Harry Potter Why so much taboo about Voldemort?

[zerohour]

This is just an odd thought that popped into my head, but why is EVERYONE so afraid to say Voldemort's name?

For the older wizards, yeah I get it, he was killing people left and right and there was nothing the government could do about it. For their kids, I sort of get it, since they were raised in that sort of an environment.

Half bloods... maybe. Their magical parent probably warned them about it, but their muggleparents would have no reference for it. At worst they wouldn't intervene about it, and most they would probably say it was silly to be afraid of a name, and there were far worse people in history that we never feared speaking their names.

Muggleborns.... what's their excuse? They have no idea who this Voldemort guy is, and he's been dead for years at this point. Why are they so scared to say his name? He might be the wizarding equivalent to the Boogeyman, but by the time they find out about it, the Boogeyman has probably ceased to be anything but an embarrassing memory for many of them, if not all of them.


Is Voldemort a major subject that is still talked about frequently even after a decade? So often that its nearly impossible to avoid a conversation without mentioning him, and triggering the reaction?

Is it a conspiracy? Do the Death Eaters make an effort to incite terror in him after years of nothing? If so, why isn't Albus, who encourages people to say his name, not doing something about it?

Is it the circumstances of his fall? Are they afraid that he's still out there? This doesn't really do anything about the Muggleborn aspect of it.



Just something that popped into my head at work, and wanted to hear what other people thought about it. So, thoughts?

 

[da_fox2279]

Wait, What? chapter 15 has a pretty good theory.

Namely, Voldemort put a jinx on his nom-de-plume during his first rise to power, and used to track his enemies, since only they would be willing to use it.

As to the muggleborn, who entered after Voldie's fall, I suspect they bowed to peer pressure from their half- and pure-blood classmates, who had spent all those years being told to never speak that name aloud, lest they bring His wrath down on everyone.

 

[goldenarms]

Fear, mainly. Even when he was presumed dead or something close to it, they didn't dare say his anme because they were THAT afraid of him. Dumbledore himself has a bit of a talk about it with Harry, IIRC, though in the frame that one should not fear Voldemort (which effectively gives him more power over your mind/spirit, figuratively speaking).

 

[da_fox2279]

Fear, mainly. Even when he was presumed dead or something close to it, they didn't dare say his anme because they were THAT afraid of him. Dumbledore himself has a bit of a talk about it with Harry, IIRC, though in the frame that one should not fear Voldemort (which effectively gives him more power over your mind/spirit, figuratively speaking).

I think the point Dumbles was going for was 'Respect the man and his power, but do not fear a name (made-up or otherwise).'

I'm probably wrong, though...

 

[Shirotsume]

I always got the sense that he put the taboo on his name during his first rise, all the half/pureblood students got used to it and feared it, and every time the muggleborn used it they were shunned/insulted/hated for reminding everyone what had happened to their families and potentially bringing harm all over again.

The only reason we never really see that is... well, let's be honest, are you really gonna tell Albus fucking Dumbledore not to say Voldemort? Or HARRY POTTER, the kid that banished him?


And that shunning and bullying is what caused Dumbledore to give his spiel about not fearing the name.

 

[da_fox2279]

I always got the sense that he put the taboo on his name during his first rise, all the half/pureblood students got used to it and feared it, and every time the muggleborn used it they were shunned/insulted/hated for reminding everyone what had happened to their families and potentially bringing harm all over again.

The only reason we never really see that is... well, let's be honest, are you really gonna tell Albus fucking Dumbledore not to say Voldemort? Or HARRY POTTER, the kid that banished him?


And that shunning and bullying is what caused Dumbledore to give his spiel about not fearing the name.

Well, it's not like anyone ever considered celebrating Voldie's defeat every Halloween was also reminding Harry of his parents deaths...

 

[Cynical Kyle]

I always got the sense that he put the taboo on his name during his first rise, all the half/pureblood students got used to it and feared it, and every time the muggleborn used it they were shunned/insulted/hated for reminding everyone what had happened to their families and potentially bringing harm all over again.

The only reason we never really see that is... well, let's be honest, are you really gonna tell Albus fucking Dumbledore not to say Voldemort? Or HARRY POTTER, the kid that banished him?


