You mentioned in a post that you don’t believe it was Tom’s intention to run his torture-factory/dystopian academy. Why do you think it ended up that way? Did he simply lose the capacity to care about the children at that point?
Why do you people ask me things that require Tolstoy novel length explanations about Tom Riddle that will still make me sound crazy by the end of it?
Let’s get to it, I suppose.
My usual Tom Riddle analysis disclaimers: we have a lot of ground to cover and little time cover it in so I’m not going to expand on every single line I drop, I will undoubtedly offend somebody if I haven’t already and if you think that might be you then you should probably move along, we’re going to have to make a lot of assumptions.
Required reading material (yes, you have asked an ask that has goddamn required reading material):
Tom Riddle’s Goal Was to Destroy the Wizarding World
Tom Riddle is Depressed and Suicidal
Voldemort is an Idea, Not a Man
You read it? For realz? For really realz? Okay, then let’s move forward.
I think it’s a bit of both.
I think by the time we get to Tom Riddle in canon, let alone Deathly Hallows, he is buried in rage, depression, and nihilism. He cares about very little anymore, is probably in constant physical pain, life is a black pit of despair, and it’s only fitting that somewhere out there the children are suffering too.
Now that said, I do think he never intended for Hogwarts to become the way it did and did put in fairly reasonable efforts so that it would not. It did anyway. Why do I think that?
He left most of the staff, key staff members at that and known resistance members, untouched and in their posts
He put Severus Snape, of all Death Eaters, in charge of the school
He turned a blind eye to the active student rebellion of nearly half the school’s population
He did not remove the children of known resistance members from the castle and make them hostages
It’s very telling to me that there is little to no turnover of the staff. Yes, we get the Carrows for Defense Against the Dark Arts and Malfoy gets to be a hall monitor on steroids, but all the original faculty remains and most retain their full original positions.
Minerva McGonagall, who is a known Order member, is allowed to retain her position as Transfiguration professor even when she actively aids and engages in the student led rebellion at the school. Hell, she actively spies on Hogwarts’ inner workings and reports back to the Order, and Tom lets her get away with this.
Despite Tom’s destroying the sorting hat, which I actually fully agree with as I think that thing actively causes major rifts in wizarding society, he actually doesn’t want to rock the boat and in this wants education to continue in much the same manner as before he took power.
He Leaves Snape in Charge
Snape is by far the most level headed Death Eater and actually has experience as a professor, seems to handle children well enough, and has existing relationships with the Hogwarts faculty. If anyone was supposed to get Hogwarts working under the new regime and keep everything in check, then it’s this guy.
I imagine Tom thought Snape could easily handle this. Snape can’t handle this.
Unfortunately, Tom trusted Snape to be competent. Snape chose not to be competent, or rather, I’m sure he had no idea what the fuck Tom wanted from him. I think, for all Snape managed to evade detection, he really has no idea how Tom Riddle works, mostly because all he sees of the man is the ridiculous show that is Voldemort. Based on that, Tom Riddle expects the castle to be in ruins by the year’s end, and Snape delivers the best appearance of this he can while actively turning a blind eye to student rebellion.
In other words, Snape went with his best guess of chaos and despair, which was a good guess.
So Snape sits there as Headmaster, the faculty refuses to interact with him, the hired on Death Eater faculty don’t listen to him and he can’t quite tell them off for torturing the children, because he’s pretty sure that’s what Tom wants and the whole thing spirals out of control until the children are actually arming themselves and Tom Riddle has to actually invade Hogwarts.
He has to invade a school, cutting down children, because Snape could not do his job.
Tom Turned a Blind Eye to Student Rebellion
Remember Dumbledore’s Army and how quickly they were found out? These kids are not being at all secretive. They’re having meetings that both Snape and McGonagall are aware of (both doing their best to hide it), we know that eventually Draco the Hall Monitor finds out about it, and it’s clear that there are key active instigators in Hogwarts.
They then actually barricade themselves in a room and refuse to leave, arming themselves for “the rebellion”.
Oh, sure, the people inside the castle do things but Tom never instructs them to stake out Hogsmeade (where they must be getting supplies), to start pulling out the big guns and threatening their specific families, or anything more.
I think this shows Tom was willing to let a lot go, he just couldn’t let go actual open rebellion or the reemergence of Harry Potter the messiah figure rallying the troops.
Tom Riddle knows the entire Weasley family are very strong members of the Order of the Phoenix. He knows early in that Neville Longbottom is instigating rebellion within Hogwarts.
Ginny is not immediately taken from Hogwarts, she is, in fact, sent on her merry way and seems to do just fine for months even when her brothers are writing “U No Poo” on their store windows (and indeed, Fred and George suffer nothing for that either).
Neville, while he does eventually go into hiding, is able to act on his own for months as a known close friend of Harry Potter’s and is never taken hostage.
To me it seems very clear that Tom Riddle really does want to leave the kids alone and as undisturbed as he reasonably can given the circumstances.
The Battle of Hogwarts: The Timeout
Tom is eventually forced to invade Hogwarts. His enemies are school children and the teachers who think it’s a brilliant idea to send said school children into battle (it’s the Dumbledore way!)
As Harry’s running around like a lunatic he glimpses children being murdered and grievously injured left and right. The Death Eaters are not suffering nealry as collosol damages.
And yet, despite this, Tom calls for a timeout.
He gives a very weird speech, in which he’s giving them an hour reprieve (HINT HINT, WINK WINK) in which they are to deliver him Harry Potter. At which point the battle will be over and they can all go home.
Tom had the advantage, had he cared nothing for the children or actively wanted to put them down, he could have easily done so and captured Harry Potter. Instead, he takes the world’s weirdest timeout, making a very loud announcement about his timeout, likely in the hopes that the children would take the hint and get the hell out of the castle.
Instead, Harry Potter shows up ready to be murdered. Tom will take it, murders Harry, carries his corpse into Hogwarts saying, “YOUR HERO IS DEAD, DESPAIR, NOW PLEASE LEAVE SO I CAN STOP MURDERING ALL OF YOU.”
Harry then springs to life, “GOOD NEWS, EVERYONE! I’M NOT DEAD, YOU CAN CONTINUE MURDERING ALL OF US!”
Tom dies inside, then per my earlier post, runs into an arrow and dies for realz.
TL;DR Tom Riddle’s life is a joke in which he unintentionally ends up murdering the children
