The parallels between Harry Potter and Tom Marvolo Riddle—and the ways in which their differences and similarities influence their choices—is one of the most significant dynamics in the entire Potter series. A key aspect of this duality is introduced in The Half-Blood Prince in the form of Voldemort’s parents. Merope Gaunt: poor, unloved, and magically inept despite her pure-blood status, is the antithesis of the gifted, affluent, and adored Muggle-born Lily Evans. Inversely, Tom Riddle Sr. and James Potter had several things in common: both treasured only children of privileged backgrounds, their upbringing led them to be arrogant and entitled (though James apparently changed his ways later in life). They also happened to be killed by the same person, so there’s that, too…
The contrast between the two couples and their narrative roles is underscored by what we’re told about their respective deaths: whereas Lily and James died within moments of each other while trying to save their son, Merope willingly abandoned hers, giving up on life after being forsaken by Tom Riddle Sr., who was killed sixteen years after the fact by the child he deserted. Given this interpretation of events, it’s clear that the Potters’ bravery inspired their son to strive to do good, while Merope and Tom’s cowardice and neglect drove theirs to crave power. This narrative condemns the latter two for not only producing the most evil wizard of all time, but inspiring him to become so.
But is this the best interpretation of the story of Voldemort’s parents? I believe the prevalent characterisations of both Merope Gaunt and Tom Riddle Sr. are not only unfair but unfounded. I wish to argue that despite contrary evidence (including authorial Word of God), Merope didn’t willingly desert her son and was stronger than many give her credit for, and that Tom Sr., though far from flawless, was as much a victim as the woman who victimised him.
Merope
It’s important to recognize that all “information” about Merope not confirmed by the single visited memory in which she is present and the accounts of Mrs Cole and Morfin Gaunt is merely theorised by Dumbledore, whose self-confessed guesswork is widely taken as fact. (Note: emphasis mine in all of the quotations below.)
Dumbledore: …Merope refused to raise her wand even to save her own life.
Harry: But she had a choice, didn’t she, not like my mother—
D: Your mother had a choice, too. Yes, Merope Riddle chose death in spite of a son who needed her, but do not judge her too harshly, Harry. She was greatly weakened by long suffering and she never had your mother’s courage…
This exchange between the story’s hero and the most knowledgeable—and perhaps most intelligent—character in the series is shockingly insensitive, especially since it occurs right after Dumbledore theorises thusly:
But it is my belief—I am guessing again, but I am sure I am right—that when her husband abandoned her, Merope stopped using magic…it is also possible that her unrequited love and the attendant despair sapped her of her powers; that can happen.
At the point of this conversation, Harry and Dumbledore have already witnessed Merope struggling to perform a simple summoning charm while being berated by her father, so their assumption that she would have been able to accomplish whatever incantation could have saved her while drained from labour, cold from the winter, malnourished from her destitute life, heartbroken by Tom’s departure, and possibly guilt-ridden by her mistreatment of him—on top of all the abuse she had endured herself—is baffling. Besides, who can say she had the knowledge, let alone the power? Healing spells are a specialised area of magic; that’s why ill or injured Hogwarts staff and students are (usually) brought to Madam Pomfrey or sent to St Mungo’s instead of healed by whoever’s first on the scene. The girl could barely use magic to pick up a pan while being yelled at; how could she have been expected to stop herself from dying while dying?
As for “refusing to raise her wand to save her life”, who’s to say she still had one? If her powers escaped her along with Tom Sr., why would she keep it? She sold Slytherin’s locket, why not her wand too? Being poor, she probably inherited her wand (as Ron inherited Charlie’s) and therefore felt no true connection to it.
Even if she did have the wand while at the orphanage, is it not understandable that the relative of two men imprisoned for violating the Statute of Secrecy wouldn’t want to risk drawing the attention of the Ministry? They would have probably sent her to Azkaban if they discovered the disturbing circumstances that led to her son’s conception (if they weren’t caught and cast out by the Muggles sheltering them first). What would have become of Tom Jr. then?
Regarding the love potion theory: where and how could Merope have learnt to brew such a complicated concoction, as well as get the ingredients and equipment required? Did the Gaunts have stashes of pearl dust and the like lying about their shack, or did Merope buy everything she needed to brew several months’ worth of the stuff with all that money she never had? I think her utilising the Imperius Curse to force Tom Sr. to be with her is the most logical theory, if not the most romantic (though what romance can possibly be found in a fantastical case of enslavement, rape, and possible reproductive coercion?). Between love potions and the Unforgivable Curses, it’s easy to guess which the Gaunts were more familiar with.
The above critique of Dumbledore’s theories demonstrates his unrealistic view of Merope’s situation. The most powerful wizard of modern times, whose knowledge of the Muggle world seems to extend little beyond sweets and suits, clearly had a scant personal understanding of surviving without magic in extreme poverty, as well as being unfamiliar with a manner of death apparently unheard of in the wizarding world: maternal mortality.
(Source. Larger version here.)
This chart shows the annual maternal death rate in England and Wales was about 40/1000 in 1926, the year Tom Jr. was born. For perspective, the UK rate in 2016 was about 7 people per 100,000 live births. Maternal mortality may have never been an issue in the wizarding world, but it has only been reduced by Muggles in the last century.
Neither Tom Jr.’s birth nor Merope’s death is witnessed by Dumbledore or Harry, yet the two men feel comfortable in assuming she died simply because she wanted to, and subsequently judge her for it. Is it such an improbability that Merope didn’t die from “despair” or any other vague emo-malady used to explain her passing, but from:
- Malnourishment, as well as the Gaunt custom of inbreeding, making her physically unfit for childbirth,
- Spending the majority of her pregnancy alone and in even worse poverty than she had suffered in Little Hangleton,
- Wandering the streets of London while in labour in the middle of a “bitter cold” winter, and
- Giving birth for the first time at age nineteen, with only a few strangers with little to no medical experience to aid her?
After all this, Dumbledore and Harry expected her to accomplish the magical equivalent of performing surgery on oneself after giving birth? Given everything she had endured, it would have been more surprising if Merope had survived.
To even imply, much less declare, that someone who died within an hour after giving birth chose to abandon their child out of cowardice is appalling. Merope, despite everything, did have courage—more courage than Lily Potter ever had. If Lily had gone through what Merope had, would she have turned out as perfectly angelic as she was after having lived a life full of love, opportunity, and financial stability?
Comparing Lily’s life and Merope’s existence is like comparing that of a princess and a peasant. Pretty, popular, smart, and kind, Lily was near universally loved in life and practically deified in death. Even the few who dared to dislike or mistreat her (Voldemort, Death Eaters, and blood purists aside) only did so because of their negative reactions to her perfection: Petunia cut contact with her out of jealousy, and Snape called her a slur partly out of frustration for his unrequited feelings for her—feelings that became his single motivation in life even after she married one of his tormentors. Even in death Lily surpasses Merope; the former was honoured with a memorial statue dedicated to her and her family while the latter probably was buried in an unmarked, unmourned grave.
Lily’s lionised self-sacrifice is integral to the Harry Potter story and she is all but given goddess status for it, but is it not unfair to praise Lily for simply standing between her child and someone resolved to kill him (as any half-decent mother would do) but decry Merope for succumbing to what was most likely maternal death and ignoring all evidence of her considerable inner strength?
Merope could have just waited for her father to return home, falling back into the only life she had ever known, but the chance to finally do as she pleased and get what (and who) she wanted was laid before her, and she picked it up for no one’s sake but her own—albeit to the detriment of everyone she had known, Tom Sr. in particular. When her admittedly terrible plan failed, she did not throw herself into the Thames or allow herself to freeze or starve to death. She lived alone, poor and pregnant, yet not only managed to keep herself alive, but her unborn child, too. If she was as despairing and utterly despondent as is widely assumed, how could she have achieved such a feat?
Along with outstanding (if tragic) perseverance, Merope did exhibit compassion at the end of her life. She freed Tom Sr. from her control, possibly out of guilt as well as hope that even if he couldn’t forgive her, he would at least care for their child. She gave all she had to provide for Tom Jr. before he was even born. She spent her last day finding a place where he would be fed and sheltered. She named him after two men she had loved, and her last words were of hope—hope that he would take after his rich, handsome, privileged father, whom she had loved, lost, and, through her own selfish actions, doomed.
Tom
Within a few months of their runaway marriage, Tom Riddle reappeared at the manor house in Little Hangleton without his wife…Tom Riddle left her while she was still pregnant…and never troubled to discover what became of his son.
Tom Riddle Sr., like Merope, was slandered by Dumbledore, a man who never knew him in life except through another’s memory, yet felt free to judge him in death based solely upon that single reminiscence, the opinions of others, and his own fanciful speculations.
