Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Discussion, analysis, and exotic opinions surrounding fandoms like Twilight, Star Wars, Harry Potter, the MCU, and far too many animes.
[00:00] Vinelle: Hello and welcome to the newest episode of Rank Heresy. We are Vinal and the Canoe Muffin. And we thought today you would talk a bit about Merop Gaunt and Tom Reynolds Sr.
[00:10] And I will actually make the little remark that I've heard some people pronounce it as Meropy.
[00:15] The Carnivorous Muffin: I don't. I don't know how to pronounce words. I'm from America.
[00:21] Vinelle: I'm one of the freaks who says Voldemort, not Voldemort. Maybe that makes me the authority or the opposite of the authority, but.
[00:28] The Carnivorous Muffin: Well, you know, back in the day, before the movies came out, there was a real hot debate in which very precocious children would tell you, actually, it's Kedrick. And then they never admitted to being wrong when the movies came out.
[00:43] But that's okay.
[00:44] Vinelle: Yeah, I just remember the confusion.
[00:46] The Carnivorous Muffin: Actually, it's Hermione.
[00:48] Vinelle: I was about to say it because the thing is, my first consumption of a Harry Potter medium was the Prisoner of Azkaban Game Boy Game. And that one only had Danish, was the closest to Norwegian.
[01:01] I think my options were, like, English, Finnish and a fourth language. Anyway, I had to go with Danish, which means that I knew the Danish names for everyone. And that meant I was sitting there with Hermione.
[01:13] Naturally, I assumed her name was Hermione. That is not a name in the region. The name is Hermine. They o would be excluded. But I was sitting there trying to talk about Harry Potter with the other kids, trying to be cool.
[01:24] Yeah, I know Harry Potter and his best friend Hermione.
[01:28] The Carnivorous Muffin: Well, it's.
[01:29] Vinelle: And then they just stared at me and I felt so stupid.
[01:31] The Carnivorous Muffin: No, don't worry. You're better than the Americans. In which we read it in our language. But God help you with some of those names. Kedrick was a common one. Hermione. Hermione, you know, Harry's girlfriend, who's a girl.
[01:47] That one. Not Ginny. Guinea, guinea pig.
[01:53] It was bad. And then we forgot all about it because the movies came out and told us we were stupid.
[01:58] Vinelle: Yeah. And I was just sitting there doing Game Boy games. And how Serious Block did it. Oh, he was innocent.
[02:06] The Carnivorous Muffin: He was. No plot twist of the century right there.
[02:12] Vinelle: Yeah, but it was the additional A in the Danish version of the name or they translated to Svart, which is the word for black. But the thing is, they had an additional A in there.
[02:22] So I was just sitting there with, oh, yeah, serious Block. How do I. What am I supposed to do with it? Well, to actually move on to the subject of this episode, Merop Ghond was actually known as Misery, translating to Mystery Darkness in Norwegian.
[02:38] The Carnivorous Muffin: Does that sound better in Norwegian than it does in English? Is that a legitimate name?
[02:45] Vinelle: Both Mysteria and Merc would be. You wouldn't see them Yetter.
[02:50] The Carnivorous Muffin: So it's not her online pseudonym of I Am Misery Darkness?
[02:58] Vinelle: No, it's both sound like legitimate names. It's just when you put them together. Bellatrix, her last name was just Demons. They just.
[03:07] Since it's L'Estrange, they. Harriet de Mons. Demons.
[03:14] Yeah. Very clever.
[03:16] The Carnivorous Muffin: I mean, it's about the same as the original punny name. So. Okay.
[03:20] Vinelle: Whereas Tom Riddle got the very nice. But ultimately, I want to say his name is almost left in the region. So he's sitting there with Tom Wednesday and his middle name is Dredd.
[03:32] The Carnivorous Muffin: Well, you know, that would be quite the comic book hero name. Tom Dred Riddle. Yeah, well, Dread is his middle name.
[03:40] Vinelle: Dreadloo, if you must know. You had to make that anagram work.
[03:45] The Carnivorous Muffin: My name is Dredd. And then we get two hours of an action film where he kills vampires or something.
[03:52] Vinelle: I feel this episode started off very off topic, but this was important. It was important.
[03:59] And we have. Well, I have received a few questions, although it's only a matter of time before Muffin starts receiving questions as well, about the translator. The Harry Potter.
