Dissecting a Dark Lord

[more2live4]

This is to discuss Dissecting a Dark Lord by Sophiax.

[rlhamil]

Read "The Great Divorce", by C.S. Lewis. One of the points
it makes is that open-ended opportunity for redemption
doesn't preclude someone willingly destroying the redeemable
part of themselves, nor does it mean that evil can blackmail good forever simply by refusing to ever change.

It is all too easy to go on repeating to oneself something that one knows to be outrageous and even contrary to what one most deeply wants. But after awhile, there is a real risk that it becomes close enough to true to make little difference
anymore. If I were to find a warning in that, it would be
_not_ to flirt with attitudes that are destructive of others
or of self, lest one find oneself trapped by them years later.
In ways that are harmless to others, I've probably
done that, and the opportunities it wastes and the difficulty
breaking free are not fun at all!

Having said all that, sure he wasn't born evil, although he
was born with the deck stacked against him and lived through
seriously deprived circumstances. Still, others have lived
through worse and not turned out nearly so bad; some few
who have lived through worse have turned out _more_
understanding and compassionate because of it, rather than
purging such elements from themselves. So although bad
circumstances were certainly part of his story, even Riddle
had real choices. And given sufficient numbers of people,
real choices _regardless_ of circumstances will result in a
"bell curve" distribution; most average, and a few really
good or really bad. If free will didn't include the choice
of going bad, it wouldn't really be free will...

So I'd say the message that choices matter, that they
have consequences, applies even to fictional characters like
Voldemort, or from religion or history, Judas, Nero, Hitler, etc.
Many things contribute to who we are, but past a certain
age, we're the ones ultimately responsible for what we
choose, what we do, what we become.

[sfgilgalad]

Great. is he trying to feel pain, then? I mean, by acting like that, his child part is suffering, no? It's a bit like drugs. Taking drugs can be a way to hurt yourself, to feel alive. And you always need more, and invent yourself stories. Anyway there are a lot of examples. So, his target is the part in young tom which never could belove nor be loved. And he's trying to reach this from another side.

[sriharish]

Tom Riddle wasn't born evil, nobody can be. But at the same time not all orphans become dark lords. The boy tom wan't that evil, usually orphans are always curious about where they come from or where they belong and also they are judged very differently by other people in general. This is deeply engraved in the series, right now you can imagine everyone hates slytherins or scared of them. It's this frustration and humiliation that tom felt and he wants to prove who is the best or in other words who is pure, that's why he followed the Salazar Slytherin line. Do you disagree? let me ask you a question then - Why there wasn't anyone in DA from Slytherin? because no one wants to approach a slytherin student to talk about DA.

It's about bad choices Tom made. I do not think he is emotional because Rowling herself said he has no sense of love but maybe at the time of his death he may realize this as you know the ultimate weapon for Harry is Love.

Not only Tom Riddle, you look at House elves, warevolves, muggleborns, Goblins, Centaurs, Giants etc. All of them are upset by one or the other thing mainly because they are not treated equally. I remember a quote from Dumbledore "The fountain we destroyed tonight told a lie. We wizards have mistreated and abused our fellows for too long, and we are now reaping our reward."

[inkling7]

Interesting editorial and yes I agree Tom wasn't born evil but the circumstances of his life combined with his hereditary genes from both sides of his family certainly didn't help. His father and his grandparents were selfish muggles obviously or they would have made some attempt to give him a home and his mothers family were all wacky through centuries of inbreeding.

However as Albus said something along the lines that life is about the choices we make as to how we live our lives and Tom Riddle made the wrong choice.

[lmk]

In my opinion, many of the recent editorials have left something to be desired; I was very happy when I read yours and found it to be considerably better than its contemporaries.

