We don't know all that much in canon about Tom Riddle's life in the orphanage. The only thing we know for certain are from Dumbledore's memories in HBP. In those memories Tom is alleged to have (1) argued with a boy and then hung the boy's pet rabbit from the rafters, (2) that he took two children to a cave — later used to hide his Horcrux — and done something that permanently traumatizes them, and (3) that he is a thief. Orphanages in the UK in the '40s may have been terrible places, but I don't have any data on that and frankly don't want to look into it. Based on the facts from the books and reasonable inferences made from them, I would think it supports the idea that Riddle may have been in fights, was probably the aggressor, and was certainly dangerous.

As to whether his non-magical upbringing made him more competent in a duel than Harry at the age of 17 I couldn't guess. Given his academic excellence it suggests that he would at least be able to hold his own. He may not have had the hands-on experience yet (those murders he had committed by the time he left Hogwarts were against defenseless muggles and by using a basilisk's stare) but he was certainly dangerous at a young age.

 

Just wanted to congratulate you on a worthy first post.

 

Thank you. I've been lurking for a couple of years now and I just wanted to finally put my two cents in. And hey at least the six figure debt I have coming out of law school was worth something!

 

The motion is seconded.

 

Harry hasn't even got it in him to kill death eaters in a life or death fight. Whereas Voldemort is a psychopath with no concern for anyone but himself. He's also smarter than Harry. The fact that Harry's fought his way out of a few situation does not mean he wouldn't get his teeth kicked in.

 

Well he did kill DEs, Remus just got butthurt because he tried to disarm Stan Shunpike. Before that, Harry drops one right out of midair with a Stunner as he escapes Privet Drive.

 

I think quite a lot of people underestimate Harry in quite a few ways — magical ability relative to his peers being the most notable — and this is another area in particular that gets exaggerated from canon. Yes, it's true that Harry has very specific criteria about who can be killed, but unwilling to kill period? I think not.

Even at the age of eleven, Harry shows some killing instinct. When Harry realizes that Quirrell is burned by Harry's touch, Harry uses this advantage to defeat him. And certainly Harry knew that this had the potential to be deadly. Quirrell's burns are not described as small things; I believe they are described as either large boils or blisters forming on his face. Harry holds on until he is physically unable to do so.

I think that quite a few people have overemphasized Harry's use of the disarming charm. It is true that in the flight from Privet Drive Harry uses the disarming charm against one of his foes. What is largely lost on people, and even lost on Lupin who argues with Harry about it in the next chapter, is that Harry used a few other curses at the start of the battle including a stunning spell and Confringo. The last spell blasts a Death Eater off his broom. Given the altitude and velocity of the battle in the air, both spells show Harry's willingness to use deadly force as anyone hit with either would be killed on impact with the ground. Harry only uses the disarming charm in the battle because he believes that Stan Shunpike is under the imperius curse and should not be killed when he has no control over his body.

There are other examples (Harry attacking Snape at the end of HBP and a couple instances with Umbridge immediately come to mind) that suggest that Harry is certainly willing to use deadly force, though he appears to have very strict criteria at what point he is willing to use it.

However, I think the more important question is whether the use of deadly force makes logical sense in an environment where nonlethal alternatives exist that are extremely effective at preventing an opponent from attacking back.

 

IMHO you should always try to kill someone who is legitimately trying to murder you. Leave them alive, and they could come back for another try later. However unlikely that eventuality is, I'd rather just kill them in the heat of the moment than spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder because I was merciful once.

In real life, this is certainly more arguable, but in HP, with things like Polyjuice, the Imperius, and a completely ineffectual law enforcement system, I'd think you'd have to be a fool to leave even a moderately intelligent foe alive past their first attempt to get you.

 

I think the line Harry walks is this:

It's okay to kill people who are trying to kill you, but it's not okay to try to kill them. That is, if they die as an incidental side effect of you defending yourself, fine, but it's not okay to be seeking their death in particular. It's your defence that you have to be seeking.

 

Well, his attitude towards killing might have been due to learning about Horcruxes. Harry might have thought that trying intentionally to kill Death Eaters might screw with his soul although I could just be overanalyzing an idiot's psyche.

