Tom, evil, choices

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 134570

First of all, I want to thank Viqui very much for giving her
professional input about psychopaths. It supports my own very
amateurish understanding of the subject and of Tom Riddle.

Now to answer some particular points raised by Juli and Iris.

Iris wrote:
"Maybe Tom wasn't given love when he was in his first years, and I
acknowledge this is something very important in the character's
psychology. However, he met dumbledore, he was his student. Dumbledore
is the kind of teacher that loves his students, and since their first
meeting, he tried to correct young Tom's bad tendencies."

Del replies:
Humph, DD... As many have noted before, DD is someone who hardly
expresses his feelings. Even with Harry, he is always remarkably
self-restrained. Now Harry knows how to pick up clues, so he came to
the conclusion that DD cares about him. But Tom wouldn't have.

As Viqui explained, not having been given love early in life might
have blocked Tom's "love receptors". From then on, no matter how much
love he was given, he would simply not understand or feel it. My best
clue that this is the case is that JKR said that LV never loved
anyone, and that he couldn't have become LV if he had. "Never loved
anyone". Even as a kid. She's not talking about having a loving
relationship with someone, or anything like that. She's talking about
having feelings of love for someone, whether reciprocated or not. Tom
never experienced those feelings. This to me indicates that he simply
doesn't KNOW love. Love is something that is completely alien to him,
and always was. He recognises *intellectually* when someone loves him,
I even believe that he plays with that love, that he deliberately
tries to create it in people. But he doesn't understand it
*emotionally*. He seems to consider it a weakness, that only fools can
feel, and he's no fool in his idea.

Moreover, I'm afraid DD burned his ships right away with his little
demonstration of power. IMO DD made 3 major mistakes.

1. He showed no acceptance and understanding for what Tom was *at that
time*. That's one of the basic steps of giving love: accepting people
*as they are*. DD didn't do that, quite the opposite: he told Tom that
he had to change in order to be accepted. *Major* mistake IMO!

2. He *forcefully* made Tom comply to what he (DD) expected. By so
doing, he actually *reinforced* Tom's previous understanding of the
rules of life: the biggest bully gets to make the rules. Another major
mistake.

3. And finally, he didn't follow through. Instead of actively trying
to get closer to Tom and to give him better morals, he instead sat
back and let Tom get involved with the wrong crowd.

So no, I definitely do not consider that DD helped Tom in any way. And
in particular, he did NOT show him love. Not that Tom could have
received it anyway...

Iris wrote:
"However, Tom had examples of Good and of Love; he had a conscience:
he could choose them instead of becoming Lord Voldemort."

Del replies:
As Viqui explained and as I understand it too, it is not sure that
psychopaths actually have what we call a conscience, a sense of Good
and Evil. In that case, no matter how many examples of Good and Evil
they are shown, they are simply unable to realise *for themselves*
what the concepts of Good and Evil are and why they matter. They can
and do understand what *other people* call Good and Evil, and they
usually learn soon enough that doing what other people call Evil or
wrong will bring harsh consequences, but that's about it. So once they
stop caring about the consequences, they have *nothing* to restrain
them anymore. As long as Tom was in school or at work, he pretended to
comply with the rules, in order to avoid being expelled or fired. But
those rules were silly, arbitrary and pointless for him: he didn't
understand what they were based on.

Iris wrote:
"Or was he lost from the start? Do our first months determinate our
life so definitely that it becomes impossible to change it regarding
some aspects? Are we given so little choice?"

Del replies:
>From what I understand, it takes several factors to "make" a
psychopath: an inborn predisposition, the wrong kind of upbringing,
and the wrong opportunities to do evil. Tom most probably had all 3 of
them. Considering his family, it is possible that he was born with a
less able-to-love personality than most. Then he never was given a
chance to bond as an infant, nor did he receive second chances in his
early childhood (the idea of an entire orphanage being glad to see a
kid go because nobody likes him makes me quite sad...). And finally,
his own tremendous magical power ensured that he would have plenty of
opportunities to harm other people without being punished for it.

