This is one of my favorite Harry Potter books! The movie is awesome. Me my sisters and my friend watched it yesturday, so we would be "ready" for the sixth one which is coming out TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm SO SO SO excited! I even have a "Lunaish" outfit: Purple shirt with purple knitted shawl with sleeves and khaki pants, homemade spectraspecs, rootbeer bottle cap necklace, and cardboard radish earrings that stay on with tape (I don't have my ears pierced). Can you tell I'm a luna fan yet? :) I call people who are Luna fans: Luna lovers because Luna's last name has the word love in it and Luna fans Love Luna so henceforth Luna Lover.

In the sixth book I thought it was so sweet that Tonks fell in love with Lupin! I love Tonks and i think Lupin is pretty cool, and to add to the fact he's a werewolf that makes him even cooler.           

P.S.My first and last initials are the same as Harry Potter's!

i kinda like snape, but my he's my brothers HERO!!!! (even though my brother's in collage)

It's hinted at that he was slightly unhinged from the start due to his wizarding family's habit of inbreeding. He grew up with an unfavorable view of Muggles, and knew he was gifted in some way - so naturally he developed a superiority complex early on (hence, his ready acceptance of Dumbledore's news). When Dumbledore showed up, Tom Riddle Jr. took the professor's words as a confirmation of the superiority of wizards to Muggles.

Presumably his hatred of his common name - or anything else that tied him to another person - stemmed directly from his superiority complex. Anything that connects him to other people, who he considers inferior, he viewed as lessening his perceived greatness.

His natural charisma and ability to draw others - even his upperclassmen - into a position of inferiority to himself, coupled with Slughorn's blatant favouritism towards Riddle, likely only made things worse.

Sometime during his years at Hogwarts Riddle became obsessed with his own morality (which I suppose is typical of teenagers). Early on he had viewed magic as a form of immortality (see his belief that his mother couldn't have been magic, or she wouldn't have let herself die). We know that he killed his family before asking Slughorn about Horcruxes - likely he was already planning on making one and merely wanted to make certain that he had gotten the basic process right before trying something so drastic.

If we're speaking chronologically, this is Voldy's Moral Event Horizon*, even though Voldy as been a Big Bad† since the beginning of the series and, in terms of Harry's life, had crossed the MEH as early as book 1, chapter 1.

After Riddle left Hogwarts he started working at Borgin and Burkes, presumably in order to further his already substantial knowledge of the Dark Arts. He gradually became more and more twisted and evil, going so far as to murder an innocent woman in order to get his hands on two objects which he later turned into Horcruxes.

So, no, I don't believe that Voldemort was born evil. I believe that he was born with the /potential/ to become either very evil or very good. A few changes in Dumbledore's original speech, a better orphanage, a lack of favouritism on Slughorn's part- and I believe Tom Riddle Jr. would have stayed Tom Riddle Jr. Either way I think he would have been incapable of neutrality; if he were good he would have been Barty Crouch times about a hundred. As it was he allowed himself to be corrupted by the Dark Arts and we got the major antagonist of the Harry Potter series.  

Voldemort ended up as evil as he was, I think, due to a superiority complex, an unhealthy obsession with immortality combined with a fear of death, and, well, poor timing.

I'm curious; what does everyone else think on the subject? 

*Moral Event Horizon = an action on the part of a character, villain or hero, which puts him forever out of the range of forgiveness on the part of (most of) the audience. Also, an action on the part of a previously relatively innocent character which sets them irrevocably on the path of wickedness (see Tom Riddle murdering his uncle, father, and grandparents). 

†major antagonist. 

Yes, she did. I mean, it's like when real people get obsessed of treatment of animals. It wasn't quite in character with Hermione, either, don't you think?

Whatever was wrong with Ron, Bookworm? He was a loyal friend, and funny, and kind, even if he was a bit, ah, simple-minded.

Oh, I'm not REALLY a member... that was just figurative speaking.