Rowling did take pains later to point out that had he grown up in a loving household, the sociopathy would not have developed as it did. It was the combination of a loveless, non-consensual conception and loveless, neglected childhood.
IIRC it’s worse than that — Tom Riddle Jr. was born bad due to his mother’s abuse of love potions.
That’s actually rather plausible as such things go. Some of the genes that contribute to violent sociopathy allegedly do so by increasing the amount of seratonin present in the brain of the developing fetus and thereby causing the neurons to develop less sensative to seratonin.
IIRC it’s worse than that — Tom Riddle Jr. was born bad due to his mother’s abuse of love potions.
Rowling did take pains later to point out that had he grown up in a loving household, the sociopathy would not have developed as it did. It was the combination of a loveless, non-consensual conception and loveless, neglected childhood.
It was because his father was raped? I thought Tom’s sociopathy was just a random result of generations of incest on his mother’s side.
That’s actually rather plausible as such things go. Some of the genes that contribute to violent sociopathy allegedly do so by increasing the amount of seratonin present in the brain of the developing fetus and thereby causing the neurons to develop less sensative to seratonin.