Forgiveness

[SteveE]

No: HPFGUIDX 188718


K12listmomma at ...> wrote:
>
> > Shelley:
> >> I'm going to add in another thought, one that I had originally intended 
> >> to
> >> convey. The orphanage incident shows Riddle's first murder of an animal, 
> >> but
> >> at Hogwarts, again preHorcrux, he refrained from being a bully, 
> >> controlled
> >> himself and did not commit murder.
> >
> > Bart:
> >    Moaning Myrtle might have an issue with that statement.
> 
> Shelley again:
> 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? The mark of a 
> gifted child who was persistent at digging into connections? (trying to find 
> out who his relatives were and why he could speak Parceltongue?) But who's 
> to say where pure-blood extremist actions would end and actual mental 
> illness begins? (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? (My point, at 
> this point in time of Riddle's life, I don't think he is any different from 
> Slytherin, and that neither were mentally ill, no matter what ill wishes 
> they had for Mudbloods.)

<big SNIP>
Steve replies:

I agree with you on this point Shelley.  At that time LV wasn't LV, he was a teen age Tom Riddle.  And, he wasn't yet mentally ill to the extent of, say being sociopathic w/ occasional violent psychopathic tendencies. It wasn't until after leaving Hogwarts that LV really becomes twisted and mentally ill, perhaps partly due to his immersion into the dark arts. And it's only after a repetitive history of this kinds of seriously abnormal behavioral choices that someone truly becomes psychotic. 

Riddle's summoning the basilisk which resulted in Moaning Myrtle's demise was a conscious choice, a means to a specific end (I don't remember if the basilisk killed her because Tom told it to or just because she happened to be in the way).  I don't believe you could blame mental illness for his actions there, however, as he wasn't (at least according to DSM-IV guidelines, being less than 18 years old) mentally ill at that age. Riddle's torturing and killing animals and his abuse of the orphanage children is vicious and antisocial violent behavior to be sure, but at that age and w/ it not yet being an overwhelmingly present and pervasive pattern of behavior, it still doesn't qualify Tom Riddle for being accurately labled mentally ill.

 As to whether or not Slytherin was mentally ill...I don't know. Perhaps, perhaps not.  But just building the chamber wouldn't make him mentally ill.  Only a pervasive pattern of irrational or abnormal or otherwise mentally unstable behavior makes you eligible for being possibly diagnosed as mentally ill.  With Slytherin, it simply sounds like it was a conscious choice he made to construct the Chamber of Secrets for as you said to accomplish his pure blood extremist agenda. Without knowing Slytherin better, I couldn't say to what extent he became mentally ill.