Why are Tom Riddle and Voldemort so different and so Similar?

Welcome to the Potter discussion.

welcome back to the Potter discussion. This is episode 115. Not today's episode. We will be discussing the difference between Voldemort and Tom riddle.

L low everyone. Thank you so much for joining me again today, whatever day this may be. I thank you for joining me on it's today. Episode one 15, a very fun episode. Uh, we are talking about a Voldemort and Tom. So these two people are very different. Of course they are the same person, but throughout the series, they were almost made out to be different.

And today we are going to be talking about that difference, what it means and how it affects the store, which I personally am very excited for because I finally finished the half-blood. Uh, of course, if you didn't know that I'm really an avid rinse that I, that I am reading it, that I did, that I did read it.

I was going through the part about Harry going into the pensive with Dumbledore and them seeing Tom riddle, senior and Tom riddle, Jr. And just really wondering how could the boy from wool's orphan. Go from him. The boy who steals things to Voldemort, of course it is throughout many years and many transitions in many spells, but Voldemort comes out of something very deep and very dark.

So I think Voldemort is one of those people that really are sets apart from the person that they were before. And the time that Tom riddle made his last appearance at  Smith's house, hex of a. Hex the bus Smith's house. There we go. Um, he gets the cup or he sees a cup and lock it. So he hoodwinked hokey that's funny.

And he makes hokey poison caps of a Smith's tea. And then has miss dies. He goes to her house, takes the log-in and the cup makes them horcrux. And then he goes to Hogwarts for a job. Makes the diet and my horcrux. And then that's it. He's made all of his core cruxes. Well, not quite, but he's made all of his objects for flexes that he knows he made, he goes down and that is it.

And he resurfaces as Voldemort. I will not drag this on because we do have stuff to get to, but this will be a very exciting discussion and I'm very excited. Again, before we start to apply, I will remind you that the two links in the show notes below are still available. The SpeakPipe page link and the Google form link for anything you want to hear or say on the show, you can also send me an email.

My email is@thepotterdiscussionatgmail.com. That is the pot of discussion@gmail.com for absolutely anything you want me to know to put on the show for you to tell me. So thank you for doing that in advance. If you do, and let's get into this.

All right. So as promised before we get into this discussion that we did have the Quizmaster episode last week, and there was a challenge question. So if you answer that challenge question, I will now answer it for you on this show. If you looked it up, if you watched the movie again and even more kudos to use of congrats, if you got it right.

And here's the answer. So here was the challenge. What did Queenie's grandfather breed? That was the question. What did Queenie's grandfather read? And there was a bonus question. What did it Jacob's grandfather breed again? The challenge question was what did Queenie's at grandfather breed? And the, the extra challenge question was what did Jacob's grandfather breed?

Well, because it was a magical creatures episode. I think I kind of psyched. And I dunno if you said anything like mystical magical, but we reading his grandfather bred our walls. So that is the answer to the challenge question. If you got it right. I would love to hear any challenge questions that you want to send me for the Potter special acting.com like I said before, or the jewelers in the show notes, but ours is a right answer.

And, uh, this was a very fleeting, um, with little, little thing that CUNY said when they went out of the building after catching the, uh, That's the, I, I dunno, but, um, so Queenie, Jacob Newt, and Tina went on, on the, on the top of a roof and neutrals telling Cina about the Demi guys that they had to catch.

That was indivisible. And do you know, I was a little bit, uh, you know, the shock, I think, I don't know if you got this one, but if you got the owls, I think you probably got the next part, which is what did Jacob's grandfather breed. And that is pigeons because we need Jacob, her passing away. And they're just talking and it comes up and they say it it's like one line bleeding next scene go.

So if you got this, you must be a Harry Potter fan of congrats. Good job. And there you go. All right. Now, now, no, you're really getting into the episode. So yeah, so I'm not going to do any fancy transitions because I just wanted her to do this. So the first thing on the agenda is who is Tomlin symbol. And I know we are starting off this with like a, uh, English almost assignment.

Uh, who, who is this? Who are you? What do you feel about yourself? But this I think is going to be very important because if you don't establish who Tom riddle is, you will not know who Voldemort is, the transition and the, the steps Tom riddle takes to get to a place where he is Voldemort filling. Tom riddle is so only to start and we can probably go from the time that we first met him for the last.

