Tom has the mindset of a Muggle dictator... Tom Riddle was shaped by the poverty and hunger of Muggle life... In book 7, he uses Muggle methods to destroy Muggles.Dumbledore couldn't figure out Riddle for so long because Riddle was shaped by the trauma of rejection.
i had written out a lot and then tumblr mobile ate my draft so i'm a bit peeved. i also i spent so long on this one i had so many tangents... i cut down my response a little, and will save some for another post on another day.
first of all, i'm not sure what you're referring to with "Muggle methods to destroy Muggles". you'd have to cite some examples for me to understand your meaning better.
now it's important to point out that the books never deeply explore the impact of 1920s-1940s muggle or magical history on present day canon. we don't have canon content or context to comment on much.
sometimes fanon likes to portray young tom as a frightened boy hiding in a bomb shelter, plotting to murder his way into never dying because war is terrifying... here i will note that gellert grindelwald isn't even given any narrative importance until book 7 despite being initially mentioned in book 1. even canon history doesn't mean much in canon.
but we can decide to explore the possibility of it...
most of tom's childhood experience is heavily connected to his relationship with dumbledore, both through dumbledore's direct influence, and the fact that his story is told exclusively by dumbledore to harry.
in book 6's recounting of tom's past, one could argue that dumbledore is either deliberately omitting or subconsciously dismissing the influence of major historical events due to his complicated personal connection to that period of time. regardless, it's biased.
dumbledore regrets his past, and so his view of tom is partially shaped by his own trauma. his life post-grindelwald has been spent desperately avoiding power, mostly as a form of penance for his past transgressions.
for someone who claims love to be the most powerful, enduring force, dumbledore is heavily estranged from it. he spends his childhood trying to distance himself from his father's reputation and the shameful secret of his sister.
"You know how my poor father sought revenge, and paid the price, died in Azkaban. You know how my mother gave up her own life to care for Ariana."
to dumbledore, the threads of duty and sacrifice are entwined with love. he protects harry just his parents protected his sister, often by making decisions on harry's behalf and enduring whatever cost to ensure that harry remains as sheltered as possible.
"Do you see, Harry? Do you see the flaw in my brilliant plan now? I had fallen in to the trap I had foreseen, that I had told myself I could avoid, that I must avoid. [...] I cared about you too much," said Dumbledore simply. "I cared more for your happiness than your knowing the truth, more for your peace of mind than my plan, more for your life than the lives that might be lost if the plan failed. In other words, I acted exactly as Voldemort expects we fools who love to act."
dumbledore holds harry at arm's length while simultaneously claiming to care deeply for him. he believes that this is in harry's best interests, just as he believed in leaving harry with the dursleys. harry nearly dies as a result of dumbledore's decision, but that is not the only consequence of the battle at the ministry.
sirius' death is an interesting parallel to what happened to ariana. they were both trapped, they both died after trying to intervene in a dangerous situation. like aberforth, harry is left to mourn and move on, but unlike aberforth, harry receives an apology -- dumbledore admits culpability in the tragedy.
it is implied that aberforth never knew the painful depth of his brother's guilt and regret until harry tells him about the events of the horcrux cave. dumbledore chose to let aberforth hate him and blame him rather than reconcile, and this, too, is a misguided form of protection.
now with this context, we fast forward to when dumbledore visits wool's. tom is giving red flags galore, but he is also clearly just... a troubled child.
"I returned to Hogwarts intending to keep an eye upon him, something I should have done in any case, given that he was alone and friendless, but which, already, I felt I ought to do for others' sake as much as his."
dumbledore cites tom's cruelty as a factor in his mistrust, but let us not forget that dumbledore was "alone"*, "friendless"*, and much older than eleven years old when he sided with grindelwald on the subjugation of muggles.
(*true to how dumbledore felt at the time, having been denied his opportunity to travel abroad. much like tom, his talents are being "wasted" post-graduation...)
"I had proven, as a very young man, that power was my weakness and temptation. I was safer at Hogwarts. I think I was a good teacher."
dumbledore thinks highly of his own self-awareness, which makes it all the more interesting when tom returns to britain and requests the DADA position... only to be denied.
it can be assumed that by that time, tom has done far worse things than simply plan to take over the world, but nevertheless, dumbledore's treatment of tom seems rather hypocritical.
"By the end of his first year, [Dumbledore] would never again be known as the son of a Muggle-hater, but as nothing more or less than the most brilliant student ever seen at the school."
sound familiar? i don't believe dumbledore sees grindelwald in tom. that would credit dumbledore with the ability to truly understand those around him.
as we've seen, it isn't only tom that he misunderstands:
there is aberforth. there is sirius. and harry, who was not trusted with the necessity of his own death until the penultimate moment, who in the end extends more empathy to voldemort than dumbledore ever managed.
a great deal of effort is spent on researching voldemort's pursuit of immortality and covering the timeline of his horcrux creation. of course, dumbledore is more than capable of the clever detective work required to piece voldemort's checkered past together.
yet is it not telling that he never expands more on what is arguably the very foundation of tom riddle's character by posing the basic question: why does voldemort fear death so much?
