Voldemort good/bad. Was: Twisted Irony

[Rebecca Hoskins]

No: HPFGUIDX 139872

This post pertains to a discussion that was taking place a couple of 
weeks back. It is a reply to message number 138838.

 Del,  repling to rebecca:

> Unfortunately, those first months of life are *absolutely crucial* 
in
> the development of a human being. That's when bonding takes place. 
If
> bonding fails to take place, the person is going to have *huge*
> troubles interacting normally with other people, *throughout their
> life*. Harry bonded with his parents, he learned (even though
> unconsciously) what love and attachment are, what they feel like, 
that
> they are an integral part of life, and that he is entitled to them.
> But Tom never learned that. He failed to bond, and as a consequence 
he
> failed to learn to love and be loved, and all those little bits of
> positive treatments he received through the years that you 
mentioned,
> were rendered null and void of any meaning because Tom was simply
> *incapable* of absorbing them.

But I do have to stress that an upbringing such as his is not 
guaranteed to bring about the development of a psychopath. I have not 
read David Pelzer's books, " A child called 'it'" and " A boy called 
David", but I know that he was extremely badly abused for most of his 
childhood and had no period of love during those formulative years at 
all. His treatment was far worse than that of Tom Riddle and Harry 
Potter together. Yet he has somehow managed to become a normal and 
emotionally sound individual, fully capable of love and generosity.
A lack of love at a young age can bring about some terrible problems, 
but it is not certain that this will happen, as David Pelzer can 
testify.

I still maintain that Harry would not have become like Voldemort if 
he had been raised in Tom Riddle's stead. Neither would Tom Riddle 
have become a brave and generous boy like Harry if he'd been loved 
for 14 months and then raised by the Dursley's. This is, of course, 
only my opinion, but I believe that it was Tom's personality, an 
inborn arrogance if you like, that made him become what he did. 
Circumstances certainly made matters much worse, for example his 
experiences in the orphanage could easily account for his hatred of 
muggles. But I cannot think of any circumstances under which Tom 
Riddle could have been raised to produce a 'nice', 'brave', 'self-
less' or 'caring' person. I don't believe that it was in his nature.

Rebecca