Around the point at Hogwarts. I don't know, maybe, maybe sixth year, maybe seventh year that he turns into. He might not have, you know, like the snake, like jurors in the right eyes, but he, his eyes are still like, like starting to Glint and he's getting malice and he's seen the world differently and he wants.

So, depending on how you see it, Voldemort is there in Tom much, much sooner than let's do who's 200. I think Tom is a very troubled, he didn't understand just how of a difficult situation he is. As someone in the orphanage, the only difficulty he sees in a situation is the difficulty in which he has to endure this day to day.

And that is the bullying of th th the strangeness, the magic that he has that doesn't know what it is, or how would he put it? He does come to enjoy what he does, which I don't know if that's an alarming thing or a good thing eventually, but the fact still stands that Tom was not an average child. And I think that was really the point that made him who he, he was who he is and who he turned into beat because Tom.

Well, he, he had no one. He had no one there for him. He literally was alone. No friends, no one, even at the orphanage will item. And he was just taken in because she was shoved upon walls by Merapi and Tom, although he might not be so happy with that. I think he was glad to be taken. And I mean, he, he did the classic kid thing where he just, you know, it was like, no, no, I don't.

I don't like that. I know what you know. Uh, so Tom, I think was, uh, he hated his parents for putting him into an orphanage, but I think he was glad that he wasn't just cast out on the street. But it was like a whole, whole transition for Tom to become this angry orphanage person who just hated his life and hated his parents and hated everything about it, and just want to hurt people and do strange things to other children into this polite student who went to Hogwarts and got top grades and everyone fell in love with him.

So how did that even happen? Well, the fact is that Tom riddle was very cunning. He was a very scheming. He could see into a person and read them like a Harry Potter book. He knew how to play for an audience. Gosh, it is windy outside. Anyway. Um, he knew how to Flay for an odd. He knew how to, how to attract the hearts of those all around him and not in the way that was.

Oh, wow. Look at Tom. He's so great. And I wish he could be like him. It's look at Tom. He's so great. He is awesome. That could that kind of way. Um, so somehow Tom managed to charm the entire castle based on who he was and what he could do. The only person who wasn't fooled was surprise, surprise, Dumbledore.

Now Dumbledore was the one who brought him to the castle, but he wasn't the person who saw him and really tried to push him along that point. Tumbler was the transfiguration teacher and not the headmaster. So whatever he did would not have so much power. Um, of course it did have. He did ask him about the radio over time, but not as the, as, as the headmaster lead level, um, that Dumbledore eventually had, but he was the only one who saw through Tom and they both knew it.

Uh, like I said, it was episode a hundred, maybe. Yeah. I think it was 100 that I was, um, talking about how Dumbledore and Tom were the only people who could ruin each other's plans. And that was really the point that. Tom recognized Dumbledore could not be around him, could not be with him. And they had to go their separate ways or just destroy each other.

And it might sound harsh. It might sound cruel, but it's true. I think this is, this is one of those, um, cliche moments, but. Really it's true. Neither can live while the other survives. This is one of those Dumbledore and Voldemort moments. The prophecy of course is about them.  and Harry, but Voldemort and Dumbledore thing is where this all prophecy is also drawn.

They were the two figureheads of each other's operations and they had to somehow dismantle. Of course it was vulnerable. She did that, but I think he did, I think, okay, I'm going to use a fancy analogy here. So it's like two pictures on the wall for the words is one picture. And then Dumbledore, there is the other, Waldemar stuck a nail in the wall and hung himself up with no support, but he put himself in a hall of, of painting of murals.

So Dumbledore confined them very well, but Dumbledore just put himself in a. One painting, but he put a permanent sticking charm or the back of his painting and Voldemort did eventually get his painting off the wall, but he had to blast a hole in it in order to get Dumbledore painting off of it. So that's my analogy here.

And I think that works because. At school, Tom recognized the danger Donald pose to him and the danger that Dumbledore was working now using in Tom. So that I think is aware his anti Dumbledore ness started at Hogwarts. And this is really important because that is basically his basis for his entire.

Drive, not hating Dumbledore, but hating muggles, hating half bloods, hating muggle, borns, hating all of those people and hating the people who supported them, Dumbledore Harry, all of those people he despised. And like I said, in the hundredth episode, that is another reason why. Baltimore became Voldemort from Tom riddle.

