I realize that this is similar in several respects to other topics, but I haven't found something exactly like this, and I want to address one question in particular.

Firstly, several people say that the Dark Lord is unable to love. I pose the idea, that perhaps he doesn't love, but he lusts. If you don't know the difference, look it up, I'm not going to waste my time finding a definition that suits everyone.

The first main point to this is that the idea of love in Harry Potter is presented by Dumbledore, who can be seen as the archnemesis to the Dark Lord. Therefore, we can suppose that this definition would not necessarily apply to him. It is not a universal definition, but the definition provided by a wise old man that, for all his knowledge, is sometimes wrong. Besides that, if we choose to ignore his definition, or take it with a grain of salt, we can say that maybe the Dark Lord is capable of love, just not in the same way Dumbledore would see it.

So, if he is capable of this love, what else can we call it? The word that came to mind was lust. He certainly lusts after power, meaning that this is not impossible for him. So why would it be so impossible for him to lust another human being? Dumbledore said that he never loved another being, but he never gives a reason other than his definition of love. It stands to reason that, if he can lust power, he can also lust an other person.

The question is then posed, "why is this never mentioned?". I answered this by saying that perhaps she was never shown because we want to see him as un-human, or even as sub-human, though his goal was to stretch the limits of humanity, to become something more. He isn't supposed to be like us, and possessing such human emotions would defeat the purpose. Perhaps she isn't shown because she would make it seem like a human did all of this; he was human, but he morphed, twisted himself into something horrifying, and it was only when we stopped to think that we remembered he too was once like us.

If the Dark Lord did once lust after another person, she might be dead, or perhaps he left her when revenge became so important. Underneath, he is still human. He is able to turn off the human emotions of love and fear; in other words, their weaknesses. He created himself to have no weakness, although this is not where the main point of this discussion lies. He was once human, and he still is in some respect.

I don't think that this is so impossible, the Dark Lord lusting after another person. What I suggest is that, perhaps she died, or is another part of his past that was never discovered. So, to the main point, what do you think? Sorry that was so long, but I've been thinking about this for a while, so I had a lot to say.

~Aeryn~

Even if he did 'lust' after another person, it is not entirely relevant to his background or story nor does it help to justify what he has done. We know that BEllatrix had feelings for him and if Voldemort had known this before he became so demented (for want of a better word!) then maybe something would have come of this. As a man he probably did hold feelings for someone in his life, but like many of us may have just held these feelings and not acted on them. He was human, he was not immortal, he just commited dreadful crimes to get extra powers. Therfore it is right to suppose, as you do, that he was felt lust towards another human but he was obviously not interested in that sort of love and prefered to seek his own continuation and power

It's possible, he's just human and probably have all human urges. That means, in my opinion, that he had some women. Not just one. To the joy he needn't particular one. And I certainly wouldn't compare it with love. That's also one of the reasons why JKR never mentioned anything like that. We all know things like that exists, but don't have to read abou them in such a book.

Hey, look! I found it again! I was searching for this, as I had a particular desire to write on this topic, and I found it again. Ok, end of the intense elation... Good.

Well, Dumbledore makes such a point that the Dark Lord can't love, yet I beg to differ. I want to say that he is capable of love, just not the same way that Dumbledore loves. Dumbledore defines love as this perfect idea, where the love is given, returned, and everything is okey dokey. I say that this doesn't exist in all existences, but we don't discount people who don't have this perfect love. If the Dark Lord loves someone else, cares deeply about them, would risk his life for him, but they do not feel the same, is this not love? Or if they love him in the same way, is he not loved? I would say that he is loved/ he does love, but that it is not the same way Dumbledore defines it. He has love for the magick, but because it is insubstantial, we say that he does not love.

In a way, I suppose I'm challenging Dumbledore's definition of love, and trying to say that the Dark Lord isn't incapable of love but that we need to expand our definition beyond the perfect ideal.

Since this question has gotten bogged down/ no one is helping me, which I don't mind by the way, I'll post a new question. "Why wouldn't the Dark Lord be capable of love?"

We know that Dumbledore addresses this, saying that he became so inhuman to the point where he was no longer able to love. This would say that love is a human ideal, which doesn't make any sense at all. Would his inability to love be from experience, rather from what he became? Perhaps his choice to turn away from his mortality, and his humanity as according to Dumbledore, is prompted not from a desire from power, but from an experience. There are plenty of years left unknown, but could it be possible that his inability to love come from personal experience? After all, there are several ways of knowing! Nerdy TOK talk...


~Aeryn~

I think that prehaps Voldermort fell in love when he was young and for some reason it didnt work out , like prehaps what was said earlier, she died or maybe didnt return his affections causing him to asosiate love and pain together ultumiatley resulting in him veiwing love as a weakness and him shutting that emotion out. I'm not very sure though But at the end of the day he is a human no matter how inhuman he seems and must have felt love/ lust somtime in his life.