And that shunning and bullying is what caused Dumbledore to give his spiel about not fearing the name.

Well, it's not like anyone ever considered celebrating Voldie's defeat every Halloween was also reminding Harry of his parents deaths...

You can't really blame people for neglecting such small detail that ultimately doesn't mean one lick most of them. "Poor boy lost his parents? How terrible!" pales in comparison to removal of existential threat like Voldemort. Imagine your parents dying during day when conflict that kept everyone in your country terrorized & in risk of constant torture & death finally ended. Should those people be castigated for such celebration? I don't think not unless they're personally close to Harry which vast majority of HP population certainly isn't.

 

[da_fox2279]

I always got the sense that he put the taboo on his name during his first rise, all the half/pureblood students got used to it and feared it, and every time the muggleborn used it they were shunned/insulted/hated for reminding everyone what had happened to their families and potentially bringing harm all over again.

The only reason we never really see that is... well, let's be honest, are you really gonna tell Albus fucking Dumbledore not to say Voldemort? Or HARRY POTTER, the kid that banished him?


And that shunning and bullying is what caused Dumbledore to give his spiel about not fearing the name.

Well, it's not like anyone ever considered celebrating Voldie's defeat every Halloween was also reminding Harry of his parents deaths...

You can't really blame people for neglecting such small detail that ultimately doesn't mean one lick most of them. "Poor boy lost his parents? How terrible!" pales in comparison to removal of existential threat like Voldemort. Imagine your parents dying during day when conflict that kept everyone in your country terrorized & in risk of constant torture & death finally ended. Should those people be castigated for such celebration? I don't think not unless they're personally close to Harry which vast majority of HP population certainly isn't.

... I wasn't actually saying everyone should have remembered, or acted all sympathetic towards Harry; I meant people that Harry was close to, like Hermione. The Weasleys could be excused, given how Molly is.

 

[Shirotsume]

When did Hermione ever celebrate the defeat of Voldemort?

You fucking cracked, son.

 

[atlas_hugged]

Fear, mainly. Even when he was presumed dead or something close to it, they didn't dare say his anme because they were THAT afraid of him. Dumbledore himself has a bit of a talk about it with Harry, IIRC, though in the frame that one should not fear Voldemort (which effectively gives him more power over your mind/spirit, figuratively speaking).

What it if was literally? Ancient magic made the power of love super powerful, what if Voldemorte was tapping into similarly ancient emotion based magics by becoming as feared as he was?

 

[zerohour]

Still, there are bound to be a few kids who would say Voldemort just to laugh as everyone freaks out over it. People are jerks like that.

At the very least some dumb Gryffindor would enjoy saying it in Potions Class, just to watch Snape jump. Sure, he'd probably stop after he started taking points, unless Dumbledore did somethign about it, (which he might.)

That reminds me, anyone remember a fic where Harry was teaching, and he rewarded students for saying Voldemort's name?

 

[Cynical Kyle]

Still, there are bound to be a few kids who would say Voldemort just to laugh as everyone freaks out over it. People are jerks like that.

At the very least some dumb Gryffindor would enjoy saying it in Potions Class, just to watch Snape jump. Sure, he'd probably stop after he started taking points, unless Dumbledore did somethign about it, (which he might.)

That reminds me, anyone remember a fic where Harry was teaching, and he rewarded students for saying Voldemort's name?

Remember the Book 1 rereading you did. People weren't exactly convinced that Voldie was dead though they certainly hoped that was the case. Any kid with wizarding parent or caretaker would be certain to get that beaten into their skulls, just look at how even generally rebellious Weasleys react to his name years later. As for muggleborns, they're already dealing with massive culture shock, being at new boarding school far away from home & trying to fit in. Moment someone said that name would get them shunned until they apologized.

 

[Shirotsume]

Still, there are bound to be a few kids who would say Voldemort just to laugh as everyone freaks out over it. People are jerks like that.

At the very least some dumb Gryffindor would enjoy saying it in Potions Class, just to watch Snape jump. Sure, he'd probably stop after he started taking points, unless Dumbledore did somethign about it, (which he might.)

That reminds me, anyone remember a fic where Harry was teaching, and he rewarded students for saying Voldemort's name?

