#riddle me this: why are children born into war zones? why are people born with physical deformities that affect their quality of life?

[ace-no-isha]

i use the word god very often for someone who doesn’t believe in a merciful god lmao

[phereinnike]

I feel like in general the ‘Why did Tom Riddle go so bad’ discourse is way too simplistic when it’s reduced to “born under a love potion so he can’t feel love :(” (which was confirmed purely fandom theory and not canon, or “his mom was a mad rapist that “””abandoned him””” so he couldn’t love” (which is a plain lie and a very ugly thing to say to all people who weren’t loved by their mother).

It dismisses the fact that he is very much an understandable product of his enviroment -on top of like everything else-: 1) grew up in an awful enviroment (London orphanages during the 1920′s-30′s were very bad), 2) probably weirding out both caretakers and other childrens with his early shows of magic thereof both ostrasizing himself accidentally & taking comfort in the fact that he wasn’t like them (he could do things they couldn’t, he wasn’t a freak he was special, he wouldn’t live and die in that hell-hole like they would). 3) Then he went to school and was judged from day one by an obviously rich man who had never been in a situation like his for stealing from other children when he was 10?, and 4) then he was made to return to said very bad (in the flashbacks we’re shown it isn’t just an orphanage in the 30′s, it’s poor, dilapidated, gloomy, dirty) muggle orphanage during the fucking LONDON BLITZ (when he was 14) and WW2 every summer.

Most fandom accounts exploring his time in the orphanage either reduce him to a budding sociopath that tortured other children for fun (wattpad mafia badboy syndrome) or a punny victim treated like garbage for his shows of magic and abused by everyone (poor whump baby :( if only someone had loved him) 

5) This discounts the considerable notes of madness in her mother’s bloodline, which we’re shown and pointed towards clearly on her brother and father and less clearly on her the rapist; and which could very reasonably affect him as well because people stopped imbreeding for a reason, it fucks genetics up. (3)The role Dumbledore and his prejudice (understandable as well in some measure because he did date magical Hitler, & accidentally kill his sister in the process pretty recently and was during ww2 actively fighting said guy -defeated in 1945-) played on shaping his personality (this is an Albus Dumbledore hate account don’t @ me). (1) (4)And the way the socio-historical reality he lived in the muggle world affected him because this is a child/teen that spent his summers in London city in the middle of WW2 (started when he was 13, carried on until he was 19) without being able to use magic for help until he was 17. 

People that live in war-zones are affected for their entire lives under normal circumstances. An incredibly powerful boy that is completely alone in the world, has a strong history of family madness, has had i thammered on all his life that he’s different (meant as a bad thing but most certainly interpreted as i’m better than them, because without going into ego issues that’s the way to rationalize things that hurt us, “they don’t want me? i don’t want them anyway! i don’t need  them!” and that suffered greatly because of muggles (both his living situation in the orphanage and the entire WW2.... finding a way to be protected forever? to have a guarantee to escape death? at the cost of killing the muggle that you think abandoned you to that horrid orphanage & war? (+ the fact that he was convinced when he arrived at hogwarts that his father had to be magical because his mother just up and died on him, and he -without any magical background or studies- thought that was something magic would be able to avoid??) Tom Riddle creating the first Horcrux makes so much sense in context.

And then if you go with the love potion/family trauma route you also disscount that 5) a Horcrux splits your damn soul in two, which should in some measure fuck you up as well and definitely shaped how he acted from there onwards. 

And that during his formative education in Hogwarts he spent every summer in a warzone and every school-year hearing about 6) Grindewald -the effective equivalent of magical Hitler- and his war, the Global Wizarding War (according to wiki) attacking both muggles and wizards, with people throwing themselves asking Dumbledore for help while he delays it (again, understandable in some meassure).

7) We should also account in some meassure that the HP books go from Harry age 11 (when we’re first introduced to Voldemort) to 17. So we were first introduced to a cartoony version of Voldemort and only got to see him fleshed out as Harry grew and his understanding of the world increased and changed and became more nuanced. Philosopher’s Stone is pretty much a children book and has the appropiate simplistic morals, Deathly Hallows is much more grown-up and nuanced. 

So yeah, here’s 4k+ words on why the situation is always more nuanced than that and reducing his rise & downfall to love potion/mommy issues is a disservice to the character and the story itself -as it’s main villain- because for all we joke that he lost his nose and went mad, Lord Voldemort is a villain for his story (on purpose or not) makes a lot of sense. 

[edenfalling]

[Fic] Random fragments that I will never finish