[04:08] The Carnivorous Muffin: What? Why? Oh, true. They do it because they think I'm you.
[04:12] Vinelle: People can't tell us apart. Muffin has been asked about what it's like living in Norway. So some. A lot of. Clearly, I believe you are European woman living in Norway. Flavored questions.
[04:23] While people will be shocked and appalled. I have been Norwegian this entire time.
[04:31] The Carnivorous Muffin: This entire time.
[04:33] Vinelle: And just the classics like, oh, you're faked. Living on the Art of being Sisyphus was very good. And you definitely wrote that one, actually. And this goes way back to 2016.
[04:45] That's when it first happened, before the real Vanell blog even happened.
[04:49] The Carnivorous Muffin: That was bad.
[04:51] Vinelle: Yeah, that was when someone just found I was Muffin's main blog, whereas Skinnerism was just their alter ego.
[05:01] The Carnivorous Muffin: All right. Yeah, let's do this for real.
[05:05] Vinelle: Yeah.
[05:06] So to start things off, we don't actually know a lot about Merop. And it's the kind of the things we think we know are just Dumbledore guessing. This is something we've gotten into on our blogs.
[05:20] But for an very solid chunk of half blood prints, when Dumbledore is talking about Tom Myrtle, he includes a little disclaimer like, now we enter into the exciting realms of pure Speculation.
[05:33] This is my legal disclaimer.
[05:36] Or he will say I do not know precisely what happened here, but I can imagine and my sense of imagination is often very accurate. Confirmed by me.
[05:49] The Carnivorous Muffin: So basically if you include these disclaimers it's. He readily admits he made the whole thing up. He made up the entire book.
[05:59] Vinelle: Yes, and one of my favorite disclaimers is when he says now previously we have had memory and evidence backing us up and you look at the actual memory and evidence and memories are things like Tom riddle being an 11 year old and nothing really.
[06:16] The Carnivorous Muffin: Nothing happened.
[06:17] Vinelle: No, not really. We can. I feel saying nothing happened in that scene is a large enough statement that it sort of values warrants getting into on its own but this isn't the episode to do it.
[06:29] It's just dumb Dumbledore seeing an 11 year old and then later pulling out things he did and said to Harry and explaining the damning character flaws that Riddle revealed and how Dumbledore continued to read into his motivations and his behavior for the rest of tenure at Hogwarts.
[06:50] And you're sitting there going okay, I guess I'll just have to take you on faith. Even though some of this is sounding an awful lot like it's purely your impressions and you don't even have anecdotes and no one else backs you up on this.
[07:03] We also have Tom Riddle when he is having a strange conversation in a memory that is.
[07:09] The legitimacy and validity of that memory is dubious. The Slughorn conversation.
[07:15] And I think that's it from Hogwarts actually. No, it's him briefly speaking with his uncle. We covered that in a former episode. Muffin. Is that it?
[07:26] The Carnivorous Muffin: I mean, yeah, and then there's the. He had a weird sales pitch to Hesbaba and it got weird.
[07:32] Vinelle: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[07:33] The Carnivorous Muffin: And that was it. Yeah.
[07:35] Vinelle: So.
[07:35] The Carnivorous Muffin: Oh, and the job interview.
[07:36] Vinelle: Oh yeah, but those are, you know, after he graduates Hogwarts.
[07:42] The Carnivorous Muffin: Yes. The last from Hogwarts is where he meets his uncle and it's weird.
[07:48] Vinelle: Yes. The thing is it's purely just Dumbledore coming up with what he believes to be the case. This is how he. The man is very interesting in that we are more seeing how he convinces Harry of a narrative using as little evidence as possible rather than him using the evidence to draw anything.
[08:09] He doesn't have anything. The lessons are pointless. There's no reason to show. Yes, there's no reason to show those memories. The only reason would be if Harry had no idea what Tom looked like and Tom was still a teenager in that case you'd say, here is how his face has, I don't know, aged.
[08:25] Or if they were looking for, like, Tom Jr. This is what Tom looked like at the time.
[08:29] Now memorize those features. You see, I don't know. Shape of the nose. Look for that in your fellow student. Harry.
[08:37] I'm trying to think of something those members could be used for.
[08:40] The Carnivorous Muffin: Nothing.
[08:41] Vinelle: Yeah. Nothing. All of this to say there are a few things we know for sure about Miripant. We know that she was without education, that she was living in extreme poverty.
