Line #76 WMG/AmericanPsycho


1	WMG for ''Literature/AmericanPsycho''. Here be spoilers.
2
3	[[WMG: Bateman did it all, but his wealth and his family means he will never be punished.]]
4
5	The book and movie are in large part a critique of yuppie culture and the rampant capitalist 80s. Patrick’s status in the company is the result of nepotism. His entire life is the result of nepotism. Patrick commits crimes, but his dad is waiting in the wings bribing whoever needs a bribe to cover it up because he is just like Patrick and also doesn’t want the family name dragged through the mud. Patrick’s expertise isn’t the result of massive personal self-education, nor is it in his head. He was raised by someone just like him who only bred to have a new interesting toy to play with. Think about it in late 2010s terms: an ultra rich man who inherited his wealth and became a major player in his own right obsessed with power and control who flagrantly violates the law with no punishment. It’s not fantasy or delusion, it’s the realty of wealth.
6	* Bateman killed a police officer. Ain't no way in hell the NYPD are gonna let that slide. I doubt all the money in the world could've saved him...then again, that's assuming the shootout happened as show on screen.
7	** Unless the NYPD receives some huge bribe money as a means of shutting them up. At the end of the day, it's about the money.
8	*** ...No. The NYPD might not exactly be free of corruption (especially in the 80s) but even a couple million dollars in the pockets of a few high-ranking people isn't going to stop an entire American police department from pursuing a cop killer, unless maybe the killer was another cop with more seniority. Even if every person of authority could be bribed to not pursue the case, the dead cop would have a lot of friends in the department who would want to go after the killer.
9
10	[[WMG: Patrick does not actually spare Jean.]]
11
12	At least not purpose. He was fully willing to "nail" her, but the nail gun itself wasn't ready to fire [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome because it wasn't connected to the compressor]]. When Bateman realizes that reality won't let him perform the fantasy of murdering someone with a nail gun, he had to abruptly and coldly end the date because his entire murder plan was in vain.
13
14	[[WMG: Every single character in the book barring Jean, Louis, and Courtney are serial killers]]
15	Every single character is exactly like Bateman, and commits dozens of murders. Every time they sit down to talk to another character, they confess their sins, but all of them are too self involved to hear them. Bateman is simply one of many.
16
17	[[WMG: Patrick Bateman, for some reason, has a [[Series/DoctorWho perception filter]] on him.]]
18	Think about it. He's unnoticed, easily forgotten and even when it would be in one's best interest to pay attention, nobody ever does. This is the exact effect that a perception filter gives you. You might want to focus on what it is on, but you just can't. Your mind will ignore it against its will. This has been proven with the TARDIS, Torchwood's elevator and with TARDIS Key necklaces. Due to some unnatural reason, Patrick Bateman was born with one that instinctively turns on when it's needed. This is what allows him to confess to crimes, make outrageous amounts of noise and not bother anyone and do things that would normally draw attention.
19
20	[[WMG: Patrick Bateman is a [[TabletopGame/MageTheAscension Widderslainte]].]]
21	In [[TabletopGame/MageTheAscension Mage]], a widderslainte is the reality-warping avatar of a dead [[EvilSorcerer Nephandus]], reincarnated into a human. Patrick is clearly a widderslainte on the cusp of awakening. He's not an unreliable narrator, instead his crimes are real, and literally defy reality (and law enforcement) because he's unconsciously using magic. The final speech is [[FridgeHorror his epiphany as he awakens]]...
22	** Alternatively he could just be a [[PowerBornFromMadness Marauder]]. Which is pretty equally terrifying.
23	*** Expanding on this theory, Kimble is his Avatar, opposing him and dragging him toward Descent, by breaking him down. It explains why no one else really sees him.
24
25	[[WMG: Patrick is [[Series/{{Heroes}} Sylar]].]]
26	Sylar was still stark raving mad when he worked for a big corporation, but he got better when he quit his job to fix watches. He still kills people, but he doesn't torture them as often, and doesn't eat the brains any more. [[strike: At least, not without mustard.]]
27	* {{Jossed}} on ''Heroes'', Sylar doesn't eat brains.
28
29	[[WMG: Patrick Bateman is [[WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}} Boo-Rishnikov]]!]]
30	He keeps telling people fantastic stories, but it's all to distract from him being a giant chicken!
31
32	[[WMG: Patrick Bateman is [[Film/HomeAlone Kevin McCallister, all grown up]].]]
