(no subject)

[mary_j_59]

I'm just posting an entry I made in the Hogwartsprofessor forum here as well, and cross posting it to Harry Potter Essays, because I thought it was interesting and thought others might be interested as well. The purpose was not to open a frequently viewed can of worms, but rather to close it! But of course, comments are welcome! At the same time, I'm going to go through my journal and put the really long stuff behind lj cuts, if I can manage it. First, the essay-

Title: Some thoughts on Tom Riddle's Psychology
Author:mary_j_59
Type: G
Category:short essay
Length: About 300 words
Main characters and/or pairings:Tom Riddle
Warnings: None, though there is a little imagery I find disturbing. It's about what makes Riddle evil, and the sort of evil he represents.
Rating: G, but see above.
Summary:
Disclaimers and Notes: Thanks to the members of the Hogpro board for a very interesting discussion, especially Pat, Jayne1955, Jodel and (though I often disagree with her!) Trudy. Also, thanks to my sister for reading and approving. The essay follows the cut:


On the hogpro board, some of us again began to debate about Tom Riddle and the extent to which he is responsible for his actions. I'd say the standard argument goes like this: Humans have free will; Tom Riddle is human; therefore, Tom Riddle must have free will. From this, it logically follows that, if Tom Riddle does not have free will, he isn't fully human. Or, at least (which is the way I see it), he's a severely damaged human being. What could have damaged him to the extent that he lacked all moral capacity for choice? To me, the answer is clear, and I explain it below.


On the matter of choice, I am going to try one more time. This is as close as I can come to middle ground. There is a difference between choice as an intellectual exercise, choice as a mere physical reflex or reaction, and choice as a moral act, informed by emotional and moral intelligence. Tom Riddle is quite capable of 'choice' on the physical and intellectual levels. He's apparently incapable of choice on a truly mature, moral level, and here is why. Not only has this boy never been loved, rendering him an emotional cripple; he's also immensely powerful compared to everyone around him. That's a really toxic combination. It's as though young Tom were the only human being living in an anthill. He takes pleasure in pushing the ants around, hurting them, and punishing them when they bother him. And he can't see any reason to do otherwise. He can understand, intellectually, how he *ought* to behave. He ought to be nice to the ants and follow their silly little rules so that they will be nice to him. He's quite capable of choosing to follow those same silly little rules - but why should he? He doesn't want to! After all, he is a person, and they are ants! They may look like people, they may talk like people and cry and beg like people, but they are really only ants.

If Tom Riddle thinks this way, as I think he does, he will never be able to humble himself enough to truly understand why he should be kind to other human beings. The difference between Tom in the orphanage and Tom at Hogwarts is just that *these* ants - the wizarding kind - are powerful, so he has to use slightly different techniques on them. But they are still just ants. It will - as I said before - take a miracle for Tom to think differently. Without such a miracle, he will remain what he is - a monster. He is a monster precisely because he is incapable of love and empathy - the qualities that would enable him to truly understand, and therefore make, moral choices. As I see it, he can make intellectual choices. He can't make moral ones. Pure intellect is not enough to render a human being a moral being. What is required is sympathy, imagination and love.

And that's my last word on the subject - really! I am not trying to convert anyone else to my POV; I'm just trying to be understood. That's all. I agree we probably shouldn't discuss this any more.

Addenda:

Does anyone remember the old Star Trek episode "Charlie X"? It just occured to me that Charlie is a good analog for young Tom Riddle in many ways - an apparently normal boy who is incapable of living with his fellow human beings without endangering them, because he's immensely powerful, immensely needy, and morally and emotionally no more than 3 years old, if that. It's a sad episode, and still creeps me out.


(Another member, who agrees with me, commented that there was also a Twilight Zone episode like this. I haven't seen it,but it must be terrifying. BTW, I think we are all in agreement that young Riddle, at 10 years old, was practising Unforgivables. There is a strong suggestion that he is already irredeemably evil - at 10! - and that does disturb me very much.)