[08:54] We don't actually know if she'd been living in extreme poverty her entire life. That's something that I've been thinking about with the shack. That it could be they moved there very recently that they were evicted from where they formerly used to live.
[09:05] The shack is in such miserable condition that I'm sitting here going, these guys barely are able to use magic. Three of them. Do we.
[09:16] How long would three people be able to survive in?
[09:20] It's described as being just so small you wouldn't think three people would even fit in it.
[09:25] The Carnivorous Muffin: People can make do.
[09:27] Vinelle: They can. They can.
[09:28] The Carnivorous Muffin: People are very good at that.
[09:30] Vinelle: Yes, but it's also one of those.
[09:32] The Carnivorous Muffin: Do I know this is the ancestral home for generations.
[09:37] Vinelle: Yeah. And we also know that he has two beloved heirlooms left. It's a bit hard to believe a previous generation wouldn't have sold those off. It seems like the fact that he still has something to cling to.
[09:51] Clearly they sort of everything else make him pretty desperate. My point here being we know nothing about her. We only have what her life was like when she was 19 and she has a crush on a nearby muggle.
[10:07] Her brother knows about it. He assaults the muggle. Then when the police come to ask about this, the father wants to know, why would you assault this random muggle? Well, what was the motive?
[10:19] When he says, well, Merope ****.
[10:23] Which triggers her father into being violent with her. Telling us quite a bit about the dynamics of that entire family.
[10:31] And then Morfin and Marvolo are both hauled off the prison and she's left on her own.
[10:37] So shortly after this, she elopes with that pretty muggle and they get married immediately. And he at one point leaves. She is pregnant at this point. She at one point sells her stolen heirloom to.
[10:52] Yeah, Mr. Burke. And then she dies in childbirth having stumbled into an orphanage. What? Dumbledore gives us additional Merop lore such as, I imagine one afternoon she gave him a glass of water since he must have been very thirsty.
[11:11] Offering him that. That sterility he goes with. And of course that she must have used magic of some kind. Either the imperious curse perhaps or a love potion. And of course she would think love potion was more romantic.
[11:24] He also believes that when Tar Middle left, she lost her magic and died like a sad elf.
[11:34] What we don't know is how she got him to elope with her, how and why he escaped. And also for that matter we don't know how old he was. Which I think is a bit of a.
[11:44] I've been wondering about that. Yeah, you want to get into that right now? Actually I think it's next on the bullet points.
[11:51] The Carnivorous Muffin: Yeah, let's get into it. Am I getting into it or are you getting into it?
[11:55] Vinelle: You can get into it.
[11:56] The Carnivorous Muffin: All right.
[11:57] So after far too much thinking about this it seems that Tomerdell was. Must have been pretty young when this happened.
[12:07] We weren't able to see find too many sources for expectations for higher education among the upper class in Britain.
[12:14] And again, we don't know. We know the Riddle family is rich. They're the richest people in town. They have the nicest house.
[12:22] We don't know where they fall into in the British upper class society. I highly doubt their nobility of any kind. But we don't know. We don't know where they are in there.
[12:34] Vinelle: They seem to be the largest house in the village typically signals upper class. But the fact that they are universally reviled, I will just say being universally reviled but it also JKR is very funny with class but I will say class tends not to matter if your peers all hate you.
[12:55] And I'm sorry but when you are living in a village there are going to be other people who are, you know, the same, you know, who are also in your stratosphere.
[13:04] And the fact that everybody hates them, they are aggressively unpopular.
[13:09] Like even if they are higher up on the class ladder, it still seems to be that, you know, that's not going to get you all that far if people don't want to invite you to their parties.
[13:19] But the point being, yeah, they, the large house does signal upper class but.
[13:24] The Carnivorous Muffin: Yeah, but point being we don't know if he would be expected to go to university or not.
[13:30] But what we do know is he was at the house. He was, you know, old enough to be attractive but he wasn't away for higher education nor had he left to find a job of any kind.
[13:42] Could be he didn't want to do either. But you know, that's a little awkward of daddy. I Just want to ride around the house on my horse and not do anything or make any money.
[13:53] Vinelle: The dumb thing tends to be, father, I don't want to do anything so send me to university with an allowance. Then you party there like just staying home.
[14:03] The Carnivorous Muffin: You don't just stay home. It would be very strange.
[14:05] Vinelle: An ancestor from the late 19th century. Great, great, great, great, great something Uncle.