He wanted revenge. He saw the world, he, he saw a need, but he created that need in his own mind, he saw the, the Mughals were overtaking the world and, uh, wizards were becoming less and less popular and there was just deaths happening and he needed to stop it. He needed to kill all of them. So wizards could take over the world.

Of course, I was completely in that. That's not sustainable at all because of course there are not enough pure blood wizards left to create a world of billions of people. But even if that is the case of Baltimore to wanted to get rid of as many Mughals and half-dozen muggle borns, as he could, before he left the earth.

And I think that was something that he saw and he was driven for that. A hundred percent. He needed that. So that I think is where the divide is not, who really is who's Tom riddle. He is someone who sees himself and he sees the world and says, I can fix that. Of course he could not, but you know, that's what his eyes live on.

So that is I think, a good base of who is Tom riddle. Now I think we should move into Baltimore who is Voldemort, and this is going to be a very short area. Exactly who I just listed that is Voldemort. And that is where he fails. That's what Dumbledore recognizes. Voldemort is the same scared old boy who just cannot get over his own fears and his own petty, greed and desire.

That is who Voldemort is. And Voldemort is he's apparently scared of nothing. You scared of nothing. He fears nothing. But we know that's true. We know that he fears so many things. And of course they say that Voldemort, the only person that Voldemort truly feared was Dumbledore. And that's probably true.

No one else had his power. No one else had his authority. No one else had one. So, of course it was natural for Vern, Tom, Andrew Holden were to be scared of them will or despite the fact that Dumbledore would do nothing against him without Tom starting it, of course, Voldemort said recognizing Donald lore that if he didn't act, and then now, although with course that's false, but Tom said, you know what?

I don't like you I'm going to kill you now. So you started, it was old Voldemort stick and that's it. It's all down in history, but Voldemort is still scared of the. That he was before the dark bodies as was mentioned in the half-blood prince. Um, so he really does not have the fearless just don't after it.

You know, I, I will conquer the world. I will show them. And I will be number one. He does not have that. He has the, I must escape my fear. I will run faster event. It is consuming me. That is impossible. He does not turn to face his enemies, his demons. He just runs the other way. And in the way, the way of Baltimore sees it, he is not trying to defend his demons.

He is trying to run faster than them, which is impossible. As I said before, that's just not something. He has to run faster than himself ever at all times he has to be moving, which is impossible for him, of course, because goes, well, the war did not move on. He can not go anywhere. So he is, does she chose the wrong path?

He chose the wrong way of escaping his own life. Really not like not dying, but he, he escaped his demons of the wrong way for us. He was given the easy way out by Harriet. Voldemort. He did not do the things he should have. I think that's the bottom line. And Tom riddle is Voldemort basically. I mean, there's, there's nothing else to it.

All the words that went through the whole change, you know, he's interned the color of pale milk. His hair all fell off. So his toenails became triangles. I don't know how that happened, but his tunnels, we keep pointed his fingernails. We can't read super long and eyes were red. Of course here were red in.

Movies, but that's a whole different story, but I will have the books here. So he goes through this whole visual chain, but he stayed the same. He stayed the exact same and there's nothing else to it. Tom is Voldemort. Voldemort is Tom, maybe Thomas more Harrison Voldemort, but still they are the same. Now we're really getting into the juicy stuff.

Why do Voldemort and Tom. So different. Why are they so separate? Why do they seem like two different people? Well, again, the answer is simple. It's so simple. Voldemort became something unknown. At that point, he pushed the boundaries of magic too far. He showed the world that there is a worst place to be.

And then already horrible vulnerary became something that no one had ever even thought could exist. And Tom was this top student. Everyone loved him. He was just this awesome person, special services to the school for every single person thought he was, he was great. So those two people are nothing alike.

I mean, absolutely. To an outsider. They see the dark Lord who in murdered many people and they see the top student and a top school. How are those even similar? Well, again, this is where this explaining who these two people are, come back to it. If we go deeper into who they are, they are the same. They are the same.

Those two people are the same. They are leading in a field that has already been led. They are doing something that is impossible. I mean, not, not being a top student for the calm, but keeping up with being Voldemort and with Hogwarts and his friends and his teachers keeping track of everything that he does.

Of course you can't, you just can't. Of course he could add both are still. So emotionally troubled and just so broken inside, they, they see a problem that doesn't exist and they try to present a solution that will never work. Those are the similarities between them and those are all the similarities you need to see that these two people are one Voldemort is Tom.

