LeakyCon 2014

By most accounts, Tom Riddle and Draco Malfoy are just not good people. While the two do make a lot of poor choices where they could have avoided them and have done some truly reprehensible things, this panel takes a look at the question of how much the two boys' upbringings had to do with the adults they became and the choices they made. We will take a look at the long term effects and wide scope that childhood abuse and neglect can have and examine popular ideas of sociopathy versus the more complex reasons that can lie behind the behaviors we see in Riddle and Malfoy. Rowling’s masterful backgrounds and the histories behind Harry’s enemies provide a rich environment to explore the ideas of good, evil, and whether the two are truly so black and white.