fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #461 ]

[ SECRET POST #461 ]

⌈ Secret Post #461 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Update on the LJ situation.

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 48 secrets from Secret Submission Post #066.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 - too big ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Tom Riddle had been a three-dimensional character instead of teh ebil.

Could you please explain? I'm not trying to negate your opinion any, I'm just a little confused. In all honesty, I view Voldy and Riddle like two different people. Originally, I found Voldy lacking depth myself, until I read HBP. Then I excessively analyzed Riddle's background in my head (probably excessively so o.o;;), then I felt differently.

He is shown as torturing small animals in the orphanage (if I'm remembering correctly) and distancing himself from the other children. This is typical behavior for people with psychopathic/sociopathic personality disorders. Dumbledore (and J.K.R) say that he was incapable of feeling love. There was never a 'corruption', where he was an innocent 'turned bad' by his experiences: He would have been bad even if he had been brought up in a stable, loving home with tons of positive reinforcement. He was simply born that way.

Yes, you are remembering correctly, he did do that. :) Yes, there is a lot of nature over nurture factor to take into consideration.

The "Voldemort incapable of loving" thing is definitely what made me feel that he lacked depth in the first place. Then you learn that he only has a fraction of a soul. That, to me, came off as the missing piece to the puzzle, so to speak.

Once again, I distinct Tom Riddle different from Voldemort. Voldemort couldn't bear love, obviously. lol But I got the distinct impression that this was due to the fact he only had a fraction of a soul. He did something very evil, on multiple occasions, in the process removing chunks of his humanity in each instance. Such an act was done out of shear selfishness, completely contrary to love--caring so much for someone, you're willing to sacrifice your own feelings and even life for the benefit of that other person. So I personally feel that his inability to feel love came from his actions, not that he was born that way.

As far as Tom's childhood, he was raised in the orphanage. Though I will say Merope using a potion to trick Riddle Sr. wasn't a good thing by any means, I do believe she honestly was a good person. Her ideals strayed from her abusive father's prejudice, and in the end, she realized what she did was wrong, thus she quit administering the potion. I believe that had Merope survived, she probably would have been a very loving mother. Tom was raised by caretakers who came off to me as somewhat neglectful (sending doctors to poke at him because he was so 'odd', letting an eleven-year-old go to Diagon Alley unattended. wtf?). Had he been raised in a home with a loving mother, so he didn't feel the need to act out and torment animals, would he have really done so? Would he really been incapable of love then?

Anyway, I don't believe Tom was a 'good soul' who was 'corrupted' by any means. I'd be more willing to say that about Death Eaters actually, but I'll save that. What I'm saying is that the paths dealt to him that were beyond his control led him to the monster he became. While he never may have been a shining good guy with flowers and kittens, I think Dumbledore could have prevented the tyranny he reaped on the wizarding world. After all, it's pretty rare that sociopaths actually turn into genocidal dictators.

I see your point, but I still disagree. He lacked empathy, plain and simple. He was like Rhoda in 'The Bad Seed'. I will concede that perhaps with a lot of careful parenting and mentoring he would not have become a megalomaniac, but something less ambitiously murderous, like a serial killer (ala Dexter). But there was something off about the boy, even when he had his soul intact.

IAWTC

One cannot be "born" evil, that's just silly to say as many people who are insane were not "born" evil. They turned out bad through a series of events that were never intervened. Tom was called the "weird kid" and as we all know, being the "weird kid" means people avoid you. He hung animals from the rafters not because he wanted to have fun, he did that as a way to make those kids miserable and stole things from the children to make them miserable.

I'm sure if they treated him poorly and like he was an outcast that he did some form of retaliation. The problem with Tom is that when ANYONE could have intervened and gave him attention, nobody would. J.K said on her sight that Voldemort had the ability to remorse due to putting Harry's blood in him, it put a 'bit of good in him' and while he was unable to love, if he ever decided to remorse he would have fixed his soul.

Point is Tom Riddle Jr. is every bit a 3 dimensional character and you simply see him as that because you never chose to try to look at it from his point of view. You are blinded with the fact that he is the 'bad guy' of the series and no kind of explanation will make him anything less.

When you leave a person alone for two long, they get involved in their vices. Nobody paid any attention to him, ever. He admired and adored Dumbledore for a long time and a small acknowledgment of his talents would have lessened Tom's path into being so evil. He would have gone along the path, but I doubt he would have been bad as he is now.

He did an awful lot to arouse attention, it was clear that's all he wanted as a young man and somewhat as an adult. Tom went searching for his relatives and the only thing Morfin had to say was how like his father he was, whom he hated for what he did to his mother, and how his mother was a dirty slut. I highly doubt he would have been hurt at all if Morfin would have accepted him as a nephew, but Tom Riddle Sr. had his death warrant signed when he left Merope, that's all I have to say on that.

