“the challenge is to explain, without resorting to the all-too-easy concept of evil, how people are capable of causing extreme hurt to one another. so let’s substitute the term evil with the term empathy erosion. empathy erosion can arise because of corrosive emotions, such as bitter resentment, or desire for revenge, or blind hatred, or a desire to protect. in theory these are transient emotions, the empathy erosion reversible. but empathy erosion can be the result of more permanent psychological characteristics.” (x)

       “marvolo, his son, morfin, and his daughter, merope, were the last of the gaunts, a very ancient wizarding family noted for a vein of instability and violence that flourished through the generations due to their habit of marrying their own cousins. lack of sense coupled with a great liking for grandeur meant that the family gold was squandered several generations before marvolo was born. he, as you saw, was left in squalor and poverty, with a very nasty temper, a fantastic amount of arrogance and pride, and a couple of family heirlooms that he treasured just as much as his son, and rather more than his daughter.” (x)

       “when we meet the psychopath we see a person who shares that same total preoccupation with oneself […] but in this case there is a willingness to do whatever it takes to satisfy their desires. this might take the form of a hair-trigger violent reaction to the smallest thing that thwarts the person. or it might take the form of cold, calculated cruelty. sometimes the mindless aggression is not triggered by a perceived threat but by a need to dominate, to get what one wants, a complete detachment from another person’s feelings, and possibly even some pleasure at seeing someone else suffer.”

       “hervey cleckley’s 1941 book, the mask of sanity […] was concerned with how to recognize a psychopath if he or she were convincingly pretending to be normal. he argued that psychopaths exhibit these characteristics:

• superficial charm
  
• lack of anxiety or guilt
  
• undependability and dishonesty
  
• egocentricity
  
• inability to form lasting intimate relationships
  
• failure to learn from punishment
  
• poverty of emotions
  
• lack of insight into the impact of their behavior
  
• failure to plan ahead”

       “parental rejection can lead to a child growing up to become violent or a psychopath. […] inside – emotionally – the child is quietly raging against parental rejection and is developing high levels of hate. such extreme, negative emotions are hard to regulate. the child has to vent their rage somewhere, and if as a child they were unable to express it toward the rejecting parent, it may build up […] just waiting to be vented in adolescence and adulthood. the result can be explosive violence.”