Daniel Radcliffe
Harry Potter
Search results
Nov 15, 2002 · Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: Directed by Chris Columbus. With Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Richard Griffiths. Harry Potter lives his second year at Hogwarts with Ron and Hermione when a message on the wall announces that the legendary Chamber of Secrets has been opened.
- (693K)
- Adventure, Family, Fantasy
- Chris Columbus
- 2002-11-15
People also ask
Who starred in Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets?
Who played Tom Riddle in Harry Potter?
When did Harry Potter & the Chamber of secrets come out?
Is Tom Riddle Lord Voldemort?
- Overview
- Biography
- Physical description
- Personality and traits
"You see? It was a name I was already using at Hogwarts, to my most intimate friends only, of course. You think I was going to use my filthy Muggle father's name forever? I, in whose veins runs the blood of Salazar Slytherin himself, through my mother's side? I, keep the name of a foul, common Muggle, who abandoned me even before I was born, just because he found out his wife was a witch? No, Harry. I fashioned myself a new name, a name I knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak, when I had become the greatest sorcerer in the world!"
— Tom Riddle's transformation into Lord Voldemort
Tom Marvolo Riddle (31 December 1926 – 2 May 1998), later known as Lord Voldemort or, alternatively as the Dark Lord, You-Know-Who, or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was an English half-blood wizard considered to have been the most powerful and dangerous Dark wizard of all time. He was amongst the greatest wizards to have ever lived, rivalled only by Albus Dumbledore. Descended from Salazar Slytherin on his mother's side through the House of Gaunt, Tom Riddle was conceived whilst his father, Tom Riddle Senior, was under the effects of a love potion supplied by his mother, Merope Gaunt. When the enchantment was lifted, Tom's father abandoned his pregnant wife and returned to Little Hangleton. His mother gave birth to him, before dying an hour after she has given birth. Her only wishes were that he'd look like his father, and that he was named Tom after his father, his middle name Marvolo after her father, and that Riddle would be his last name. And with that, Tom Marvolo Riddle was born and raised in the Muggle-run Wool's Orphanage.
Tom began attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in 1938 and was immediately sorted into Slytherin house. During this time, Tom discovered his heritage and adopted pure-blood supremacist ideals. Tom opened the Chamber of Secrets and used its monster, the Basilisk, to attack Muggle-born students, resulting in the death of Myrtle Warren. He began his quest to attain immortality between the years of 1943 and 1998, creating his first Horcrux at the age of sixteen. While attending Hogwarts, Tom Riddle was made a prefect in 1942 until his graduation in 1945.
Tom spent several months as a purchasing agent for the Dark artefacts shop Borgin and Burkes before disappearing. Splitting his own spirit into a total of eight fragments, Tom created an unprecedented seven Horcruxes, with one made later in his life, unintentionally and without his knowledge — Harry Potter. Tom re-emerged several decades later having abandoned his 'Muggle' name and becoming the self-proclaimed Lord Voldemort, an anagram of his birth name. In the First and Second Wizarding Wars, he commanded a veritable army of wizards and Dark creatures; committed countless murders and atrocities; and eventually succeeded in taking over the British Ministry of Magic.
Voldemort was ripped from his body in 1981 after attempting to kill Harry Potter. Although unable to die, he was unable to regain a permanent and physical body until 1995, thus spending the intervening fourteen years as 'a shell, less than the meanest ghost'. He was finally killed by his own backfired Killing Curse after Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore succeeded in destroying all of his Horcruxes.
Early life (1926–1938)
Mrs Cole: "He scares the other children." Albus Dumbledore: "You mean he is a bully?" Mrs Cole: "I think he must be, but it's very hard to catch him at it. There have been incidents... Nasty things... Billy Stubbs's rabbit... well, Tom said he didn't do it and I don't see how he could have done, but even so, it didn't hang itself from the rafters, did it?" — Mrs Cole informing Albus Dumbledore of Tom Riddle's life at Wool's Orphanage Tom Marvolo Riddle was born on 31 December 1926 at Wool's Orphanage in London. His mother Merope staggered to the door of the orphanage, gave birth to Tom there, and died shortly after. Riddle grew up in the dingy orphanage, completely unaware of his wizarding heritage. Since the Muggle orphanage staff did not know anything about his mother, they did not know about his magical background. Instead, they believed that Merope was a circus worker, as Mrs Cole told Dumbledore shortly before his first meeting with Riddle. It is unknown whether or not the staff relayed this to Riddle before his first encounter with Dumbledore. Despite his ignorance of his mother's true background, Riddle did have some grasp on his abilities beyond that of normal magical children of his same age, and an unusually high degree of control over them. He could move objects with his mind and cause them to float wherever he wished, manipulate animals and creatures as he wished, speak Parseltongue, and use his power to inflict harm on other orphans. After getting into a fight with fellow orphan, Billy Stubbs, he used his powers to hang the boy's rabbit from the rafters. On one occasion, he took two other orphans, Dennis Bishop and Amy Benson, into a cave, where he performed an act, likely with his powers, so horrifying that the two orphans were traumatised into silence. Afterwards, he may have told them, in some means, not to tell anyone what happened in the cave. Riddle also stole from other orphans and hid their things in his cupboard like trophies.