Tom’s most commonly alleged character traits and the evidence available for them only make sense when judging his actions with the most puritanical morality: he’s snobby because he showed disdain toward the Gaunts for nailing snakes to their door and attacking people (including himself). He’s smug because he once mentioned to his companion how much land his family owned. He’s heartless because he laughed at the sight of a man wearing a frock coat, spats, and a striped one-piece swimsuit running into his horse.
As with the slanted view of Merope’s bravery in comparison with Lily’s, young Tom Sr.’s callousness is overblown by the narrative, while James Potter’s behaviour—including his hexing of random people for fun and attempt to emotionally blackmail his (somehow) future wife into dating him while bullying her friend—is written off as youthful cheekiness, even though his son was perfectly capable of being sassy at that age without physically assaulting people just because he could.
As for Tom Sr.’s other “crimes” such as wilfully abandoning the mother of his child and never seeking them out, again, just as with Merope’s actions and motivations, Dumbledore’s assumptions are taken as assertions of fact.
Did Tom and Merope actually get married? Given the account of Bill and Fleur’s wedding and the general Eurocentrism at play throughout the Harry Potter books, it’s safe to assume their marriage would’ve operated like a typical Western Christian wedding. So…who officiated? Who bore witness? Where was it held? Where’s the certificate? Does Dumbledore have a theory for those questions? Maybe he should’ve spent more time recovering that information, rather than trying to free the violent, unstable man who helped set in motion the events that led to Voldemort being born.
If Tom and Merope weren’t married, that would have given Tom yet another reason to escape—not “abandon”—Merope. Not only did she rob him of his will, forcing him to leave his cushy life and sleep with her (which, let’s be very clear, is rape), she may have ended his magical enslavement only to try and force him to support her and their illegitimate child (keep in mind that in 1920s England, illegitimacy was heavily stigmatised and not something one would want to be associated with.)
This is assuming he even knew she was pregnant—there is no evidence that confirms Tom was aware he was going to be a father. Merope probably didn’t know herself until she started showing.
There are those in the Potter fandom who theorize that, since we don’t know what truly transpired, it could be that it was Tom who manipulated Merope, taking pleasure in leading the poor girl on. Personally, I don’t see any logic in this theory. Tom, a handsome squire’s son, decided to leave his pampered life, cause scandal in the village (the inhabitants of which he seemed quite well acquainted with) and dishonour his family and pretty darling Cecilia by mock-eloping with the tramp’s daughter (described as “no beauty”) and taking her over 200 miles away to London where they lived together for months (having sex at least once during that time), only to abandon her and return home, all for…the lols?
Merope’s actions ruined Tom’s life. He must have returned home—astounded, disgusted and traumatised after suffering months of being trapped in himself and forced to do the bidding of someone he barely knew—only to be greeted by his family’s shame, his sweetheart’s contempt, and the locals’ derision. It’s likely he lived the rest of his life questioning his sanity, wondering what really happened, wondering what could have been if that witch hadn’t ensnared him, cursing her and blaming himself as he grew older, less handsome, and more bitter by the day.
And then his son showed up. A son he might not have even known about. A son the spitting image of himself in his prime. A son he had possibly always dreamed of having. A son who killed him, because just as Tom Sr. was an object of desire for Merope, he was an object of loathing for Tom Marvolo Riddle. Just like his mother, Voldemort never saw his father as a person, but as a target for obsessive passion and a means to an end. Tom Jr. killed his father not only out of hatred, but in order to use the man’s death to achieve his selfish, perverse goals. Not content with simply killing him, Voldemort later desecrated his father’s remains for his own sinister purposes, just as Merope had violated Tom Sr.’s living body.
Merope Gaunt and Tom Riddle Sr. lived tragic lives that came to tragic ends. In addition to this, the complexities of their tragedies have been stripped down and distorted in order for them to fit the narrow-minded narrative conjured by Dumbledore and passed onto Harry and the reader. We are all but instructed to see Merope as a weak, pitiable figure devoid of accountability for her crimes, and Tom Sr. as someone only fit for detached contempt, the crimes against him never addressed as such. This is Harry’s story, and Voldemort’s parents are clearly meant to serve as a tarnished contrast to the golden couple James and Lily, the truth of their tribulations buried under biased guesswork that belies itself.
In the end, it’s no wonder that Voldemort rejected the power of love that, twisted as it was, led to his mother’s downfall (and to Lily Potter’s, thanks to him) and lashed out against the autonomy of Muggles that left him outcast and stranded among them (a burden he would later force upon Harry). More than anything, though, perhaps the greatest mystery is why he chose to obsessively pursue immortality when both his parents led such painful, miserable lives.
Mairead McNulty is an aspiring writer born and raised in London, currently aspiring to write her way out of a bad case of Weltschmerz. Find her on Twitter here.
If Merope had, upon being freed from her abusive father’s domination left her shack, gotten a job and established herself as an independent woman in Wizarding society I’d call her strong. Instead she uses magic to turn the man she desires into a sex slave which shows she’s no better inside than her egregious menfolk.
Personally this whole situation has always bothered me and I see it as just 1 more way that Dumbledore was the real antagonist of the work.
I don’t agree with Merope being strong, as the author mentioned at the end, seeing her as weak makes people think she can’t be accountable.
Now that you mention it ,“refusing to raise her wand to save her life” reminded me of Padmé’s “giving up on life”. I prefer maternal death as an explanation of death in fiction, something that it still a problem in the world and that can be a social commentary about access to health service than “despair” or any other vague emo-malady used to explain her passing“, as you well mentioned.
Completely agree with you comments about Tom Sr. He was robbed of his will, I wouldn’t be quick to pass judgment or make him accountable for actions he did forced!
Tom Sr. doesn’t seem to have been the nicest guy but that doesn’t mean he can’t be victimized. He was robbed of his free will and raped, who can blame him for running as soon as he was free to do so? What did he owe his rapist? Nothing.
I wonder what would have happened if Tom Jr. had approached his father looking for recognition and reconciliation? Looking like Tom as he did the Riddles night have welcomed him. But Voldy never wanted that. He wanted revenge, for what? For being half Muggle?
Really interesting and thought provoking take, but I really only agree with about half of it. To get my biases out at the outset, I also have a huge problem with James, have often wondered about Lily’s golden reputation (but am willing to believe that she really was a flat out good person), and find Dumbledore to be shady in some ways.
However, regarding Merope: I think you are putting false emphasis on some of Dumbledore’s statements. Dumbledore is admitting that from a certain point of view Merope “chose” to die/abandon her son, but then immediately goes on to say this isn’t the whole story and not something to judge her for because of the extenuating circumstances. I don’t think Dumbledore ‘expected’ her to do anything – and is even warning Harry against falling into that same trap. He is trying to gently get Harry to realize we should NOT judge her. Note that young Tom Riddle DOES judge her – his shock and disgust that his mother did something so lowly as to die is part of what propels him on the path to seeking immortality. He can’t believe that a wizard would DIE. HE is the one that carries anger and disgust over that and views her as weak. The reader is not supposed to agree with him, I don’t think.
I never interpreted Dumbledore’s account of it as being that she *literally* died from despair/broken heart or committed a kind of passive suicide (any more than I accept that explanation about Padme’. I always wonder if that was a way to backpedal from the fact that, no, Anakin choked her and is responsible for her death). She probably was sick/weakened, but I took Dumbledore’s statement to mean that her mental health also contributed to her physical health, which is a known phenomenon. Although knowing that wizards are canonically more resistant to physical injury and sickness than Muggles, that may also be a part Dumbledore’s assumptions. It’s possible that in a perfect circumstance, a wizard COULD have managed it. I think in a way it’s a naive assumption that Merope could have recovered given that Dumbledore may not be intimately acquainted with those struggles, but not a moral failing on Dumbledore’s part. And again, I think that Dumbledore is really trying to caution Harry (and the reader) NOT to fall into that trap and to point out there are reasons that she didn’t/couldn’t. They are not perhaps spelled out as literally as things like poverty, sickness, etc. I agree that it is a rather unsatisfying out to get out of talking about maternal mortality though which has its own complex/systemic causes.
Also none of that serves to lessen Lily’s courage in any way – I always start to tune out once somebody, in order to make a point, needs to denigrate somebody else to make the comparison. If anytihng, a person living a full, satisfied life has even more reason to try to cling to it instead of willingly give it up. And history is full of people who do not make the decision to save their children so to downplay that sacrifice is bonkers to me. It’s not a zero sum game, at any rate. You can acknowledge the special kind of bravery Lily shows while also acknowledging the grit, strength and bravery, an impoverished, abused woman shows in choosing to bear her child. Merope’s story is told, I feel, to condemn her family, not her – to show how their cruel treatment squashed her potential and the way that vicious cycle propagates itself and its effects ripple outward. I’ve read the books several times and never got from it a sense that Merope herself should be shamed or thought ill of (although maybe I was inserting my own subtext there because I did always assume she did what she did in her final moments out of love for her child and that she did what she could with what she had).
