I kind of understand your point, IP but it's not quite that bad. For someone like Riddle, he doesn't really need what we might consider "legitimate and good" excuse to turn evil. Simple distain shown by others around him, lack of parents, a unnatural thirst for power and willingness to do whatever it takes are more than enough reason.

I think there's great truth in showing that a human being can be essentially born evil. Not sure about others but the way I see him/like to see him as someone dark who never bothered with making the choice of trying to be good.

I do think in the very conception of Voldemort, he could be seen as someone being born evil or at least evil from a very young age. This is not saying that Riddle's evilness was inevitable which is what I think you were truly afraid of, IP. But I think there's a difference between these two concepts in that in the former Voldemort had the "choice" to reject the dark persona set up for him. What happened was that he never chose to and therefore LV became the culmination of an almost natural descent into darkness.

Of course, you are still right. It is somewhat dangerous in trying to write a darker conception of Riddle, but I think DS would be up to the task. 8)

 

Hmm Syoran you have a mistake. Riddles mother was witch. You wrote that she was muggle.

 

Yeah but Tom didn't know that she was a witch. At the time he presumed that she was a muggle and his father was magical as he assumed that if his mother was a witch she wouldn't have died.

 

No, what actually I don't like is tendency to make any character completely evil or completely good. These two concepts are just imaginary categories, designed to roughly describe certain actions and decisions that people make. I don't beleive that any given person can be truly the epitome of either evil or good.

That's why Rowling's chief villian, Voldemort, is such a weak character, compared to, say Darth Vader. There is simply not a good bone in his body, nor some distinguishing personal characteristic that would give him an ounce of humanity. He's portrayed simply as a irredeemable boogeyman to scare off 11 year old children and that's that. The concept of Riddle being abused and twisted in his youth was the only thing that used to give canon!Voldemort even a sparkle of humanity (aside from him hating his true name). If you take that away, you get pretty bland character, a scarecrow uber-villian without any sort of internal conflict or struggle.

That's the same reason why I also hate saint!Dumbledore and like manipulative!Dumbledore stories so much... Making the old man loony or gray or plain evil behind his mask simply paints another dimension to his character and makes him more interesting and/or realistic.

Same goes for Riddle - he needs a love interest or some larger ideal or some psychological conflict (split personality) or abuse or some personal quirk or anything at all to move him away from bland evilness/ambition/sociopathy he had displayed so far.

 

It is my belief that Tom wasn't evil until he split his soul. After doing that, he was more prone than ever to darker emotions and therefore became evil.

Just because he wasn't physically abused doesn't mean that he didn't have a hard childhood. The fact that his mother could have lived had she only used magic to help herself means that she didn't care enough about him to carry on living - it is this fact that makes harry feel sorry for Voldemort in HBP.

I would say that by the time the HP books come around, yes Tom Riddle has given way to Lord Voldemort, but i wouldn't go as far to say he was always evil. I think what you're doing is confusing a mean, vindictive and bullying child (which Tom is in this story) for evil, which is far more extreem.

 

This story is pretty good. Keep it up.

 

Superb. I have NO complaints. UPDATE!!!

(just one actually, what about snakes?
I don't think Tom should get one any time soon, but that's just me.)

 

Sorry, I mispoke. Replace "born evil" with born with an above normal affectation for evil then. By my second paragraph, I wasn't actually talking about the story specifically, I was talking more about a more generic conception.

I meant really to advocate that you don't want to take it too far on the other end and come up with "valid" reasons, bordering on excuses, for making Riddle become Voldemort. Doing so makes Riddle too much of a victim. So yes, DS, by all means, show that life wasn't fair to Riddle, that's a great idea, just don't try to make us sympathize with him too much. Btw, I do like what you are doing since we already see something in him that's ominous and suspicious.

As I admited, I was speaking more of a general conception of Voldemort.

 

The story is going excellently, though I wonder if your'e going to gloss over his events at Hogwarts or write the whole thing out.

 

Sweet I love the way that Tom is just a little evil but not overwelmingly evil it makes him more of a natural dark lord. I also like the way you have the children behave when another child is injured. Reallity.

 

For the first four chapters that was very good. Can't wait to see what comes next!

 

Good stuff. I like the conflict emerging with Dumbles.

How long until Tom learns about Occlumency?

 

I'm really enjoying this story. It says a lot about your writing that I've even bothered to read it, non-Harry-centric fanfiction is something I don't usually want to waste my time reading.

I like that while Tom Riddle is not necessarily evil at this point, neither is he some misunderstood child. It will be interesting to see the transformation of Tom Riddle to Voldemort.

Seven years seems like a long time to cover in one fic, and the twenty years the second one will have to cover seems like it will have to be huge in comparison. Then again, I consider going into too much detail my biggest pitfall as a writer. Do you have any ideas of how long you expect each story to be?

I'm looking forward to more. I just hope the evil plot bunnies don't bite you in the arse again and make you focus you attention on something else...

 

chap three is asome it really chaptures tom's moods I love the way you make the sourting hat think for a second about its choice.

 

Like Cervus, a credit tou you, this is probally the only non Harry- centric fic i've bothered to read.

Tom's character, at this point I find him to be curious, anti-social, slightly caustic and a little cruel. Not ultimately evil.

Keep going with this but don't draw out first year to much, you still got 6 more to go.

 

That's a good point.

 

Will you be following cannon in terms of the Slytherin fortune having run dry like JKR stated in HBP, at leasts that what I think she stated.