The Existence of Evil Part 1 - The Making of Lord Voldemort
Is Voldemort truly evil or does he have a psychiatric condition?
Why is he unable to love?
If he is incapable of love can he truly be held responsible for his actions?
Voldemort remains one the most iconic villains in children’s literature. However, because of his iconic status, it can be difficult to recognise and relate to him him as a truly three dimensional character because in order to do so we must analyse him as a real person rather than a plot device.
I explore the root cause for Voldemort's inability to love and why, regardless of this "handicap" Voldemort is still ultimately responsible for his choices and his actions.
Many writers have analysed Voldemort in the past and come to the common conclusion that he has “sociopathy” or to use the current psychiatric term “antisocial personality disorder” (APD), which is a psychiatric condition characterised by a lack of conscience and socially unacceptable behaviour. Many people believe that this diagnosis of a mental disorder explains all of his actions, motivations and emotions throughout the books.
As a doctor I find this explanation deeply unsatisfying because at the core of Voldemort’s character is the idea that he is completely incapable of understanding or experiencing love. There is no evidence that patients with APD are incapable of love. The closest science can come to proving the existence of love is by measuring function in the mirror neurones in our brain which engage in empathy, and patients with APD are fully capable of true empathy. However they do have an abnormal tendency to be able to turn off their empathy at will and are slower to learn from pain inducing stimuli.
Instead, there is one glaringly obvious reason why Voldemort cannot love: his upbringing in the orphanage.
It appears that because in the sixth book, Harry judge the orphans to be well fed and clean, most of the fan community have decided that Voldemort wasn’t abused and his childhood did dramatically contribute to his later choices in life.
However we known from studies done on children from the state orphanages of Romania and Bulgaria that having enough food and clothes does not equate to producing emotional healthy adults. These orphanages were often likened to giant battery farms for children. Whilst they were adequately fed and clothed, no emotional support was offered as a matter of policy. Unlike the orphanages of 1930s Britain, many of the newborn babies who arrived in the orphanage did eventually live into their adult years, which enabled us to assess the impact of emotional neglect on their adult lives
The institutional life actually created some degree of emotional detachment in all children regardless of age, but in babies who arrived at the orphanage before the age of 9-12 months it was discovered that the vast majority of them were unable to build any successful human relationships as adults. Although these adults had a variety of other psychiatric disorders including depression, it was clear from functional MRI scans that the part of their brain used to process empathy and emotions relating others was underdeveloped and rarely activated. The cause for this was identified as complete lack of emotional stimulation during those crucial first 9-12 months of life.
In effect, what we learnt from these studies was that humans are not born able to love. Love and empathy are skills that we learn by example.
Tom Riddle, born in the orphanage, would never have been given the chance to learn by example. This is the reason why Tom is incapable of love. Harry on the other hand lived 15 months with his birth parents and was shown how to love. Even when he was at the Dursleys he saw what love was because even though the Dursley are very unpleasant, they definitely love each other and have no shame flaunting it before Harry. Harry has grown up knowing what love is, even if he does not received any of it.
Many people have commented that if Voldemort does have a psychiatric condition this completely undermines the idea that he was truly evil. There is never any true discussion about why Voldemort made the choices that turned him into a caricature of evil. In a children’s book that preaches the importance of our choices over our origins, Voldemort as a central character is tragically ironic.
However, it is important to remember that just because Voldemort could not experience or understand love does not negate the fact that he murdered, tortured, pillaged and nearly destroyed the wizarding world. At the end of the series almost every main character has been burn by tragedy from the wizarding war. The resulting fall out of Voldemort’s uprising has created a Ministry of Magic that no longer understands the meaning of justice and is willing to throw everyone innocent or guilty to the Dementors for their own peace of mind.
Having an inability to love is not a reason for Voldemort to be declared innocent of the crimes he has committed. He is not insane; his logical and reasoning faculties are completely intact. Voldemort still has the full logical and intellectual capacity to make the correct decisions in life. They may not come naturally to him and they may not be emotionally fulfilling for him but this does not mean he is incapable of separating right from wrong. To say that Voldemort should be exempt from the same ethical and moral standards as the rest of humanity is a disservice to all the orphans who did become productive, functional members of society upon leaving the orphanage.
The vast majority of orphans from the studies conducted in Romania and Bulgaria who did have neurological damage from their upbringing in the orphanage have built functional, productive lives. We may pity their inability to form long term relationships and worry about the consequences, but that is a very ablest way of viewing the situation. They have overcome a huge challenge in their lives that the majorities of us will never begin to comprehend and despite all their disadvantages they have succeed in becoming members of society. To say that the inability to love turns people into murderous psychopath is completely untrue, and it takes all value out of our personal choices.
Voldemort’s choices were important regardless of what neurological/psychiatric condition he may or may not have. Tom Riddle became Voldemort because he did not want to conform to the ethics and moral of society, not because he was completely unable to do so. Although making the right choices would not come naturally for Tom Riddle, he could have done so if only he could have looked beyond his own narrow desire for power. However Tom Riddle enjoyed making all the wrong choices and Lord Voldemort certainly enjoyed the consequences of his actions.
Voldemort should be held culpable for his actions, and the families of all the people he harmed do deserve justice.