Dumbledore almost definitely wished, while he was a kid, that he didn't have a family. Behold, Tom Riddle is a complete orphan.
Ohgod, yes. That's perfect. Dumbledore recognizing it in Tom, recognizing himself and hating Tom but himself more, and making mistakes because he's not thinking rationally. The (literal) quest to destroy Tom is a (metaphorical) quest to destroy his own past, which he passes on to Harry- who has to die both literally and metaphorically. Which is a fairly weird thing I hadn't thought about. Seriously, how many times does this boy have to be AK'd?
Also, Harry as an amalgam of Dumbledore's crushing sense of responsibility (from where?- birth, the scar, the Boy Who Lived possibly) and Tom's orphan-child status.
Re: Tom and loneliness. Death Eaters as some sort of attempt at family-of-choice? Really the pureblood notion is such a transparent attempt at common ground, a family brought together by ideology instead of blood? (My personal opinion is that in this case JKR was probably riffing on Hitler's 'Deutschland' blond-hair-and-blue-eyes fixation even though he was Austrian and far from the Aryan ideal)
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timeasmymeasure
Re: *rises, all ghosty and mist-like*
Date: 2007-07-26 09:12 pm (UTC)Dumbledore almost definitely wished, while he was a kid, that he didn't have a family. Behold, Tom Riddle is a complete orphan.
Ohgod, yes. That's perfect. Dumbledore recognizing it in Tom, recognizing himself and hating Tom but himself more, and making mistakes because he's not thinking rationally. The (literal) quest to destroy Tom is a (metaphorical) quest to destroy his own past, which he passes on to Harry- who has to die both literally and metaphorically. Which is a fairly weird thing I hadn't thought about. Seriously, how many times does this boy have to be AK'd?
Also, Harry as an amalgam of Dumbledore's crushing sense of responsibility (from where?- birth, the scar, the Boy Who Lived possibly) and Tom's orphan-child status.
Re: Tom and loneliness. Death Eaters as some sort of attempt at family-of-choice? Really the pureblood notion is such a transparent attempt at common ground, a family brought together by ideology instead of blood? (My personal opinion is that in this case JKR was probably riffing on Hitler's 'Deutschland' blond-hair-and-blue-eyes fixation even though he was Austrian and far from the Aryan ideal)