[14:12] He went to university and very wealthy father.
[14:15] This is Norway. Of course.
[14:18] He was just partying the entire time.
[14:20] Absolutely getting new exams passed. He's just been remembered in the family for when his father finally had enough and sent him a Get your act together, son.
[14:29] The Carnivorous Muffin: Let her deceit desist.
[14:33] Vinelle: The letter he received back was. It wasn't a rhyme, so it doesn't translate all that well. But it was, Father. Hatred gets us nowhere. Love is the way.
[14:46] The Carnivorous Muffin: Love thy neighbor, Father. Have you thought about that?
[14:51] Vinelle: The young son who doesn't want to do anything, he tends to want to get out of the house, not stay there and go horseback riding all day with his friend.
[15:00] The Carnivorous Muffin: So we know Tom is hanging around horseback riding every day with his friend. We have this paraphrased in the memory by Morfin that wasn't from Dumbledore.
[15:09] And so Tom is clearly old enough that Harry describes him as a handsome man. We're thinking he is maximum 20 years old given he's not doing anything. But given the fact that he's not doing anything, probably 17 to 18 and just was around in the summer.
[15:28] Vinelle: It can also, some people do tend to look older than they are. And from what we know about his son, you know, very.
[15:33] Not a lot of puppy fat.
[15:36] He describes having hallowed cheeks almost immediately after leaving Hogwarts. I can believe Harry just thought he looked older. I'm the used man. People especially that age can be difficult to tell.
[15:49] You know, is that a boy or a man? Either way, he is living a very carefree life with frolicking around on horses.
[15:57] Yeah.
[15:57] The Carnivorous Muffin: So point being, keep that in mind of. We definitely don't think this was, you know, a grown man with his own life clearly still dependent on his parents. Hadn't seemed to have started his adult life yet.
[16:11] Vinelle: So to start off with Merop, we agree with Dumbledore actually that Tom did not go gently into that good night or that good marriage.
[16:20] The Carnivorous Muffin: That good marriage, yeah. So one of the big controversies of fandom right now is we know, we all know Dumbledore's a *******. Except some people don't admit it or that's controversial too.
[16:33] But if you admit he's a *******. There comes this question of did this horrible thing he thinks happened happened when he had no evidence of it happening? You know, should we believe that?
[16:42] And no, we shouldn't believe that just because he says it. But as we're about to get into it, I tend to side with him on this one, if not exactly what she did.
[16:54] Vinelle: Yeah, so Mera was a very ugly woman whose family he ridiculed and he had a girlfriend. Now if he suddenly falls in love in spite of all that, the question is why he elopes from home overnight.
[17:07] Like if his parents disapprove, he has two options. He can marry her anyway and then play chicken to see if they're disinheriting their only son. Or he can say, wow, you're right, yeah, I'm dumping her and then take a job in London and marry her on the sly.
[17:20] It could be he was a very romantic soul who wanted to elope. But money tends to be, you know, something you need to get by. And I just, I find it strange that he would leave immediately without trying to get his parents support.
[17:33] Then they suddenly eloped to London with ugliest girl on the planet. Story reads like his parents, it reads like they didn't get the chance to say anything either way. And it happened very suddenly.
[17:45] It's an action that makes very little sense for him. But it makes a lot of sense for her because why would she care about, you know, pretty boys muggle parents?
[17:54] And now assuming that the him running off and not being too ashamed to tell his parents is that he wanted to get, you know, ugly girls, say yes. Oh no, she's pregnant.
[18:07] You know, it could be they had had encounters and he was making fun of her. Just so that, just so you know, I'm not interested in this family. Never ever spoken to Merap.
[18:17] No, no, no.
[18:19] We don't know when aridin but we're back to the he falls suddenly in love scenario that he is.
[18:26] The Carnivorous Muffin: He suddenly elopes with her and she's not pregnant for several months later.
[18:30] Vinelle: Yeah, like even if she had lied and said oh Tom, I'm so pregnant, you know, gets him to leave without talking to his parents and make his fortunes, it would still be more tempting to just ask his father, you know, I made a huge mistake here help than to just run off.
[18:49] Even if this has all collapsed, there is the option of just paying her off. If he thinks so little of Merop that he will have sex with her in the woods, why no, but why marry her?
[19:01] Why ruin his life to go to London? With her. This is the part where you say, okay, how much per month? And also, are you sure you don't want to try Uncle Henry?