33	Not only does he take scary glee in his potentially fatal traps, but Kevin also explains his morning routine out loud. He also comes from the right class background and certainly has a family messed-up enough to give him issues in the long run. Also, everyone forgets him. A huge theme in ''American Psycho'' is that few recognize Patrick (if he is who he thinks he is in the first place).
34
35	[[WMG: Patrick Bateman never killed anyone]]
36	His murders were delusional revenge fantasies. He's psychotic in the clinical sense; as a result, he cannot distinguish reality from his fantasies.
37	* Evidence in support of this from the film - the 'feed me a stray cat' sequence is not explicitly shown to be a fantasy there as it is in the book, implying that the other murders are similarly fictitious when it becomes clear that this sequence never happened. Also, it's implied in the film that Paul Allen is alive and well in London. By this theory, he genuinely did steal a lock of the model's hair, but he did not kill her to get it.
38	** Further evidence: in several sequences, Bateman gets out a nail gun and uses it on victims. Nail guns are NOT self powered. Almost all nail guns are fired by compressed air. A very few are electric, but only some small ones, not the huge framing guns that he describes using. To use a nail gun, Bateman would have to have a good-sized commercial air compressor and a great big long hose in his apartment. Not only are these never mentioned, if they were actually present, he would have found a way to use them. New York Yuppie Bateman wouldn't know any of this. Secondly, to make a nail gun fire when it isn't pressed up against something requires fairly elaborate modification to remove the built-in safety features. Patrick Bateman is never presented as having any sort of technical/mechanical knowledge that would make this possible.
39	*** Or, as someone once put it, Patrick Bateman hasn't killed anyone...''yet''.
40	*** On a similar note, chainsaws have safety mechanisms that stop them running when dropped. A throttle trigger and a lock-out switch on the handle that must both be depressed in order for the chainsaw to run. The chainsaw would have immediately stopped running when it was dropped from the top of the stairs.
41
42	[[WMG: In the film version, the more elaborate or dramatic the murder scene, the less likely it is to have happened.]]
43	This writes out the 'feed me a stray cat' sequence and the murder of Paul Allen, as observed above, as well as the unlikely chainsaw death of the prostitute, while preserving the stabbing of the homeless man, the stomping of the dog, and his initial abuse of the prostitute.
44
45	[[WMG: Only the murders where Patrick actually makes an effort not to get caught happened.]]
46	Basically, this leaves Paul Owen's murder and some of the hookers. The more likely Bateman would be to be caught, the less likely it would have happened. For example, the child murder didn't happen (killing a child in broad daylight in the middle of a crowd without getting caught seems genuinely impossible), likewise, the cleaning lady who redid Bateman's apartment never happened.
47
48	[[WMG: Patrick Bateman never confessed]]
49	Every confession Bateman makes is unspoken except for the confession to his lawyer. Confession is at the back of his mind during other conversations. The audience hears it because Bateman is an UnreliableNarrator. For example, Bateman tells a woman he is into "murders & executions." She replies as if he had said "mergers & acquisitions."
50
51	[[WMG: The main character is not Patrick Bateman]]
52	This seems to be a theme of a lot of [=WMGs=] for ''Literature/AmericanPsycho'', but this is more general.
53
54	A big theme of ''American Psycho'' is that very few recognise him at all, and several confuse him with other people or refer to Patrick Bateman as a different person. For instance, at the end, his lawyer congratulates him on the prank but notes that it was a flawed joke because no one would believe that dorky Patrick Bateman would be capable of murder; he seems to be referring to Patrick Bateman as a different person. Assuming the above two [=WMGs=] are correct and the main character is quite insane - literally! - this implies that he's dissociating beyond the point of doing crazy things and ''truly doesn't know who he is'' and simply believes himself to be Bateman.
55	* Further evidence of this is his introduction. He begins by describing where he lives, and ''then'' says his name. Most people would start by saying their names.
56	** [[FridgeBrilliance Or]], It's a subtle nod to his obsession with social status. It's more important to him that people know where he lives than what his name is.
57	* It should be noted that false identification is a recurring theme in both the novel and the movie; individuals mistake their acquaintances for others at the drop of a hat. Everyone is so self absorbed that they are literally incapable of remembering the names of people around them; it is exaggerated to a hilarious degree. The reason his lawyer referred to Bateman as some other person was because he mistook Patrick for someone else.
58	** It's made worse by the fact that every single banker-yuppie wears identical clothing and haircuts (truth in television, ''especially'' in the 80s) and goes to great lengths to look as good as possible, converging on identicalness.
