Forgiveness

[SteveE]

No: HPFGUIDX 188719


Bart Lidofsky <bart at ...> wrote:
>
> 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).


Steve replies: Sociopaths become more adept at hiding their condition, psychopaths don't because they aren't able to hide their violent tendencies and behavior.
> 
> 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.

Steve replies:  Actually, Riddle wasn't even a borderline case.  Until the age of 18, he couldn't even be diagnosed accurately as having a sociopathic or psychopathic condition...the DSM-IV doesn't become valid til age 18 and until there is a pervasive pattern of that serious behavior. 
>