[19:09] And I also think the whole beautiful Muggle suddenly falls head over heels with witcher Wizard. It's a story that Dumbledore has heard a few times. You will notice if you are like us and you go on the HP Wiki's list of noon half Bloods that a large and clear majority have witch mothers.
[19:30] It's very rarely that the father is the wizard. We know of Dean Thomas, who is very. He's a Muggle born who is sitting around like there's a chance my father is a wizard.
[19:41] We do not know. And the thing is, how many deans are there or how many. Yeah, my parents are married, but for some reason I look nothing like my father.
[19:50] And my mother, you know, remembers absolutely nothing from this one night.
[19:56] Or just, you know, wizards, they can. That they. They would get away with it as the Thing.
[20:00] The Carnivorous Muffin: And it's worse in canon, you know, in the books we see in. In Half Blood Prince actually it comes up of Romilda is using love potions, no problem. And this is being sold out in the open in Fred and George's store to teenage girls so they.
[20:15] They can get the. The hot guy they want to have a date with. It's very normalized in their society. You know, lends itself to believe that this is something that is used quite often both within wizarding spheres and I imagine to get yourself a hot Muggle temple.
[20:33] Vinelle: I think so. A pattern he has seen a few times and that's probably very normalized to him. He never blames Merritt for any of it. There is no moral judgment which maybe fits with him meeting a lot of these couples where the Muggle is either too potioned up to protest much or has, you know, is stuck anyway.
[20:54] Either way, he does lose me when he then feels the need to fabricate because he has this need to have a narrative. The exact answers about what happened everywhere. So rather than just say, yeah, I think Merop fits into the got the hot husband the potion way statistic.
[21:12] He says, oh, I'm sure she offered him a cup of lovely water when he was thirsty. Oh yes, and Dumbledore, he didn't need to add that he would be a horrible lawyer.
[21:24] The Carnivorous Muffin: He does need to add it. So with that the method of how she did it, we agree that something is sus there. It made no sense for him to. For Tom Riddle to have done any of this, nor the sudden change of thought you know, a year or so later where he comes back and saying this woman's a witch.
[21:44] Yeah, that's. That is odd. Yeah, well, I think we talk about that later, but it's clear the man never recovered from that.
[21:51] Vinelle: Yeah, that's the whole section I figure out later, I think.
[21:53] The Carnivorous Muffin: Yeah, but first we don't agree with the Dumble Storage story of how it happened. So remember, this is Merope and Tom Riddle. Merope is living in a dirty rundown shack, the worst in town, presumably does not have indoor plumbing, who is, you know, filthy herself.
[22:11] Tom has never spoken to her and then she suddenly comes out and offers him a glass of water from God knows where, you know. What well is that from? Is it just from the river in which you dump your sewage?
[22:28] Vinelle: Yes.
[22:29] The Carnivorous Muffin: He's not drinking that water. I wouldn't drink that water. No one would drink that water.
[22:33] Vinelle: Even the very first the. And desperate if he was drinking that water.
[22:37] The Carnivorous Muffin: Yeah, let's say you're in the desert and oh, sweet dysentery, here I come.
[22:45] Vinelle: Yeah, now you. Now I can choose two days instead of one day, or well, maybe the other way around. But the second is how does Merop get low potion? What money is she using to buy it?
[22:59] Who is she buying it from? We know she knew how to get in Knockdown Alley, but how is she getting her hands on a potion that she then has to keep him supplied on for nearly a year?
[23:11] I can only imagine that's pretty expensive.
[23:13] The Carnivorous Muffin: And there's a theory. Dumbledore had a theory that she made it herself because even though she hadn't gone to Hogwarts, she had some magic, but she was bad at magic. And then she was suddenly bad at magic again when she died in the orphanage.
[23:27] So he supposes, you know, she may have done it herself. The problem is we know this is a difficult potion. It's only introduced to Harry in his sixth year curriculum.
[23:37] I forget if he actually ever makes it. It's considered very advanced and difficult to do. Merope has no education.
[23:44] And whether she's magical or not, we know from Potions class that unless you're taught it, you're gonna be ****. Even if you do have magic, we.
[23:53] Vinelle: Don'T think that's it.
[23:55] That brings us to number three, which is really. Or not number three. That brings us to our theory, which is that we know that magical talent is hereditary. The main hereditary talent is magic itself.