 

I don't think Harry would have been concerned with that. He's never going to be in a situation where killing isn't self-defense, and both Slughorn and Dumbledore(?) emphasized, IIRC, that to split the soul requires cold-blooded, (probably) premeditated murder. Not manslaughter, but murder in the first degree. Not sure if second degree murder (crime of passion) would count.

 

It's difficult to decide where Harry should be placed in the totem pole of ability. In the books themselves he seems above average but not the kind of hero I expected. It's not to say that I still don't think Harry is the best, he remains to me a very important character even if part of my ideas of him are shaped by fanon. Last book especially is one that I hate for how much it sucked.

I forgot the Mr. Potato fan fiction that shows how if you replace Harry with potato for the first two books plots, it still makes sense. Harry is a vehicle for the author to give a message about self-sacrifice and the obvious Biblical parallels.

In terms of ability the books aren't quite consistent except that most Purebloods other than Albus, Bellatrix and Sirius and perhaps one or two others seemed to be shittier at magic than everyone else.

Six teenagers are able to fend off a group of Death Eaters. And then a smaller number of them do it again.

Then there are the Marauders. Is Pettigrew a better wizard than Harry simply because he can do the animagus transformation? No, would say but then what does it take to maintain an animagus transformation for over a decade? Especially since he doesn't trip the wards at the Burrow or at Hogwarts or anywhere else and only the Marauders map shows who he really is. Would wizards have some sort of defense against transformations? Would Hogwarts, the most heavily warded institution in magical England?

What is disappointing about canon Harry is that both his parents are pointed out as prodigies. James in Transfiguration and Lily for Charms (with Potions a close second). We are given the Dursleys to explain why Harry is not as powerful as either of his parents or at least seen as such by staff and students. They work to the effect of making us sympathetic to Harry and so we hope that one day he will transfigure them into pigs and sell them to a butcher.

Personally, I blame Harry's friendship with Ron as a factor in his lack of ambition. His first "friend" was a person with an inferiority complex who felt like he was in the shadow of his siblings but never did anything to stand out and just wanted everything to be handed to him on a plate. Ron makes Harry seem like a damn genius.

There was a short time where I thought Hermione was a bit annoying but I got over it quickly. She's book smart which means she's above average intelligence at the least with the discipline to actually get all As. That and as a plot device she comes in handy with her knowledge. I believe she discovered the info behind Flamel, figured out it was a Basilisk, and did some other "scholarly" stuff. She's smart enough to read books on theory without dying of jargon and bs language. She's not a genius in any sense of the word though but she's a smart girl with a good work ethic and a passion for knowledge.

A genius, like Dumbledore or Tom Riddle, are those who go beyond the books and are also disciplined. No one can become a prodigy and maintain that label without hard work\discipline and actual effort. Tom had to do quite a lot, research wise and socially, to find out about horcruxes and then he went beyond the standard "one" for dark lords to make seven of the damn things. I think the fanon theory that they somehow diminished him, the seven way splitting of the soul, is why he is like a broken record in the series: "I must kill a boy because prophecy and that's all that matters."

Sadly none of the Muggle born witches or wizards think of incorporating elements from their world. Growing up in the 1940s, Tom must have heard of the Atomic bomb.

Going back to Harry's parents, while Lily was more book smart, James actually invented ( with his friends) an extremely advanced piece of magic (the map) and also learned the Animagus transformation via self study. A genius can be an autodidact, that is they learn without direct guidance or example but extensive study.

From our encounters with Remus and Sirius, Remus seemed to be good at DA and average and particularly resistant to trying new things. Sirius, of course damaged by a decade in Azkaban, was good at dueling but kind of off his rocker. I'm assuming that James and perhaps Sirius were the innovators of the group with Remus doing book research and Pettigrew being test subject\sycophant.

Hermione was not really an autodidact or experimenter to the level of the Marauders or Snape. She is smart but nothing extraordinary and being the smartest witch of her age in an era where there are no Dumbledores or Riddles is not the greatest accomplishment.

She is however a great character who matures and never turns her back on Harry, even when he's going through the worst she believes him and supports him. So I like her because that kind of girl is worth keeping and probably why there are so many HHr shippers.