Dumbledore could have intervened in this events:

OOTP: He could have KILLED Voldemort then, he had the Elder Wand.
Lily&James Death: He was there watching, he could have stopped Voldemort. He didn't, he let it happened because he wanted to try the invisibility cloak.
Quirrell's problem: He knew, but did nothing. He didn't even try to intervene.
Ariana: He could have taken the real responsibility and took care of his sister and brother.
Harry: He let Harry become a horcrux, he let Harry get hurt by his Uncle and Aunt.
Tom: He could have stopped his path by intervening MANY times and did nothing.

By saying he's serious not 3D is kind of silly. Your reasoning is fail.

Perhaps if you liked Tom/Voldemort you'd see more into his character rather than his outside.

Whoah there, stop making assumptions. Tom Riddle was my favourite character for a long time, because I thought that he would end up being Harry's foil; the powerful orphan who could have done so much good, but ended up going down the dark path.

My barbs in the comments weren't actually about Tom Riddle at all, but about J.K.R's portrayal of him. I agree with you that nobody is born 'evil', but that's just the way that J.K.R wrote him. I was arguing my point based on my perception of canon, not based on my perception of good and evil. There's a big difference.

I was disappointed that she wrote him this way, actually, and thought that she squandered a potentially amazing villain with a simply adequate one. He isn't three dimensional by my definition of the term, meaning that he lacks any real doubts, regrets, or internal conflict. And I don't mean doubts and conflict that we as readers have to infer from his circumstances; I mean places in the source material where we are explicitally shown them (as is the case with many villains, including Draco and Snape.)

And please understand, I don't feel nearly passionate about this as you apperently do. I'm not even an active member of the fandom. I just think that J.K's characterization (in canon, regardless of whether or not I agree with her blatant fatalism) does not leave room for Tom Riddle to have been anything than some variation of what he eventually became. I don't think that shows flaws in my reasoning, but I don't really mind if you think otherwise.

A. If he was your favourite character, you'd see that he is a 3D character.

Lol, get out of the fandom if you don't know shit about it, ty.

Fandom is serious bussiness, right?

A. He was my favourite character. He ceased to be my favourite character because I saw him as two dimensional. Why does this assesment make you so angry? You and I have different standards of what constitutes a character being three dimensional. We can never see eye to eye on that.

And yeah...did you fail to read the part where I expressly stated that I am NOT in the fandom. I don't have to be in the fandom to have an opinion. In addition, having an opinion that differs from yours does not mean that I know "shit"-- it means that I have perceived the same facts in a different way.

You are beginning to remind me of rabid shippers, so I'm going to have to stop now. Not everybody is going to perceive characters the way that you do, even if they have all the same information from the canon. If you can't accept that, then I honestly have nothing more to say to you.

oh, because I think your opinion is shit in a box, you think I am a shipper. holy shit, you have it wrong, lol.

I'm hardly a super fangirl and I don't even write super slashy fan-fiction, get over yourself.

look at you, trying to be bad ass w/your tl;dr posts.

You don't make me angry, you make me laugh.

I AM NOT INTO THE FANDOM. I AM A COMPLETELY A THIRD PARTY OBSERVING WITH NO INTEREST IN THE MATTER. <--- You.

You have become lawl material my friend, you have lost the internets. D;

oh, because I think your opinion is shit in a box, you think I am a shipper. holy shit, you have it wrong, lol.
No. I think that you're absolutely entitled to think that my opinion is wrong. I think that your attitude of saying I know nothing about canon because I hold an opinion you disagree with is reminiscent of rabid shippers.

look at you, trying to be bad ass w/your tl;dr posts.
Are you being serious?

I AM NOT INTO THE FANDOM. I AM A COMPLETELY A THIRD PARTY OBSERVING WITH NO INTEREST IN THE MATTER.

Not what I said. I have read all the books, and was active in the fandom for years. I have since stopped. Therefore, I am fully entitled to have an opinion, because I read the source material. That is actually all that is needed to have an opinion about something, believe it or not. I do have an 'interest' in it. What I said was, and I quote: "I am not as passionate about it as you apperently are".

I'm hardly a super fangirl and I don't even write super slashy fan-fiction, get over yourself.
What does writing slash have to do with being militant about fandom opinions?

Up until that last post (where I admittedly accused you of displaying shipper-like behavior), all I did was politely disagree with you. Why did you reply so viciously? I...honestly don't understand. It's possible to think that somebody has a stupid opinion without being so reactionary.