[24:10] If one of your parents have it, you yourself are very likely to have it. And then you have additional talents like metamorph Magi or Metamorph Mags.
[24:22] That one is hereditary, as you see from Nymphador Thongs son getting the ability Lan Parseltongue, also hereditary, and the Slydrin line has it. Now the question is, why shouldn't legiliments be hereditary too?
[24:37] We know Tom could from an early age and without training, compel people and animals to do the spitting. We also know the Gons were very protective of their bloodline, of the personal mouth talents, so that they were intermarrying quite desperately.
[24:53] They did not want to lose it. The thing is, if Ar knowing that Tom had a very interesting gift that most don't.
[25:02] The Carnivorous Muffin: And to describe the most don't, we see two other legiliments in the series that we know of, Dumbledore and Snape. And neither either they choose not to use this ability. But it seems more especially with Snape, that they just don't have this ability to compel people to do things.
[25:18] And they're not nearly as good as Tom. That is noted is that he is a incredibly proficient Legiliments and was so even before he started being officially trained in magic.
[25:29] Vinelle: Yeah, the no one else in canon or even the Fantastic Beasts movies, if you want to go with that one.
[25:35] The Carnivorous Muffin: Oh, if you want to go into there, there's Queenie, remember?
[25:38] Vinelle: Exactly. But even she, you know, she just can't control it. Yeah, but to my recollection, even she can't just control Jacob's actions. She can't say, you're marrying me now, Jacob.
[25:49] The Carnivorous Muffin: And she would. She tried.
[25:52] Vinelle: Point being, the Gons made themselves an effective breeding plan. And of course, it could be that it was because of the proud. They were so proud of the Slydrian talent. Puzzlemouth, that is a sufficient explanation.
[26:05] But I think there is room for the possibility that if Legilimency came into line, somehow they would be very protective of that as well. And the thing is, Mario, Telegilaments actually fits quite well.
[26:18] It explains how she gets Tom to do her bidding and how she's able to keep him for so long.
[26:23] And we also see from canon, such as Barty Crouch being able to control his son for many years, but ultimately his son is able to break free of it. That mind magic, it can hold you for a while, but the mind will eventually come to resist.
[26:38] It also explains a little what we're getting into now, which is that Tom Riddle never seems to recover from the ordeal. He returns to little Hamilton, he stays there, he never marries.
[26:52] There's no mention of him ever getting a job or an education there is.
[26:57] He just stays there not doing anything with his life until he dies 16 years later.
[27:04] The Carnivorous Muffin: That's 16 years. I think people forget that a lot that this happened years ago. And yet he sort of went into this weird standstill where his life just stopped.
[27:17] Vinelle: Yeah. And of course we don't know much about him, but it's just the language used to describe him. It's not Tom Riddle and his parents. It's the Riddle's son. Even though the Riddle's son would be an adult, no mention of a profession, he's only ever described as the son.
[27:34] Which leaves me to think that he never became an adult. He never passed any of the milestones you would expect. If you've seen his 20s, it's one thing, but when he is at the youngest, assuming he is like 17 when he is abducted by Merop, that would make him 17 years later 34.
[27:51] When Tom comes to little Hamilton that day, I think you would stop referring to him as just the son. And also, like people will often be referred to by the professions like solicitor.
[28:04] Son would at least be something. But here it's just the only notable thing that appears to have happened to him, according to little Hamilton, is that he had that year with Merop and then came back.
[28:16] And it's pretty much all that ever happened to him. And he was extremely unpleasant and widely hated by everyone. Possibly extremely antisocial after the fact.
[28:25] And any explanation is, even if it was somehow low Persian, then that is still more than explanation enough as you couldn't trust yourself and was kept as an effective sex slave for a year.
[28:39] But I had to think if the trauma he endured is specifically that his own mind was turned against him and he couldn't trust his thoughts or his will and that his abuser could read his mind at her leisure, that she could alter all the things she didn't like.
[28:55] I would also be very unable to do anything with my life after that if something like that happened to me. There's a question of could he physically do much with his life?
[29:05] We know from jailer Lockhart, Frank and Alice Lungbottom, the Muggle we see in Goblet of Fire, who is pretty obliviated that if you have too much mind, magic stuff, don't you.
[29:19] The Carnivorous Muffin: They stick you in the mental ward and stop thinking about you.
[29:23] Vinelle: You're not doing too hot.