Regarding Tom, I’m going to fall prey to my own biases here because I also always thought the love potion was really disturbing AND I also can’t stand James Potter. I accept that JK Rowling said he truly changed, since she knows better than I but I dearly wish she had included some textual evidence for it. But it honestly seems that the wizarding world has slightly different ideas about consent (the existence of love potions at all – and the fact that they are pretty easy to get – even Fred and George’s store sell them – is honestly incredibly skeevy to me) and general safety and child wellbeing than we do. Maybe it’s because in general wizards are more resilient and most things are magically reversible? Or maybe it’s just meant to be a statement on British sensibilities. Or it’s perhaps a subtle statement on the superiority that wizards feel – they have no compunction about casually obliviating Muggles, etc (even the ‘good’ wizards do this) and so it actually makes sense, in story, that Dumbledore would consider Merope’s ‘seduction’ of Tom a side note and not THAT big of a deal. And in a way it also shows that for all the positive things regarding Merope discussed above, she is still a product of her culture and has that same casual attitude about Muggles and sees nothing wrong with drugging/spelling them into submission.
Regarding Tom’s behaviors – I know I had the same thought at some point that, ‘well, yeah, I’d laugh at that guy too!’. But I thought there was also some remark in the text that in general the family was seen as pretty snobby and cruel. I can accept that shortcut out of interest of space/pages even though it doesn’t go into specific details.
I never really bothered to compare Tom and James though. I think the real importance, thematically, is placed on mother love and Lily’s influence. Harry is occasionally compared to James in looks (but always takes pains to point out he has Lily’s eyes) or Quidditch aptutide but honetsly, I feel like Harry turned out okay in spite of how his father was, not because of it ;) And the story even takes paints to point out the ways in which Harry is DIFFERENT and more mature than his father, to his credit. But thematically I don’t think as much focus is made on James’s sacrifice or fatherhood in the same way Lily’s is so I’m not sure that Tom and James are really paralells in the way Merope and Lily are.
I figured that yes, there was a wedding certificate (I wonder if they had a shotgun Muggle wedding) that was on public record somewhere. Didn’t the rest of Little Hangleton know her as his wife? So there must have been something. Dumbledore is a problematic character for various reasons but I think it’s unfair to assume he didn’t actually do his due diligence and research here (and now I’m thinking of that scene in Fellowship where Gandalf is poring through the Minas Tirith library). Dumbledore is a lot of things, but he’s not stupid or careless.
For what it’s worth, the UK does have an actual tradition of runaway marriages (not to mention issues with the raising of children, legitimate and otherwise) that is beyond the fictional, however I think the root of the problem here is that this isn’t really a developed part of the story. We have a second, even third-hand report, from a party who hasn’t always been the most reliable.
If J. K. Rowling were to write a version of the story that contradicted Dumbledore’s account, it would not be entirely implausible, he wouldn’t even have had to be lying, he could have been taken by a charade too.
However, Voldemort’s actions, are easy to understand, he wanted power and control, and what is a greater control than the master the inevitability of death? His existence was about all the things he didn’t have, and as I said to somebody recently, he was put in the House most likely to encourage his tendencies, rather than give him what he needed not to go bad as it were.
Regarding Merope, you almost had me convinced (and I agree about the imperious curse and that by the time she ended up dying in childbirth at a muggle orphanage, she was wandless as well as heirloom-less), but then I remembered it take 9 months to make a baby. Even if Merope showed some compassion and nobility (and naivety) in freeing Tom Sr., and was heartbroken when he left, she had time. She could have gone to Diagon Alley. She could have gone to St. Mungo’s. She could have applied to the Ministry for relief on account of the fact that she was an orphan whose only family had been taken away by the ministry.
And, as the wand is pretty much like a Star Trek replicator as far as food is concerned (yes, you can’t create, but you can expand indefinitely) no witch or wizard should ever suffer from absolute poverty, they can alway magic up at least a subsistence existence. And there probably would have been any number of wizarding families who would have been willing to take in a destitute witch, especially from a pureblood family. Even if there weren’t modern day homeless shelters there were places she could go. And even if she shunned the wizarding world completely, she could have gone to a muggle convent earlier in the pregnancy where she would at least have received proper food, shelter, and a minimum of medical care before the birth.
Merope was shaped by bad experiences but she also made bad choices when good choices could have been made that might have changed the outcome of her life and the life of her child. She did give up on her child, out of what was basically a twisted form of narcissism.
I don’t think you know how thing were in that time period. The Lost Child of Philomena Lee is set in Ireland, and a bit later in time, but things were not that much better elsewhere in the UK.
And somebody like Merope, most likely raised in abusive isolation would even worse off than somebody who had a family. She wouldn’t even know how to ask for help, or expect it. That’s part of the tragedy.
By muggle/mainstream UK standards of 1926 having a child ‘out of wedlock’ was pretty scandalous. The wizarding community we see in the books are in general less welcoming than muggles, so I doubt they were much better in 1926.
However more importantly, Merope had broken a number of wizarding laws/standards. She’d used magic in front of Tom Sr, and in some way controlled his behaviour (whether by potion or Imperius). She would be in a lot of trouble if these facts came out, and the first question that’s asked of a woman with a child is usually “who’s the father?”.
I think she probably went to a muggle orphanage because she knew no questions would be asked there.
As for “refusing to raise her wand to save her life”, even if she did have her wand, and did know some healing spells, and was in a condition to use them after giving birth, would she have had the medical knowledge to use the effectively? Perhaps she cast a spell to stop herself bleeding, without realising that she had not stopped the internal bleeding.
Regarding Tom Sr, I have less sympathy, but that might be because I’ve met a number of ‘sons of rich family’, and the vast majority of them are arseholes. I’ve always assumed that growing up with wealth and privilege makes it difficult for someone to be other than an arsehole, but perhaps that’s my prejudices talking…
Tom Sr. was probably an entitled arsehole but that doesn’t mean he deserves to be hexed and repeatedly raped by an obsessed witch.
“Merope, despite everything, did have courage—more courage than Lily Potter ever had.”
Lily Potter, before she ever stood between Voldemort and Harry, was an active member of the Order of the Phoenix and had been fighting in the war against Voldemort for years, probably ever since she graduated Hogwarts. She defied him three times and lived to tell about it, until that final time.
I can agree with your assessment of Tom but anything you have to say about Merope is invalidated by that statement.
Besides, if Merope was using either a Love Potion or the Imperius Curse to control Tom Riddle, she was obviously a more skilled and powerful witch than was shown in the books (Dumbledore himself says this, and acknowledges that the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father and brother was probably the cause), especially since she doesn’t seem to have attended Hogwarts and been formally educated in magic. While she may not have been able to conduct magical surgery on herself after the childbirth, a witch of her ability probably had at least a few more options prior to that.
I actually find this comment to be both ignorant of and insensitive toward the number of women who may indeed have died from despair, or…as we now call it…clinical depression. Perhaps McNulty has never had the privilege/misfortune of knowing a mother who suffered from an extreme form of “postpartum depression.” Until I met someone who came within a hair’s breadth from killing herself and her baby, I had no idea that this condition could be so inexorable.
Although it may sound as if Dumbledore is being judgmental, who is to say he didn’t simply state a fact…perhaps without understanding the underlying factors?
Lily wasn’t “simply standing between her child and someone resolved to kill him,” she was knowingly sacrificing her life. There’s a world of difference between that and what you so casually waived away.
I don’t recall ever seeing Potterverse people healing themselves, so It’s entirely unclear to me what Merope ‘should’ have done to magically keep herself from dying in childbirth. Perhaps she wouldn’t or couldn’t “lift her wand” to help herself survive on the streets, e.g. by expanding food. But that’s Dumbledore’s supposition, and Dumbledore knows nothing about that sort of life, as you say. And I suspect you’re right that maternal mortality is rare in the Wizarding world, if people with the requisite healing abilities are usually on hand.
@@@@@ 5- I could not possibly disagree more with the below:
You can acknowledge the special kind of bravery Lily shows while also acknowledging the grit, strength and bravery, an impoverished, abused woman shows in choosing to bear her child. Merope’s story is told, I feel, to condemn her family, not her
Merope is a slaver and a rapist. That her awful family abused her, badly, there is no doubt. And that she might have internalized their awful attitudes towards Muggles (at least in part), is also possible. But her first and only decision once free of them is to bind another human being to her will, rape him (repeatedly, I assume, but at least once), and then go into a depression when her victim escapes her. I agree with the author that it’s a little silly to assume she committed some kind of voluntary suicide, but it’s easy to imagine that in her grief and despair, she just wasn’t willing to fight to live for her son. Which is ALSO morally reprehensible; she made a conscious decision to bring a child into the world, and then didn’t bother to have the strength to raise or care for it. Merope Gaunt might be among the most amoral and unethical characters we encounter in the entire series; at least the Malfoys are shown to care more for their child than for power. At least Barty Crouch Jr is fighting for a cause he believes in (however misguidedly). Merope Gaunt is out for her own gain, at the expense of everyone she encounters, and nothing else. That is just plain awful.
