Inside Bella - Social & Psychological Motivation

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 126369


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Tonks" <tonks_op at y...> wrote:
> 
> I appreciate all who have responded to my question. I am still 
> trying to understand how someone like Bella could bring herself to 
> grovel at the foot of LV.  
> ... edited ...
>
> Explain to me what a cruel person thinks. How can people do those 
> things?  ...I can't understand cruelty for the fun of it.  Help me 
> understand Bella, so I can  pretend to be her.  I want to find my 
> *dark side*.  ;-) Thanks. 
> 
> Tonks

bboyminn:

You understand that in seeking to discuss and understand this kind of
cruelty, you are opening the door to the discussion of some pretty
unpleasant aspect of human behavior and psychology. 

So, don't ask to see the dark side unless you are willing to face it.

Several aspects come into play in any 'Bella'-like personality. 

The first aspect is POWER. It is said the rape is not a sexual act,
but an act of power. The thrill is in having power over and degrading
and deminishing that other person. It's a case of the old, lifting
yourself up, by pushing other people down.

This is very common in people who either feel or fear their own
inferiority, whether it be rapist, oppressive bosses, or loud
obnoxious kids at the mall. Each struggles for a sense of superiority
while fighting against a sense of inferiority. 

Other cruel people are just sociopaths, they have no sense of empathy
for other people. Without this sense of empathy, people are reduced to
simply object for your amusement.

Back to a sense of superiority, some people no matter how rich they
are, whether they are suburban teenagers, wealthy tycoons, or 'old
money' families, they have an ingrained sense of being put upon. That
somehow they are the underdog and that the whole world is conspiring
against them, which beings on a sense of insecurity. Which is a view
of themselves that their psyche absolutely will not tolerate. 

They have a deeply ingrain, to their core, need to feel superior, but
the only way they can do it, is by convincing themselves that all
other people are beneath them. That's why the jocks pick on the nerds;
they elevate themselves to the top of the high school pecking order,
by making sure that all other groups are kept on the bottom.

The only thing that keeps Bellatrix from being just another person is
her family's belief that they are the royalty of the wizard world.
With this sense of priviledge and position, often comes a sense of
lawlessness. A sense that they are a law unto themselves. That
ordinary laws are for the ignorant and wretched masses. That those of
great superiority needn't both with the mundane.

One might ask, why does the bully bully? The answer is of course he
does because he can. Even playground bullies have this false sense of
superiority, and fear of not having it, that provokes them to prove
again and again that they are superior, and can do as they damn well
please.

We can see the same thing his wealthy priviledge kids who get into
trouble. They move through life with a self-preceived impunity, quite
convinced that dad's money can buy them out of anything, even murder. 

Bella fits all these models. She has an unbearable need to show that
she is all powerful. She has an unwavering belief in her own absolute
superiority. She has an unwavering belief that she is so poweful as to
be immune to any consequences for her actions. 

Now as to how such an egotistical megalomaniacal self-important person
can bring themselves to bow down to Voldemort, while complicated, is
not really that hard to understand.

In a sense, Voldemort is not /a/ Lord (title), he is THE Lord (supreme
being). His teaching, his beliefs, his rhetoric is the seat of all
power. He is the being that represents himself as the ultimate in this
school of superiority. It is he, in whose veins flows the blood of
Salazar Slytherin himself; the key and most significant figure in all
of wizarding history, whose own beliefs validate their own. And
validation is the key. 

I used the following statement in an earlier thread in a different
context, but it fit this thread and it's context perfectly, especially
when referring to power-crazy, self-supierior, cruel tyrannical
fanatics; "That which does not validate me is not valid". In a twisted
sense, respect and even worships Voldemort because he is the source
from which she achieve all validity.

Bella is willing to bow down to Voldemort, because he is the source of
 all power. It is through him, that every bit of her own self-worth is
validated. That and she really doesn't want him to kill or torture
her. Sometimes you just have to acknowledge and accept that you've met
someone who is even more crazy and fanatical than you are, and when
you do, in your own insanity, you admire them for it.

Anything here you can use?

Steve/bboyminn