Point is, until you accused me of being a rabid shipper, I wasn't going to keep on replying to your tl;dr dissecting 'im super serial' bullshit opinion. Anything awesome you had to say went right down the drain.

I don't care if you agree with me or not, your opinion is shit in a box.

Yes, you are trying to seem 'omg supr intellectualz!11' by writing tl;dr posts.

Shorten your shit up, it's annoying.

until you accused me of being a rabid shipper
I never accused you of being a shipper. Acting like =/= being. Even so, it was uncalled for and I apoligise. What drove me to make it was the fact that your reply just oozed nastiness.
THIS:
A. If he was your favourite character, you'd see that he is a 3D character. ---> Holier-than-thou.

And this:
Lol, get out of the fandom if you don't know shit about it, ty. ---> Condescending.

It rubbed me the wrong way, and I reacted. I shouldn't have.

As for the tl;dr: Re-read your initial post. It was much longer than my reply. It was much longer than any of my replies, in fact.

Shut the fuck up. :] You are obnoxious.

where I admittedly accused you of displaying shipper-like behavior

Same thing, different story.

That's hardly condescending, grow a pair of nuts plz.

Obnoxious? Yeah, I am. But at least I'm not a fanbrat who makes sweeping generalizations about slash shippers, has poor reading comprehension, and gets annoyed at people using college-level writing in livejournal posts.

Grow the fuck up.

Oh, cry a fucking river because you analyze everything as if you are some kind of forensic specialist of some sort. You probably just some pathetic 10 year old behind a computer, getting all pissy because I got your panties in a twist.

Aw. I have fine reading comprehension, I just don't care to go through your countless, mindless bullshit.

I hope you know I've succeeded my goal of pissing you off ;X

Saying your not means you are just in denial. X;

Ah, I see. When somebody points out your hypocracy, you resort to petty insults and lose all semblance of logical argumentation. Fair enough. I can at least rest easy knowing that I don't get kicks out of the discomfort or anger of others. I'm sure it's nice to be so easily amused. :)

Lol, nah.

I don't really care for debating or my hypocrisies. You guys are too serious business anyways, lol. OMG FANDOM IZ SERIOUZ BUSINEZZZ..

Yes, I like to go here on these fandom bitching boards and make trouble, lol.

You all get so offended.

nice icon, pooch

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kitphiros.livejournal.com - 2008-04-11 04:21 (UTC) - Expand

Lol, delete your comment?

I wonder if we'll end up on fandom_wank? That was pretty epic, I have to say.

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kitphiros.livejournal.com - 2008-04-11 04:09 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2008-04-11 04:13 (UTC) - Expand

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kitphiros.livejournal.com - 2008-04-11 04:21 (UTC) - Expand

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kitphiros.livejournal.com - 2008-04-11 04:36 (UTC) - Expand

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goat-writer.livejournal.com - 2008-04-11 04:52 (UTC) - Expand

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kitphiros.livejournal.com - 2008-04-11 04:55 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2008-04-11 05:57 (UTC) - Expand

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kitphiros.livejournal.com - 2008-04-11 06:06 (UTC) - Expand

The whole point of books 6 and 7 was to show us Dumbledore wasn't perfect and that Tom Riddle didn't have the best childhood.

Yeah, I get that. And I think that JKR achieved what she set out to achieve. But the fact that Tom Riddle had a shitty childhood doesn't stop me from seeing JKR's characterization of him as fatalistic. That's what I got from the finale: Tom was destined to be Voldemort. Feel free to disagree, but that's just how it came off to me. I honestly wasn't aiming to cause wank, or anything.

I do disagree (but like you, I'm not emotionally overinvested, so you don't have to worry about me going rabid, like... certain other people can).

Children develop their abuility to feel empathy during the first year/year and a half (though they don't develop the actual empathy until much later), which is why Tom Riddle's childhood really could have changed him - it was just too late when Dumbledore discovered him.

We also have to remember that Harry's perception of Dumbledore as the wise, faultless mentor in the frist book is false. I know it's easy to fall in the trap of relying on first impressions, and also to mistake a character's voice for the author's, but Dumbledore is just human, and due to his position mistakes have far-reaching consequences.

But the fact that Tom Riddle had a shitty childhood doesn't stop me from seeing JKR's characterization of him as fatalistic

In a way I do agree. But to me it was more a case of being delt a set of circumstances that were pretty much impossible to overcome. Sometimes life just makes your choices really limited; it's not always possible for things to work out for the best. I think I see it more of a case of previous generations' mistakes having consequences far beyond their own lifespan. We're not born with a clean slate, really; our parents' and forefathers' choices will affect us as well.

In short: life isn't fair.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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