(this is the question that fanon often attempts to answer with the inclusion of world war ii, which sometimes -- sorry! -- feels like a cheap cop out lol. it's not that we aren't allowed to have cheap cop outs in fanfiction, but if we're discussing a true interpretation of his canon character, i would rather explore the depth of that, and not reduce his fears to a product of his environment being "war scary". but my beef with fanon being shallow is another fight for another day...)
much in the way voldemort dismisses love, dumbledore dismisses this fear of death. for dumbledore, i believe death truly was a relief. through self-sacrifice, dumbledore seeks and achieves the absolution he so desperately craves. as his parents gave their lives for his sister, dumbledore gives his life for the greater good.
a common thread between harry and tom is that they are both orphans, but dumbledore is also orphaned after graduation.
"I resented it, Harry. I was gifted, I was brilliant. I wanted to escape. I wanted to shine. I wanted glory. Do not misunderstand me. I loved them... but I was selfish... So that, when my mother died, and I was left the responsibility of a damaged sister and a wayward brother, I returned to my village in anger and bitterness."
all this to say, dumbledore's perspective is heavily filtered through this self-righteous belief system built on sacrifice, through his high regard of his own cleverness, through his conviction of love as the ultimate saviour.
dumbledore loved his family, and that love is what saved him. it is his grief that pulls him away from grindelwald. it is his guilt that pushes him to dedicate his life to education instead of politics. dumbledore punishes himself over and over for his past. he believes this suffering is what proves his remorse, proves his love. we hear this belief echoed whenever james and lily are brought up around harry.
tom has no experience with family or love. he lives in an orphanage. he has no one to care for or protect but himself, and nothing we see in his past suggests that he ever had the cause or opportunity to connect with anyone else in that way -- certainly not when he meets dumbledore for the first time!
no loving family stands in the way of tom riddle becoming voldemort.
this is why dumbledore fails to truly see tom. he sees someone who lacks both care and capacity for meaningful emotion, someone who would enslave muggles and muggleborns without a shred of remorse.
when dumbledore sees tom, he sees that someone as a version of himself. he sees voldemort.
im sosooooo attached to early era cwilbur you dont understand he was so. dumb and clever and arrogant and mischievous and naive and important and if i picked him up and turned him upside down he'd go zoooooop! like a noisemaker tube
How intelligent is Voldemort? do you think he is a genius?
voldemort is smart in the way that hermione is smart. he is great at school, with excellent grades that imply a mastery of magic and a strong ability to retain information.
he is skilled in manipulation, but i attribute this more to his acting ability than his people skills. (he doesn't fully understand how people work. he knows how to act to get the results he wants, which doesn't necessitate understanding.) schoolboy tom riddle is an act. a well-constructed act, but an act nonetheless. while at hogwarts, he's essentially LARPing his way through all seven years.
harry admits to admiring the way tom wheedles information out of slughorn, but it's not altogether that impressive to pull that from a professor who already worships the floor that tom walks on... pretty privilege is real and its name is tom riddle.
in my opinion, voldemort doesn't actually push the boundaries of magic as far as he claims -- at least not in ways that are demonstrated as fact in canon. (sorry, but creating a horcrux is 'been there done that' by the who's who of evil wizards, no matter how many horcruxes voldemort has, it's hardly groundbreaking. he's following wikihow steps on horcrux creation.)
the most innovative bit of magic that we see voldemort use is the taboo. the taboo works on anyone, anywhere, and destroys all surrounding protective spells. this actually kills me because in the context of canon it's extremely impressive, but we don't even get confirmation that it was voldemort's brainchild!
two other inventions of his, or at the least, inventions that are attributed to him, are the dark mark (magic tattoo) and morsmorde (magic sky graffiti). the latter isn't super impressive because it's just a fancy light show, but it adds to his general aesthetic, so i will give him points for that. the tattoo is an interesting piece of work that i feel wasn't done justice in the films, design wise. but it's worth noting as a clever enough idea that hermione copies it later.
all this to say i think voldemort is very clever, but he squanders his talents on pointless things like antique treasure hunts and soul self-destruction. he also self-aggrandizes a lot which doesn't convince me he's actually as superior as he claims to be. if anything, he suffers from gifted kid burnout... he has this peaked in high-school vibe going for him even though he makes a comeback later on.
thinking about how cdream took ctommys treasures and friendships and boyhood and warped them all into pawns in his sick obsession with controlling him and how because of that nothing ctommy enjoyed from before can just be fun anymore everything carries this deadly weight of its own value to him and will always be reminders of everything he’s had to do to keep them or get them back. the discs will never just be fun valuable music discs tubbo can never Just be his best friend the hobbit hole will never Just be his home. everything represents something that’s been been twisted by dreams narrative and forced into the constant push and pull between him and tommy. and anything tommy loves will always be dangerous. im climbing into the nearest volcano
i know we made fun of him in the beginning but cwilburs plan w tubbo was actually really thoughtful . at the time it looked like wilbur was trying to do another grand pointless adventure but now its obvious neither of them cared about taking over boomerville. it was just an excuse to do mischief together so wilbur could take tubbo on one last jaunt and apologize and validate his presidency and show tubbo that he still cares. he surprised me tbh i thought he was trying prove himself a Big Man to tubbo via some harebrained scheme. but he deserves a little more credit .proud of him
