As I once said to Taure, Lord Voldemort's voice and laugh is like from a 8 year old girl. Don't know what Rowling was thinking, but it's not scary.

Is that you Kevin Bacon?

 

Do we? Do you? Where does this even come from? Can I ask that? Because I'm going to. I'm going to ask you why my supposed "love" for Grindelwald is allegedly a self-evident fact to all those who observe. I'm going to ask you. I really am. I'm not even kidding.

I was going to quote the things that support it, but somebody already did, so now I don't have to. Cheers for that, by the way.

So yeah. You can argue that Voldemort isn't using "Dark Magic Steroids," I suppose. But it's not an argument grounded in canonical fact. It's an argument grounded firmly in your opinion. Tom Riddle underwent numerous "dangerous magical transformations" to become the being known as Lord Voldemort. And they can't be cosmetic, because if he just wanted to look different, you can use self-transfiguration for that.

You can try to argue that he didn't undergo those rituals to make himself more powerful. And technically that's true, in the sense that there is an absence of any direct statement that he did. But the same could be said for the exact opposing argument as well. And furthermore, the opposing argument makes more sense, because it fits Riddle's motivations and desires, while the counter side is essentially claiming that Riddle underwent dangerous magical transformations to become Voldemort, but for no actual tangible benefit to him beyond "because I could." And that doesn't make any sense at all.

So basically, if you want to argue from a stance of pure canon, the correct response is to not respond, because canon doesn't say one way or the other. But if you're arguing opinions, the idea that he used the rituals to make himself stronger in various ways makes more sense than the idea that the rituals served some other purpose, because Voldemort never displayed anything special besides overwhelming power and skill. It makes more sense to suppose that he did a Dark Ritual to, for instance, improve his reflexes or give him supernatural physical strength and durability, than it does to say he used a dangerous Dark Ritual for some more esoteric reason that has no readily discernible purpose. We never saw any unusual powers on display from him, besides his displays of main strength and technical skill and the things we already knew he could do, like speaking Parseltongue. What would the rituals even have been about, if not making him stronger or more powerful in some way? It obviously wasn't cosmetic, because again, that could be accomplished with Transfiguration, nor would Voldemort care about much else besides making himself more powerful and more readily able to thwart death.

If you don't think they were, in a crude summary, "Dark Magic Steroids," then what exactly were they? The rituals making him more powerful (in a broad and general sense of the term, since "power levels" don't actually exist in canon) or modifying his body in ways we don't understand that provide benefits to him are the only suppositions that really make any sense, here.

Also, quick question for you, Taure. You said you don't think the serpent-like traits 'count' for that, because those are probably (again, your opinion, not fact) a side effect of the Horcruxes. You also stated that there's a possibility that the Dark Magic Rituals were in fact making the Horcruxes (which is again your opinion, but one that I'll cheerfully admit is a valid interpretation of events that I would probably support if pressed).

Okay, fine.

Since when is making a Horcrux not a dangerous Dark magic ritual that makes you more powerful? Isn't that kind of the entire point? Why are the Horcruxes disqualified when we're talking about whether or not Voldemort did any rituals to make himself stronger?

Maybe in the movies, sure, but you can't hold the movies against Rowling. I've never seen a movie adaption of a book yet where the person who wrote the book has anything more than an advisory role in production.

Voldemort's laugh is canonically "high," "cold," and "cruel," and gives people who hear it experience unpleasant feelings and are generally unnerved by it. That doesn't sound like anything you'd get from an eight year old girl that wasn't possessed or wearing a Ring of Power.

 

The point is that horcruxes do count nas "dangerous magical transformations", and that thus there's no reason to posit extra "rituals" that aren't mentioned in canon, when horcruxes can account for everything that canon mentions.

 

I'm not taking in account the movies. And I deeply enjoyed Ralph's acting skills, he was a great Voldemort. What I said is common sense. Try to replicate Voldemort's laugh, I ask you to do it. I did, it's not scary at all. It's funny. Perhaps for a kid reading the series for the first time is scary. Reading the books at night, when it's al silent... maybe. But for me, it's not. Sorry.

 

The problem I have with that is that it assumes Dumbledore doesn't know what he's talking about. This is the guy who traveled the world researching magic. He delved deep into the Dark Arts trying to find ways to combat Grindelwald. I'd argue that he's probably attained as much of a mastery of Dark Magic as it's possible to without actually resorting to using it actively or practicing every day.

Dumbledore has essentially made two statements regarding Voldemort. The first is that he (Riddle) underwent "dangerous magic rituals steeped in the Dark Arts" to become Lord Voldemort. The second is that he has "no idea" about precisely what Voldemort has done to make himself quasi-immortal; he only has educated guesses, "each more unlikely than the last," and a firm belief that whatever it is that Voldemort did exactly (which we eventually found out about, obviously, re: Horcruxes), Voldemort has definitely "traveled further along the path to immortality than any other man who has come before."

