Actually I'm not sure if this topic goes here, but I assume a mod could move it if need be?

I just wanted to ask if there's anyone else diagnosed with ASPD in the house, and what they think of the way sociopaths and supposed sociopaths are portrayed in HP fanfiction. Personally I'm yet to find an ASPD point of view that was completely satisfactory.

Wait, there was one - https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5846518/1/insurgere. But it was a one-shot and the affect didn't really come across.

 

I don't think any character hits the proper definition of a sociopath in the Harry Potter series, yet we get a few that tick a fair selection of the boxes.

Dolores Umbridge is closer than Tom Riddle, I'd say, to a sociopath. CheddarTrek has the right of it when it comes to ASPD, however. Voldemort takes that crown over Umbridge.

The line can be blurry - but for me it always comes back to superficial wit and charm. Umbridge and Riddle had that in spades. But where I think Umbridge edges out TR in sociopathy is in untruthfulness and insincerity.

Voldemort, for all his faults, was sincere in his actions. Umbridge, while better suited to a world in which Voldemort won, masks her true beliefs - and moves whatever way the wind is blowing.

Apart from that, they tick all the same boxes - but not enough, in my opinion, to be diagnosed positively.

 

I too, would like to see your take on a ASPD character. So far, nothing much has been made of it - but that's probably because most fanfiction authors aren't prone to doing a lot of research and their perceptions of ASPD tend to be skewed by popular media portrayals. And we all know how realistic those are...

Combined with your idea on Tom Riddle and the Elder Wand, you have a prime opportunity to make a name for yourself as an author.

Why not?

 

See, this is the sort of thing I mean, where secondary...symptoms?...like wit, charm or the propensity for falsehood eclipse the root of sociopathy. Which, well no one knows what it is exactly but currently cognitive neuroscientists are pretty sure it's having a self-controllable empathy switch.

Neither Voldemort nor Umbridge are quite there, but Umbridge reads more as just a power-hungry and ruthless sadist. The pain itself rewards her, and I may be wrong but I get the sense that she needs the safety cloak of her superiority complex, Ministry loyalty and prejudice against everything non-pureblood, and she can't really function (read: rationalize her actions, or even commit them) without it. Tom Riddle on the other hand has this irrationally destructive recklessness that has him hanging another child's rabbit from the rafters when he knows it's perfectly traceable to him and (as far as we know) he has no get out of jail free card. There's also the touch of self-destructiveness that comes with building plans without flipping your empathy switch on, like him realizing almost too late that letting a monster loose and having it kill a student might, you know, just MIGHT end in the school closing for a period of time.

I don't know, there's this compulsion for trouble and danger that Umbridge just lacks. I can't recall the thread, but someone on this forum has noted that for someone who fears death, Voldemort sure throws himself in its way a lot.

I'm actually in the process of writing one (strangely enough it's part of my CBT). I was hoping to find similar minds or at least informed people I could bounce off of, especially since Tom Riddle fits a different subtype of ASPD than mine.

 

I don't know, while I have yet to find what people call a sociopath properly portrayed in HP fanfiction, I do not think it is particularly difficult to do so as long as the author does some research.

People that are affected by ASPD tend to have superficial charm, a complete lack of empathy, the tendency to take risks, a lack of remorse for their actions, a disregard for societal rules, etc... Take a look at the diagnostic and statistical manual for mental disorders from the APA, and you'll have a pretty good idea of how people diagnosed with ASPD tick.

Interesting idea, kind of hard to execute though. Such a Harry Potter wouldn't bother to help people at all. You'd have to use his other canon traits, like courage -willingness to put himself in danger for a thrill-, instinctiveness -impulsiveness-, stubborness -unwilling to show remorse or guilt for anything he does-.
A complete perversion of his character. I like it.

 

Harry and the whole 1990s Hogwarts setting just don't interest me anymore; I'm sick of Dark Lords and straightforward blood supremacy and I'd like a different threat for once. Plus that strays a little too close to self-insertion for me as a writer. I really don't want to turn this fic into a dumping ground for my teenage shit. It's already a steaming pile of personal wish fulfillment as it is.

Besides, there's something about pitting Tom and Dumbledore against the Squibalists that just won't stop buzzing in my head

 

However, there are times where sociopaths won't care if it puts people in their debt or not. Sometimes, seeing people suffer is interesting and amusing.

^It also hits a point most people forget about people with ASPD. They're somewhat self-destructive.

 

Well, there are subtypes of ASPD, not all of them are charming or accomplished social alpinists. What is common in all of them is the disregard or violation of the right of others. Some have narcissistic tendencies, others take pleasure in sadism, and the list goes on.

It's hard to accurately say that a character fits or not, specially in fanfiction, where most authors don't have the skill to convey a consistent characterization. I don't have an example in mind, but if I were to try to identify or write one, I would make a character sheet.

You say that Tom Riddle is impulsive, that he is overwhelmed by the desire to cause pain. Honestly, I disagree. Remember that Tom sees himself as greater than everyone else around him, and that notion was challenged by his fellow orphans, who treated him as lesser, bullied him. The attack to his ego couldn't go unpunished. His powers made him greater than them, so he had nothing to fear of the 'lesser beings' (all this reinforced by his age, children can be pretty self centered).

When he released the Basilisk, IIRC he was aware of Hagrid's 'pet', and a half-giant did make a pretty good target to shift the blame to. Besides, Myrtle was a muggleborn with no connections, and we know that the government doesn't care much about them. Pretty sure he'd go unpunished by that one.

Also, for decades after Hogwarts, he honed his skills and patiently forged himself into a peerless Dark Wizard. If he actually has that compulsion for danger, he can control it well, or he doesn't see himself in danger at all. Narcissist, remember?