 

*cough* Sixth year.

I've got to say, if anything was truly rough on H/Hr shippers, it wasn't the "delusional" incident, it was book six.

Not because canon made it clear she liked Ron, but because it contained such a loathsome representation of Hermione. I'm sure a lot of H/Hr shippers looked at that and said, "Shit... Ron can have her; who's next?"

 

Was it ever referenced that James and Lily were transfiguration and Charms prodigies except by Ollivander? We know nothing about them except James could cast silently in his fifth year and Lily was good at potions. Anyway, I highly doubt the Burrow had 'wards'. Even Hogwarts didn't have protections to prevent people from sneaking in before HBP.

 

Man, wards are nonexistent in canon. Erase that word from your mind.

Hogwarts couldn't be prepared for a security breach from the inside; much like Troy couldn’t be prepared against the Greeks. It's impossible to prevent it. At the time security was high priority, the "horse" was already in.

 

I haven't re-read the last couple of books in a few years so perhaps my memory is a bit hazy and I'm thinking of fanon. However, I do remember that the main conflict was that she didn't want him to use Snape's old text book.

Again, this reminded me of the incident with the Firebolt where she had McGonagall take it away and strip searched. Harry was pissed at her and it could have been the end of their friendship if Hagrid (?) hadn't interfered.

Considering that a diary possessed Ginny in book two and that the old textbook had a spell like Sectumsempra her caution, while annoying, was not out of spite or entirely crazy.

I don't ship HHr for many reasons but that incident is not one of them. Mostly its because they don't have as much in common as many think they do (even their Muggle upbringing is quite different) and Harry would quickly bore of all the sexy bedtime book reading. He needed a girl who was more active, obviously.

Hermione, however, didn't deserve to be saddled with Ron either but J.K. seemed to have a love\hate relationship with some of her characters. And many of her relationships seemed to be plot contrivances anyway.


EDIT: Horace Slughorn is the source of information for Lily's excellence in potions and the flower charm and the fact that he wouldn't "collect" a Muggle born witch if she wasn't excellent at something. James, I'm assuming by the Animagus transformations and the map.

 

Some thoughts:

1. The "flower charm" (I assume that means the fish Francis) is only canonical in the movies and has no analog in the books. As far as I know the only thing that we know for certain Lily was excellent at is potions — or at least excellent enough to be in Slughorn's NEWT classes.

2. Hermione's primary problem with Snape's potions book was not about Sectumsempra but about academic honesty — she wouldn't know about the spell until Harry used it on Malfoy fairly late in the year. She felt Harry had an unfair advantage by using the notes in the book. It had very little if anything to do with the Diary (only Ginny brings it up and once Harry explains that it doesn't write back Ginny doesn't care much and actually approves of Harry using the book).

I'm not going to wade through whether or not Ron is a good character (though I'd make the argument that the fandom's Ron bashing has certainly gone too far in the past) or if Hermione and Ron are a good match. I will say that compared to Harry's and Ginny's relationship, Hermione's and Ron's romance is far more developed in the books.

 

Ollivander summons flowers during the weighing of the wands ceremony in Book 4.

 

While yes a flower charm exists, one that relates to Lily's alleged charms prowess is not canonical.

 

Well, the Animagus transformation is a supposedly dangerous piece of magic to perform, and so by extension I think we can conclude it is difficult. The Marauders also managed to figure out the spell trough self-study, since they had nobody coaching them through through the procedure, which to me does indicate that at least one of them was exceptionally skilled at Transfiguration. Combined with the fact that his wand was quite well suited for it, everything points to James having a considerable talent for Transfiguration from a fairly young age.

As for Lily and charms, Flitwick calls the Fidelius Charm an "incredibly complex spell". Since the only people that initially knew about Peter being the Secret Keeper were the Potters, Sirius and Peter himself, it isn't unreasonable to conclude that one of the four had to cast the charm. Peter apparently wasn't worth much with a wand, and neither James nor Sirius have been implied to have any noteworthy skills with charms, which leaves us with Lily.

So, there's evidence to suggest that they were both talented with the fields that they're wands are supposed to be talented.