[29:25] The Carnivorous Muffin: Oh, man. So, yeah, basically the entire point of this, I feel like it's a relatively short episode.
[29:30] Vinelle: Is that correct?
[29:31] The Carnivorous Muffin: We are 100% Tom Riddle, senior Defenders. Sorry, guys. This One is bad.
[29:38] And of course, you know, it was very bad of Dumbledore to blame Tom Riddle Sr. For abandoning Merope.
[29:46] Vinelle: Like, I, I, I, I, I believe the mor. I think it was Morphin who did it. Fury, long before, you know, giving much thought to Tom Riddle himself. But I'm just sort of.
[29:57] Well, now I'm definitely hanging on to the theory that Morphin did it. It's, it's grim either way that he lives this miserable life and then gets murdered at the end of it.
[30:06] But just, oh, you know, Luster was new. So there is the. If Tom had met his father being a Legilimens. No. But now we're entering into the wild realms of speculation.
[30:18] But I'm just, you know, that's a, that's a Swiss cheese over there.
[30:22] The Carnivorous Muffin: That's a Swiss cheese.
[30:23] Vinelle: That's a mercy Kellen.
[30:25] The Carnivorous Muffin: Oh, man, I just love that this entire story feels like misery. But if it was a Russian novel.
[30:32] Vinelle: Yeah.
[30:33] The Carnivorous Muffin: You know, he finally escapes Kathy Bates. Sixteen years later, he's murdered by Kathy Bates brother.
[30:41] Vinelle: Yeah. And then his grave is disturbed another years later.
[30:45] The Carnivorous Muffin: And then his illegitimate son with Kathy Bates steals his bones.
[30:51] Vinelle: Yeah. And then himself lives a miserable life. Everyone is miserable. Congratulations.
[30:58] The Carnivorous Muffin: Congratulations.
[31:02] Vinelle: Yeah. And also, just an ending note on Merope. Honestly, I'm going to say that because she's a woman, people want to either view her as victim or just very not positively.
[31:15] It's the way to put it. Take for instance, the amount of people saying, oh, what if she erased Tom? What would it been like then? The thing is, she went to an orphanage.
[31:26] I doubt she knew she was going to die. Most women don't. Maybe she has some wig, things might go badly. But the fact that she went to an orphanage, that's a.
[31:36] Oh, better drop off this package. Maybe that's.
[31:40] If she hadn't died, Tom still would.
[31:43] She still put him there.
[31:45] The Carnivorous Muffin: I think there's a strong argument to be made that she intended, if she had lived for Tom to be raised in the orphanage, maybe she would have sent money. You know, people do that.
[31:54] But she didn't have a good home life. Her father, you know, could have at that point been returning from Azkaban. She didn't necessarily know he was going to die there.
[32:03] Her brother's definitely coming back. Yeah. Does she want to have Tom Riddle's baby in the house when that happens?
[32:10] Vinelle: Oh, but she never returned. She never returned.
[32:12] The Carnivorous Muffin: Oh, yeah. True.
[32:13] Vinelle: Yeah. So point being, she's not in a.
[32:15] The Carnivorous Muffin: Good place to raise a kid.
[32:16] Vinelle: So I will also say it's and she doesn't. Bit poorly phrased that I absolutely. If you can't deal with a kid, do not try to raise it. So definitely the best decision she ever made for him was putting him in that orphanage.
[32:30] There is also a lot of. Oh, that orphanage was so horrible. But guys, we. From what we see of the orphanage, yeah, it's.
[32:39] People are overworked and Mrs. Cole seems to be relying on kids to help each other. But it's also. She seems to be very. A very proper woman who is doing her job well until Dumbledore starts confounding her and giving her alcohol.
[32:57] The Carnivorous Muffin: Gotta soak her and Jin get all this kid's secrets.
[33:00] Vinelle: Yeah, that's just. What I was more accurately trying to get at is that Merope is. I think fans tend to not want to judge her or to find this other explanation of what happened with Tom Riddle, partly because, you know, rape is bad.
[33:18] No, no, we don't want a female character doing that.
[33:21] The Carnivorous Muffin: What? No. Yeah, it just. It does seem much more likely than any of this was above board and that Tom Riddle's just the jackass here.
[33:32] Vinelle: Even if she told him she was pregnant, I. Why would he believe her? That's a. Like, did that say, okay, cool story, girl. I'm going. And what's he supposed to do?
[33:42] Like, if she.
