LV never loved anyone

[Grey Wolf]

No: HPFGUIDX 110469

I feel like I'm jumping into the deep end of a conversation between 
people who actually know about psycology, but I'm not exactly known for 
my bashfulness, so I hope you'll all excuse me if what I'm about to say 
makes no sense whatsoever. Also, I did try to retrace this thread to 
the begining, to see if someone had pointed out my ideas before, but 
after a while the topic seems to have shifted. Still, sorry if I'm 
covering old grown.

See, reading the name of the thread, a funny thought assaulted me. 
Sure, Voldemort never loved anyone... but doesn't the phrase usually go 
"Such-and-such has never loved anyone *but himself*"? This I find 
interesting. For one thing, it is a loophole, for another it is, at 
this point (to me at least), an undecided issue. Allow me to elaborate.

When JKR says that LV has never loved anyone, we all assume (correctly, 
IMNSHO) she means love for someone other than himself. After all, 
although we use the word "love" when we talk about someone loving only 
himself, it is a slightly different kind of love - but in fact quite 
the opposite, since the love for other people usually involves 
selflessness, love for oneself involves selfishness. However, she 
*didn't* specify that "but himself" bit, which (knowing JKR, and 
knowing this group, particularly our flying hedgehog section), could be 
taken as a hidden clue. Conclussion: JKR's statement, I feel, doesn't 
specify if Voldemort loves himself or not. Usually, her statement is 
taken to mean that he only loved himself, but in a broader sense, she 
could've meant he didn't even love himself.

Obviously, if Voldemort does love himself, there isn't much else to add 
to the picture - he's a complete and utter selfish evil guy who wants 
to rule the Earth, etc etc. Plain old evil overlord syndrom. But what 
if he does hate himself?

Let me examine that possibility. As I said, I'm not really a 
psicologist, so I might be missing big chunks of the picture, but it is 
not all that uncommon to find people who hate themselves (particularly 
easy between adolescents, but they grow out of it). This is a road 
that, frecuently, finishes in suicide (at which point they either 
realise they do like themselves enough to continue to live, are stopped 
and treated or succeed). I have often been told that for someone to 
commit suicide, they have to fear life more than they fear death. This 
is an interesting point, because as humans (muggles) we don't *know* 
what death is like - but this is very much unlike the WW, were you 
*can* see that "something" "lives" on after death - ghosts.

So if Voldemort did consider suicide, there might have been a fourth 
possibility, unavailable to muggles - he was afraid of continue to 
live, but he could see that such fear could perfectly land him an 
immortal deal - having to stay in this world he hated so much, as a 
ghost. A powerless ghost, too (except possibly at scaring Peeves). 
Voldemort wouldn't like that prospect at all. And that is what, I 
think, lies at his desire to become immortal - suddenly realising that, 
while hating himself and his life, he hated much more what he might 
become if he left his mortal coil behind. Of course, facing the problem 
of not wanting to live, but not wanting to die either is a little 
tricky, and it is probably what led him on his path to immortality and 
change. It also explains why he was so ready to experiment on himself 
and become snake-like: hating oneself, he wouldn't care.

Unfortunately, this doesn't actually help understand his theories about 
good, evil and power, but I'm always been of the impression that he 
came up with them in later years, once he was consorting with evil 
powers, as a way of self-justification (or even learned from those 
powers).

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf