Voldemort -- Needing some insight

[themostepotente]

I've started writing Lord Voldemort, and I was wondering how the Deatheaters would address him, particularly Lucius and Severus.

'My Lord' came to mind. I can't see them addressing him by name. Too disrespectful.

Also -- approximately when did Voldemort start taking on a snake-like appearance? Anotherwords, when did he start looking oh, not so humanish? I know I'm not wording this as best as I could, but give me a fuckin' break, eh? It's 3 am here.

What is the best approximation for the year that Tom Riddle was born?

maeglinyedi -- since you write quite a bit of Voldemort, might you lend your expertise?

Anyone is welcome to add their two cents by the way .

--P

Comments

[maeglinyedi.livejournal.com]

Oops...I didn't see your post before now. So my apologies for this late comment.

How his followers address him...in OotP, both Peter and Lucius address Voldemort as both 'master' and 'my Lord'. The other Death Eaters use those same titles. We never see Snape address Voldemort in canon, but we can assume he uses 'master' and 'my Lord' as well. So...you can never go wrong with either one of those words.

And I agree...I don't think any of his Death Eaters would address him with simply 'Voldemort'. Now, 'Tom', however, might be a possibility in a certain setting, if there's a lot of trust between Voldemort and a specific Death Eater, but it would require heaps of backstory to make it work.

As for Voldemort's appearance. We know from GoF that he looks snake-like after he returns. However, we don't have solid evidence that he also looked like this during the first war. All Dumbledore says about Voldemort's looks during that time is that no one recognized him, but that could mean anything...perhaps it's just because he aged (obviously) since last anyone saw him as Tom Riddle, or perhaps he did have a snake-like appearance already. So, methinks you can go either way with that when you write him during the first war.

As for the year he was born, that's 1927. I've calculated it time and again, and I keep coming back to 1927. (Some argue it could have been late 1926, but that doesn't correspond with the information we have on him, namely that he got his diary the Christmas after he opened the CoS, and in his diary he states that he is 16 years old).

Hope this helps. :-)

[themostepotente.livejournal.com]

It did, Maeglin -- immensely. Thank you!

Everything you mentioned confirmed my ideals, and that's encouraging when you are writing a character you don't normally.