In an above comment, inkling7 reasons that Voldemort's father and paternal grandparents were "selfish Muggles" because they made no attempt to "give him [Voldemort] a home". I don't have a copy of HBP on hand, but I can't seem to recall J. K. Rowling writing that Tom Riddle, Sr. knew that Merope was pregnant, let alone bore him a child. I thought he left her when he realized that she was a witch. If Tom Riddle, Sr. didn't know about his son, it stands to reason that his parents didn't know about Voldemort either.

As sriharish said above, "Tom Riddle wasn't born evil, nobody can be." I agree with that statement wholeheartedly. J. K. Rowling has made it abundantly clear in her books that the choices we make are one of the driving forces in our lives. We have the ability to make choices because we have been given the remarkable gift of free will. I'm sure that Tom Riddle, Jr.'s life in the London orphanage was difficult, but it was difficult for all the children who lived there - not just him - and I doubt that all of them (the other orphans) used their free will to choose to become evil people. As you said, Voldemort is a smart man - he knew exactly what he was doing.

[Shewoman]

lmk, we know that Merope used the love potion on Tom Sr for some time in their marriage and then stopped in the hope that by that time Tom would really love her. He didn't, and left. In "The House of Gaunt," HBP, Dumbledore tells Harry that "Tom Riddle left her while she was still pregnant." So he knew there was going to be a child, but he apparently didn't care enough to take an interest in its welfare.

I would be interested to know how Tom Jr. came to know this.

[QuietlyMe]

I suppose one could pity anyone who commits mass murder, if one still considers that each person remains human. Ted Bundy merely murdered several dozen women, but was considered charming and intelligent, with several friends. Jeffrey Dahmer killed and ate many of his victims, but his neighbors thought he was quite polite and friendly; he too had a very difficult childhood. Hitler oversaw mass genocide, but he was apparently an excellent dinner guest, loved dogs, and was greatly admired by many as a strong leader. Therefore, should we pity the psychopaths?

I would say that is important to recognize that even the most hateful of people may not be completely evil in every act they commit -- that would make it too easy to dismiss them. But one does not need to feel pity, either -- they had choices, and they chose the path that satisfied themselves and hurt others. This is, after all, one of the author's main points -- choices define the person.

[Hermione57]

Yay, I'm not the only person who pities Voldemort. I think I pity him because I think he could have turned out differently had he been loved. I know others have said that the other children at the orphanage turned out all right, but we don't know if they lived there their entire lives or not. They may have had loving homes for a while before their parents died, or they may have had the ability to form friendships more readily (perhaps Tom Riddle, as a child, became antisocial because he had difficulty forming friendships, and so disliked the other children).

[inkling7]

My point was that his father knew he was going have a child and made no attempt to even contact his son. However if Tom Riddle knew who his father was (and he must have done if he found him and murdered him) and he also knew his name was Tom Riddle. So it goes to show that he knew his father's name and therefore the orphange knew it and would have tried to have contact his father on the off chance he would come and take him away from the orphange. After all they would then have one less child to care for, but it also seems his father and his father's family weren't remotely interested in this child and so didn't even bother to look him up and see the resemblance Tom had to his father. This would be enough to make you resentful of this family I guess, and then there was his mother's family who did the same thing. The orphange must have known about these people or else how else did Tom find out about them - UNLESS Albus Dumbledore imparted this information to him when he visited Tom before he went to Hogwarts?

The main point is that Tom could have chosen to make something GOOD of himself and not the other way around. It's all about choices as Albus Dumbledore once said.

[PhoenixFox]

