LV never loved anyone

[tylerswaxlion]

No: HPFGUIDX 110577

> > Tyler's Lion:
> > So while you can learn an additional language at any age, albeit 
> > with difficulty, if you haven't learned the *concept* of language
> > in infancy/early childhood, you never will.
> > 
> > The infant and child Tom Riddle was capable of love.  The adult--
> > and probably the teen--Voldemort is not.
 
> SSSusan <susiequsie23 at s...> wrote:
> And are you certain that learning to love and learning language 
> are the SAME cognitive mechanisms?  

I don't think anyone is *certain*, it's science, not faith.  
Behavior is a product of nature and nurture, and there's no one 
correct theory.  However, most studies seem to bear out that both 
senses and complex cognitive skills seem to have a "crucial window" 
for exposure during infancy.  If this crucial window is missed, the 
ability to use the sense/skill is lost forever, despite any later 
exposure.  

If no one ever loved Tom Riddle as an infant, if no one around Baby!
Tom was ever shown love, if he were raised in such an antiseptic, 
completely unemotional environment, I believe it is perfectly 
logical to assume he'd have no clue about love and emotional 
attachment.  And that, later in life, he would be incapable of 
understanding it as more than an intellectual concept, i.e., as a 
weakness to exploit in others.

And I can see the indifference in the orphanage of the time as 
coming from the idea that they didn't want the orphans to become 
attached to the employees--just to their adoptive parents.  Studies 
showing the benefit of touch/caress/*kindness* to infants wouldn't 
appear for decades.  

Which makes it even sadder and more ironic to me: poor Baby Tom 
ignored for his own good!

> SSSusan:
> The concept of language and the concept of love aren't the same.  
> One revolves around emotion, whereas the other revolves around 
> cognition.  

And Tom doesn't feel that emotion per JKR.  And never has.  
Why would emotion be so very different from language or sight?  
Don't you believe emotion occurs in the brain?  How do you suppose 
Tom was to learn it?

> SSSusan:
> And I'll take that "probably" re: teen Tom! :-)

Our mileage does vary! ;^)  His behavior in CoS seems to me to show 
someone who has already been emotionally damaged.  He doesn't *care* 
the way he should, and with JKR stating that he never has loved, I 
think the emotional indifference of his childhood warped him to the 
point that he never will.  

I don't think it *excuses* his evil acts, but I think it explains 
why he's *capable* of them.  He's a psychopath.

But I wonder why Baby!Tom wasn't adopted?  He was cute and smart (DD 
calls him a good-looking boy, so he couldn't have been a hideous 
infant could he?)  Especially since he was conceivably at the 
orphanage from day 1.

Tyler's Lion