Comments

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Well, I might of course be wrong about sociopathy; I am no psychiatrist! And I'm sorry if I've been flinging around the word loosely. We actually know so little about Lucius that I couldn't begin to guess what sort of person he *really* is. It's just that this came up in an earlier discussion of Riddle; someone who sounded as if he (or she) knew what he was talking about said that, although individuals like Riddle are quite rare, sociopathy was more common than believed and a fairly high percentage of sociopathic (is that a word?) individuals were quite successful and even had families. They are the harsh, uncaring boss; the ruthlessly successful businessman; perhaps the career soldier; maybe even the highly accomplished surgeon - but they are fixed on getting ahead and don't care whom they trample on to do it.

I also think there are degrees in this disability. It's quite likely that Lucius does love his family, as far as he is capable of loving anyone. It's equally obvious that he can be sadistic towards young children his own son's age, and he did not hesitate to use a little girl as a tool to further one of his master's plots. So I'm no fan of Lucius's.

However, I may well have been using the word too broadly.

As I've defined it, I do think it's possible Bagman is a sociopath. Yes, he is charming. Many such people are; as Gavin De Becker says, charm is overrated. In our very limited view of him so far, have we ever seen him show the slightest concern for anyone other than himself?

[soldurios.livejournal.com]

I wonder if your friend left out the true defining characteristic of a sociopath and that is the absolute and utter inability to feel not only love but sympathy and empathy.

It's obvious, to me at least, that Lucius cares about Draco. Else he wouldn't give a tinker's cuss about his grades and he certainly wouldn't have any problems in exposing Draco to the Death Eaters. As for Narcissa, the only argument we've ever seen or heard of them having is where Draco will go to school. If Lucius truly didn't care, he would have pressed for his own decision rather than giving in to Narcissa.

We see how Lucius treated Ginny Weasley, but there's also a good idea that he had no idea that it would put her life in danger. He wasn't aware the book was a horcrux and that's what got him into trouble with Voldemort. It's more likely that he thought the diary would open the chamber and cause a great deal of trouble for the Weasley family since Ginny seemed to be at the bottom of it.

In any case, the Weasley family is his enemy. He will deploy less than sterling tactics for his enemies.

What you're describing concerning sociopathy sounds more like ambition than a complete lack of feeling anything towards anyone. Sociopathy is more geared toward lack of things, such as emotions that any human being should have, including guilt. And I'm pretty sure Lucius is feeling that right now concerning his family.

While there isn't enough evidence for Bagman, I think it's safer to give him the benefit of the doubt. Right now, we know Riddle is a definite sociopath not through the evidence we're not given, but through the evidence that we are given.

I mean, I can also say that Lucius and Bagman are drag-queens at night with MPD who generally enjoy a great shag in the Ministry fountain based on the fact that we haven't seen them do it. One can't prove a negative.

So yes, I think the definition of sociopath is definitely thrown around a great deal. And if one were to shove out such a title onto characters, it would only serve to hide the true horrors of what they've done.

I don't think the term of monster should apply to a sociopath. They have a very, very real mental disorder. Rather, the term ought to apply to those people who know very well the difference between right and wrong and who enjoy the act of torturing and killing and who do nothing to stop it while showing absolutely no redeeming characteristics. Voldemort can't help what he is, but this doesn't make him faultless. But nor does it really make him a monster.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Well - it's actually not all that clear to me that Lucius cares about Draco, but I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt in this regard. As I said, we don't really *know* anything at all about Lucius and his motives.

But, if I used the term 'sociopath' incorrectly (I don't think I did, for I was aware that it meant someone incapable of sympathy or empathy), I meant exactly what I said when I said Riddle was a monster. A monster is, literally, someone extraordinary, not normal, not like other human beings. Further, it is someone abnormal from birth*. And this is the whole problem I have with the way Rowling has presented Riddle. She has presented him as a monster - someone so damaged, from birth, that he will never be a fully normal human being. At the same time, she keeps insisting (mostly through Dumbledore, whom I find myself liking (or at least respecting) less and less as I think about it) that it is our choices that make us what we are. But what choice did Riddle ever have? That's my problem, in a nutshell. She seems to be having her cake and eating it, too, where Riddle is concerned.