I remember it existing, in serveral stories, but not too many details past that. One was a time travel (which was weird because harry was crushing on tween hermione), another was alternate universe multiharrys, one of them had a segment where Harry got them to yell it and it scared the shit out of the charms classroom on the floor above them and harry is reprimanded by Dumbledore.

 

[bissek]

A great deal of it was the Taboo Voldemort himself put on his name, which would let him know the exact location of anyone saying his name. Which could have easily been turned against him if people in the HPverse actually spent some time thinking about how to fight a war.

1: Set up ambush (Or a bunch of claymore mines) in confined space.
2: Shout VOLDEMORT! in the middle of the confined space
3: Dive behind cover
4: When snatchers come, set off ambush/trap
5: Repeat until you run out of either ammunition or snatchers stupid enough to respond to the taboo.

 

[ThatGuy115]

A great deal of it was the Taboo Voldemort himself put on his name, which would let him know the exact location of anyone saying his name. Which could have easily been turned against him if people in the HPverse actually spent some time thinking about how to fight a war.

1: Set up ambush (Or a bunch of claymore mines) in confined space.
2: Shout VOLDEMORT! in the middle of the confined space
3: Dive behind cover
4: When snatchers come, set off ambush/trap
5: Repeat until you run out of either ammunition or snatchers stupid enough to respond to the taboo.

Do we even know if he even had the Taboo during his first rise? It seemed like he only set it up after he took over the Ministry, which might imply that it was the Ministry itself that had that power and not Voldemort.

 

[Garahs]

A great deal of it was the Taboo Voldemort himself put on his name, which would let him know the exact location of anyone saying his name. Which could have easily been turned against him if people in the HPverse actually spent some time thinking about how to fight a war.

1: Set up ambush (Or a bunch of claymore mines) in confined space.
2: Shout VOLDEMORT! in the middle of the confined space
3: Dive behind cover
4: When snatchers come, set off ambush/trap
5: Repeat until you run out of either ammunition or snatchers stupid enough to respond to the taboo.

The snatchers didn't come in directly where the name was spoken. This makes me believe something like that may have been attempted in the past.

As for why no muggleborn said his name, it's probably part peer pressure and part conditioning. I forget where I read it, but there was a study done. A woman was led into a room with other people. Periodically a bell was wrung and everyone else stood up for a few seconds. The woman also stood up. They repeated this several times, slowly removing the plants until the woman was the only one left. Then they started adding additional people. Every time the bell rang, everyone stood up. No one ever asked why they were supposed to stand.

 

[Prince Charon]

A great deal of it was the Taboo Voldemort himself put on his name, which would let him know the exact location of anyone saying his name. Which could have easily been turned against him if people in the HPverse actually spent some time thinking about how to fight a war.

1: Set up ambush (Or a bunch of claymore mines) in confined space.
2: Shout VOLDEMORT! in the middle of the confined space
3: Dive behind cover
4: When snatchers come, set off ambush/trap
5: Repeat until you run out of either ammunition or snatchers stupid enough to respond to the taboo.

Do we even know if he even had the Taboo during his first rise? It seemed like he only set it up after he took over the Ministry, which might imply that it was the Ministry itself that had that power and not Voldemort.

The problem with that is, so many people being terrified to say the name makes a whole lot more sense if he had it during his first rise.

 

[zerohour]

My guess would be that he managed to get a Taboo set up on his own, but after his revival and takeover, it was faster and more effective to use the Ministry's setup. The firs time he had mystery on his side and plenty of time to make sure things were set up right, while the second, people knew exactly who and what he was.

Yeah, I understand about peer pressure and conditioning, but you have to assume that some muggleborns along the way decided it was funny to watch people jump when you said Voldemort. Then again, with all the fear most people show, I could easily see some of the teachers taking points for that, and the stigma about losing points could act as additional pressure to stop saying it.

I suppose we could chalk part of it up to wizard idiocy. Sometimes I think JK screwed up when she shifted from children's book to young adult book. Makes sense giving her aging fanbase, but a lot of the goofy/silly things in the early books become disturbing when you add the gritty realism of people dying left and right.

Fudge is a prime example, always pestering Dumbledore for advice. Really funny at first to think that an adult is lovably incompetent, but then when Voldemort is revived, his inability to do his job competently and freaking out over the very idea of Voldemort's return led to a string of very bad decisions that gave Voldemort plenty of time to get all of his pieces into place, while the good duys did effectively nothing, thanks to Fudge.

