | Merope Gaunt, Tom Riddle |
| Loyalty | Self |
Contents |
[edit] Overview
Tom Marvolo Riddle, only child of the Muggle Tom Riddle and Merope Gaunt, attended Hogwarts some fifty years before the story opens. The author has said that he was born 31 December; internal evidence in the series indicates that this would have fallen in the late 1920s.
[edit] Role in the Books
[edit] Chamber of Secrets
A large part of the story involves a Secret Diary that we don't find out about until shortly after Christmas. The Secret Diary had originally belonged to Tom Riddle. Through magic embedded within it, Riddle's memory bewitches Ginny Weasley into opening the Chamber of Secrets and releasing the monster that attacks students. When Ginny throws the diary away, Harry finds it; the diary shows him a day fifty years before when Rubeus Hagrid was accused of opening the Chamber and releasing the monster. Later, with the diary back in Ginny's possession, Riddle's memory summons her to the Chamber of Secrets; there he begins draining her life force to restore his own body. Harry succeeds in vanquishing Riddle and saving Ginny by killing the monster and destroying the diary. It turns out that the diary had been surreptitiously given to Ginny by Lucius Malfoy.
It is as part of the battle in the Chamber of Secrets that we learn that Tom Riddle and Lord Voldemort are the same person.
[edit] Goblet of Fire
The name Tom Riddle does not appear in this book, though it can be inferred: Tom Riddle of Riddle Manor, who we deduce is Tom Marvolo Riddle's father, is mentioned as being found incomprehensibly dead along with his parents, and Riddle Manor, the house in Little Hangleton, plays a part in the story.
[edit] Order of the Phoenix
In the duel between Albus Dumbledore and Voldemort in the Atrium at the Ministry of Magic, Dumbledore repeatedly calls his opponent "Tom", much to his annoyance.
[edit] Half-Blood Prince
Dumbledore tells Harry that he will be teaching Harry specially during the course of the year. Harry is intrigued, wondering what special magic Dumbledore will be teaching him, but is surprised when the first lesson comes around, as it seems that they will be studying Tom Riddle as he grows up. By watching memories in a Pensieve, Harry (and thus the reader) becomes acquainted with Lord Voldemort's origins and why he abandoned the name Tom Marvolo Riddle. Throughout, Professor Dumbledore refers to him by this name, even when we see that he is calling himself Voldemort.
While we do not see Tom as an infant, we do see the house of his mother Merope, uncle Morfin, and grandfather Marvolo Gaunt. We learn that Merope is infatuated with the Muggle Tom Riddle, and Dumbledore tells us that shortly after Marvolo and Morfin are imprisoned, she had left their house with Tom. Dumbledore suggests that quite possibly she had used a love potion on Tom, but had stopped using it once she found herself pregnant, perhaps believing that her bearing his child would be enough to keep him with her. It was not, and we are told that Tom had returned home.
When we first see Tom, it is in the orphanage where he had grown up. Dumbledore has arrived to offer him a place at Hogwarts now that he is 11 years old. Discussing Tom with the matron of the orphanage, Dumbledore finds that Merope had passed away shortly after giving birth to him one New Years' Eve, after asking that he be named Tom, after his father, and Marvolo after his grandfather. He had always been a quiet and withdrawn boy, and did not seem to have any friends. There were a number of strange things that seemed to happen around Tom, but nothing that could be directly caused by him; and a number of the other children seemed to be very afraid of him. In particular, there had been one incident with two other children, on the annual seaside outing, in which the two children had apparently been frightened almost out of their wits by something to do with a cave, but of which they would never speak. Meeting Tom in person, we find that he is assured far beyond his years, and apparently chooses to be solitary. He is initially suspicious of Dumbledore, thinking that he is there to take Tom to some sort of psychiatric hospital. He is, however, won over by Dumbledore's display of magic. Interestingly, when it is mentioned that the owner of the Leaky Cauldron is also named Tom, Riddle seems to reject this; he doesn't like his name, for some reason. Almost as an afterthought, Tom mentions that he can talk with snakes.
Dumbledore tells us that there are very few memories of Tom in his school years; those who remember him don't seem to wish to talk about him. He does, however, have a memory of Morfin Gaunt's. Morfin had evidently at first believed that Tom was his father, and it was only after Tom answered him in Parseltongue that he realized he was talking to Merope's son. Tom had then apparently Stunned Morfin, taken the Gaunt signet ring and Morfin's wand, and killed his father and his fathers' Muggle parents. He had then apparently modified Morfin's memory so that Morfin recalled killing the Muggles, and did not remember Tom's presence.
We next see Tom in an edited memory of Professor Slughorn's. Here we see Tom wearing the Gaunt ring, with a circle of cronies, and later asking about Horcruxes. In this memory, which Dumbledore points out has been rather obviously edited, Slughorn claims to have no knowledge of Horcruxes. Dumbledore says that this one memory is the most important task he has for Harry; Harry is uniquely equipped to retrieve that memory in its original, unedited state, and if he cannot retrieve the memory, Dumbledore's lessons will be of little use.