[33:44] If we are correct and she is legitimate, then there's nothing he can do to help this child, even if it exists. She would. He would be powerless to protect Tom Jr from Elle Gen's mother.
[33:57] This is one of those, you just gotta save yourself.
[34:01] I feel there's a specific movie reference I should be thinking of where you just bash the witch's head in. But, yeah, he got out.
[34:11] And I doubt he had any idea Tom either existed or that Merop had been telling the truth. If she told him she was pregnant, and I think that's the episode.
[34:20] Look at us.
[34:20] The Carnivorous Muffin: I think that's it. Look at us. We're done.
[34:24] Vinelle: Yeah. Oh, in case we don't see you again.
[34:28] The Carnivorous Muffin: Wait, are we doing the Patreon thing?
[34:30] Vinelle: Oh, yeah, let's do that.
[34:36] Let's hope I'm logged in. I had a feeling I wasn't. And indeed I'm not.
[34:45] Let's see.
[34:48] Okay, well, why wait for me to log in? Muffin, are you thinking of any other bad pronunciations of the names that people had?
[34:59] The Carnivorous Muffin: Those were by far the worst. You know, obviously, no one had problems with Harry. No one had problems with Ron Fleur. Wasn't too bad. At least from the people who I Spoke to Hagrid Fine.
[35:12] Dumbledore Fine. Yeah, it was Hermione. That was a bad one. And yeah, Cedric was a bad one. Nobody had any idea what to do with that. Yeah, those were the worst.
[35:24] I can't think of anyone else.
[35:26] Vinelle: I gotta say, Patron, that's a horrible interface. I tried to just. I had to click and click to figure out where. Where is me.
[35:36] The Carnivorous Muffin: Well, and they keep changing it. I think a lot of people are complaining about Patreon right now, but it's pretty bad.
[35:42] Vinelle: Yeah, you know, there's. At the lower left, there's this here's you. And I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's me. Oh, I clicked on me. And that just got me to the homepage for all of Patreon.
[35:53] Oh, no, it turns out I was supposed to click on Ranker, you see Creator instead. It's sort of obvious, but actually not that I tend to be the idiot when it comes to Patreons.
[36:07] No, just user interfaces. Things you think are obvious to me or not.
[36:15] God **** it. What the hell? Where am I supposed to find this? Oh my God.
[36:20] You can see how often we are. We are actually thinking of. Since we do like to put things on our Patreon from time to time. And our very favorite thing is to make fun of each other.
[36:34] So we had the series where Muffin read aloud my fake I hear a business a few months ago and roasted me.
[36:43] I was horrified. We also had a time Muffin made fun of my 15 year old self's writing. And now next up, finally I get to make fun of the Muffin.
[36:55] The Carnivorous Muffin: We're very balanced.
[36:59] Vinelle: I also shared with Patreons the time I was forced to flash mob the Pope, Pope Francis ii. I even got one of the people I was flash mobbing with to we do edit the song we sang for the poor man.
[37:13] I cannot stress enough. This was not something the Pope had agreed to be subjected to. He was doing his job.
[37:22] And 60 people started singing, all let down by our very catholic and very enthusiastic choir leader. So that's on the Patreon. And hopefully soon the Muffin being roasted.
[37:34] The Carnivorous Muffin: Yeah, check it out. Anyway.
[37:36] Vinelle: Yeah, yeah. So we tend to blow up our readers.
[37:41] Well, no, our Patreons, the ones who are on the T's victim tier. And we have two people on the tier right now. So I think we've just been taking turns blowing them up.
[37:54] How about we blow up stroke entry this time?
[37:57] I am so sorry.
[37:59] The Carnivorous Muffin: It's so sorry.
[38:01] Vinelle: We are supposed to use a random number generator, but the thing is. I don't want to subject everyone to listening to me digging that up as well.
[38:09] The Carnivorous Muffin: So we just chose you.
[38:11] Vinelle: Yes.
[38:12] The Carnivorous Muffin: Congratulations.
[38:14] Vinelle: You got to help us pad the listening time for this one. Hooray.
[38:20] I can think of no other funny names from Harry Potter at the moment other than Lucius Malfoy was made. Lucifus, which just feels like a nickname Narcissa Malfoy made for him when she was 17 or something.
[38:31] Lucifeus.
[38:33] Nope, that's the only one I'm thinking of with that. In case we don't see you again, good afternoon, good evening, and good night.