I am not arguing that she was a good person or made good decisions (as I stated, I find the love potion incredibly disturbing and also put fort the idea that she also had internalized her family’s beliefs about the casual treatment of Muggles). I was merely addressing the specific point in the essay that Merope’s struggles can be somehow used to diminish Lily Potter’s struggles.
I do think that Merope probably did have some inner strength to be able to survive, and that she, as the author pointed out, made the effort to bear her child instead of succumbing to despair right at that moment, does show she had some good in her. This essay raises some interesting points about poverty, depression and maternal health (although also draws a lot of conclusions to get there). Of all the things Merope could be condemned for, I feel that the “choice” made at the end of her life is at the least of those given all the other circumstances at the time. Which I think is the point Dumbledore was making when he chides Harry about it.
Were Merope a real person, I’d probably say she falls somewhere between the two extremes painted by this article and your comment. She wasn’t a good person, but sadly, she wasn’t given much of an opportunity to be a good person, or to even know what healthy love or relationships would look like.
12, here’s Dumbledore’s own words:
It pretty much puts everything into the realm of conjecture on Dumbledore’s part.
15, except we don’t know anything much about what happened with Merope, all Dumbledore offered was guesswork, not actual statements of fact. Even her motivations are speculative, let alone the substance of the interactions with anybody else. Dumbledore’s guesses could be quite mistaken. So I think attributing to her, the most amoral and unethical character, when she’s barely even seen, is probably pre-mature.
Given the importance to the overall story, there’s an interesting analysis to be made in comparing/contrasting the relationships of James/Lily with Merope/Tom and the impacts on their respective sons.
Unfortunately, this essay isn’t it.
While there are inklings of some interesting ideas, the piece suffers from a couple of major flaws…
The major structural flaw is a stumble right out of the gate: the main part of the essay starts by trying to build its analysis of Merope, arguably the more influential of the two primary subjects, upon a questionably (almost painfully) literal reading of Dumbledore’s first quoted line. “Raising one’s wand” seems like exactly the idiom that would have emerged among English-speaking wizards to describe the generic notion of using magical knowledge and abilities; hence, like many (most?) others, I always read that line as being intended metaphorically (especially given the lack of details provided about her life and death). Yet the author here uses the more literal reading as an essential element in mounting a challenge to Dumbledore’s veracity and motivations—a notion upon which much of the rest of the essay depends. It’s thus a wobbly foundation for an attempt to rehabilitate Merope and Tom Riddle, Sr.
That leads to the major conceptual flaw: attempting to get at the ‘true nature’ of Voldemort’s parents misinterprets the in-story reasons for the relevant discussions, and moreover is ultimately rather pointless (not to mention futile given the paucity of detail). Dumbledore’s goal was never to compile a balanced biography of Merope & Tom Sr., rather it was to provide Harry an understanding of what Voldemort felt about his parents and upbringing as a way of understanding what motivated him. Nothing in published texts contradicts the notion that Dumbledore provided Harry with a reasonably accurate picture of Voldemort’s beliefs about his parents’ story, which is the only aspect that really matters for the purposes of plot and theme. Whether that story was true or fair doesn’t ultimately matter much (unless and until JKR decides to write up more details).
The scandal of having a child out of wedlock depended very much on who you were.
If you’re a woman, it could ruin you. If you were a poor man having a child with a higher-class woman, you could wind up with all sorts of problems, such as criminal charges of “seduction”, child support payments set to the mother’s standard of living, not yours, etc.
But for an upper class man like Tom Riddle Sr. to have an illegitimate child with a lower class woman, such as Merope, was a non-issue. Any child support would have been trivial compared to his income, if he didn’t just deny everything. Being seen by his peers to have been obsessed with a lower-class woman might lead to some stigma, but he’d be accepted back once he gave up his “unacceptable” obsession.
There would be no reason for Riddle to marry Merope from his point of view – a lower class mistress, kept in her place, would not be an issue. Less clear is what Merope’s expectations would be, if she would have thought she could get away with marrying a Muggle, as opposed to using him, if the part of the wizarding community she was raised in would be happier with an illegitimate child, or one legitimate to a Muggle husband.
Had she given birth in St.Mungo’s rather than a muggle orphanage it would have saved everyone a lot of grief.
20, that depends on Tom Marvelo Riddle being raised in a better environment in the wizarding community, not necessarily a given. He might even have been exposed to Grindelwald instead.
I don’t agree. I think the whole point of the Potter series is that adverse environment doesn’t make you a villain, CHOICE makes you evil. Tom Riddle chose to be bad. He stole and terrorized other children in his orphanage and he continued his bad ways at Hogwarts.
22, that might have been J.K. Rowling’s intent(I certainly won’t disagree that she’s probably claimed it), but I think she messed up her message with the whole House business, as I said to somebody recently, putting Harry in Gryfinndor, while Tom Riddle was in Slytherin, pretty much sat them both on a path, and no matter how the Sorting Hat presents it as a choice, the mere existence of the Houses fosters the idea of character developing in association, and well, it doesn’t help how much of the antagonism arises from that particular House’s members, including the first we meet.
This may be why Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was written the way it was. A sort of “correction” as it were.
Lisamarie and Ian: Well said!
@23/LordVorless: JKR certainly could have provided more details to flesh out her intents with regard to House dynamics, but I think some accommodation must be made for the conventions of the Boarding School genre upon which she drew. Moreover, a good case can be made that the particularly toxic relationship between Slytherin and the other Houses during Harry’s time is at least partially the result of a decades long feedback loop arising in part from Tom Riddle’s activities during and after his time at Hogwarts.
princessroxana & LordVorless: I do agree that the House system and general wizarding attitudes (both regarding blood status and muggles), especially with respect to personal choices, is the proper context for drawing Merope into the discussion. She, her son, and Harry all found themselves, early in life, in horrible circumstances that were not their own faults. Each chose very different paths to deal with their situations, and the contrasts very much help explore the author’s intended themes. Neither Merope nor Voldemort come out looking very good, even if one tries to give them some benefit of the doubt.
Maybe they had recently seen the end of Revenge of the Sith?
25, Certainly the concept of the “Houses” (or other forms of categorization) is one held beyond that of JKR, but unfortunately, it’s one that in my reading experiences, often tended to result in one standout tending to be stigmatized as the bad one, and that includes at Hogwarts. I can’t speak as to the reasons in this case with any great certainty(I’m inclined to consider it a result of not having the idea in the first place, but it being tacked on, however that is merely speculation), but I do recognize the ways the narrative messaging is impeded by the existence and treatment of the Houses. The attempt may have been made, but the delivery was not so good.
Now as for Merope, it’s actually quite important to give her the benefit of the doubt to an extent that a lot of people don’t realize, since, we don’t even really know what choices she made. All Dumbledore does, by his own admission, is guess. It would be entirely possible (in the sense that it would not be actually constituting a severance with continuity) to reveal that he guessed completely wrong (or even make his statements out to be knowing lies), and present a completely different version of Merope, one where say, she was seduced by the vile Tom Riddle, or where they both got together, but she decided to spare him and her coercion was to enchant him back to his family instead. Or some other variation. And with the content of Fantastic Beasts, well, apparently wizards can be afflicted with at least one dire malady that overcomes them anyway.
And even the same applies to Tom Riddle, though to a lesser extent since we do know some of his actions, still, it isn’t like Dumbledore was especially effective in his attempts, and if you told me that he was treated abusively at the Orphanage? I wouldn’t doubt it one bit. As I mentioned earlier, there are real-life experiences that show how oppressive and cruel such things could be at the time.
This is the brilliance of these books. JK wrote so many layers into them, that we, the reader, can actually dig more out of them than she’s SAID. (Which is why I don’t follow the “latest thing JK said about her books” news.)
@27, Lord Vorless, Tom jr. was not abused at the orphanage he abused others.
We know Merope’s choices; freed from her abusive father she chose to use her magic to enslave the man she lusted for (it can’t have been love) and proceeded to romanticize their relationship in her own mind til she convinced herself that Tom must love her back and then was shattered when he made it very clear he wasn’t and ran far and fast.
What happened after that is a little vague but it’s clear she didn’t make any positive or constructive decisions like say getting a job? Possibly her Gaunt arrogance got in the way of that. Basic takeaway, Merope was victim yes but that doesn’t mean she was a good person.