59	* Patrick has a split personality. People don't recognize him because most of the time (perhaps all the way to the end) he ''isn't'' Patrick Bateman. This alternate personality is slowly taking over the real Patrick; the real Patrick may be aware of this. This is seen when he notes that his confession is worthless because he never committed any of the murders. He, as a person, will soon cease to exist once his alternate personality has totally overshadowed him.
60
61	[[WMG: Patrick Bateman is in hell]]
62	The book's opening and closing lines, 'Abandone hope all ye who enter here' and 'This is not an exit' reference Dante's Inferno and Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit. Patrick is actually dead and in hell. Every other character in the book is a demon, and are purposely letting Patrick get away with his crimes, and acting like shallow morons to drive Patrick insane, as part of his punishment. The graffiti and the sign on the door at the end is basically the fabric of hell taunting Bateman by reminding him that there literally is, No Exit.
63	** Well, there is a part in the novel where Patrick is at a ''Music/{{U2}}'' concert and he (presumably) hallucinates a moment where Bono says to Patrick and Patrick alone: "I . . .am . . .the . . .devil . . .and I am . . .just . . .like . . .you."
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65	[[WMG: Patrick Batemen is killed in the Police Chase and is in hell]]
66	Related to the above, but a little more in depth: No reference is made in the book to how Patrick survived the police chase and escaped, especially given that several people saw him kill a police officer. It's likely upon cornering him, they simply took a kill shot. From then on in the book, he doesn't murder anyone. All of his horrible actions, from then on, are turned inwards and are on some level, self destructive (drinking his own pee, making a necklace of bones and staying home all day to masturbate while wearing). The cab driver, IE a non-human in Patrick's eyes, is the only one to acknowledge his actions and he does so by robbing him. All of his friends simply ignore his confessions. Trapped in this yuppie lifestyle but unable to access his outlet (IE killing people) is his punishment.
67
68	[[WMG: Patrick Bateman is a [[ComicBook/JohnnyTheHomicidalManiac Waste-Lock]].]]
69	Waste-Locks are beings who are used to seal all of the negative human energy in the world into glorified trash dimensions. Usually, they're of no threat to anyone but themselves, but occasionally they dissolve into a more violent kind of madness. If Patrick has actually committed the murders, this could explain why he's never caught.
70
71	[[WMG: Patrick Bateman is [[Franchise/{{Batman}} Bruce Wayne]]]]
72	Before becoming the Batman, Wayne wanted to experiment with duality and the ability to hide a secret life as part of his globe-trotting training. He was still very messed up about the whole "parents getting killed right in front of me" thing, so the exercise got [[CharacterDerailment dangerously out of hand.]]
73	* Something a bit more likely:
74	[[WMG: Patrick Bateman is ComicBook/TheJoker.]]
75	Following such a strict order and living the way Bateman does, it'd be a wonder if anyone didn't go insane from his routine. He eventually went insane and changed his look to match in order to be "different." The Joker thrives on inducing chaos into systems, which is what Bateman seemed to be trying to do throughout the story. His reasons for not liking Batman besides the whole "He's a hero" thing probably also is because "Batman" is one letter off from "Bateman" and reminds him of his once orderly self.
76	[[WMG: Patrick Bateman is ComicBook/{{Deadpool}}]]
77	[[WMG: Patrick Bateman is currently working for the Cheiron Group in the World of Darkness]]
78	There's a description of an archetypal Cheiron hunter in the Hunter: The Vigil core book. Who happened to have a taste for torture, murder, and Phil Collins. They offered him a job, but it didn't take him long to figure out: this is not an exit.
79	** Eh, it's more of a running gag in Hunter than anything else. In fact, Cherion hunters often reference the movie for FPD personnel who become slashers, calling them "Bateman's".
80
81	[[WMG: The Events of the Movie sequel is only a fantasy of the protagonist.]]
82	HerCodeNameWasMarySue doesn't even cover it.
83
84	[[WMG: Patrick Bateman is a relative of [[Film/{{Psycho}} Norman Bates.]]]]
85	Bates's relatives changed their name to Bateman to avoid association with the murders.
86
87	[[WMG: Patrick Bateman is [[Franchise/TheSlenderManMythos The Slender Man.]]]]
88	He's got the business suit. He's got the completely unrecognizable face. He murders people. Granted, he doesn't use tendrils, but the warning signs are there.
89	* He may be a larval form of Slendy.