*(By this definition, you could argue that Einstein or Mozart were monsters as well. I'd accept that argument. It's a more modern usage that makes monsters (1) inferior and (2) dreadful, horrible, less than human.)

[soldurios.livejournal.com]

There is very little doubt in my mind that Riddle is getting the short-end of the stick here in terms of choices. Yes, he is a monster in your definition of the word. I was going more for the ye olde type definition of something horrible, inhuman, and a figure more for nightmares than any sort of positive inspiration.

But then, I think one could just as easily call Riddle and Mozart and such freaks of nature. Though I don't think Mozart could go either way and I doubt he'd much appreciate being called a monster, Riddle, if given the choices Rowling rambles on about through Dumbledore, could have gone either way; good or bad.

In order for him to go anywhere, choices for him would have to be made. One can't just let that sort of brilliance go to rot. But as a child, he'd have very little options left to him. He could run away but that's not helpful. He could be placed into a different home with a loving foster family but that's not his decision to make. His life was left into other people's hands and, during that time, he developed into a very angry and scared little boy.

Personally, I tend to wonder who the real monster would be. Would it really be Riddle as you call it, or would it be the person who helped him to become what he is? The ones who encouraged his behavior, the ones who helped endorse him, the ones who purposely overlooked him, or the ones who lashed out at him as Dumbledore did. Or were they just simple mistakes?

It takes a lot of work to create and foster a true monster. I think Rowling's wizarding world managed very nicely. But then, I also think the Muggles deserve a bit of blame. However, we still don't have all the answers as to how Riddle turned out as he did. We don't know what happened.

And it could even be something so simple as suffering a head injury that was left untreated while he wasn't looked over. Something that culminated in brain damage that wasn't so obvious as to leave him drooling and screwed up, but small enough to go under the radar while damaging the still-growing sections of his brain that control primal impulses and emotions. And if that's what happened, then he really didn't have any sort of choice whatsoever.

I suppose that is the real tragedy of Riddle/Voldemort.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Well - it was pretty clear to me that Riddle (the child) *was* brain damaged, and that this was not his fault. Lack of love will do that to a child. the reason Harry is better off than young Tom socially/morally is precisely that he was able to bond with loving parents for the first 15 months of his life. Tom never bonded with *anyone*, and that is exactly what caused the damage.

The red hen has some further ideas on exactly how the wizarding world creates its own monsters. I think it might be the essay I was steered to above - "Riddle me this". It's worth a look.

But I think we agree that Rowling's sending a muddled message in the way she presents this child, and that Dumbledore's neglect arguably damaged him.

(just because I'm something of a medievalist - the original meaning of "monster" is the one that might, at a stretch, apply to Mozart. But I think it became perjorative very rapidly, so it already had negative connotations in the Middle Ages. I'd really need to look up the etymology, though, to be sure I knew what I was talking about!)

[soldurios.livejournal.com]

I think Potter also managed to be better balanced simply because he knew his parents loved him. Riddle never had that. In his mind, it was clear that his father had abandoned him and never wanted him while his mother 'chose' to die rather than be with him. It's not all that rational, but no one has ever accused him of being that.

I read the essay and found it most informative and a fairly frightening look at Riddle. It would be lovely with Rowling went ahead with that idea but I don't think she will. I think it's fairly too complex with her ideas and she did once say that the Muggle world and wizarding world will never bridge that gap between them. More's the pity, really. It'd be very interesting if such a war came about during the seventh book.

Maybe it will.

And yes, we agree on that most definitely.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Considering the term "Monster", in heraldry, any composite beast is classified as a monster. Such as the Unicorn. Yes, that is right. The Unicorn. A Unicorn is not a horse with a magical horn on its head, it is a *composite* beast.