So we have, in essence, an assumption to make here.

Assumption 1: The Dangerous Dark Magic Rituals that Dumbledore mentions are things he is aware of, possibly intimately, that can be used at great risk to make someone stronger or more powerful (in general terms, because again, power levels don't exist in canon), and he chooses not to elaborate on them because of their loathsome and despicable nature and because such information does not need to be shared at all, while the manner in which Voldemort has attained his seeming immortality is a completely different matter that Dumbledore can only guess at.

Assumption 2: The Dangerous Dark Magic Rituals and The Whatever Thing For Immortality are, in fact, the same thing.

You have to make an assumption here. Either Dumbledore is referring to two different things, or he's referring to the same thing twice. Canon doesn't clarify. You have no choice but to guess. You cannot argue "from canon" that they're the same, any more than I can argue from canon that they are.

I choose Assumption 1, because while Dumbledore does not elaborate upon the rituals himself, he does claim that they are both extremely dark and incredibly risky. This implies to me that Dumbledore is aware of what these rituals are, how they work, or what they entail, at least in general terms. If you go with Assumption 2, then Dumbledore was, to some degree, talking out of his ass when he explained this the first time, and that seems out of character to me, because while Dumbledore does occasionally wax poetic and/or nonsensical, he very rarely beats around the bush when it comes to facts. If Dumbledore did not know what rituals Voldemort used, he would, in my mind, have admitted as much when he brought it up, or at least formed his statement in a way that did not imply that he did know what they were.

Assumption 1 does not adhere to the concept of Occam's Razor, where the simplest explanation is most often the correct one. But then, Occam's Razor is a guideline, not a rule, and Assumption 1 is the assumption that produces the least contradictions it what has been said.

I always prefer to follow the path of least contradictions, when given the choice to do so.

 

How is that not pure fanon? Dumbledore hid at home, teaching at Hogwarts IIRC, until the situation got bad enough that he had to step out and stomp Grindelwald. If he did any research into Dark Magic, it was with Grindelwald, so it would have been useless.

EDIT: He actually didn't get to travel the world researching magic after Hogwarts, that was one of the major reasons he resented his duty to his siblings.

 

Because McGonagall said it wasn't in CoS.

We did, a few pages back. You provided it again yourself.

This would be what everyone is talking about. "Ritual" is just a term of convenience.

 

So "ritual" was originated in fanon, go figure. Nice find, Sesc.

Taure hits the nail with how "underwent so many dangerous, magical transformations" equals "horcruxes". Because if not, it would reduce Voldemort's greatness to some pagan form of power. And that goes against how Rowling/Dumbledore described him in HBP:

All his personality is based on a pathologic narcissism. Narcissists don't need anyone, Lord Voldemort less so, because nature gave him everything he would need: genius intellect, deep control over magic, power and skill to spade, charisma, etc. The only extern factor he needed was the horcruxes, and he obtained them when he was young.



EDIT/

If you're talking about the hole:

It doesn't mean anything. It's just an assumption made by McGonagall about Dumbledore's power because he's "the only one Voldemort ever feared". Don't know how you deduced from there that Dumbledore travelled the world to study the Dark Arts.

 

Canon doesn't specifically say one way or the other, but I think it's highly likely that he did use various rituals. He was wandering around for at least a decade and he was probably researching something more than standard magic.

In canon he knows the Horcrux ritual thing, the resurrection ritual thing, and whatever he did to somehow curse a teaching position. Even if theres only hints and no real evidence, I like to believe he did. Especially because that would explain the magical populations feeling of him being so dark and invulnerable.

 

lol, Sauce? Because it's rather easy to find the part about Dumbledore teaching at Hogwarts, refusing to face his old friend until the situation had gotten dire enough for people to start questioning the reason he hadn't gone out to challenge him yet in DH. In addition to the part about being denied an education abroad after Hogwarts due to the death of his mother, which Elphias Doge got to experience without him. I recall no such devastating revelations of Dumbledore's dalliances with Dark magic occurring in CoS.

 

I mean that and the part where Hermione said something to the tune of "but what if you can only find the Chamber with powerful Dark magic," at which point Binns, I believe, said that just because Dumbledore does not practice Dark Magic, does not mean he does not know how to use it.

Binns clearly stated that Headmasters have searched for the Chamber before, and implied that not only had Dumbledore also done so, but that he had used some Dark magic in his search.

Combined with what McGonagall said, there is a very clear implication that Dumbledore has a significant degree of understanding and mastery of the Dark Arts. He simply chooses not to make use of it.