90	[[WMG: The "Feed Me A Stray Cat" scene was NOT a delusion or fantasy]]
91	Patrick Bateman simply happened upon an ATM that had achieved sapience, Film/ShortCircuit style, and enjoyed the taste of runaway felines.
92
93	[[WMG: Patrick Bateman is [[Film/{{Psycho}} Norman Bates']] son]].
94	He changed his last name slightly to throw off suspicion.
95	** Jossed for both the ''Psycho'' books, films and TV adaptations. [[spoiler: Norman Bates didn't have any children and dies in the second book. In the film series, Norman's child would have been born in the early 90s. Any possible women Norman would have been attracted to before the events of the first novel/film would have been murdered due to his Mother's persona taking over, killing any woman he was attracted to. Same is true with both ''Bates Motel'' TV adaptations as well.]]
96
97	[[WMG: Bateman's coworkers all ''know'' that he is just a delusional sad sack who merely thinks he is a serial killer.]]
98	That's why they are ignoring all his confessions.
99
100	But furthermore, they are even actively ''pranking'' him by hiring a fake detective who then pretends to investigate the "mysterious disappearance" of Paul Allen...
101
102	[[WMG: Bateman's coworkers and social circle are just as bad as he is]]
103
104	A lot of the satire comes from the fact that all these men all share the same callousness, the same consumerist superficiality, and are pretty much interchangeable and they're basically all self-centered sociopath. The reason nobody bats an eye at Patrick's confessions is that everyone else around him is also a violent serial killer with a double-digit body count.
105
106	[[WMG: The Patrick Bateman in the story isn't the real Patrick Bateman.]]
107	The Patrick Bateman telling the story isn't the real Patrick Bateman, but is someone who works with the real Patrick, imagining his life and routine, and the violent urges that "Patrick" has is really his projection of his own needs of violence. Much like how people see Patrick "as a wimp/dork," is a projection of his own inadequacies onto what he considers. It certainly would put "there is an idea of a Patrick Bateman" into a new perspective.
108
109	[[WMG: The movie ''The Last Days of Disco'' takes place in the same reality of ''American Psycho''.]]
110
111	[[WMG: Patrick Bateman is an allegory of the Devil/Seven Deadly Sins]]
112	To build off the above theories about Bateman being in Hell, one could go a step beyond and claim that Patrick Bateman is the Devil himself, an allegory of him and/or the Seven Deadly Sins.
113
114	Throughout the plot, Patrick shows traits of all seven sins:
115
116	* '''Sloth''': Patrick has a very cushy, very well-paying job at Wall Street, but never seems to actually ''do'' anything, even in business meetings he and his 'friends' are talking about men's fashion or comparing business cards, and he lazes about in his office instead of doing his job.
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118	* '''Gluttony''': Rather than quantity, Patrick's Gluttony is about quality. Patrick, like many of his Yuppie friends, is obsessed with eating in the most expensive restaurant possible, purely for the status symbol of what it entails. On top of that, he's also a cannibal, for no other reason other than he wants to eat human flesh.
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120	* '''Greed''': Patrick is an extremely greedy man, always wanting the best, most expensive things possible, and what happens when he can't have those things leads to...
121
122	* '''Envy''': A lot of Patrick's motivations come from pure, unadulturated envy. The reason why he so deeply prepared Paul's murder and went through with it? Purely because he had a better looking business card than him and claimed to being able to get reservations to an exclusive restaurant. When he disposes of his body and enters his apartment, he panics...because he sees that Paul's apartment is more expensive than his.
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124	* '''Wrath''': It can take very little to set Patrick off, a good chunk of his murders are made against people who slighted him in extremely mundane, minute things.
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126	* '''Lust''': Patrick is an avid porn watcher, and has extreme fetishes on top of that. Lust is sex without love, and Patrick feels no love for ''anyone'', all sex is to him is a show of power and a self-affirmation of his worth. His murders of women are not based in either envy or wrath...but just to satisfy his bloodlust.
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128	* '''Pride''': Above all else, Patrick is a narcissistic sociopath, obsessed on how he's seen by others: his greed, envy and gluttony are almost exclusively based around his overwhelming pride ([[InferioritySuperiorityComplex or lack of]]), he hates "lesser" people like Homosexuals (after he's MistakenForGay by Louis and he kisses his hand, he immediately goes to wash it) or the homeless (he mocks a homeless man before murdering him) because he feels superior to them due to his wealth and status. Unfortunately, there's always someone wealthier, more fashionable or more attractive than him; he so desperately wants to be at the top of the pyramid, but he never quite reaches it.