As to Riddle: I just don't think we have the whole story yet. Rowling likes to yank the rug out from under her readers. We know she is going to do it. We keep trying to guess the context. We sometimes get it right. But never completely right.

From where we are standing now, the biggest potential payoff for her will be to blow us up over the issues upon which we have been led to feel ourselves most confident that we know what is going on.

We were handed a number of "Aha!" moments in HBP. I've become suspicious of most of them. The two biggest ones in particular. The first of these is "Aha! I *knew* Snape was eeeeevil!" The second is "Aha! *That's* Tom Riddle!"

I frankly expect to be handed something in Book 7 to upset both of them.

I think I have a better than average chance of being right on the Snape issue. There is so much obvious moonshine and misdirection about the murder of Albus Dumbledore that I can't help but conclude that much of it was smoke and mirrors. What we saw is only part of what was going on.

On the Riddle issue, I can be less certain. The evidence that we've been misdirected is so tenuous that to stick to my guns here is practically an act of faith. But what we have been shown simply does not fit anything we have been told to believe. And unless Rowling is a lot more mushy-minded than people are crediting her with being, I cannot believe that she has given us all of the puzzle pieces to work with.

After all, if she could introduce and develop the whole Marauder backstory, without preamble, over the course of a single book, and then use it as the foundation for the resolution of that year's problem in Book 3 she ought to be capable of doing something of the same thing in Book 7.

[soldurios.livejournal.com]

Is Riddle a composite beast? If so, how? Are humans considered beasts as well? Or do they become beasts?

There's so much to cover when it comes to book seven. I don't think she'll be able to go through all the subplots in as much depth as we like plus deal with the main storyline. HBP had too much filler within it dealing with relationships and the like and OotP seemed also to consist primarily of filler. Filler being, in my definition, the points of Harry's life at school and his relationships and such rather than on the main plot of him versus Voldemort. There's nothing wrong will filler, mind you, but it does mean there are more questions to be answered come the end of book seven.

Personally, I do hope Snape is evil just because that would be the biggest rug pulled out on everyone. I've never come across someone before HBP who said that Snape was just pure evil and on Voldemort's side. Even after HBP, most people see him as good and on Dumbledore's side. It's that sort of confidence that bores me thoroughly and hope, purely for the sake of shaking up readers, that she won't turn him into a woobie.

As for Riddle, I can only hope she won't short-sight him, but I don't have much faith in that. I think she probably feels that she covered what she wanted to cover with him in HBP and, as stated on her website, she normally uses either Hermione or Dumbledore as her mouthpiece. So it's likely that she wants us to see him as the 'monster' she made him out to be and how Dumbledore also saw him.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Humans *are* "beasts", again, in the medieval sense. It just means humans are animals. The more common way of saying it is "humans are creatures".

And, no, Riddle is not a composite beast. As I said to Jodel above, the definition I was going with was the one that comes from the Latin "monstro" - to show. A sign, a wonder, a portent, and, from that, a freak of nature.

I obviously disagree with you about Snape - for many reasons, which I go into elsewhere. The one thing that would cause me to throw all my "Potter" books out the window in disgust at Rowling's cheap, shoddy storytelling is Snape being proved evil and on Voldemort's side. It literally makes no sense. I have some hope she won't disappoint me where Snape is concerned*, but very little about Riddle. I do not expect her to humanize him at all. But we'll see.

BTW, I disagree with you - again - about Harry's knowing that his parents loved him. Yes, he did know it, but it was because they actually did love him. Petunia and Vernon certainly never told him so! Riddle *knew* his parents didn't love him because they didn't. His mother might have, if she hadn't died; his father just didn't.

And lack of love - the failure to bond in early infancy - by itself, with no other injury, causes permanent brain damage - or can do.

*You'll note I'm not 100 percent convinced. It would simply be bad writing, on many levels, but she could make Snape evil.

[soldurios.livejournal.com]

I don't really care to get into it about Snape. You've your beliefs and I have mine. I just think Rowling is capable of bad writing and she's shown that off before.