I think that the Dark Lord had a hard childhood in the orphanage,without anyone to love him-no parents or family,he becomes a rough person with dark feelings and intentions-and when he goes to Hogworts,he is tempted by power and glory and later on-they turn up to be the only goals in life he wishes to achieve... so love is something that by his understandings-he doesn't need....

I'll throw in my two cents for what it's worth.

Jo has changed her mind quite a few times on to why Voldemort is incapable of love. Originally, she claimed that it was a choice, that he chose to be the way he was. That would seem to indicate that he pushed love and tenderness and caring to the side in pursuit of his goals. In this, Voldemort is not without precident, lots of history's most dynamic generals have done exactly the same thing.

Later, she puts forth the explanation that because Tom Riddle was conceived under the influence of a love potion that he was destined to become the person he did. This sort of flies in the face of him having a choice. That only if Merope had survived him and given him the love an support any child needs would he have overcome this "curse".

I kind of dismiss this second explanation. It makes Voldemort too safe. It's like knowing that because your mother didn't take a particular drug you can't fall victim to some malady. Voldemort making choices based on his life experiences makes him not so safe. His fate could be ours.

I like the idea that at one point in his life he might have had feelings for someone. While Dumbledore is written as omnipotent, we know he's not. Lots of things occurred at Hogwarts that he had no knowledge of, for example, entrance to the Room of Requirement, all the secret passeges, the Marauders. All these things were kept safely hidden from Dumbledore but students of the school no less. So it's not out of the realm of possibility that a clandestine relationship between a young Tom Riddle and another student took place. Dumbledore did tell Harry that few people were willing to talk about Tom Riddle's school days. If Tom did have a relationship with someone, she is either dead or has so completely disappeared that she might as well be dead. The feelings might be "let sleeping dogs lie".

What type of person would she be? Well not a Hufflepuff, too interested in fair play and sticking to the rules. Ravenclaws, while smart enough, probably weren't clever enough. Gryffindors were probably too over the top, so only another Slytherin would do. The problem is, with someone like Tom, the very things that would attract him to her would also keep her from wanting to establish a long-term loving relationship. She would have goals, dreams and desires outside of wanting to be someone's wife or mother.

If Tom had met someone like this when he was about seventeen or eighteen, I'm guessing biology would not have been kind. Hormones, being what they are, would have been in full bloom. But this girl, like Tom himself, would still have her goals. So I believe she would have broken his heart. Maybe she would have snuck off after graduation, knowing she woudn't see him again, and always retaining her memories of him. Tom, on the other hand, would have been devastated. And knowing him, he would have turned that anger inward. He's not the type of person to think "better to have loved and lost". More likely, he would have reinforced the walls around his heart.

Do I think he could have torn down that wall in the end? Well, I've imagined the girl that broke his heart, and their final reunion, and part of me was hoping that Jo might have been thinking along those lines when she wrote DH. Alas, she wasn't.

I also dismiss the second option, because that's just not cool.
I'd like to add to that, perhaps it was after school, during those years we know nothing about, that he had a relationship. If anyone reads Dragonlance, there are many who say that Raistlin is also incapable of love, including his brother at times. Yet, the relationship between him and Crysania is a combination of power and love; he begins to use her, and ends up having feelings for her that he forces himself to control so that he can move on with his work. It could be something similar; the Dark Lord loved her, and yet he forced himself to ignore those feelings, which could leave the possibilities wide open. People with that amount of power seem to have the ability, usually, to control such pesky emotions unlike those of good, so that they can be successful. It is not an inability to love, but an ability to control that emotion that separates them. Because they see love as a weakness, yet are unable to prevent it completely, they instead control that emotion rather than letting it rule their actions.
So, in summary, I'm saying that he's both capable of love, and has loved, but that he's controlled his love because his logic is more powerful than his emotions. He's like part vulcan; no, really, look at his ears! Yet, he's also lusted, and had women, because it would be another power source. He is in control, and if he physically wants a woman, he can have her; that would make sense. He wouldn't see it as a weakness, because he is still in control with himself, and is the more powerful person. That is unlike the relationships of the other characters, where there is love that is shared and is an emotional need. I feel that he either controls that emotional need, because he sees emotions as a weakness, or that he also uses that emotional need to strengthen himself by hiding it as lust.
The emotional need seems to be too strong, often, and I doubt that he was able to completely do away with it. Would it be possible, then, that instead of actually loving another being as in being in a relationship of equalities, he loved a woman, and yet hid that emotion from others and disguised that relationship as lust to fulfill his emotional requirements. That makes sense to me. He also could have loved before, and had one of those relationships that is open, and trusting, and to some, the perfect relationship. But I have a feeling that power became too important for him, or that his logical side took over, and he changed it completely, leaving a woman either dead, heartbroken, or both.
This is adding to what I've said before, but does that make sense?

~Aeryn~