I’m not a big fan of how in many tomarry fics Harry’s character suffers in favour of making Tom Riddle seem cool.
Like y’all. I don’t care how much of an overachieving genius Tom was, that man is canonically a patchwork of the worst character flaws anyone could ever have. I love him because he is a loser. He is beautiful and smart and over-emotional and egotistic and cruel and antisocial and it ruins his life.
Fics tend to write Harry as surly and reacting with anger, but in canon the only time we see him genuinely get angry after all the shit he’s been through is 1) when he has to deal with Umbridge, and 2) after Sirius dies at the Ministry. I’d go so far as to say that he is less emotional than Tom.
Harry’s levels of idgaf are so unapologetically high that he literally sees no point in pandering or lying to anyone about anything. He goes to formal networking events with outcasts, breaks rules on the regular, blows up his aunt because she pissed him off, casually murders his DADA professors on a Tuesday afternoon… he literally asked the Minister for Magic to sign his Hogsmeade permission form and crucio’d a Death Eater for spitting on McGonagall.
There’s no realistic scenario where Harry James Potter would be submissive or overly insecure.
Tom’s too self-conscious about preserving his reputation and people respecting him to actually be himself. His ego is a castle of cards, dependent entirely on his Slytherin heritage, his high grades, and his utter lack of scruples. If any of those are cast into doubt, he loses his temper and becomes completely unhinged.
