Harry Potter theory: Voldemort and the Mirror of Erised

“There is no good and evil. There is only power… and those too weak to seek it”- Voldemort

The phrase “vol de mort” in French means “theft of death” or “flight of death,” which is an accurate description of its main objectives throughout the series. Voldemort is one of the most confusing characters in the “Harry Potter” series, but superfans can never know everything about him. A real person inspired the name Tom Riddle and the name Voldemort has a major significance. Voldemort called Harry Potter “the chosen one,” as the story portrays that all.

Love to conquer everything is a major theme of the series and the backstory of Voldemort makes it clear that in the life of the villain there was never love, making it extremely difficult for him to succeed. Without insight, it’s clear that throughout the series Voldemort does everything in his power — including dividing his soul seven times — to live up to his name and beat death. This is a character sketch of Voldemort in the series of Harry Potter and taking note of throughout the story or series of Harry Potter he has many evil desires.

The Mirror of Erised

“Erised” is bewitched backwards as “desire,” and the Mirror connects and shows the person squinting in it the deepest desire of their hearts. There is an inscription written on the mirror: ‘Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi’ which really reads, as on a mirror, ‘I show not your face but your heart’s desire’. The Mirror of Erised’s powers to reveal the desire of a heart in the series prove to be pretty heart-tugging. Indeed many of the wishes that it represents are unlikely. Harry finds himself surrounded by his family who died.

It is a much more straightforward description of the power of the mirror than the one that Dumbledore provides to Harry: “The happiest man on Earth can look into the mirror and see himself only, just as he is.” Plus, all this inverted text is quite clever and makes a great interest of the viewer when you think about it, noting that reflections show text in reverse. It is also mentioned that people become fascinated about what they see in the mirror which is just fictional.

What did Voldemort see in the mirror?

Besides Dumbledore and Harry, Voldemort was also a significant character in negative aspects. So what did he actually see in the Mirror of Erised? To know that we had to reminisce his past just in case. The mystical wizard known as “Lord Voldemort” was born in a London orphanage in 1926 on new year’s eve. Tom had been raised in a tidy, but bleak Muggle orphanage in London for the first 11 years of his life. He was the son of Merope Gaunt (Salazar Slytherin’s descendant) and Tom Riddle, a lovely, affluent Muggle from Little Hangleton, whom Merope snatched with a love potion.

He left her when she was pregnant as his husband found out she was a witch. Tom’s mother died shortly after giving birth to him on December 31, surviving long enough to be named after his father and grandfather as well. The broken orphan Tom Marvolo Riddle transformed himself into Lord Voldemort and take control of the Wizard because of his dark past and no love and affection in life as a result of which he did horrible things.

This mirror certainly showed him a fulfilled vision of him as the ruler of the Wizarding World. He might see himself as invincible, and all mighty, leader of the mystical world, and as an immortal witch as being fascinated he faced death many timed but he ended up at the seventh time. He, at his young age, started concurring magic as if dark magic we can say to become powerful and immortal and he used DARK ART. The Dark Arts are magical rituals and activities commonly used for purposes of malice. Dark Arts practitioners are called Dark Witches or Wizards so Voldemort became one of them. In light of becoming almighty, he wanted to know about Horcruxes. Voldemort needed an opinion on whether he could create several Horcruxes and no book or source could tell him the details so he asked for the opinion of Slughorn.

If he would see in the mirror he might able to get an image of a book telling about Horcruxes but he could’ve seen his family as a broken and young child as he was just a sad child having no one in the world to live with besides living being an orphanage in spite of his gracious dreams about becoming an evil witch. Tom didn’t know his identity who he belonged to, so he grew like clueless and oblivious until he met Dumbledore.

He could’ve been normal and different if he didn’t suffer through loneliness as he was abandoned by his own due to circumstances and might be happy or optimistic in his life if he could live with his family and he could see the world with a distinctive approach as family plays a key role in upbringing an individual. Maybe the effect of the Love potion under which he was conceived resulted in him not feeling any sense of love and hence the horrible things he did was a result of his dark past.