[HPforGrownups] Re: Forgiveness

[Bart Lidofsky]

No: HPFGUIDX 188717

Shelley:
> But you are overlooking my point- 5 years is a long time not to show the 
> symptoms of the disease....discovering the history of Hogwarts and the 
> secret chambers that already existed before Riddle was even born was not 
> necessarily the mark of a psychopath, is it? Could they be the actions of 
> the Slytherin who bought into the pure blood extremism, and the actions of 
> one who had the gift of talking to snakes by being an Heir? 

Bart:
    Actually, no. There is an error in writing fiction, one which JKR is 
seldom, if ever, guilty of, where the writer thinks of the characters as 
pieces in a game rather than people. A character performing a certain 
action might further the plot, but the action does not make sense from 
the internal point of view of the character (the case where I believe 
JKR comes the closest is Harry forgetting about the magic mirror for 
communicating with Sirius; she gives a bit of an excuse for Harry, that 
he wasn't paying close attention when Sirius handed it to him, but gives 
no excuse as to why Sirius doesn't think of it and remind Harry).

    In addition, one characteristic of the sociopath/psychopath is that, 
when caught and punished, they become more adept at hiding their 
condition. Which fits in with Dumbledore seeing through young Riddle and 
requiring that he make amends.

    What you say makes sense unless you consider Riddle as a thinking, 
reasoning being. And you ask yourself what sort of person could do such 
a thing in real life. And, frankly, that person comes out as a 
sociopath/psychopath (that's a technique I learned from the British 
writer/philosopher, Gilbert Chesterton).

Shelley:
> But who's 
> to say where pure-blood extremist actions would end and actual mental 
> illness begins? 

Bart:
    If it were a borderline case, a trained psychologist or 
psychiatrist. But Riddle was hardly a borderline case.

Shelley:
> (For that matter, was Slytherin mentally ill- he made the 
> chamber for the Basilisk- Riddle merely set free the creature that lay 
> within!)  What would make Riddle different from the others that might have 
> murdered or directly harmed those who were not of pure blood? 

Bart:
    Slytherin may well have been mentally ill; we have no idea what his 
intentions for the basilisk were. However, Riddle didn't just set it 
free; he had it kill a fellow student, just as a test to see if it 
worked. And he was ready to send an innocent to Azkaban because it would 
facilitate his vacation plans.

    Bart