@27: With regards to the Houses, it seems that your problem may be more with the trope than Rowling’s execution, but I suppose that’s a fair point of disagreement. In any case, their portrayal, and their reflections of prejudices within the wider wizarding word, most definitely muddies the moral analysis.
As for the impact of a harsh upbringing on one’s ability to make good choices later, it occurs to me that contrasting Merope with Lily may not be the most productive route. Perhaps it would be more fruitful to compare Merope’s life to Harry’s in the context of his experiences with the Dursleys.
I always figure that if you weren’t a wrong ‘un going into Slytherin House, you would be when you came out. Seven years, at the most formative time of your life, of being told you are in the House for bad people and everyone else staying clear (or at least being politely distant) then you gotta figure that a substantial portion would decide that if everyone said they were bad then they’d have to be bad. Give a dog a bad name, and might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, right? And that is before you get a genuinely wrong ‘un who works out a way to make being a wrong ‘un seem glamourous.
Virtually everyone in that house never had a chance. Especially with Headmaster More Gryffindor Than Thou and Deputy Head Also a Gryffindor in charge, even with scrupulous fairness (which is something Minerva aimed for, at least) the optics of that are terrible if you are a Slytherin (actually they are terrible if you are any house except Gryffindor). Not that I don’t feel Gryffindor kids had it rough too. Seven years of being told if you don’t jump in front of every moving truck and stubbornly insist on being right in the face of all evidence, then you are a filthy coward and a quitter… No wonder the kids from that house have such poor decision making skills or end up feeling crushed by the reputation.
You could probably make a similar case for Ravenclaws who don’t finish in the top ten all the time, everytime. The only house with a healthy reputation is Hufflepuff: Don’t eat the paste and glitter, but if you do then celebrate having shiny bowel movements! No wonder that Hufflepuffs so rarely feature in the books, except as fridgefodder, they are too well adjusted.
Another thing we must consider is that Dumbledore was trying to make sure Harry would fight Voldemort. He needed to show Harry that Voldemort was evil, even to the point of coming from an evil heritage. Bad father, bad mother, bad upbringing — Dumbledore wanted Harry to never show the slightest mercy.
Yes, Dumbledore make statements that shows he is guessing; he hedges a little, but the overall theme is to manipulate Harry.
As far as your upbringing influencing your actions, I think JK made a distinct comparison between Harry and Voldemort. Wasn’t Dumbledore expounding to Harry in the Half-Blood Prince about how astounded he was that Harry, despite his rough upbringing, was never tempted by dark magic?
@33 “You’re special Harry, unlike nasty Tom Riddle, just like your wonderful parents of whom I withheld all reports of flaws as long as I could. Special, specialness Harry…”:
Dumblegrooming.
Just a reminder to keep the discussion civil and constructive in tone. Thanks.
I’ve seen comments comparing Merope to Mayella Ewell in To Kill A Mockingbird, an interesting comparison. You felt sorry for Mayella, but what she did destroyed – in her case – an innocent man. By the way, in my opinion, if ever there was a wizarding equivalent of the Ewells it was the Gaunts!
29, How do you know that Tom Riddle was not himself mistreated at the orphanage? That he abused others can easily result from him being abused himself, that is sadly, an all-too-common pattern. So it’s not something I can rule out.
And no, we don’t know Merope’s actual choices. That is an unknown. We have nothing except Dumbledore’s admitted supposition. Chapter 10, Half-Blood Prince, there are no memories of Merope’s actions, it’s a big hole, and almost anything could be written to fill it.
30, I recognize that the problem to some extent arises from a tendency in the Trope itself, but the issues of the implementation is still on J.K. Rowling since it’s interfering with the message she wanted to send, and she might have done better to write around it, rather than shoving all sorts of nasty people into Slytherin. There’s only so much I can take as a matter of perspective without some counter-balance.
A Lily/Merope comparison, leaving aside the vast blank spaces in their lives, I’d probably focus on how the one was encouraged and esteemed, while the other…was not.
31, heh, a cutting truth to that.
33, in which case, did Harry make a choice at all? Or was it just not in his nature?
@38 Given that Voldy doesn’t actually exist and we know is what Rowlings tells us and she gives examples of Little Tom abusing his fellow orphans and makes no mention of abuse against him then he wasn’t.
37, an interesting comparison, and now I’ve got Atticus Finch and Dumbledore sitting around with feet of clay running through my head. But at least we have more of Mayella’s actions than Merope’s, and even then, it’s hard to be sure what she was thinking, and let’s not pretend that most of the rest of the society was any less involved in the whole farce. There are much more vile people with far fewer excuses.
39, I don’t think we’re obliged to Mrs. Cole’s reluctant (and guarded) testimony as indicating that he definitively was not mistreated or abused himself. If JKR were to write that Tom Riddle was, in fact, abused, as far as I am concerned, she could do so, without contradicting her already crafted narrative. Certainly the orphanage is not a paradise, and Tom Riddle’s worries about being treated as a candidate for an Asylum are a big red flag to me.
@38: Fair enough (re House essentialism). JKR has stated that she introduced several characters (e.g. Slughorn, McLaggen) in HBP specifically to counteract the problem, but I expect even she must concede that it was a bit late in the series to fully rectify that particular narrative flaw.
@32: On the contrary, I believe Dumbledore’s presentation of Voldy’s parents’ story was intended to build upon Harry’s capacity for compassion and mercy. Merope & Tom Sr. May have been terrible people, but they were not beyond some measure of sympathy and forgiveness; yet Voldemort’s reaction to the situation in which they left him, combined with his utter lack of compassion for their star-crossed lives, helped turn him into the monster he became. Even if the story was partiality (or mostly) a fabrication of Dumbledore, it served as a cautionary tale that helped Harry avoid the same mentality, and that sense of mercy & compassion was essential to his final victory.
@41 – I agree that the door is open for JK Rowling to write that Tom was abused, that it would not be contradictory. But I don’t think that means (given the nature of fiction) that we can assume that happened. Although I tend to be a little more guarded with what I will assume happens ‘off screen’ in a work. It can be fun to think about, but for something that serious and relevant to the story, I think Rowling would have told us. I’m sure some kids were mean to him, or some caregivers were gruff with him, etc, but I don’t think we have a particularly compelling reason to believe he was abused.
@42 – McClaggen was supposed to RECTIFY that image???? Ugh! (Besides, wasn’t he a Gryffindor? Oh wait, now I get what you are saying, lol).
42, indeed, I think she tried some correction with Slughorn in particular, but it was a matter of bailing out a leaky boat, even if it keeps afloat, it’s still not sailing as well as it might.
43, we don’t know for a certainty, which is why I stated that I wouldn’t doubt it if it were the case, and that I can’t rule it out, rather than some other expression, though the bit about the asylum is rather especially a leading sign to me. Not definitive, no, but it gets me twitchy.
To 26, Revenge of the Sith came out in 2005, and there’s nothing in the OT abt why Luke and Leia’s mother died. Besides, the HP story ends in the late ’90s, so no way that Harry and Dumbledore could have seen RotS.
Interesting article and good comments!
Just a quibble…crummy little seed pearls and misshapen pearls aren’t so expensive that you need huge amounts of money to purchase them. If Merope was resourceful enough to use simple spells, she could no doubt manufacture enough valuable-looking objects to sell to Muggles to get what she needed.
46, casting Reparo on broken and discarded objects would potentially be lucrative.
@31. I got the impression that a good part of Slytherin’s bad reputation was invented after Voldemort’s time in it. One spectacularly bad apple spoils an entire orchard, and all the seedlings of that orchard unto the tenth generation, sort of thing. Keep in mind that Slytherin’s watchword wasn’t darkness, or cruelty, or even pure blood, but ambition…the desire to be the very best at whatever you do, to be at the top of society…All of which will earn you undeserved enemies.
@47. If she couldn’t cast a simple spell to lift things, what makes you think she had the knowledge and capability to cast repair spells? It has been stated that she wasn’t a very talented witch, and being from a very abusive, yet magical family, I’d seriously doubt that she had any idea of how to get along in the muggle world of that time. As for being able to make the potion, that could have been learned from a book, assuming she was actually literate. Not a given, at that time.
@46. I would think that it would be far more likely for her to steal such things from muggles, probably without a single twinge of guilt. Her family had no qualms about doing whatever they wished to muggles…What had happened to her father and brother would have only led her to be more cautious about getting caught at it.
