If you're not familiar with the story of Harry Potter (which you should be, if you have any sense of what's right and wrong) here it is in a nutshell: this guy's parents die and then he spends sixty percent of a decade trying to kill the guy that did it and then he finally figures it out.
Best story ever, really.
The murderer of Harry's parents, Voldemort, is the main antagonist (with some scary sidekicks, namely Bellatrix LeStrange.) He's demonized, fashioned after Hitler as a "pure"blood oriented racist, a thing that seems to stem from self hate (for he himself is not pure, but half, blood, as Hitler was not the blonde and blue-eyed perfect human being he envisioned.) He is cold, said to never have loved anyone or ever had a friend, and literally doesn't have a whole soul; it has been fragmented into seven unstable pieces. He's not considered human. His death is celebrated.
But was Voldemort not, at least once, a human being? I believe that nature and nurture contribute to personality; I also don't think that anyone is completely evil. Voldemort was raised in an orphanage, with a dead mother and a father who abandoned her and, subsequently, him. Was he born evil? The orphanage matron said that as a young child, he killed the pets of and tormented, controlled, other children. Was he jealous of their pets? Was he trying to make friends by impressing the other kids with his supernatural abilities (because, actually, most non-magic people, Muggles, are narrow minded and would have immediately branded him evil for being differently talented from them.) And when he did get to Hogwarts, the only real home he'd ever have, the only place he could've made any lasting, sentimental relationships, he was put into the House of Slytherin, which many in the other three houses would say made you automatically evil. (Mind you, none of those brave Gryffindors or intelligent Ravenclaws or nice Hufflepuffs ever had any Slytherin friends.) That's already seventy-five percent of the school pitted against you. Add that to the Slytherin pureblood fanatics, and you're almost completely ostracized. And since the other three house will never like you, you might as well try to get those in your own House to like you by taking up their creed: 'Purebloods are better.' By the time Voldemort found out he was descended from the great Salazar Slytherin himself (and would've had some Slytherin friends at Hogwarts), he was already an adult and had, presumably, split his soul and killed his father and grandparents - all who shunned him.
So I ask you: Did Voldemort have any reason to stay human? Anything to live for? There's a quote that says, roughly, 'You are given the love you show.' Voldemort was shown no love by a busy orphanage matron that barely had time to keep him clean, and who knows if he suffered some horrific abuse from older residents there?
Could Voldemort have been a victim? Or was he born "bad"?
Honestly, I haven't read any of the Harry Potter books, but I have watched them! And I completely agree with you. Since only now we are reading Grendel and learning about his past we get to discover the background story to why he is mean and eats people. Your statement about how he wasn't accepted from the beginning because he was "different" and branded from the start is a great argument towards him being a modern day Grendel because it happened the same way to him too. Since Grendel looked different and scarier he was automatically given a title of being evil. And it is hard to gain a sense of trust from others after something like that.
ReplyDeleteHi Katherine,
ReplyDeleteI think this comparison between Grendel and Voldemort is spot on. While reading Beowulf, I thought that no one was giving Grendel a fair chance. They didn't know why he was killing people and they didn't even bother understanding him. Same goes for Voldemort. He is seen as this big evil wizard who liked killing mudbloods and Muggles but, no one actually knows him. No one bothers to find out about his past and if there might be a reason why he is doing it. I honestly think that both Grendel and Voldemort are not understood and if people actually paid any attention to them or cared at all, they wouldn't be doing what they are doing.
*Lestrange
ReplyDeleteAs I said in class the other day, it is said in the canon of Harry Potter byt the author that Tom Riddle was born without thee capacity for love, and in my opinion, yes, that makes him inhuman. I don't think there was ever a time he could've redeemed himself. And with Grendel, I think there is. Responding to what Vivian said about no one giving him a chance- I think if the Danes could figure out how to communicate with Grendel and indeed, give him a chance- he'd probably become one of the most amazing warriors they ever had. But if you look below Voldemort's evil outer layer... you'd find another evil layer right underneath, just as nasty.
Well it's been a long time since I read the Harry Potter books, and I don't remember everything perfectly, but I will try my best with the limited knowledge I still have to respond to your post. So Voldemort as far as I know, had a really messed up childhood. He was left in an orphanage with a bunch of people that hated him because he had no control over all this hate and magical power brewing inside of him. Not only that but there was no one to teach him how to control this power or his emotions, so the situation just kept getting worse. I don't know if it would have been possible to stop him from becoming the ultimately actual monster he was, but I definitely think it wasn't necessarily entirely his fault that he became the dark lord.
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