Voldemort good/bad. Was: Twisted Irony

[msbeadsley]

No: HPFGUIDX 138854

> Rebecca:
> But we don't know that, Sandy. We don't know that he was never 
> cuddled, or pampered or played with. We know that he was raised in 
> an orphanage and that the staff would have been over-worked and 
> without much time to spend with any particular child. But we don't 
> know that he 'never' received any 'nice' treatment.

What we do know is that he was never *loved* (from the interview):
http://www.mugglenet.com/jkrinterview.shtml

MA: Oh, here's one [from our forums] that I've really got to
ask you.
Has Snape ever been loved by anyone?

JKR: Yes, he has, which in some ways makes him more culpable even than
Voldemort, who never has.

JKR says it in so many words. The other thing we know, from RL
experts, is that occasional, or even frequent "nice
treatment" by a variety of strangers is not sufficient to allow a
child to grow into a normal human being. Things happen all over a
baby's development from birth to three years old that, if missed,
mean that child will never be "normal." Much of this
development is in the brain. One of the things a baby either does or
doesn't do in that time span is bond with one or more caregivers.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say "been loved
by" and "been able to bond with" are pretty synonymous.

Many experts who study anti-social personalities and full-blown
psychopaths (including serial killers) have found that most of them
have the same sort of deprivation (failure to bond due to a number of
factors which can even include illnesses in their first three years)
in their history.

(I'm no expert; I'm just a nerd who often reads experts.)

> I can only conclude that some of it must have been nice, simply 
> because I cannot comprehend how anyone could spend time with a
> small baby and not be tender with them.

Me, too. Absolutely. (I do everything but drool back at them.) The
timber of my voice changes involuntarily and...well, let me just say
that I think babies rock! On the other hand...a cousin of mine gave
birth out of wedlock at the age of seventeen to a gorgeous baby girl
she then proceeded to feed, change, bathe, and clothe while
consistently ignoring every single emotional overture the baby made.
It got particularly gut-wrenching when the kid started toddling; she
would literally beg (grabbing at Mommy's skirt as she went by,
only to have Mommy pull away with the result the kid landed on hands
and knees or diapered bottom on the floor), crying before she learned
words, then "Mommy hug?" later, to no avail. I had to stop
going over there or commit murder and/or kidnapping. I'd have
gotten activist (and called someone) on my cousin except that I knew
Grandma babysat five days a week and lavished physical and emotional
affection on the baby while Mommy worked and that, all things
considered, everyone was doing the best they could. There was no
physical abuse or neglect; just emotional. That was thirty years and
many thousands of dollars in therapy (for mother and daughter both,
separately and together) ago...

> However, neither could I comprehend how the Dursley's could fail to 
> be tender with a toddler - and JKR writes that they did fail.

The Dursleys had Dudley to tenderize (sorry, couldn't resist). And
they were afraid of Harry's parents' strangeness, and, by extension,
Harry, before they ever met him. I am convinced that, while their
*ability* to treat Harry so shabbily was reprehensible (and somewhat
fear-induced), the *reason* (or part of the reason) the Dursleys
deprived Harry of all but the minimum it took to maintain his physical
self can be seen in a quote from PS/SS:

"We swore when we took him in we'd put a stop to that rubbish," said
Uncle Vernon, "Swore we'd stamp it out of him! Wizard indeed!"

It seems to me that the Dursleys, not knowing how to go about
"stamping" the propensity for magic out of Harry, proceeded to try to
stamp out just about every bit of spirit, enthusiasm, initiative,
curiosity, independence, or personality they perceived in him. By the
time they knew they'd failed, the habit was well-ingrained, and
besides, they were annoyed that they'd failed.

> But, despite having already contradicted myself, I still maintain 
> that we don't know that TR's treatment was any worse than harry's; 
> for all we know it may have been substantially better. OK, Harry
> got 14 months of pure love, but then nothing. TR likely did get 
> (albeit smaller amounts) of positive treatment over a much longer 
> period of time.

We do know that Voldemort was never loved, while we know that Harry
was loved so very much that his parents died for him; his mother laid
down her life so thoroughly that Harry survived the unsurvivable. I'm
betting she was a mother who didn't let Harry have a waking hour go by
without a cuddle, and so *his* baby brain got to, put very simply, 
develop the ability to love because he experienced love. The point is
that RL babies bond (develop the ability to love; join the human race)
in part during the period of time we know Harry had two loving
parents and Voldemort had no love (per JKR) at all.

Sandy aka msbeadsley, done with this for now and inclined to suggest
people go look up experts to argue with if they're so inclined