Lord Voldemort

image=This fan-made poster for the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie pictures Lord Voldemort (played by Ralph Fiennes) when he has returned to power. It is not yet known what Voldemort will actually look like in the film, although a swedish newspaper recently showed a picture showing Voldemort which they claimed was from the movie. See more here.

Voldemort's name

Voldemort's real name is Tom Marvolo Riddle. In the second book he explains that Lord Voldemort is derived from an anagram of his name:

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:TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE → I AM LORD VOLDEMORT

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Like a number of other names in the Harry Potter novels, "Voldemort" seems to have French origins. Indeed, Vol de mort can mean, rather appropriately, either "flight of death" or "theft of death". The word de can also translate as "from", giving "flight from Death". Given Voldemort's fear of death and quest for immortality, this meaning is also appropriate.

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In translated versions of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Voldemort's true name is changed to accommodate the anagram. In the Polish edition however, the translator Andrzej Polkowski decided not to make any changes, presumably because of the difficulty of translating the anagram into a meaningful sentence. In the Portuguese edition (as distinct from the Brazilian edition) the name was similarly left untranslated.

Related Topics:
Polish - Portuguese - Brazilian

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