As for Merope’s death, the broken heart theory isn’t entirely invalid…Heartbreak is stressful, stress does your body damage, and tanks your immune system…and if it caused her to lose her magic, then that would add even more stress and terror to the mix. Adding in the lack of antibiotics…1926 was pre-penicillin…less than sanitary birth conditions, the mortality rate to postpartum fevers, and you’ve got a recipe for maternal death. What I do disagree with is the idea that she consciously chose to die…Unless there’s more evidence of suicide than is shown on the page. It is a strong possibility, given the time. Between the shame of being a “fallen woman” at the very least, and the more practical fact that such a woman would have been viewed as unemployable, it would not be a surprise that upon finding herself destitute, and in despair, that she would find a way to end her life.
As for Voldemort being abused in the orphanage, at that time, it was almost a given…and since wizards aren’t born with their powers active, he wouldn’t have been able to defend himself, at least for those first few years. That he’d likely have been believed to be a literal bastard, probably was no help either. Caning and birching weren’t uncommon punishments for children back then. It’s not all that surprising that he ended up a complete sociopath.
As for Tom Riddle Sr. being a general snob and all around douche, keep in mind that at that time the society was very much divided between classes…I’d say his behaviour toward people of a lower social class, at that time, was not at all atypical for someone who, being a squire’s son, was a minor noble. Today, he’d be a snobbish douche. Back then, he was poking fun at silly superstition, putting the lower classes in their place, or laughing at the ridiculous dress habits of the peasants. He’s taught by his parents that he’s better than everyone else on their land, and, while it comes across as arrogance today, it wouldn’t have been thought so back then.
The great takeaway that I got from most of the books is the idea that you become what you’re brought up as…mostly. If you’re brought up with wicked behavior being the norm, then you either become self-aware enough to make the conscious decision to break the cycle, or you remain ignorant and perpetuate it….Paying back the wickedness, as it were, with interest.
48, There’s a reason why I said potentially, I was merely starting off with something she could have done that would be a legitimate endeavor in the Muggle-world, I had meant to get into the problem that we don’t know Merope is capable of spell-casting to any real extent(even a good wizard might not be able to achieve much with an abusive father pushing you, and she might be less naturally able, the idea of magical power is fuzzy in the universe) or even the fundamentals of magic casting and the economics of wizarding but I guess I was still a little sleep-fuzzed at the time, and didn’t finish my post.
Or I did, but it was only in my head, and didn’t get to the keyboard.
Anyway, with Merope and Tom Sr., it’s all possible, she might have died from any number of things, some of which could even have been treated with the medicine at the time (let alone the Wizarding potions), but being in a Orphanage giving birth (not uncommon in itself), well, not good odds, I’d say. And Tom Sr. could have been taught to be snobbish, and it might have been offensive, but there’s a wide gap between that and say, the arrogant oppression that some individuals of the time and position would employ.
As far as Slytherin goes, the problem is, we’ve had a lot of people in the books insist that they’re not that bad, but it’s been telling, not showing, and how long that’s been going on? Well, it doesn’t help that they’re associated with a Parseltongue either.
I do think there’s a subtle line of indication that experiences, especially in childhood, can be an influence, that can come out in different ways, but it’s a difficult message to handle because in my opinion, in reality, it threads a delicate and subtle line of conscious and unconscious behavior that’s really hard to expose.
@18: Good point. It would make sense for “raise their wand” to be the Wizarding idiomatic equivalent of “lift a finger.”
Side note on Merope: She is apparently named for one of the Pleiades, one of the daughters of Atlas who became stars. However, he star is the dimmest in the constellation because she condescended to marry a mortal and have children with him.
Getting back to Merope in the book. We see evidence of physiological problems, possibly from inbreeding. I think the possibility is raised that she might have had mental handicaps, but the evidence is unclear. She had not been allowed to attend school, had no social contacts outside her abusive family and whatever minimum might have been required for her chores around the home (possibly going into the village to buy food, for example [although, with the Gaunts, maybe even that wasn’t allowed, and they either did it themselves or did without]).
But, it’s important to note she had next to no knowledge of either the wizarding or Muggle worlds. There were options she didn’t take because she had no context to recognize them.
For example, the wizard who was sent to speak to her family was sympathetic to her and tried to intervene when she was being abused. It’s likely that, if she had contacted him once her father and brother were gone, at the very least, he would have helped her sell her necklace at a fair price. It’s also possible he might have provided her with more help or put her in contact with others who could help her.
Ideally, Merope needed a chance to attend Hogwarts. I don’t know what their rules are for older students (Rowling was supposed to have wanted to include a subplot about someone who comes into their powers later in life, which could have answered this question, but it didn’t happen). However, that’s what Merope really needed, the training to use her magic and a safe place to live while she was learning to do that and developing some social skills. A decent mentor or counselor would have really helped, but those are rarer than hen’s teeth at Hogwarts (they probably have jars full of hen’s teeth in Potion supplies).
Failing the ideal, she needed a fair price on her necklace and some basic accounting lessons. She’d probably become the shut-in, old lady with a cat and no friends, but it would still be a step up.
However, the idea she had–possibly the only one she was capable of imagining–was escape through marriage.
I’m going to vote for her being married both because it’s what I got from the book and because it would fit Merope’s idea of being rescued. The options she saw were being dependent on her father or brother or being dependent on some other man.
As further proof, although this is just circumstantial, Tom, Sr. never marries after leaving Merope, despite the pressure on the only son and heir of an estate to do so. Legally, he wouldn’t be able to do so without divorcing Merope, which was a lot trickier in the twenties, especially if you didn’t know where your wife was to serve papers on her.
I hope I don’t sound like I’m defending Merope too much for what she did to Tom. What she did was horrible. However, we have evidence that Merope may not have been mentally competent. Even if she had the mental capacity to understand right and wrong, it’s unclear if there was anything in her background teaching her it was wrong to cast spells on a Muggle to make him marry you (other than Muggles not being worthy to marry wizards).
In fact, given the extremely limited education Merope seems to have had and her even more limited access to the outside world, any spells she knew would have been ones she saw her father and brother cast, and any potions she had access to would have been ones they had purchased. If Merope was completely oblivious to the idea of consent, it may have been because the only people she interacted with actively ignored it (in many racist/class based systems, the double standard rule is the men can’t marry beneath them).
Merope may have believed Tom would really come to love her or she may have had enough conscience to begin realizing what she was doing was wrong. Either way, she freed him. He (understandably) fled.
It is important to recognize that Merope again didn’t see options we might have. A wife had the right to demand support from her husband and to demand he support their children. In some cases, the courts would force a man to supply support to an illegitimate child, but it was more common for the family to pay off the mother to avoid a scandal.
Again, there’s the simple fact that Merope didn’t know enough not to be robbed when she sold the only item of value she had.
She didn’t see going to Tom or his family as an option. Her own family seem the sort to kill her and/or her half-blood child. She didn’t know how to support herself. If there was anyone she could have approached for help, she didn’t know it.
On top of this, Rowling showed clearly that depression cuts into a witch or wizard’s ability to do magic. When Dora was suffering depression, she couldn’t even use her innate Metamorphmagus ability–magic she’d manifested as a baby that didn’t even require a wand–to change her hair color.
Dora, as far as we know, was a healthy witch from a stable family with a fair-sized support group. Merope had a suspected history of physical problems and possible malnutrition, a proven history of abuse, definite malnutrition during her pregnancy as well as suffering from lack of shelter and cleanliness, and no pre-natal healthcare. Even if she hadn’t sold her wand (I agree that she likely had), the odds are she couldn’t do any magic.
Add to this that Voldemort was born December 31, in the middle of winter, when his mother had likely been living homeless in the cold for some time. The question isn’t why did Merope die, it’s how did she manage to survive long enough for her son to live.
So:
1. Merope lacked the background that might have let her see other options to overcome her problems. Given her history of abuse, isolation, and possible disabilities (both mental and physical), they were solutions she couldn’t consider, not ones she didn’t consider. She lacked context to even know they were possible.
2. Because of her background, the choices she made were bad ones that led to more long term problems (being pregnant, abandoned, and homeless) rather than long term solutions.
3. While this may not free her from all blame, it is likely she lacked the moral and mental context to fully understand how wrong what she did to Tom, Sr. was.
4. When those long term problems developed, she again lacked the ability to solve them. Her attempts to do so (like selling the necklace) were, at best, stop gaps that only led to her being taken further advantage of.
5. She was likely magicless and suffering from multiple health problems, including malnutrition, during her pregnancy. These should be considered the cause of her death.
Afterthought on Dumbledore: His mother died rather than admit she couldn’t help her daughter, and he was expected to follow her example. His definition of a parent “giving up” can include what the rest of us would call “working yourself to death to ensure your child’s survival.”
I believe we are intended to see both Merope and Tom sr. as victims, Merope of her background and Tom of Merope.