When it comes down to it, murder is murder. When the "Dark Lord" first killed to split his soul he was just a teenager. A teen attending a school with plently of loving adults around, namely Dumbledore, trying to teach him good from evil. Yet he still killed. Yes, he did miss out on that vital love and nurture part of growing up, but he did make the choice as "Tom Riddle" to kill and eventually make himself immortal. He was still "Human" when he asked Slughorn about horocruxes (sorry if my spelling is off...really tired!!). He still had that "child" in him when he made a choice to do all he could to prevent death and to become the world's most feared wizard. I do not believe there is any redemption for poor Voldy because even when faced with the choice of embracing good and learning to overcome this "sociopath" personality, he chose not to. He doesn't know the meaning of love, and i don't believe he even knows how to be friends. Jo has repeated the fact that he has followers not from friendship but from fear. People fear him and respect him as a leader, they kill and will even die for him. Yet the Dark Lord would never show the same respect back. He is only using these loyal followers to acheive his ultimate goal of world domination. Throughout his life, even as a kid, we see him using people to achieve this goal, and we even see him torture for enjoyment (the cave...the poor young kids who were victims of his bullying). We can argue that his enviroment created this Dark Lord personality, but to me...Tom Riddle, out of his own free will and desire, created Voldemort.
Another topic I'd like to add is the fact that he SPLIT his own soul into 7 pieces for the mere purpose of not dying. He isn't just affraid of death, but he wanted to ensure that even if he was "killed" he could come back to finish his plan. He willingly split his soul by taking lives those of innocent victims to accomplish this goal. He not only performed the ultimate evil act one time, but SEVEN times!! Free will is an essential part in the HP books, and Voldy is no different, he had the free will to choose, and he chose evil. He is evil...Tom Riddle is evil. The Dark Lord would have never been if not for Tom. If not for Tom's actions, desired and choices....we would have never seen Voldemort. Tom started this evil with evil. No one made him chose to become the Dark Lord or to split his soul. He did it from his own free will. He may not have been born evil, but he chose it...even when being offered to change and embrace good. Even in the orphane, he chose not to have friends, not to associate with children...he wanted to be alone, to be independant. No one is born evil, but from the very young age of an innocent child, he chose to become evil. Murder is Murder, evil is evil.

One last thing, Love!! Yes, I do believe if he was loved in some way, he may have turned out ok. Love is powerful and he was denied that. But even after being neglected love for 11 years..he was offered a safe loving home (Hogwarts) and even a loving figure, Dumbldore, but he did deny it....out of free will to chose evil.

[sriharish]

Originally Posted by PhoenixFox

One last thing, Love!! Yes, I do believe if he was loved in some way, he may have turned out ok.

Not really, take a look at Draco and Dudley- they were not neglected children and see how they turned out to be. Anyway thats not the point, voldie made clear mad choices, it's one of the ways psychopaths express their frustration and anger. Voldie is mental.

[PhoenixFox]

True, they were and they are little brats aren't they??! I do pity Voldy in a way, but then again...when it comes down to it, he is just evil! And I for one, can't wait to see how Harry defeats him!!!

[sfgilgalad]

Dudley and Draco are not THAT bad

[FelixiaFelicis]

You labeled yourself an armchair psychiatrist, but I'm training to be a therapist. So maybe I can give a viewpoint that has a little more psychology behind it. It's not so simple as you imagine. It's true that one's childhood has a large affect on a person. It is also true that people can derive positive things out of bad situations. It all depends on how you view your world. There is the actual event (A), then there is your interpretation of the event (B), and your interpretation is what causes your reaction (C). A does not cause C, except in an indirect way. Having your mother abandon you and never getting love as a child does not turn you into a sociopath, it is your interpretation of your mother's abandonment which can lead to being a sociopath.
Tom Riddle interpreted his mother's death as a betrayal, not as the inevitable end of human life coming at an unfortunate time. He thought that she was weak to have succumbed to this human limitation. He never accepted the idea that death happens to everyone. He was terrfied of death for himself, and every decision he made for the rest of his life was to avoid death and that human weakness. You cannot say that he just chose to be evil anymore than you can say that a person with schizophrenia or depression chose to be that way. Or even that Harry chose to be good. (Harry does consciously chose to do good things, sometimes at high cost to himself, but he did not consciously chose to have a positive outlook on life.)
Tom Riddle made evil choices as a result of what I would call a severe antisocial personality disorder and a narcissistic personality disorder. His thinking, his way of processing his environment, is warped. He sees death everywhere and will do ANYTHING to avoid it. He is narcissistic so he doesn't care if other people die as long as he is safe. Part of his problem is that he has no empathy so he doesn't see the act of murder is wrong. He can't put himself in his victims' place. He probably understands intellectually that his habit of murdering people is wrong, but he probably sees himself as no more evil than a hunter killing an animal so the hunter can eat. He kills others so that he can live forever.
No one ever thinks of themselves as evil. There is always some internal rationalization about why their actions are justified. In Voldemort's case, he doesn't think he's evil because he sees himself as acting in self defense. In the beginning, it was not literal self defense- i.e. there was no immediate danger of his father or grandparents killing Voldemort if he did not strike first. But, even in the beginning, it was not only revenge which drove Tom to murder but the irrational idea that by killing others, he would be safe from dying. The horcrux knowledge gave him added rationale for the idea of killing others to save himself, so he began consciously killing to save his own life. It all snowballed from there.
Now, from an outside perspective, there is no question that Voldemort is evil. He has no regard for other people's lives and enjoys murder and torture. But it is possible for him to be evil and for him to be able to justify to himself that he is not evil at the same time.