I'm not expecting Rowling to humanize Riddle. She's gone through six books trying to dehumanize him and unless she does a complete 180, I have no hope for that.

There was no proof whatsoever that Harry's parents didn't love him that Harry could see. His parents died in a car crash. They didn't just abandon him. They clearly wanted him, else they would have likely tossed him to the Dursleys as soon as they had him or put him up elsewhere. At least Harry had that much to go on. Riddle had considerably less.

You say you disagree with me when I said that Harry knew his parents loved him. Then you say that he did know it because they actually did love him. I assume you're disagreeing with me just because the Dursleys never told Potter that his parents loved him. Is this correct?

I never said that lack of love and the failure to bond doesn't cause damage. Not actual physical brain damage, which is what I was talking about before, but more emotional damage.

I have never seen a case study that portrayed anyone who was unloved having an actually damaged brain. Lack of love happens by chance, not by choice from the person. My main thing was that he suffered an actual head injury, physical, that resulted in a bit of damage that wasn't traceable. Not crippling emotional damage.

For the record, I don't think evil!Snape = bad writing but to each their own.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Well - please see my entry further down. Infants who are not loved - who do not get physical affection - actually die. That's pretty extreme physical damage, I would say! I am talking about children whose physical needs are met - who are clean and fed - but who do not get any physical contact or affection. They die! Not all of them, of course; little children are amazingly resilient, but some babies do die just from lack of human affection. This has been clearly proven, I believe, especially since the cage bed scandals in eastern Europe. In any case, the study I cited earlier - Harlow and his monkeys - is famous, and I have a link that discusses it in an earlier post.

I'm sorry if I seemed curt or rude when saying Harry couldn't know his parents loved him. I meant he couldn't know anything intellectually. He was only 15 months old and probably couldn't talk much, if at all; he couldn't possibly have any conscious memories of being loved. It's a good point, of course, that Harry was never told his parents had abandoned him. That might have given him an idea that they loved him, but it wouldn't have been much to shore up his ego against the constant emotional abuse the Durselye inflicted on him. But he was loved - he had the experience, so he 'knew' it in an emotional sense. Poor Tom had none of the above.

I don't think we're really in disagreement on this point, are we? That was the whole point of this essay - both that Tom Riddle represents a particular type of evil and that it was not his fault that he developed in this way.

On other things, we'll just have to agree to differ.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Well, of course a unicorn is a monster! If Mozart could be a monster, then why not a unicorn? But I wasn't aware of this heraldic sense of the word. I was going back to the Latin - monstro = show; thus, a sign, a portent, a freak of nature. But thanks for the extended definition; it's neat to learn this stuff! ;)

About the issue that really bothers me with Riddle: How could she insist that it is our choices that make us what we are, and then show us a child who is a monster (in whatever sense) practically from birth? - I think she may actually be mushy-minded. I think her real concern is with Severus and Harry, and then with minor characters like Draco and Ron and so on, who must all make choices. Voldemort exists to be the evil figure they must either oppose or succumb to. It would be nice if she did manage to do something to humanize him, but I'm not at all hopeful that she will.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

As to just how mushy-minded Rowling is, it is possible. We have to admit that it is possible. Even clever people have blind spots, and she has a clear enough view of what she is doing that she often believes that she has explained things when she has done nothing of the sort. Or tells us that we will "learn all about" something or other in book such-and-such and then passes off the subject in about two sentences.

But her comment a few months(weeks?) ago when Lord Anagram was voted the "most frightening villain" in the Big Bad Read were heartening. She came out and said that Lord Voldemort was going to finally be getting some page time in Book 7. She hasn't had the chance to give him any up to now.

Well, Rowling's characters tend to reveal themselves by their actions, don't they? I think that if what Voldemort actually is doesn't match up to what other people, even Albus Dumbledore, *say* he is, we are going to have a chance to see it.

Rowling told us in '05 that Albus Dumbledore was never very wide of the mark, but she *didn't* say that he was invariabley correct in his understanding of a situation.