Yeah, it's kind of hard to properly say where he fits, so feel free to try your own version. There aren't many good fics of this kind, so take your time to study.

 

I remember reading a fanfiction at some point about Tom Riddle's childhood and teenage years. I remember vividly one part, where Tom meets another orphan who is the definition of sociopath with literally no empathy. I remember reading the AN of that story and the author was explaining how sociopath were wrongly depicted in fanfiction, that there was multiple genre of sociopath and that Tom Riddle was just one kind. I think she or her mother were working in psychology with sociopath.

I think it's this story Broken Victory, but I'm not going to read it again just to find out if I'm right. I perused it real quick and it seemed like it was the one.

 

I guess it's good to know a condition I've been battling for years is "the dumbass-syndrome-kind I just learned about". I mean I lack tact but really?

What is common to all *diagnosed* with ASPD (because something something ethics something something demonstrated danger to self/others); almost all criminals disregard or violate the rights of others, but not all of them are sociopaths. The red flag for people with ASPD is selective or nonexistent empathy.

 

I know they're not well defined - and as such, a derivative of pop-culture in some ways, but I see Voldemort more psychopathic than sociopathic. As one article I read stated:

After reading your post and remembering that there was a distinction between them, I went looking for one and found this.

After reading that, it started a plot-bunny (or, more likely, a characterization-bunny) where Voldemort is a truly psychopathic, and Harry is sociopathic due to his upbringing (going with the idea from the link that it can be brought on by homelife).

However, @Sesc is correct in that labeling them as such would really hurt any such story. Instead, just use the concepts as the central guiding idea for the interaction of each character.

_____

Reflection back @Joe, I wouldn't see Umbridge as either. If we were to label her as anything (although I'm not sure it's necessary, but doing so just to highlight differences), I'd go more with Narcissistic disorder. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I wonder if JKR didn't create her by using the disorder, because it does seem to fit rather well.

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I don't think you read Sesc right.

His argument isn't that he thinks you just went and learned about something. Instead, he said General Thing. Or, "This applies to all situations, not just yours."

And the point of it was that, to use a somewhat cliche phrase among writers, you need to show the syndrome rather than tell people he has it. Let them see him as a person, rather than Character X + Syndrome Y. Because few people are going to really care if the character has Syndrome Y. They'd rather be emotionally invested in the character (although, I wonder about the challenge of writing a character like that, that can also invite emotional investment by the majority of readers).

 

Just a heads-up, making a (medical) distinction between psychopathy and ASPD is far from universally accepted, and both major manuals of [mental] health diagnoses do not recognize "psychopathy" or "sociopathy" as separate disorders, or as disorders at all. The listed cluster-B personality disorders are antisocial (dissocial in the ICD), narcissistic, borderline (emotionally unstable in the ICD) and histrionic.

But yeah, "psychopath" in most usages seems to be the pop culture image of a suave, manipulative, sadistic, grandiose schemer, even if there's nothing pathologically wrong with the particular individual fitting those labels. Some people just like to watch the world burn.

I suppose so; his comment's a lot more neutral on a reread. I do have a tendency to make everything about me

And yeah, it's not like I'm having Tom walk around telling people he's got ASPD or writing chapters with psychotherapists oohhing and ahhing over him. For one thing, the terms didn't even exist yet. The fic does have some scenes with Dumbledore (and the reader by proxy) examining his thought process.

And I know I'm not in a position to objectively comment on how challenging it would be, but I don't think my thoughts and emotions were ever so utterly alien, even in my conduct disorder phase. Though both this fic's Tom and myself are trying to grow into people that do the acceptable thing regardless of what we think, so...hopefully readers could get invested in that?

 

In fairness to fanfic writers, a whole lot of published fiction does a pretty bad job of handling sociopathy and other psychological disorders too.

 

Yes and no. Although you're correct it's not officially in the DSM-5, there are steps present to distinguish it from ASPD in the scholarly literature, which are the first steps to a separate diagnostic identity. Honestly, though, we're differing in degrees at this point.

In pop culture, yeah, I agree. But I was thinking more of the definition that some medical experts are using to distinguish between the two. See the previous links I posted.

In Tom? No, probably not. I think very few people want to read a redemption arc for Tom Riddle, unless you have an even bigger nasty. The problem with that, however, is it comes off as a Part II (think, The Mummy II) and Part II stories where the original antagonist now has a redemption arc is both cliched and pretty badly done on the whole.

Instead, I'd deal with Harry having the redemption arc. Or, if you want someone else, although you'd have to really work to do it well, give Malfoy the redemption arc. Either one, as a matter of fact, although the elder Malfoy might be more interesting, especially as canon hints at it towards the end of the last book anyway.

 

I would propose that actually, the best depiction of a psychopath in the Hp books is James Potter. From what we know of him he is narcissistic, egotistical, a bully and adept at amassing followers. He is outwardly charming, but we have no idea of whether that is genuine or not.
He is a thrill-seeker and more than willing to throw himself into danger with little regard for his young family and the incident with snape and lupin suggests that he has little regard for the lives of others whilst also implying that he may not give due consideration for his actions.
Additionally, whilst he follows Lily relentlessly and is willing to change in order to 'collect' her, it is difficult to see how that is the basis for a genuine, healthy relationship.
His reaction upon being confronted by Voldemort in his own home is not to protect his wife and child, but rather to charge headlong into danger once again. It is also worth remembering at this point that it is explicitly stated that it is Lily's sacrifice which protects Harry, not James'.
Now I will concede that a lot of this can be written off as Gryffindor tendencies, teenage immaturity or due to the very small amount of time spent on him, but what little we do know paints an interesting picture.