 

[Shirotsume]

A good possibility was that Voldemort made a janky taboo in his first rise, and sometime later the Ministry implemented it, or some variation of it, that Voldemort ended up using.

Would explain why there was never a use of the fanon idea of setting a taboo on the unforgivables, moresmordres, etc.

 

[akun50]

The response for the Taboo might've also been set to trigger under certain circumstances. Someone whispering to someone else might not trigger it, but if someone said it with confidence (like a braggart or something), they might've sent one or two Death Eaters to apparate a bit away from the target and investigate, and if the target was someone who seemed like a vague threat, they might rough him/her up or flatout kill them; ala how a budding mafia operates.

If, all of a sudden, a good number of braggarts who were pissing his name and reputation were to abruptly disappear or die mysteriously, there'd be a number of people who'd apply at least a bit of correlation, which would stir fear into more people, and so on and so forth. Especially since those confident enough to confront him would be among the ones vanishing first and a lot of the older and more well situated families would be the ones in Voldie's Derp Eaters.

 

[goldenarms]

Well, after seeing this topic run this long, I got curious and decided to google around for an answer. From the Harry Potter Wiki: Taboo

History
First Wizarding War

Some have theorised that the practise of saying "You-Know-Who" instead of Voldemort's proper name might have began when he used a Taboo on his name during the First Wizarding War. This is unlikely, because Dumbledore encouraged people to use the proper name Voldemort so as to not fear the name. He would not have encouraged this if saying the Dark Lord's name would have endangered people. The Taboo's use during the Second Wizarding War seems to have been novel. It was particularly effective in capturing members of the Order of the Phoenix, as well as the D.A. The practise of saying "You-Know-Who" instead of Voldemort is most likely caused by memories of the extreme fear and panic hearing his name would inspire, and a desire to avoid arousing those bad memories.

Second Wizarding War
Implementation

Ron: "...the name's been jinxed, Harry, that's how they track people! Using his name breaks protective enchantments, it causes some kind of magical disturbance — it's how they found us in Tottenham Court Road!"
Harry: "Because we used his name?"
Ron: "Exactly! You've got to give them credit, it makes sense. It was only people who were serious about standing up to him, like Dumbledore, who even dared use it. Now they've put a Taboo on it, anyone who says it is trackable — quick-and-easy way to find Order members!"
— Ron Weasley to Harry Potter after learning of the Taboo curse.[src]

Sometime after seizing indirect control of the Ministry of Magic in 1997, Voldemort made his own name Taboo. Thus, whenever his name was spoken aloud, Death Eaters and Snatchers were alerted to the location of the speaker. Since the only individuals who dared speak Voldemort's name were members of the Order of the Phoenix or their allies, the Taboo allowed Voldemort's followers to track down their enemies.[1] Anyone who dared to speak the name and break the Taboo would be hunted down as criminals. Hermione Granger broke the Taboo once while the trio were at Tottenham Court Road, which led two Death Eaters (disguised as construction workers) to their location. Harry Potter broke the Taboo while they were camping during the hunt for Voldemort's horcruxes, leading to their capture by Snatchers. Kingsley Shacklebolt broke the Taboo and had to fight off several Death Eaters before going on the run, which is what alerted the Order of the Phoenix to the Taboo's existence.

The anti-Voldemort radio programme Potterwatch, which was run by Order members and sympathisers, took to referring to Voldemort as "Chief Death Eater" as one of their methods of avoiding detection.[2]

It is also possible that Voldemort invented the Taboo curse, as it seemed that no one was aware how his Death Eaters were able to track people who spoke Voldemort's name.

While it's deemed unlikely the Taboo existed in the First Wizarding War, it made sense for Voldemort to create it in order to hunt down the Order and anti-Voldemort sympathizers for the Second Wizarding War, as Voldemort's greatest adversary was deceased, leaving the Order leaderless and easy pickings.

 

[Prince Charon]

This, of course, then takes us back to 'Why are people afraid to say the name, then?'

One thought I've seen is that he cursed his made-up name, so that the sound of it scared people - the spell may have faded after his 'death,' though (or Harry is immune).