Hogwarts years (1938–1945)
Tom Riddle: "Sir, I wondered what you know about…about Horcruxes?" Horace Slughorn: "Project for Defence Against the Dark Arts, is it?" Tom Riddle: "Not exactly, sir, I came across the term while reading and I didn't fully understand it." — Tom Riddle inquiring about Horcruxes Riddle was educated at Hogwarts from 1938 to 1945, and was sorted into Slytherin House, a nod to his ancestor Salazar Slytherin. During summer breaks, he was forced to return to the Muggle orphanage, which he despised and dreaded more than any other place on Earth. Riddle described the way he was seen as 'poor, but brilliant, parent-less, but so brave, a school prefect, a model student'. Due to his exceptional acting abilities and handsome looks, he was able to convince virtually all of the Hogwarts staff and instructors that his kinder façade was his true personality. The sole exception to this was Dumbledore, who, though not necessarily suspicious of Riddle, never forgot about his misdeeds at the orphanage, nor his unsettling behaviour during their first meeting. In turn, Riddle realised that he had been careless in showing Dumbledore his true character upon their first meeting, and never attempted to win him over as he had with his other instructors. In time, he came to fear and despise Dumbledore. Over time, Riddle gathered to himself a gang of Slytherin thugs, a motley composition of 'the weak seeking protection, the ambitious seeking some shared glory, and the thuggish gravitating toward a leader who could show them more refined forms of cruelty', most of which would become the first Death Eaters. Riddle claimed they were his friends, and made it appear so in public, but in truth, they amounted to little more than servants, and he cared almost nothing for them. He often manipulated them into committing petty crimes and other misdeeds, but none of these incidents were reliably traced back to the group
After Hogwarts (1945–1949)
Albus Dumbledore: "Rumours of your doings have reached your old school, Tom. I should be sorry to believe half of them." Riddle: "Greatness inspires envy, envy engenders spite, spite spawns lies. You must know this, Dumbledore." — A business intercourse between a headmaster and his old student After graduating, Riddle immediately approached Dippet and asked him for a chance to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts, and to remain at Hogwarts, for reasons that he did not confide with the then-headmaster — Hogwarts being his true home at heart, using the influential position as a teacher to recruit students into his future army, and to continue to learn the castle's magical secrets. Dippet rejected this offer, deeming the boy too young, but invited Riddle to reapply in a few years, if he was still interested in the post, something that Dumbledore heavily advised against. Shortly before leaving Hogwarts, however, Riddle charmed Helena Ravenclaw, the daughter of Rowena Ravenclaw and the ghost of Ravenclaw House, into telling him the location of her mother's diadem, which she revealed as a hollow tree deep within a far-flung forest in Albania. He presumably travelled there at her instruction, murdering an Albanian peasant along the way before retrieving the diadem, which he later preserved a third part of his soul within to make his third Horcrux. Upon his return to Britain, Riddle was offered several positions in the Ministry of Magic, but ended up working at Borgin and Burkes, to the disappointment and surprise of many. Riddle set to persuading witches and wizards to part with their valuable magical heirlooms — a job at which he was very good.
"The thin man stepped out of the cauldron, staring at Harry...and Harry stared back into the face that had haunted his nightmares for three years. Whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was flat as a snake's but with slits for nostrils...."
— Description of Voldemort after his rebirth
During his childhood and early adulthood, Tom Marvolo Riddle was tall and handsome, with pale skin, jet black hair, and dark eyes. When Harry saw him in a memory in the Pensieve, he saw that there was no trace of the Gaunt family in his face, and that he was his father in miniature: 'tall for eleven years old, dark-haired and pale'. Riddle's good looks continued to increase as he grew older, and he cunningly used them to charm many of the teachers at Hogwarts. While in Wool's Orphanage, he wore the standard grey tunic as with all the other children, and switched over to the Hogwarts uniform when he attended the school, gaining the Prefect and Head Boy badges when he attained those positions. When he worked in Borgin and Burkes, he wore a simple black suit. Despite his façade of kindness and politeness, during ecstatic moments (i.e. discovering himself as a wizard and gaining confirmation that creating multiple Horcrux is possible) he was capable of a smile that did not enhance his handsomeness, but instead made him look less human.