129
130	This all goes hand-in-hand with the Hell theory. If one considers Patrick Bateman as a Satanic allegory, then his punishment is the greatest one of all: he's given a place where he can indulge in all the sins in the world, in all the depravity he wants, and get away with everything...but he never truly feels satisfied, he never experiences catharsis. All he feels is sharp and unending pain, a pain he wants to share with the rest of the world. He's the most evil human possible, and yet nobody really cares about him, he can't even find catharsis in being recognized as evil.
131
132	He's the ruler of Hell, but all it entails is unending pain.
133
134	And as the sign behind him says:
135
136	"[[AndIMustScream This Is Not An Exit]]".
137
138	[[WMG:The murders happened on the video tapes Bateman has to return.]]
139	Basically Bateman rents out a lot of drama and horror but is so detached from reality that he thinks all of these events are real and he is responsible for them. He also imagines the victims in the tapes as his personal enemies so it is also his personal satisfaction that he believes he did it if not an outright fetish. Also one of the tapes had an unrealistic explosion caused by just shooting a police car which is why Bateman is wondering how it exploded.
140
141	[[WMG: [[DefectorFromDecadence Timothy Price]] committed suicide, or considered it only to come to the same conclusion as [[StrawNihilist Patrick Bateman]]]]
142	The nature of the novel means that all characters are interchangeable. Patrick Bateman is unique only in his mental illness. A more on-the-level character may deal with the exact same "feelings" of emptiness and nihilism in a completely different manner: suicide. Timothy Price is presented as something of an OnlySaneMan at the beginning of the novel, storming off and ditching the yuppie lifestyle, only to seemingly have learned nothing when he re-enters near the end.
143	* So, tying into the interchangeability of the characters, it is entirely possible that the Timothy Price seen exiting the novel at the beginning is not the same one that re-enters the narrative at the end. The Timothy Price who stormed out of the tunnel killed himself. The Timothy Price that enters the novel is someone else, and Patrick is mistaking them for him. The only characters who Bateman does not see as interchangeable and thus killable are the ones that treat him like a human (Jean, Evelyn, Luis), and Price doesn't really fit that description. By that point, Bateman is so far gone that the person who was once the only person in his circle of friends who seemed a little bit interesting is just another rich yuppie.
144	* Alternatively, the Timothy Price that re-enters the novel at the end is the same one as the Timothy Price at the beginning, but only returns upon coming to the same conclusion that Patrick does about the world he lives in. Like Patrick's murders being unable to affect the world around him, committing suicide would be pointless because his absence would not be noticed.
145
146	[[WMG: All of Bateman's coworkers and his girlfriend all tell similar internal monologues to Bateman himself, it's just that the movie is merely from the perspective of one asshole out of a community of them.]]
147	* Given the story's critique of yuppie culture, it would make sense that Bateman isn't actually special in his evil desires and that every other character in his environment is equally as self-serving, vapid and awful as he is. Bateman hasn't actually killed anyone, and his violent fantasies are not unique to him; ''every'' yuppie is also like this, but everyone involved is too self-absorbed to recognize that those around them are merely acting out a script of perceived normalcy. The violent fantasies aren't even due to any inherent evil, [[AndIMustScream but out of the sheer boredom and madness of being stuck in a performative, empty lifestyle surrounded by no one but other self-serving assholes.]]
148	** None of Bateman's coworkers are shown to have different priorities to Bateman that aren't performative acts of their status, and they often indulge in the same ridiculous displays of such status, like comparing business card colors. Who else would indulge Bateman in something so banal but a group of ''other'' Batemans?
149	** Evelyn never actually cares about Bateman beyond wanting him to propose because she is merely using him for status the exact same way he does to her. After Bateman dumps her, she appears to cry... only to wipe her tears hastily and look around the restaurant for others' reactions, implying that [[CrocodileTears they aren't sincere]].
150
151	[[WMG: Marcus Halberstam is everything Patrick Bateman pretends to be]]
152	Whether Patrick is making a deliberate attempt to imitate him or not, Marcus is similar to the façade Patrick puts on... only for him, it's not a façade. Marcus is ''genuinely'' nice, ''genuinely'' refined, and ''genuinely'' happy with himself, his life, and who he is. The main reason Patrick is implied to hold him in disdain is because he's jealous that Marcus has the kind of emotional fulfillment that he can only dream of.

Context WMG / AmericanPsycho