Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince By J. K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the novel in which J.K. Rowling truly lays out the depths of her characters. From further understanding the lives and complexities of heroic characters such as Hermione, to schoolboy bullies such as Draco, this trend extends even further to the Dark Lord himself. Rowling offers various flashbacks that allow us, as readers, to see beyond current day Voldemort and know the boy that was Tom Riddle. Such flashbacks into the pensive with Harry and Dumbledore allow readers to finally pull together the reasoning behind Voldemort’s dark demeanor and understand what motivates his horrendous actions.
The story of Tom Riddle first begins through Dumbledore’s first meeting with Tom at age eleven. Tom has, until

Once he knew more of Horcruxes, Tom set out to put such a plan into action. While all of this was occuring, Tom sought to find out more regarding his true family. He was able to find that his mother, Merope Gaunt, was a descendant of Salazar Slytherin, this of course meant that he was the heir to Slytherin. This explains who truly opened the Chamber of Secrets and not Hagrid. Tom’s father was a muggle that his mother was infatuated with and gave a love potion to in order to see such love reciprocated. Merope became pregnant but by the time Tom was born, Tom Riddle Sr, had left her. Merope was injured in childbirth and was so heartbroken that she chose not to use magic to save her life in order to be there and raise her child. Knowing this, Tom must have been angry and heart broken. At least while in the orphanage he could cling to the belief that his mother loved him and died giving him life. After finding out more about her and his family, he knew the truth that to his mother, he was not worth staying alive for. Tom channels this anger and his first murders are that of his father and other paternal family. He pins the murder on his paternal uncle. This first murder marks the point of no return for as he now chooses to be known as, Voldemort. With his innocence, he also shed his father’s name. The one trait that Voldemort keeps of his

Harry even feels pity for Voldemort when hearing that Tom’s life was not enough for Merope to choose to save her own for. Harry may have grown up without parents to, but when he was sent off to Hogwarts, he was told stories of how much his parents loved him and how their love for him was the reason for him still being alive. This so often gets Harry through dark times. Tom could not even cling to his mother’s love for comfort. It is now not so hard to understand how Tom evolved into such a dark and twisted individual. Even Rowling’s villains have complexities that allow us to pity them. In the end of the series however, when Harry offers Voldemort one last opportunity for remorse, Voldemort does not take it. The truth is he has never had anything to lose but himself and through his story we are able to understand why Voldemort tried so hard to protect his own life. It was all he had and no one else was ever going to in his eyes. Tom like his mother, never knew true