We later see Tom, having graduated from Hogwarts, working for Borgin and Burkes. We see through the eyes of a house elf, Hokey, as Tom calls on an elderly but still vain witch, Hepzibah Smith. She decides to show Tom her two greatest treasures: the locket of Slytherin and a cup of Helga Hufflepuff's. We see Tom's eyes flash red with greed and suppressed anger as he sees the locket; apparently he remembered Morfin Gaunt telling him that Merope had taken that with her when she left the Gaunt house. Dumbledore tells Harry that shortly after this, Hepzibah had died, apparently accidentally poisoned by Hokey, and the two treasures she had here shown Tom had vanished.
In a final memory, we see Tom applying to Dumbledore for a job at Hogwarts as instructor of Defence Against the Dark Arts. Dumbledore tells us that he had applied for that post on graduation, but that then-headmaster Dippet had turned him down, saying he lacked real-world experience. In Dumbledore's memory, we see Tom being turned down again, this time apparently because Dumbledore does not entirely trust Tom to teach defence. Dumbledore points out that he knows that Tom now chooses to call himself Voldemort, and that he has brought supporters with him, but says that he cannot forget that Riddle was Tom originally, and so continues to address him as Tom.
Some time later, Harry manages to secure the unedited memory from Slughorn, and he and Dumbledore view it. In response to Tom's questions, Slughorn responds that a Horcrux is one of the darkest things in dark magic. By murdering another person, one actually tears the soul; and by means of incantations of some sort which Slughorn professes to not know, one can then encapsulate the torn-off soul fragment into another object, which is a Horcrux. The Horcrux then prevents the main part of the soul from leaving the earth when the body housing it is killed. Tom then asks, if one Horcrux can give immortality, would not more be better? Isn't seven the most magical number? Slughorn is appalled at the idea of murdering so many people, and of tearing one's soul into so many pieces. As Tom says that it was a purely academic question, and turns away from Slughorn, Harry notes a look of triumph in his eyes, very similar to the look he had had when Dumbledore had told him he was a wizard.
Discussing this memory, Dumbledore reveals that the diary in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was actually one of Tom's Horcruxes. It was what allowed Riddle's memory to think and act independently and to nearly become a material person by taking Ginny Weasley's life force. Dumbledore admits that discovering this had been a worry to him, as Horcruxes, being the source of immortality, should be extremely valuable and thus should be kept safely stored away and hidden, and yet the diary seemed to be crafted not only as a means of immortality but also as a weapon. Dumbledore feels certain that this would not have been done if it had been the only Horcrux Tom had made; with this memory, he understands that Tom, or Voldemort, would have made six Horcruxes to leave him with a total of seven pieces of his soul. He goes on to say that two, the diary and the Gaunt ring, have been found and destroyed, likely leaving four, and that when he finds another, Harry will have the right to come along and help in its retrieval and destruction.
Dumbledore also expresses the opinion that the Horcruxes are typically crafted out of objects that have a particular significance for Tom, especially those that tie him to his heritage. The Gaunt ring, for instance, is an heirloom that ties him to an ancient Wizarding family, as the Slytherin locket would be. Questioned about the significance of the diary, Dumbledore says that its importance was that, as it showed the opening of the Chamber, it was proof that Tom is the heir of Slytherin. Dumbledore suggests further that, even as the horcruxes are made from items of significance, they will be hidden in particularly significant places. The ring was in the remains of the Gaunt shack, for instance.
Dumbledore summons Harry to his office one final time, to tell him that he has determined the location of the cave where Tom had taken his two victims. Dumbledore believed that, as Tom had one of his earliest triumphs there, it was extremely likely that a Horcrux would be hidden in that cave. This proves to be correct; it turns out that Tom had, in fact, hidden a Horcrux there, although someone had later removed it.
[edit] Deathly Hallows
It is mentioned that the eyes in the locket Horcrux are Riddle's handsome eyes, from before he changed his appearance to its current snakelike state.
When Harry is dueling with Voldemort, Harry addresses him as "Tom" or "Riddle", showing that he refuses to accept the power of his "new" name.
[edit] Strengths
Tom is an extremely powerful wizard. He is able to produce significant amounts of somewhat controlled magic even before training, and without a wand. We find that he is able to perform NEWT-class magic, probably before he has even completed his OWLs.
In Hokey's and Horace Slughorn's memories of Tom, we also learn that he can be extremely persuasive.
[edit] Weaknesses
Even as a boy of about 15, in Professor Slughorn's memory of him, we see that Tom is already so concerned with his own personal immortality that he has created a Horcrux. This would indicate that he already has a very real fear of death.
In Dumbledore's memories of the young Tom Riddle, we see that he is very much alone, and seems to prefer it that way, He has no friends at the orphanage, and does not desire help finding his school supplies in Diagon Alley. This determination to do everything himself, which he likely perceives as strength, actually masks a major weakness, an inability to understand the way other peoples' minds truly work.
[edit] Relationships with Other Characters
Tom seems to prefer being alone. At the orphanage he has no friends, and at Hogwarts he seems to have followers rather than friends. Even at this young age, those who gather around Tom are seldom friends; instead, they are gathered around him in the hopes of gaining some of his power, or out of fear of what he would do to them if they left. Tom doesn't consider anyone, ally or enemy, to be worthy of his respect. He has never trusted anyone other than himself.