Perhaps more importantly, we (along with Harry) are expected to recognize that their son’s utter inability to see them as victims—rather than as weak, contemptible failures—is the rot at the core of everything Voldemort has done. If Dumbledore elided various complexities of their actual lives in order to make that aspect a bit more plain to a sixteen-year-old, that just illustrates some effective teaching skills.
@48 We only ever saw Merope’s magical performance when she was under situations of unusual stress. I’d guess that she managed better when not under pressure. And given that her father pretty much starved to death without her there to care for him, she must have had SOME magic skills to conjure food from a kitchen garden or whatnot.
Hi there, this makes for a great thread. thanks
Another household not heard from, but rather parallel, is the Snape home. Eileen is said to be too depressed to do magic, and unable to protect her son. But since Snape ended up in Slytherin, and many fans still consider him totes evil, perhaps it’s the whole ‘sorted in Slytherin’ thing going on (after all, I have had people tell me right out that Snape deserved what the Marauders did to him because he was mean to Harry and Neville later on). That household was also not the greatest place in the world for anyone to grow up in as well.
56, yes, the story of how Tobias Snape and Eileen Prince got together would be another interesting perspective, not to mention all the rest of their story.
Am I the only one that found this article disappointing?
From the title and opening paragraphs, I expected new perspectives based on what Rowling has written that would make me rethink and maybe change my opinion of certain characters. What I read (at least for me) was an article that contradicts the story as written. Granted, some of what Rowling wrote was written as character opinion, so open to interpretation (despite Rowling confirming as Word of God, as the article points out, that Dumbledore’s guesses were correct) but some of it was written as being in-Universe fact. So when these “facts” got in the way of the what the article author wanted, it seems they changing those “facts” to fit what they wanted to read, not was Rowling actually wrote.
Which would be fine if presented as that. There’s a strong tradition of fan theories and fan fiction as a way of fans to show how they think the narrative should have gone. For instance, Rowling takes the time to show how the Malfoys game the system initally. They are feared. Then Voldemort regains his strength, how he chooses to demonstrate his strength by metaphorically emasculating Lucius (Lucius’ wand being an unsubtle phallic symbol). Subsequently Rowling shows how the Malfoys are no longer feared and so subjected to low-level bullying by Voldemort’s other followers. Draco witnessing Snape’s death at the hands of Voldemort without knowing why. Draco could have decided that Voldemort murdered Dumbledore’s killer because anyone with that reputation was a threat. As far as he knew, Snape was loyal and if he hadn’t taken Draco’s task, that would have been Draco’s fate – death at the whim of a madman. With the reveal of James Potter’s history as a bully, I was expecting to see a Heel/Face Turn in the final book. Enlightened self-interest would show Draco that the Malfoys have it better under the rule of law. All Voldemort’s side offered was humilation and death on the caprice of an insecure megalomaniac. Draco’s redemption arc would culminate in Draco leading a contingent of House Slytherin to switch sides during the pivotal battle at Hogwarts.
Rowling obviously didn’t agree.
So we didn’t get a scene where Draco almost can’t get out the words “Potter was right”, or a post-battle bonding scene where Draco and Harry realise both Gryffindor and Slytherin may have had different outlooks, but they united with the other school founders (and maybe became friends) because they both wanted tomorrow to be better. Trusting in that sense of enlightened self-interest triumphing over reckless and heedless ambition is why the other Houses don’t automatically destroy anyone sorted into Slytherin.
None of that happened. More to the point, I’m not suggesting that’s actually what happened, and that Rowling wrote it down wrong.
I’ll go over a couple of the more outlandish and absurd flights of fancy in subsequent comments.
Then the article veres to the other extreme, presenting other opinions fit with what’s written. The problem I have with these is they are presented as if they are some kind of revelation, yet follow so closely with how the narrative presents them that I feel dumbfounded that anyone could disagree. When something is so obvious that it’s barely worth considering, is it worth presenting it for “reconsideration”.
I’ll highlight a couple of examples of these as follow-up comments as follow-up comments as well, because I felt those formed the basis for something a little more challenging.
Opinion from the desk of Captain Obvious:
Lily Potter is nauseatingly perfect.
Case against:
Well, she did trust Peter Pettigrew, who betrayed them to Lord Voldemort…
Case for:
… but only at the urging of her husband. She makes the right choice is every other situation, and does it in such a way that nobody has a bad thing to say about her. Every single person that speaks about her does so in glowing terms. Dumbledore, the Weasleys, even the man obsessed with her still idolises her, despite choosing his tormentor over him. At the moment of death, she cast a spell that both ensured her son’s survival and her murderer’s defeat (then arguably his eventual death).
Compare and contrast with her husband, who seemed to continuously make bad choices until she took an interest in him. Even his heroic final stand does nothing more than delay Voldemort for a few moments and serve as a horrible warning about the consequences of confronting Voldemort directly.
A far more controversial opinion is how lonely she might have been. While James had his band of brothers, Lily apparently has no close female confidants. Being right combined with the confidence of staying the course, knowing she’s right, suggests she never had the self-doubt that would have meant she needed one. It also hints at a very controlling nature, supported by how the man she chose as her husband was someone she arguably remade after taking an interest in a bullying boy. Hardly the healthiest basis for a relationship, and when you’ve recreated someone so they give you the responses they think you want/need, it makes it difficult to give you the responses you *really* need. So that would make for a potentially lonely life.
A character that always makes the right choice still robs the narrative of drama, though.
Another opinion from the desk of Captain Obvious:
Tom Riddle Senior is a victim. A victim of rape and sexual abuse by his wife, and then murder followed by the desecration of his remains by his son.
The case against:
He deserved it for being arrogant and for abandoning his wife and child.
The case for:
The punishment should fit the crime. All he was guilty of was an attitude problem. He didn’t kill anyone. He didn’t rob anyone. The worst crime he could be accused of under English law is a minor bit of Actual Bodily Harm (which, just for the record, you can be guilty of if you shout at someone threateningly enough). That doesn’t warrant chemical imprisonment for months, in potion-infused fuge-state that meant he was forced to go along with whatever his captor wanted. Some part of him must have been aware and screaming, because at the first gap he was allowed, he took his chance and fled. He didn’t abandon his wife and child, he fled false imprisonment. His was the equivalent of being chained in the cellar and kept in sexual servitude. He didn’t deserve to be murdered for escaping that, never mind his body being defiled.
I’d go further and suggest he’s also a victim of his culture’s toxic masculinity. Consider how he is when Voldemort finds him: alone, practically barricaded into his own home. His “wife’s” abuse has left him damaged, unable to trust reality, never mind trust anyone enough to (re-)marry or create a family. He doesn’t appear to have made any effort to return to being a healthy member of society. He could have had his marriage annulled, gone through a divorce, or even had his wife declared legally dead (as happened with Lord Lucan after his disappearance). He could have got psychiatric help to come to terms with what happened. Even leaving aside that Aurors would likely keep an eye on muggle doctor’s psychiatric practices and institutions (both to find victims of dark magic to catch dark wizards and to get those victims proper treatment), muggle psychiatry would hopefully get him to a more positive place emotionally than where he was when junior found him.
The most obvious reason (to me) is that his concept of masculinity meant that if he accepted magic, he was left helpless by it, and a helpless man is really no man at all. If magic doesn’t exist, it means he’s mentally ill, and a real man should just be able to Man Up and get over it. Either way he’s been taken advantage of by a mere slip of a peasant girl. All of which stops him reaching out for help, partly through fear of ridicule, but mostly because he fears appearing weak, leaving him a victim of his toxic concept of what his masculinity should be.
Hypothesis: Voldemort’s parents weren’t married.
Case for: with the threat of Azkerbhan looming large in her mind, Voldemort’s mother would have wanted to avoid any kind of scrutiny from wizardly authority, especially Auror’s. There’s only one marriage ceremony described in the books involving a pure-blood wizarding family, and that one was huge. Any event on this scale would have attracted attention. The marriage of Voldemort’s parents didn’t, so must not have happened.
Case against: if this was meant to provoke discussion with people, it certainly worked. Some have already been pointed out, so I’ll try to avoid going over ground already trod.
First, you can’t define a pattern (like “all pure-blood old family weddings have to be extravagant affairs”) on one data point. There’s simply no pattern to see.
Next, the two families are vastly different. Both are cash-strapped pure-bloods, but one is small and isolationist. In fact, Merope is the only active member of her family. The Weasley’s are genetically wealthy, and socially active. That means that they have a lot of unpaid labour and favours they can call in to help put on a big wedding. They could even trade wedding invites for favours, given it seems to be the social event of the season. Merope has none of that to call upon, the only people that would want to attend would be freeloaders and gawkers. Added to that she wants to escape the official notice a big wedding would bring.
