A psychopathic hero

You can give him one he tells himself in his own internal narrative: this perfectly goes with psychopathy. It'd be totally false (maybe based on something true, though distorted), mind. And, often change a bit in the telling, depending on what he's trying to kid himself about today. Enough people have an idea about them, that they make them up to justify to themselves (and anybody who will take them seriously) why they do anything.

(Sorry, caught up with schoolwork and stuff >_<)

Very interesting ! To go on with his chaotic nature, he could tell himself absurd stories, which seem totally impossible but who then turn out true :D

Aspects of the tales may be true (and, totally out there). But, maybe not how those aspects played out, the importance of them or even how they linked up with other story-parts.

It's a truism: psychopaths lie. They're just easier to catch at it than sociopaths because of their delusions having a genetic predisposition to being somewhat more chaotic. Not to mention their risk-taking behaviour. Where's the fun, if there isn't a chance you'll be caught?

And, don't forget that genetic factor. You can create a sociopath out of whole cloth, but psychopaths are usually born and then cemented by environment. Your protagonist will likely have either a few family members, say a single cousin, grandparent, uncle or great-aunt who was a bit special (and everybody avoids/ avoided like the plague and never lends/ lent money to, 'cos that'd be the last of it ever seen).

:D Kind of hard when, as I said before, the only human from his race is him ^^

I like the risk-taking part of his lying nature, maybe he could tell more or less than the only truth...

Even though he can't have a family member, he still has the Mad God who created him. They won't interact with each other really often but he can still have taken some of his madness from that "Father".

If you are really going to write your hero as a psychopath, consider these issues:

• Psychopaths aren't just very selfish. Psychopaths are literally incapable of comprehending good and evil. Life is pretty much like a game to them, and they are the only players, as far as they can see. That's why they don't see anything wrong in the way they act. All they know is that treating people in a certain way makes their lives easier.
• Psychopaths get bored easily and may not be able to reach long term, very difficult goals, as they are mostly incapable of committing self-sacrifice. So, this can be a very limitting factor to your hero's achievements.
• A person doesn't "become" a psychopath due to experiences they've had in their lives. Also, they cannot stop being psychopaths (unless, of course, you use magic or really advanced technology to reconfigurate his brain).
• As their feelings are mostly limited to satisfaction and frustration, a psychopath hero is hardly going to have any development (unless, of course, gaining extra knowledge) and that isn't very interesting.
• Also, consider Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy.

edited 6th May '12 7:36:21 PM by Teraus

I knew if i came here there would be a bunch of people running around with different ideas of what a psychopath is.

The OP seems to have a good grasp of it. It doesnt really matter if you call him a Sociopath, Antisocial Personality Individual, or Psychopath, and it barely matters if you instead use the label Malignant Narcissist.

The basic things to remember:

• Thrillseeking. These people are understimulated all the time. Drugs, sex, stupid pranks.
• (optional) Charm. Generally either superficial charm of coercion will be employed to get what they want
• Mimicry. Consumate mimicry of emotion and tone. These individuals dont understand why people cry in the aftermath of, say, a tragic school shooting, but they know that it is appropriate to do so. They may go home and practice in a mirror unil they can express grief.
• Manipulation. The fear (they feel less fear than normal people), empathy, guilt, shame, and loss that normal people fear are exploitable weaknesses in the eyes of the psychopath.
• Lack of Remorse. VERY FEW psychopaths seek help even after realizing that they dont feel the things other people do. Those that do are trying to game the system. It is questionable if treatment really helps these individuals, since the nature of treatment would allow them to fake the empathy they are expected to be developing, but it can curb their more violent or dangerous tendancies, which even sociopaths may grudgingly welcome as they do feel some level of fear and find the lack of stimulus in prison to be excruciating.

Of note: Some of these people can be better shaped if acted upon when young or they may improve on there own with age, either by developing a few true tenous relationships or by becoming perfect mimics of normal people.

If your going to let viewers look into that characters mind empathsizing that emotional displays are all calculated acts and that the driving force of the character is the need to be doing things and the need to improve his own lot.

As an aside, avoid I Am Not A Serial Killer as a piece of liturature for the mind of a psychopaths. A: Your isnt a killing type wheras the character there has homicidal urges. B: Real sociopaths with homocidal urges or sexual-sadism dont go around pretending to be normal just to screw destiny. They do it to not be caught, and would gladly murder someone if they could get away with it.

I should note that a Freudian Excuse ISNT out of the question. Psychopaths, Sociopaths, ect. are as much created as born. Even setting that aside, they can suffer obsession and paranoia just like normal humans. The way they think of them is somewhat different. A "normal" person might stalk someone obsessivly because he cant accept the other doesnt love him. A psychopath stalks the ex obsessivly because he cant accept that someone cut through his manipulation and got the better of him.

Some psychopaths seek out law encforcment and military jobs where they can shoot stuff or act out meglomaniacal fantasies. The police discourage this. In theory the military does too but they have use for the man who not only wont hesitate to drop napalm on civilians, but will actually enjoy recieving the order.

One anecdotal story i read once, although it was somehting that did happen, was a female college-age psychopath confiding to someone that she wanted to join the RAF because it was the only way to be able to kill people legally (for a woman at that time). This particular one was caught and denied.

Psychopaths and sociopaths are not the same. Taken from wikipedia: "Hare writes that the difference between sociopathy and psychopathy may "reflect the user's views on the origins and determinates of the disorder." The term sociopathy may be preferred by sociologists that see the causes as due to social factors. The term psychopathy may be preferred by psychologists who see the causes as due to a combination of psychological, genetic, and environmental factors.

David T. Lykken proposes psychopathy and sociopathy as two distinct kinds of antisocial personality disorder. He believes psychopaths are born with temperamental differences such as impulsivity, cortical underarousal, and fearlessness that lead them to risk-seeking behavior and an inability to internalize social norms. On the other hand, he claims sociopaths have relatively normal temperaments; their personality disorder being more an effect of negative sociological factors like parental neglect, delinquent peers, poverty, and extremely low or extremely high intelligence. Both personality disorders are the result of an interaction between genetic predispositions and environmental factors, but psychopathy leans towards the hereditary whereas sociopathy tends towards the environmental."

Therefore, if you do consider a Freudian Excuse, it's, by definition, sociopathy, not psychopathy.

You weren't talking about me, were you? My psychoanalist said those things, I didn't make them up. There is nothing wrong with what you have said, except for the sociopathy bit. Other than that, nothing you said was in conflict with anything I said.

edited 7th May '12 11:25:17 AM by Teraus

But Stormthorn is right: I used the word psychopath in order to save time explaining his personnality. But in the precedents posts you can see a complete list of his traits which is what he is like. Even though your differents interpretations of this disorder are interesting, I may have to remind you that this topic wasn't made to discuss the term "psychopath" but to give tips in order to give this character a goal, a use, a way to act which would match his personnality :D

For instance, the fact, as Teraus said, that my character won't be able to self-sacrifice made me think: would he sacrifice himself in ordrer to make his plans perfects ? (Oh yeah, he's a maniac too.)