[Steven]

Quibble with your use of psychological terms.

You say psychotics "have no control over their tendencies; they are compelled to attack, to hurt or kill, and literally cannot help themselves." This is a misunderstanding of the term "psychotic." To be psychotic merely denotes that one has an inability to properly conceptualize reality, and the term has nothing to do with compulsion to act violently, or any tendencies of any kind. Many people can hear voices or, say, experience synesthesia without acting violently, just as many nonpsychotic people can experience road rage. If psychotics turn voilent, their actions are frequently linked with paranoid notions of defending his or herself from imaginary aggression, not because of the psychotic's sexual urges. When the CIA (or the birds or the Communists) are "plotting" against a you, the last thing you would be thinking about is finding someone to date-rape. In addition, psychoses are most often temporary. A schizophrenic hallucination, a mid-life crisis and an acid trip are all psychotic episodes, to varying degrees.

You say of sociopaths: "A sociopath, on the other hand, can blend into society... Most importantly, a sociopath’s ‘desires’ are not necessarily violent, although they do not hesitate to use violence if it will get them a desired result. A sociopath is a person without a conscience. They lack the internal moral compass that keeps the rest of us in line." That's again, another misunderstanding of what "sociopath" (i.e. type II ASPD) designates.

A sociopath is an individual who cannot generally follow rules imposed upon them by above, irrespective of the justice or injustice of those rules. They simply can't work within any system because such a system exists. Sociopaths, as a rule, do not blend into society. Sociopaths, as a rule, are violent. Their inability to obey laws (largely those predicated upon property rights and personal sovereignty of others) lands them, almost without exception, in prison. Hitler (likely suffering from Bipolar disorder and possibly Paranoid Personality disorder, not ASPD II) and Stalin worked within their respective systems until they could bend them to their own desires, disqualifying both (though Lil Kim may fit). And Stalin, in particular, showed an ability to bide his time that would be impossible for a sociopath: impulsivity and impatience being key characteristics of that group. The view of the sociopath is somewhat romanticized in the context of the editorial. Sociopaths are more likely to be seen as hotheads and maddogs than cold, manipulative, evil killers. There are probably few famous sociopaths (maybe Kim, maybe Che Guevara, probably Uday Hussein).

A better sociopathic model would be that jerk you barely remember from seventh grade who was always fighting and is now in prison for assaulting a bouncer and violating his parole.

