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[[Tom Riddle|Tom Marvolo Riddle]] |
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Revision as of 01:30, 29 September 2009
- "Nobody wasted their breath pretending to feel very sad about the Riddles, for they had been most unpopular."
- — Description of the town of Little Hangleton's reaction to Thomas, Mary, and Tom Riddle Sr.'s murders[src]
Riddle was the surname of a wealthy Muggle family that lived in a mansion overlooking Little Hangleton, of which they owned a great deal. They lived fairly close to the wizarding Gaunt family.
Thomas Riddle, his wife Mary, and their son Tom Riddle Sr. were killed in 1943 by Tom Marvolo Riddle, Tom's son by pure-blood witch Merope Gaunt, whom he had married under the influence of a love potion and later abandoned. The murderer framed his maternal uncle Morfin Gaunt for the crimes, and he was sent to the wizarding prison of Azkaban, where he died. The Muggle townspeople, however, suspected that the Riddles' gardener, Frank Bryce, had killed them.[1]
Tom Marvolo Riddle soon abandoned the name of his "filthy Muggle father", instead using an anagram to declare himself Lord Voldemort.[2]
Riddle Family Tree
Thomas Riddle Mary Riddle Marvolo Gaunt (1880-1943) (1883-1943) | | | | --------------------- ------------------------ | | | Tom Riddle Sr. Merope Gaunt Morfin Gaunt (1905-1943) (c.1907-1926) | | ----------------------- :_ | Tom Marvolo Riddle (1926-1998)
Etymology
A riddle is a statement or question with a double or veiled meaning, and they were very common to Old English literature and poetry. Riddle games also appear frequently in folklore and mythology as a matter of life and death, such as in the tale of Oedipus and the Sphinx and in the opera Turandot. The term "world riddle" was also used by philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche to encompass the idea of the meaning of life. This could all allude to the mysterious and hidden origins of Lord Voldemort, who disliked and hid his Muggle ancestry, and who was obsessed with life and death.