Tom is a Voldemort. They are the same. There's nothing else to that. Like I've been saying. They are the same person. And this is really where this, this episode comes into eighth pickle. Why do tumbled? It would seem so separate. They seem so subs because they could never be together. They can never be the same person.

And yet they are, they are the same people. They are one, they are with each. And it is so hard to see if we didn't know that they were the same person from the story. And we had Tom we'd Voldemort. He would not say to the same, we would not sit there saying of course now with that we, if, if we were putting ourselves in that mindset, of course we would have, of course we would.

Of course we would. But because we know that now Tom might not have been a. St in the world, but he could not let go of his ideas. He can not let go of his dreams. He had to have the job. He had to have that person. He had to get the grade. He had to make friends with this person. And that is just where they are the same.

They are the exact. And, and I can not, if you hear one thing from this episode, it will be that they are not different at all. They are so similar. So, so similar. And the fact that we saw that I think is made, like makes this whole. More just jarring. If we put ourselves in the mindset of an outsider, seeing Tom seeing Voldemort, seeing all the other things that they do and just seeing their backstory just become unveiled is, is unnerving.

Almost see how Tom treated his peers. Utmost of disrespect. Only the people that he, that joined him, he would only even remotely see as his equal first. And that changed because of course, whenever see anyone at his, as his equal, he would just be stubborn and refuse it. But Voldemort is the same. Voldemort is just like that.

No one is equal. No one. He, he doesn't care about anyone. And in this scenario, I think Hogwarts it's it's, it's a mirror. So Voldemort is. Baltimore forest Tom's old north, his friends are the death theaters. They are the pure blitz on his side and everyone else had Hogwarts are the muggle. Borns are the muggles are the half-blood.

The teachers are the people trying to stop him, but he has them all, all under his spell. So to speak. These are two scenarios that I think are really similar and Dumbledore. Surprisingly enough. I don't think it is Dumbledore in this scenario. I think Harry is stumble. And in this scenario, I don't think Dumbledore has a clear place, but it definitely could be made for him.

So this is the parallel that I really want you to see. They are going through the same thing. They have the same goal and they're the same person.

All right. Here's an interesting question. How did Tom's golden school effectful warrant? So I think this is a, a question that can be answered by just looking at Tom's time in school and seeing where he went to directly after that. So entering school, I think his goals were different. He just wants to make friends.

He wanted to fit in. He wanted to find a place or his very own, just to be a big boy and, uh, and all. And I mean, sure, sure. Maybe he did it. Maybe he found the place that he wanted. Maybe he, he, he discovered his pool of people, so to speak and great. Cause the first couple of years after that's what he did.

He found his place. He found his, his, his stride. He really just made his footprint in Hogwarts. Fantastic. But then in the later years he realized that no one else was like him. He was rising much faster than all the other people in buying him. And he says third or fourth year, he was smarter than. Seventh years, all the seventh years, and Tom recognized that.

But instead of someone like Dumbledore who saw it and tried to use it in a good way, Tom saw it and used it to his advantage. He let his power and his, his, his position go to his head and it became, it turned into not how can. It's exceeding Hogwarts. It became, how can I be the best? How can I strive to even more than I've already gone?

How can I go farther? How can I take this one step further? And he just kept doing that over and over and over and over. And by his sixth, seventh year, like I was saying, he wanted to be Voldemort. He knew that he wanted to live for ever. He wanted to be immortalized. So he went on to search for hor cruxes.

He or she went to work at Borgen and bark to find. Uh, some small horcrux is to find, of course he, she did find a couple, um, you know, because of course we're going to work deals with bowed, like dark artifacts. And of course he needed those. So he went on a search for those, uh, Tom just searched far and wide for anything that could help him be someone who could never die.

And he found it, he found it, he found the answer, he did it and he became Voldemort. And we don't know what happened in the, in between the. That he made it horcrux is any time that he became Voldemort, but we can only assume that he did some pretty nasty stuff because his toenails became pointed. I mean, scandal is there.

He must have done something crazy first toenails to become pointed. I will never stop talking about this. Why I'm not going to, I'm not going to go into zoom that it's plugged convenience that they needed to, to make rave fines more and more scary. So they pointed his toenails and I'm like that. That's what I'm saying anyway.