And you're stretching very hard by trying to discard what McGonagall said as being nothing more than Dumbledore patting her on the head for being so starstruck and ignorant. Dumbledore was fully prepared to try and take over the world and enslave most of humanity using Dark magic, once upon a time. We might quibble over the precise level of his mastery of it, should we choose to do so, but trying to claim that his grasp is minimal-to-nonexistent not only ignores what was clearly stated to be true, but requires us to make vast and undefensible assumptions in order to navigate around the facts of the timeline of the past.

There is a reason Dumbledore is the only one Voldemort ever feared. I suspect it has very little to do with twinkling eyes and lemon drops.

 

In a situation where canon is inconclusive, you should always adopt the minimal position: the one that needs to posit the fewest non-canon entities.

The choice is between:

1. Voldemort with horcruxes (definitely canon).

2. Voldemort with horcruxes (definitely canon) and something else (canon ambiguous).

Both of them account equally well for what we see in canon (i.e. various things the characters have said) but one of them involves a greater degree of speculation than the other. Number one is the minimal proposition: it explains the most in the simplest, most canon-friendly way.

... except Binns said right there that Dumbledore doesn't use Dark magic. Dumbledore using Dark magic to find the Chamber would directly contradict that.

The point is that Dumbledore understands Dark magic and can recognise it, thus meaning he could identify the chamber without actually having to use Dark magic.

That Dumbledore is well-versed in Dark magic is canon: we know he was friends with Grindelwald for a time, we know he knew about horcruxes at the time of Riddle's schooling. The thing that never occurred to Dumbledore until CoS was multiple horcruxes.

 

Yes. But the minimal position you are adopting creates further contradictions. Mine is slightly more complex but doesn't cause any such problems. Thus, I would posit that my solution is more elegant and realistic, if not necessarily superior.

This is a recurring problem with Occam's Razor. There comes a point where the simplest answer is itself a fallacy, because it causes just as many problems as it tries to solve.

A bandage put on a bleeding wound that covers the first but opens up a second is hardly a bandage at all.

A better policy in my mind is to find the explanation that requires the fewest possible assumptions while making no further contradictions of it's own. I believe my choice on the "are they the same thing or not" split fulfills that criteria as best as anything can.

 

What contradictions?

Your rambling, half-fanon speculation about how Dumbledore should and shouldn't behave given certain knowledge?

Dumbledore knew about the existence of horcruxes as a magical process. He knew that Voldemort had done something to himself when he saw Voldemort for the job interview - he was visibly inhuman. Perhaps at that point he suspected a horcrux, we don't know. In CoS, he realised that this was creation of multiple horcruxes.

Where's the contradiction?

 

The contradiction is where Dumbledore claimed through his wording some knowledge of how the stated transformations work. He did not know for certain that Riddle had made even one Horcrux, though thanks to the Diary, he heavily suspected, but he stated with no uncertainty that the transformations Riddle underwent to become Voldemort were extremely risky.

In short, in one hand he displays knowledge of what Riddle did to become Voldemort and how it happened, and in another he makes it clear that he is not certain exactly how Voldemort attained seeming immortality.

That is a contradiction, Taure. Saying that the dangerous magical transformations and the Horcruxes are, in fact, the same thing seems like an elegant solution to the problem, but it just makes another contradiction, this time with Dumbledore. If you assume that they're the same thing, then that means Dumbledore was talking out of his ass the first time when he was going on about dangerous magical transformations, because he had no idea for sure what the hell Riddle did, but he's still assured that it was risky and dangerous, whatever it was, which are details he couldn't have known at the time.

If you assume Dumbledore is talking about two different things, though, then there is no contradiction with Dumbledore or Voldemort, and the only assumption you have to make is that dangerous magical transformations that are not Horcrux creation exist at all, and that's not really much of an assumption. Most people seem perfectly fine with the idea. It's usually a thing with evil magic anyway.

 

... there's a couple of dodgy leaps there.

1. There's no reason to think that Dumbledore doesn't know with a reasonable degree of certainty, at this point, that Voldemort made a horcrux (or more), which certainly count as dangerous, magical, and transformations. The Diary was a massive clue, as he himself points out. I think it's reasonable to say that Dumbledore knew that Voldemort made multiple horcruxes after CoS: he knew that the Diary was a horcrux, and he suspected that there must be more, given how flippant he was with the use of the Diary.

2. Even if he doesn't know 100%, it's a long way from there to saying he's talking out his ass. Dumbledore knows a fuck ton about magic. And in particular, he knows that Voldemort was able to stay alive when he should have died. Perhaps there's no way to do that without it being a dangerous magical transformation.

 

This.

By Halloween night where Voldemort's body was destroyed, Dumbledore knew he used the Horcrux process to cheat death. It's the only way (without acquiring a Philosopher Stone) to do it ergo that's why he said "underwent so many dangerous, magical transformations" in CoS.