trope i really like is self-loathing characters desperate for the catharsis of punishment for frankly rather selfish reasons who r also obsessed with repeatedly pressing others into hating them and hurting them as essentially a method of self harm. yes baby continue making it worse for urself and everybody around u instead of doing an actually productive and effective journey of improvement and redemption
So we all know that Tom's nickname name translates to "flight of death" in French.
Which is ironic because he fancied himself immortal, having made his Horcruxes. And it was a nickname he received/made not long after Hogwarts, i.e. not long after he made his first Horcrux and believed himself immortal (He just didn't use it openly until a decade later).
So little Tom was doodling with his name, trying to make something that was in no way reminding of his Muggle heritage, and also remembering the French he glanced at when he learned that it was sort of a "pure-blood" language tradition.
And little Tom, believing himself to be newly immortal, stumbles upon an anagram , a smush of vol-de-mort that means death flies. He sees it as fate, that death flies from him because he is just that powerful as a student.
And he needs to be seen as noble, that he is descended from pure blood, that as a descendant of Slytherin he is the true lord of darkness.
And thus, the name Lord Voldemort was born.
I am genuinely not advocating for a return to queerbait tv, I was vocally against it the whole time it was happening that was like my whole shtick for a while but it is kind of wild that when gay people weren’t allowed on tv, gay characters (who weren’t allowed to be gay) would be drinking poison for each other and killing bad guys for each other romantically and offering to go to prison in each other’s place and now that we are allowed to have gay people on tv…gay people will just be having a healthy conversation and going going on a date like normal people. Get OUT of my face with that