Um, so how to Tom's goals in school affect his, how his Voldemort, this is really where we see these, these parallels of him achieving goals in school and achieving goals as bold. He wants to make his circle and does use them as his bubble to just plow everything out of his path and do just defeat all the competition and show the world that he is the.

And he, he, he did that. He made his horcrux, his, and then he found his followers. He appealed to the people who would never fit in, who, who needed a place to be and who needed a leader to follow. He appealed to all those people, which was a lot of people, a lot of people, and they enjoyed him and then their kids join him.

And then their kids joined him, their grandkids. And then it was just this cycle of him building so much support. And I think he was at the height of his support when he killed Lily and James, when he killed Dylan and James and tried to kill the hair, he was, if he had succeeded, if he had succeeded in killing them, I don't think he would have ever been.

I'm a Hema. He would have died of old age. She was 71 when he died. It wouldn't, it would may have been like 20 years. So, I mean, it's, so it's a long time, but then it would have been a Voldemort less world, but still a Voldemort's main, his away by killing. And he was the height of his war when he killed the Lee and James and at the height of his support when he was attacking Hogwarts in later years, in which scenario you had more.

I don't know, I will say, I think, I think it was in, um, when it was attacking Hogwarts. Um, but in sheer number, I think it was when he was. When it, when he was, uh, going to kill the lean James, but I see it more as a warrant when he's talking to Congress because he had Hogwarts basically under his control, any of the ministry under his control, all the fronts.

We'll just, we're just his, but yet he did have a lot of now a lot, a lot of support when he's killing me and James, but that is what I was point. So Tom's goals in school were just, just like everything that I just said. You wanted to make more friends. Well, he wants to grow his following. He needed to. To be validated by others support.

And he needed to be seen as the best and finding a group of loyal, loyal followers was the way to do that. So he did. So he did. So he, he found his group and he stuck to them, not for their own benefit before. Own. And that's another parallel between Voldemort and Tom. He doesn't care. What, anything else besides getting himself further?

He kills people like nothing. He sees a humans as just dirt. They are nothing new. He could, he could utter a couple of words and he would never have to see that person again. And he would feel nothing. So that I think is the point at. We really see the end point. That is the end point of the parallels between Voldemort and Tom.

They are the only people for themselves. They have one person that they want to promote, that they want to survive, that they want to succeed. And that is themselves. That is Voldemort's cell. And that is the true. So the, the one big, overarching reason why they are the same, they don't care about anything.

They don't care about any one. They care about themselves escaping this trouble about killing that person about. Creating this distraction so they can get away creating a vis this horcrux surviving longer. So, so Voldemort can be happy stealing that. So Tom can feel who'll themselves to feel good. That's the, that's it?

I mean, Basically that is that, that is the episode. That is, I think, a good place to end it because that is the place that we see the biggest parallel. So thank you so much for joining me this, this, this episode. And you're finally getting the first snowfall of the year. You know, I like these, these, these end partial of the episodes because I never talk about like the snow side in the beginning.

So super snowy, super stoned. The plow has been going back and forth. All the, like all the time I've been recording and he was coming down and sheets. I can not see across the street. I usually can. I can ask you across the street. It is. So it's just like the snow is just coming down crazy. And we supposed to get a ton.

This is our first kind of like big, big storm of the year of the, of, of the season. So now, oh my gosh. So many, so many noises are. Oh, gosh. I'm I am glad I finished recording. Glad I finished recording for the time while this is I'll I'll just notice avenue, but yeah, there's snow's coming down. It has been lovely to look at it too.

I wasn't recording. Um, oh, bird. Cool. And that's wow. Now you're just seeing this whole different side of me, but, um, that's why I said there, there was so much wind because it was just a point where the snow is going. You'd be like 30, 40 miles an hour. Just shoot zooming, cross my, my, my, my window. I'm lucky enough to record by a window.

Um, I had my record at my desk and I put down my microphone scan, stand on everything, and it's super cool that I can see outside and I can get inspiration from what I see. So. Thank you for listening to episode. Um, yeah, I that's pretty much it, if again, I would love to hear your challenge questions. So he sent them to me@thepotterdiscussionatul.com.

That is the Potter discussion@gmail.com. That is it. Thank you for joining me as always remember, happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if a one only remembers to turn on the light. Uh,