Other commenters have already pointed out that just because there wasn’t a big wedding, doesn’t mean there wasn’t a wedding. Dumbledore has no reason to lie – the legitimacy of Voldemort has no baring on his grooming of Harry to turn him into a weapon capable of killing Voldemort. He’s also not the only source of information on Voldemort, and such is the stigma of illegitimacy that someone would have contradicted Dumbledore. Being caught in a lie by Harry would cause Harry to doubt everything else he’s being told.
So it would have been a small wedding, to escape official notice. As other commenters have noted, there’s a tradition of elopement in the UK, partly to save on the cost of a wedding, partly to escape the inevitable arguments of arranging the wedding, and partly to avoid anyone giving voice at the prompt “speak now or forever hold your peace”. Particularly when the wedding is between different levels of society – say a squire and a peasant girl. It’s regarded as being terribly romantic.
Just as an aside, it’s interesting to note that a sub-trope of this tradition is the groom kidnapping the bride from her family to marry – the groomsmen are basically the guard to delay pursuit. In this case, Merope has gender-flipped this.
The article author suggests that Merope avoided any chance of official scrutiny by giving the illusion they were married. Even if we leave aside all the circumstantial evidence (we don’t get to see the wedding in a memory or see any legal documents), this suggestion ignores Meropes’ motivations. I don’t think anyone else has really delved into why Merope wants to be married.
As much as Tom Riddle Senior was mired in his culture’s toxic ideas of masculinity, Merope was in turn isolated and indoctrinated with toxic concepts of the roles of men and women in society. She didn’t go to Hogwarts, but instead was “Home-schooled”. There she learned that men were protectors and providers, and women were homemakers. She was taught that a woman’s only ambition should be to find a man capable of protecting and providing for her, marry him and have his children. When her father and brother were locked away, she set out to replace them with a husband. She didn’t have far to look to find someone (ignorant though he was of the danger he was in) who had stood up to her father – so he could protect her. He was rich, so he could provide for her. Her twisted fairy tale beliefs told her that all she had to find stability and safety was to marry him. Then she set out to do with terrifying focus.
The illusion of a marriage by living as husband and wife would not offer the security she desperately craved. Only by going through the ceremony and getting pregnant would she fulfil the delusional ambitions that had been instilled in her. Once she was pregnant, she felt safe and let her guard down. It was time for her husband to step up and take his appointed role as protector and provider.
Instead Tom Riddle Senior fled. Merope found her puppet-play she’d created wasn’t real. Her illusions shattered, she broke. Possibly she suddenly saw her father, the man who’d twisted her perception of the world so badly, the way others saw him – as a madman. Certainly it was the catalyst for her depression and eventual death. A pretend marriage wafting away as if it smoke wouldn’t have made her feel safe, ergo she wouldn’t have let her guard down, therefore she wouldn’t have broken so badly when the illusion of security offered by the marriage proved to be a lie.
Hypothesis: Merope used the Imperius Curse instead of a love potion to control Tim Riddle Senior.
Case for: there are plenty of different recipes for Love Potions and the two things they hold in common is they don’t inspire love, but different forms of obsessive interest in someone, and they all require pearl dust. The narrative doesn’t hold any information on how Merope gets hold of pearl dust or learns to make love potions. Whereas she would have seen her family cast the Imperious Curse frequently, and perhaps even done so herself on muggles bewitched into service of her family (though if there was any evidence of this, she’d have been locked up with her family).
Case against: this idea seems to spring from the misunderstanding that pearl dust is rare. This is perhaps because the article author isn’t aware of the association of oysters as an aphrodisiac, and so is under the impression that (like diamond dust in other recipes) it’s included for its rarity. That misunderstanding allied with the perverse notion that if you think your idea is better than the author’s, you’re entitled to “correct” it. I think that’s what really irritates me about this hypothesis is that Rowling herself has said it was a potion. If it was just Dumbledore’s opinion, there’d be some wiggle room. He’s written to be fallible, so even disregarding his agenda and the possibility he might lie, anything he says can’t be relied upon without corroboration. When you directly contradict what the author has stated (albeit in a commentary on the book, rather than the book itself) you’re claiming you’re a higher authority than the author. Unless you do that with the author’s blessing (I’m thinking George R R Martin), that’s monumentally irritating arrogance.
When confronted with a niggling detail like that, most readers (if they considered it at all) would just come up with a convoluted fan-canon that fit what the author has written. Choosing to go that way, with a little bit of research, and you’ll find what other commenters have already pointed out: perfectly spherical pearls are prized for their rarity, but oyster farms estimate 600 oysters for every 1/2 valuable pearl. That means for every jewellery-worthy pearl, there’s at least 1,200 worthless ones. Pretty easy to get a bag full of those from a convenient oyster farm…
In truth there’s very little to separate the two methods – they both create a sense of euphoria in the victim and (if you’ve selected the correct love potion) a desire to fulfil the desires of their attacker/poisoner. They can also easily be created by amateurs. Harry Potter casts the curse successfully three times on the Gringot’s heist, when he’d only had one lesson where he was the victim, not the caster. The Weasley twins are talented potion-makers, but their first products are love potions, meaning they aren’t hard to make.
Yet it still seems more likely to me that Merope used a potion rather than a curse. On the face of it, the curse is both simpler to perform (requiring no ingredients and no prior planning) and more powerful. On a successful cast, the victim not only feels the overwhelming need to fulfil the desires of the caster, but also gains the supernatural abilities and skills to complete the tasks asked of them (given Neville wasn’t known for his gymnastic talents). Love potions “merely” create a obsessive fixation in the victim. Given that that there are many different recipes for love potions infers that the same recipe can have different affects on different people, and the different recipes will create slightly different responses in the same person. For instance, the obsessive fixation could manifest as complete subservience, petrified of taking action for fear of offending the object of their artificial desire. Or it could manifest as seeing the best way of winning the affections of the Love potion’s target is to eliminate their potential rivals (hence perhaps the caution against using rose thorns). A third result could be a need in the victim to protect the love potion’s target, resulting in the victim forcibly imprisoning the target “to keep them safe”. Poetic justice, perhaps, but not the result most love potion brewers would be after.
But it seems, once you’ve perfected a recipe that produces your desired affects (my guess for Merope would be protective yet pliable, filled with the false desire to maintain her affections by pleasing her), the results and duration are consistent, repeatable and reliable. Enough that you could fool yourself that the counterfeit emotions are real.
The Imperious Curse is not consistent, either in result or duration. Both are reliant on the strength of the spell, and that’s a result of the combination of skill and willpower of the caster. Both are influenced by the casters state of mind. Tiredness and anxiety would take it toll, amongst other factors. Once it’s cast, the victim has a chance to resist its affects (whereas love potions are irresistible), pitting their willpower against the strength of the spell. If they succumb, while they are fully under the casters control, the duration depends again on the strength (and possibly how badly the victim resisted), requiring the caster to monitor them constantly. There also seems to be ways of breaking the curse with spells and traps, whereas a love potion requires a herbalist healer who can recognise which ingredients were used and concoct an antidote.
So comparing the two, it seems to me any long-term planning would favour the love potion as the more reliable method. But that’s not the only reason I think Merope would have chosen it. There’s two more reasons that I think Merope would have chosen potion over curse, and both are on an instinctive level.
We need to consider the love potion is a poison. Even in an age of guns, if a murder is done by poison, the culprit is statistically likely to be a woman. Partly that’s due to Nature’s rude dynamics. Men tend to be bigger and therefore more physically intimidating, leading to physical confrontations (even not contact like with guns) not being considered optimal. Thi
For that you need to look at what the relationship of Merope and Tim Riddle Senior pivots around: her desire for security and stability.
I think the article author has perhaps got hung up on the rape of Tom Riddle Senior. Merope is a rapist, and the physical assault that the Imperious Curse represents fits with physical violation that is rape. If the rape of Tom Riddle Senior, or even that act of rape to conceive a baby, was Merope’s aim, then attacking him with the curse would follows this. Except that wasn’t Merope’s intention. She wanted safety and security, and marriage (with a family) to Tom Riddle Senior represented that to her. She wanted to bewitch him into it. Perhaps she saw herself as some fey enchantress seducing the Hero with her magical wiles. For a love potion to work, without attacking him directly, he would have had to accept some food or drink from her. Perhaps (to her mind) this made him complicit (despite his ignorance of the possible consequences). It certainly fits with tropes like Adam accepting the apple from Eve, and caution against accepting food and drink from magical (usually fairy) people, lest you become beholden to them.
So this is why I think Merope would have used a love potion instead of an unforgivable curse. Using the latter method clearly makes her, even to herself, a villainess. Using a love potion she can justify herself. Reading a news report, the date rapist justified slipping a “roofie” into his date’s drink as simply a way to get her “more into the mood” for “what was going to happen anyway”. I suggest Merope felt the same way. Then he ran and she realised she’d been lying to herself.