Why Dumbledore Told People to Say Voldemort's Name - Harry Potter Explained

Описание: Hey everyone,

Welcome to another installment of Harry Potter Theory. In today’s video- we’re going to be discussing two of the most important characters in the entire Harry Potter series- Dumbledore and Voldemort. By the time the books begin- Dumbledore and Voldemort already have quite an established relationship- both acting as the magical powerhouse for their respective side in the the wizarding power struggle.

However, Voldemort and Dumbledore go WAY back- as it was Dumbledore himself that first visited Voldemort in Wool’s Orphanage- revealing to him the magical world and helping to ‘normalize’ his magical abilities so that he could feel that he was a part of something. In the Half-Blood Prince, we see Dumbledore visiting Voldemort through the pensieve- and it is in this moment that we first get a glimpse at the troubled young boy that was destined to wreak havoc in the magical world. When Dumbledore shows him magic for the first time, he’s in awe, and it’s not long after that Dumbledore formally invites him to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry. However, at this point in time Voldemort went by another name- Tom Marvolo Riddle- with ‘Tom’ coming from his father Tom Riddle Sr, and ‘Marvolo’ coming from his maternal grandfather Marvolo Gaunt.

The truth is that before even beginning at Hogwarts Tom knew that he was different. He caused massive amounts of trouble at the orphanage where he lived- and he could do things that other children couldn’t- triggering an identity crisis of sorts.

Because Tom was conceived via a love potion, he was incapable of feeling certain emotions-like love- and this was ultimately one of the main reasons that he went down the path that he did. As he grew older, Riddle-in a cloud of darkness- began to obsess over his identity and where he had come from. He started researching his family history, and eventually came to understand his relationship to Hogwarts founder, Salazar Slytherin. He also connected the dots and was able to figure out who his blood family members were. This eventually brought him back to Little Hangleton, the same town that his father, Tom Riddle Sr, as well as the Gaunts lived. Riddle, angered by the way that he and his mother had been treated, ended up murdering his, in his own words, ‘filthy muggle father’, and this truly cemented the dark path that he was to follow. After returning to Hogwarts, Riddle ended up setting the Basilisk loose on the students of the school, and it was at this point that he had fully adopted his new name: Lord Voldemort. Intent on putting that part of his existence behind him entirely- he created his new ‘persona’ in order to escape his past and start anew. Tom hated his name and loathed when it was used- however one man, the same man that found him as a troubled young boy in a quiet orphanage- never stopped using it.

The very name ‘Voldemort’ incited fear in the hearts of wizardkind- a well earned reputation on Voldemort’s part through incessant acts of tyranny and murderous tendencies. However, his name also seemingly had power beyond that- power that no other dark wizard had held over the general population. Wizardkind feared uttering the dark lords name entirely which resulted in workarounds like ‘you-know-who’ and ‘he-who-shall-not-be-named’- but- WHY was it so powerful?

Many have speculated that the practice of saying ‘You-know-who’ and other workarounds in place of Voldemort began during the First Wizarding War-and it’s all because of something called the ‘taboo’ curse. The taboo curse is a particularly powerful bit of magic as it is able to designate a word as a key that reveals the speaker’s location. This meant that whenever Voldemort’s name was uttered - it would alert Death eaters and snatchers to the location of the speaker. A good example of this taboo curse in action is in the last book when the trio are camping and Harry says Voldemort’s name out loud. This ultimately causes them to get caught by the snatchers-shortly thereafter being taken to Malfoy Manor. So, unsurprisingly, most witches and wizards did not want that happening- they didn’t want to deal with Voldemort, Snatchers or Death Eaters. Makes sense- HOWEVER- my issue with this is that Dumbledore was always such a strong advocate of using his name.

Why?

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