Could Tom have been saved from becoming LV? I guess, yes. A very
loving upbringing, and a consistent and continuous teaching of strong
morals, might have compensated for his darker nature. Also, being in a
controlled environment, among other wizards who would have known when
he'd used his magic to do wrong, could have prevented him from
creating this delusion that he could dominate others at will. And
finally, if he had been less powerful magically, he could not have
imposed his will on other wizards so easily (no creating false
memories, for example). But unfortunately, in his case, all the wrong
ingredients came together.

Juli wrote:
"I believe Tom did have a choice, whether he realized it or not."

Del replies:
I'm a bit lost here: if he didn't know he had a choice, then how could
he have a choice? Having a choice means that you can contemplate
different options, and deliberately choose one. If you can see only
one option, you have no choice.

Example: I was profoundly depressed as a teenager. As a result, there
are things that I never even *considered* doing, even though they were
things that many kids do daily (things like asking someone out, for
example, or applying for certain schools). It's not that I didn't know
about them: I could see other people doing them, so I knew they
existed. But I *never* considered that *I* could do them. They weren't
options for me. I could no more consider doing them than I could
consider walking on fire. But now, as I think of those times, I
realise that I *could indeed* have done those things. There was
*nothing* preventing me from asking a guy I liked out, or from
applying to some schools that I dreamed of. Nothing except that
invisible barrier in my mind, that I was not even aware of. So I
always ended up doing something else, maybe even feeling forced to do
it, because I could see no other option, even though many other
options were there.

So IMO if Tom didn't *see* that he had other choices, then for all
matters and purposes, he HAD NO choice.

Juli wrote:
"His "raison d'être" is to rule the world, to be immortal, to be
powerful, invincible. There must have been a moment in his life when
he set these goals, when he decided that was what he was going to do,
when he decided to use his magical powers to gain more power, it was a
turning point in his life, the moment he became truly selfish. And
selfishness and egocentrism leads to evil. I think of him like Hitler,
he wanted to make the world according to his desires, and he'd do
whatever it takes to do it, not caring who got hurt on the way."

Del replies:
As Viqui explained, it actually goes the other way around. We are born
perfectly selfish, and we grow out of it. Think of a baby: it doesn't
care AT ALL whether its mom is sick, tired, had a bad day, or
whatever. All it cares about is itself, period. Then as the baby grows
up, develops bonds with other people, learns to put him/herself in
other people's shoes, in short learns compassion and empathy, the kid
then *decides* to be less selfish. A young kid's automatic reaction
will always be "me first" or "mine". It's only through reasoning and
exercising empathy that s/he will decide to let someone else come
first, or to share his/her possessions.

So Tom NEVER decided to be selfish: he just REMAINED selfish. He never
chose to be unselfish, and that's because he never *learned* to be
unselfish. Nobody taught him compassion and empathy by LOVING HIM FIRST. 

Juli wrote:
"About this last paragraph, I don't quite understand what you're
saying. Since Tom didn't know love and goodness, he couldn't adopt
them?. He must have known good people (Dumbledore for one), but he
decided on a different path, IMO. It's like the old saying "You
don't know what you've got 'til it's gone", so if Tom doesn't know
Good, then he does not know Evil?"

Del replies:
No, he doesn't. That's why I called it an Evil by default. Tom didn't
choose to be evil instead of good, because he never understood in his
heart what being good or evil is. Sure he saw that some other people
were different from him, but so what? They were different, but they
weren't better. Just different. He had no internal compulsion to be
like them, to emulate them, because he lacked the basic reason to do
that: love of self and love of others. So he discarded those examples
as useless to him. It's just like I couldn't care less about being
given, say, a boxer in example. I might learn a few things from him,
but I have absolutely no desire to become a boxer, so his example
matters very little to me. I'm on another path. Tom was on his own
path, and nobody ever gave him a reason to change path.

Wew, long post :-) Sorry for that :-D

Oh, and it's just my opinion, of course. I am NOT reading JKR's mind
:-) So nobody has to agree with me, and I agree to disagree with
everybody :-)

Del