Child Sociopaths

[Saundra]

No: HPFGUIDX 151250

Jen: 
> JKR clearly said Riddle was not born evil, but that he has
> never known love. In Potterverse that is the greatest evil of all
> from what I can tell. <snip>
>
> I often wonder why JKR presented boy Riddle the way she did, as not
> only unloved but unlovable from the start. Even as a baby he didn't
> ask for or likely receive much attention because he was 'odd'.
> Merope abandoning him may have started the process of Tom being
> unloved, but it didn't end there. The fault for being unloved as a
> baby cannot lie with a baby any more than Petunia finding Harry
> unlovable lies with him as a 15-month old. <snip>"

BAW:
> What reaction would one have if one had met Ted Bundy, or Charles
> Manson, or Ed Gein, or Casey Ramirez, or Jeff Dahlmer, et al?
> Would they have been any less 'off' than Tommy Riddle?


Actually, you touched on something that has been in my mind since I read the first HP book.  Harry and the years 15 months to age 5 when he finally went to school. What happened when he cried upon waking and his parents weren't there?  Children, even small ones, know and react to change. What happened when he skinned his knee or was afraid in the dark? Ted Bundy was hospitalized for a long time as a baby and it contributed to the way responded to people. They say boy babies  whose cries aren't responded to learn to self soothe. These babies grow to never really attach to another person. We see this in crack babies as well.

I  think that being so loved for those 15 months provided a reserve, and the blood protection provided by Harry's Mum protected him from more than Voldemort and his DEs. I think it gave him a resilience of spirit to hide with himself until he could get out.

Saundra (emerging from lurkdom for her first post)