However, as he became more involved in the Dark Arts, his good looks gradually left him. His features became increasingly waxy and reptilian, his skin became bone-white, and the sclera of his eyes took on a perpetually blood-shot appearance. After he regained his body, his features became even more warped. In his final body, Voldemort was described as having pale white skin, a skeletally thin body, and dark scarlet eyes with cat-like slits for pupils. He had a chalk-white face that resembled a skull, snake-like slits for nostrils, and large hands with unnaturally long fingers like spider's legs.
"His knowledge remained woefully incomplete, Harry! That which Voldemort does not value, he takes no trouble to comprehend. Of house-elves and children's tales, of love, loyalty and innocence, Voldemort knows and understands nothing. Nothing. That they all have a power beyond his own, a power beyond the reach of any magic, is a truth that he has never grasped."
— Albus Dumbledore on Voldemort's fundamental limitations
Voldemort was considered by many to be 'the most evil wizard in hundreds and hundreds of years'. His evil nature far exceeded that of any common evildoer and Dumbledore stated that he 'went beyond normal evil' in the extent of his crimes. Hagrid claimed that while all Dark wizards 'go bad', Voldemort went 'worse than worse'. Indeed, Voldemort speedily developed into a power-obsessed megalomaniac of the worst kind and the worst of any known Dark wizard, being considered by all to be far more evil than even Gellert Grindelwald. He was unable and unwilling to express remorse or empathy for the countless crimes he had committed. This was a stark contrast to Grindelwald, who proved to display genuine remorse for his crimes and even before his fall, pity for those abused for their magic and even if only a little, care for his followers, all which Voldemort completely lacked. These anti-social traits were seen in his childhood, from stealing to disturbing incidences with other orphans. Dumbledore stated that the young Riddle had a certain disregard for rules. In his adult life, he performed the darkest forms of magic and had no regard for human life. He was a prolific killer, as seen by his killing so many that he created an army of Inferi. Voldemort also did not believe in the concept of good and evil, as he made clear to Harry in their encounter at the Mirror of Erised, and that only power and 'those too weak to seek it' truly mattered.
He was highly intelligent, as evidenced by his top performance at Hogwarts and his tremendous magical achievements, but his interests were narrowly focussed on the usefulness of people, objects, and powers to his goals. His inability to see the larger picture and inattention to events, powers and human traits that were not immediately useful to him was a serious flaw that led to most of his setbacks and ultimately his downfall.
After his first defeat, many (namely Hagrid, Dumbledore, Neville's grandmother among others) believed that he had yet to be truly vanquished, and would one day return on the grounds that there was not enough humanity left in him to die in the first place. At the same time, due to his excessive evil and brutality, others (namely Cornelius Fudge and a good deal of the wizarding world) would deny he was still alive for a sense of self-comfort, until evidence was given to their very eyes. During his lifetime, including much of his childhood, he was shown to be highly ruthless, cruel, merciless, and sadistic, showing as little mercy to his followers as he did his enemies. According to Dumbledore, he felt no desire or need for human companionship or friendship. The closest he came to caring about another living being was feeling affection for his pet snake, Nagini.
Voldemort thought of everything in terms of power (which he equated to domination through magical ability). He was somewhat wilfully ignorant of people or matters which he considered to have no value. He was dismissive of the unique magic of house-elves due to their social status, and thus was dealt major setbacks by house-elves on two occasions: first Kreacher, who escaped the cave with Slytherin's locket due to the sacrifice of his beloved master, Regulus Black, and Dobby, who bypassed the defences of Voldemort's headquarters (because Voldemort had neglected to render it inaccessible to house elves as he had to wizards) and helped Harry escape right before Voldemort could arrive to kill him.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets held its world premiere at Odeon Leicester Square on 3 November 2002, and was released in the United Kingdom and the United States on 15 November 2002. The film broke multiple records upon its opening.
Jan 3, 2023 · The ending of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets indirectly sets up the Horcruxes arc with Tom Riddle's diary, which turns out to be one of the most important objects of the franchise. Ordinary and unremarkable on the surface, the diary was turned into a Horcrux by Voldemort and prompted Hermione and Ron to go back to the Chamber of ...