What you describe as sociopathy is actually more in line with psychopathy (ASPD type I): the most notable difference between the two is the latter's glib charm and ability to remain invisible to and unsanctioned by the state for long periods of time. While both disorders are marked by an inablilty to recognize the applicability of laws to the anti-social person, a psychopath can work within a system as long as doing so furthers his or her aims. The system is something to be either used or circumvented to acheive one's aims, wheras to the sociopath, the system is something to be battled. Ted Bundy is, indeed, one of the best examples of a pure psychopath, as is Eric Harris, the smooth-talking, popular, legal-system-manipulating Columbine killer whose writings suggest he was motivated only by two ideas: 1) that he might teach humanity, through horrorshow media coverage, that he had power enough to manipulate its fears on a massive scale, even from the grave 2) that he might scrawl his name in History books as a figure more fearsome than Atilla or Alexander. Dahmer is much more murky of a picture. He was so disturbed by his violence and necrophilia that he had to drug himself to accomplish either without vomiting. Such a reaction is impossible to a psychopath, who should treat any violation of another human being, no matter how graphic or bizarre, with the same concern a normal person shows for violating a blade of grass. Dahmer's "zombie experiments" were motivated by his regret that satisfying himself sexually required a rising body count. Regret and remorse, for the Psychopath, should be as impossible as spontaneously growing an 11th toe.

For Voldemort, a diagnosis of Psychopath or Malignant Narcissist would probably be more appropriate. Both are glib charmers, remorseless and guiltless. Both have monstrous views of their own magnificence. Both can control themselves to a degree. The biggest line between the two personas would probably be in that the latter does follow a set of ethics. Those ethics vary from Narcissist to Narcissist and may be bizarre to you and I, such as: I don't speak disrespectfully to my colleagues because to do so would reduce me to acting in a way unbefitting my greatness. There are, nonetheless, rules that the Malignant Narcissist will keep. There is, to my knowledge, no corrollary with the Psychopath. The question is: which is more apt to describe the Dark Lord? For me, the Jury's still out.

[PhoenixFox]

All this is very intersting. Hearing what people think the difference is in psychotics and sociopath. But this isn't a psychology debate, this is weather we think the Dark Lord would have turned out different given a different back ground?? Shown and received love?? Lets debate the topic, weather or not we feel the Dark Lord is totally evil, if so can he redeem himself, do we feel pity for him, and so forth.

[WeasleyTwins888]

Originally Posted by Steven

For Voldemort, a diagnosis of Psychopath or Malignant Narcissist would probably be more appropriate. Both are glib charmers, remorseless and guiltless. Both have monstrous views of their own magnificence. Both can control themselves to a degree. The biggest line between the two personas would probably be in that the latter does follow a set of ethics. Those ethics vary from Narcissist to Narcissist and may be bizarre to you and I, such as: I don't speak disrespectfully to my colleagues because to do so would reduce me to acting in a way unbefitting my greatness. There are, nonetheless, rules that the Malignant Narcissist will keep. There is, to my knowledge, no corrollary with the Psychopath. The question is: which is more apt to describe the Dark Lord? For me, the Jury's still out.

I tend to think Voldemort is definitely narcissistic. Apart from his obvious self-centeredness, he also does seem to follow his own (albeit twisted) set of rules. For example, at the end of GoF he gives Harry his wand back to let him duel him "fair and square". He thought it would demean his greatness to kill his teenage foe while he was unarmed and tied down.

As to the question if Voldemort would be different if he had been loved, I still think he would be evil, although maybe not to such a great extent. I don't think having someone love him would alter his narcissism, but his craving for attention was probably enhanced by the fact that nobody cared about him in his early childhood. The way he sought this attention was still his own choice, though.

[limecoconut3]

Well written and well thought out.

In some ways this editorial seems very similar to "A Study in Evil: Voldemort, Malignant Narcissist" which was also very well written and thought out.

I'm just glad that after waiting so long for a new editorial to come out, it was a good one!

[Twycross]

I too don't believe Voldemort is 100% evil but for a different reason. I don't believe in 100% evil in the real world but I do believe a 100% evil character can exist in a work of fiction. But Voldemort is not such a character for one reason. J.K Rowling is a far better writer than to dub a villian as pure evil and leave it there. No character is one dimensional certainly not Voldemort. That's good enough for me.