Talk:Tom Riddle

Merope Guant bewitching

"[Merope Gaunt] bewitched [Tom Riddle Sr.] into marrying her with a love potion." - I just read this bit a couple of hours ago. This is only conjecture by Dumbledore, on the grounds that she would have thought it romantic to do so. I've edited the pertinent part a bit in the course of doing some general clean-up on the article. User:SimonCrowley

Birthplace and orphanage

"Before Voldemort graduated from Hogwarts, he returned to Little Hangleton, the village where he was born..." -- was he born in Little Hangleton? Was the orphanage there? --St. Chris 15:22, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

The orphanage was in London; his mother died after giving birth there.

Links to Tom Riddle

Back when we thought we were just going to have Tom Riddle as a redirect page to Lord Voldemort, I changed a ton of links throughout WP from Tom Riddle to Lord Voldemort to avoid the redirect. Now that it seems clear to have both pages we need to have people change them back. --Lord Voldemort ^{(Dark Mark)} 17:48, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Birthday

• There are two different schools of thought here. The Chamber of secrets was opened fifty years from 1993 at which time Tom Riddle was sixteen so minus 66 years and he was born on New Years Eve 1927. But according to the "official timeline" from some DVD Hagrid was expelled in 1942 so Voldemort being 16 in 1942 would have been born in 1926. I trust the books more so I'm in favor of going with 1927 as the birthdate, which would make both articles' given birthdays wrong. *shrugs*TonyJoe 14:36, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

• I just changed both articles to 1927TonyJoe 14:40, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Merger?

Why does this not just redirect to the Lord Voldemort page? That seems to make the most sense... 69.245.44.22

To avoid spoilers for someone reading CoS. Even with the spoiler warning, it's hard to avoid the next sentence that's something like "TOM RIDDLE IS VOLDEMORT." I edited it back to the way it was awhile back when I looked at it. User:Zakharov

Our job is to provide information, not coodle people who are so silly as to have stories ruined for them just because they know what will happen and those stupid enough to look at articles for something that they don't want spoiled. Apostrophe 00:16, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Since information here is pretty much redundant with Lord Voldemort, we can do like Anakin Skywalker and make a soft redirect. They're the same person, so we really don't need two articles. KramarDanIkabu 03:16, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

It's been suggested on the Tom Riddle, Lord Voldemort, and the Wikipedia:WikiProject Harry Potter page that the the Tom Riddle and Lord Voldemort pages be merged and one be made a oft redirect.Sounds like a good idea but no one ever did anything about it so... here I am. Objections? TonyJoe 00:48, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

First of all, look at the top of this talk page, where User:Zakharov objects. I also object to the merger for the same reasons; on Talk:Lord Voldemort there are also objections by User:Messedrocker and User:User:67.149.161.230. The Tom Riddle article could focus on the person's life before becoming Lord Voldemort, while the Lord Voldemort article focuses on the person's life after giving up the identity of Tom Riddle. This prevents forcing spoilers on people without even a spoiler warning. —Lowellian (reply) 08:38, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I've now moved all the merger comments together under one heading so that they can be more easily viewed, so User:Zakharov's comment is only a little bit above rather than at the top of the page. —Lowellian (reply) 08:49, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

Melkor and Morgoth of the Silmarillion dont have articles separate from each other, nor do Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader (softredirect). Outside of fiction, historical people, Like Caesar Augustus formerly Gaius Octavius, and Pope Benedict XVI known before the papacy, as Joseph Alois Ratzinger (not to mention his 265 predecessors), dont have their early history and later history divided into two different articles, why should Tom Riddle/ Lord Voldemort? Are there any characters/people/figures who have their early and late history divided into separate wikipedia articles, if anyone knows i'd like to read them, rationale behind those decisions could help here, the Vader precedent certainly does. For all those who have expressed spoiler concerns, why cant the Tom Riddle be made a soft Redirect, the Same Way Anakin is for Vader, the same way The Half blood Prince (character) was for ...), pre-HBP release. We could combine the articles which seems practical, and to as Apostrophe said, coddle readers, which seems to be desired here. TonyJoe 07:08, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

• Merger makes sense. It has my support. Saberwyn 03:51, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

In Rowling's books, yes, Tom Riddle is Lord Voldemort. However, in Book Six, Dumbledore seems to refer to him, in his child/young adult entity almost exclusively as Tom Riddle. Also in the case of Lucifer, in the Christian tradition, he is not the devil. He is still an angel, corrupted as he may become. His name is not Satan. (see seperate Lucifer and Satan articles) Some may argue that they are the same entity. Such is also the case with Tom Riddle. In Chamber of Secrets, it is also only Tom Riddle, in the form of the horcrux diary, who manipulates Ginny to achieve his ends. It is this entity of himself which is seperate from Lord Voldemort.

Support merger. I know this isn't a vote, but I wanted to highlight my support like that. Since this was all the way back in book 2, the spoiler potential is unnecessary. Any unique information can be safely merged with Lord Voldemort, and information unique to Tom Riddle as a separate entity can be safely inserted in a new section (how about "As Tom Riddle"?) in Lord Voldemort. --Deathphoenix 16:05, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

• Support for merger. It is not necessary to have two seperate articles, they are the same person. Seperating them just creates more repetition of information. With regards to worries about spoiling, we cannot restrict wikipedia just because of a possibility that someone may at some point be a bit miffed because they haven't got to that part in the book yet. Please remember this is an encyclopedia not a film/book review which should not give away plot details, a clear spoiler message at the start of the article should suffice and anyone who does read-on and spoils thier book, well more fool them. Also the argument for this article on the grounds of spoiling CoS is invalid as the details of Riddle being Voldemort are also included in the CoS article, so why worry if it is also included in the Voldemort article? Death Eater Dan 09:59, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Soft redirect

I have placed a soft redirect on this page. The material is all in Lord Voldemort, and as the pages were before, they both contain spoiler information about riddle being voldemort. This way, it is possible to give a workable spoiler warning for anyone that they are about to discover something. I would suggest linking to the Voldemort page when there is no secret to hide (which is the very large majority of links from other pages), and only explicitly linking to this page from other pages where the secret is being kept. Sandpiper 16:05, 27 January 2006 (UTC)