Philosophy that might apply to this character

In my story, there's a nutcase serial murderer who is introduced as the first antagonist, hired to hunt the female main character down. He is much more than willing to randomly slaughter people to make the FMC out of the alley she's hiding at, even though he knew where she was hiding but just wanted some reason for a massacre.

He really enjoys killing, like singing Ode to Joy (yeah, yeah) while slitting a girl's throat in broad daylight. He also enjoys getting hurt, evidenced when he felt ecstatic when he was impaled with two spears to his abdomen and got his arm blown up. He believes that physical suffering and death, both giving and receiving, is the best thing in the world and keeps telling people that they should learn to enjoy it more.

Nevertheless, he shows subtle disdain toward people who makes people suffer mentally and in fact, joins the protagonists (much to their horror and disgust) so he can finish the Bigger Bad who routinely breaks people's minds for his own amusement.

After he joins the heroes, he's fully aware of his hypocrisy and knows that there's no way that he would be ever redeemed and frankly, doesn't care about it as long as he gets to kill the Bigger Bad, which he thinks is kind of a dick.

He believes that there's afterlife, simply because he thinks that there must be a some place to punish someone like him for eternity. Yet he is very pleased at the idea of hell and actually looks forward to his death and eternal punishment and he actually fears that he might be sent to heaven, because he thinks that that place would be the most agonizing place possible. He is not afraid of Nothing After Death either, because whenever he dies, he will die happy.

So, does he displays any philosophical ideas or is he just crazy? Also, do tell me anything that bugs you. Good night, everyone. :D

edited 18th May '11 7:49:41 AM by dRoy

I would sat he leans heavily Sadist, with the enjoyment of inflicting pain on others. Not sure about a philosophy though, but he's certainly sociopathic. Does he know that other people dislike pain and death? Are his acts partly intended to 'enlighten' them to his way of thinking?

Sounds like he wants to be a Card-Carrying Villain (you remember that part from Scarface were Tony goes off on a rant about how society needs "bad people" like him?). Or a really extreme hedonist.

edited 18th May '11 8:23:58 AM by melloncollie

Probably a sadomasochist who doesn't understand how normal people experience pain.

There are all sorts of ways to rationalize murder, but this guy sounds like a pain addict. It's not a philosophy in any sense. It's just a need that keeps growing. Either he breaks the cycle or he winds up dead.

...Seriously, now that I'm looking back at the post after a good night of sleep...why would I think that any philosophy would apply to this guy other than he's just batshit insane?

He does, but he doesn't really care. He's mostly likely tell his victims to either suck it up or enjoy the pain he inflicted.

Sounds about right; he's an extreme hedonist, which is a bad news for the world because his defintion of fun tends to involve a lot of mutilations and death.

He doesn't try to rationalize it. He doesn't need one.

I remember an argument against hedonism and consequentialist ethics stating that all would be needed to derail them was one sadomasochist. Seems with this guy this argument stopped being a thought experiment and became a real one. I'd say this guy might develop some twisted variety of hedonism, like you said. Perhaps like this, if you still want a philosophy behind it:

• no pleasure is a bad thing in itself (hedonism);
• the pleasure that is easiest to achieve is physical pleasure, which is a physical sensation;
• the pleasurability of physical sensation is subjective;
• it is just to make people receive strongest sensations, because it is the surest way to give them strongest pleasure;
• one can only be sure of what he himself considers pleasurable, thus his own taste is the only guide over what kind of sensations he should give his victims.
• For added dfun, he may call it solipsist hedonism.

Or something.

Whoa! Thanks, that basically explains completely.

I know it's up to me and my story, but to you guys, would this character make a better evil and psychotic teammate of protagonists or an outright evil antagonist?

Ugh. I don't like the comedic Heroic Sociopath at all. Unless you're going to play his evil seriously while still having him be on the protagonists' side (for whatever reason), I say make him a villain.

Yeah...the problem is that while I have general motivation and background (if you can call it one...) already, but don't know where to take the direction to. I originally designed him to be a Starter Villain...but for fuck's sake, his insane attitude endeared to me (seriously, I love sociopathic characters) and started to develop him bit by bit and...he now officially has a solid role in my story.