This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Just another potential quote:
- Oh Calculon, I'm afraid you have a fourth personality the other three don't know about, and it and I are lovers! —Futurama
Ununnilium: Does Cringer really count?
Ununnilium: I'm 99% sure Gollum's split-personality thing was created for the movies, but I could've missed something that suggested it in the books.
Looney Toons: IIRC, in the books it's Sam who labels them "Slinker" and "Stinker" based on his observations of Gollum's behavior, and I do seem to remember that Gollum does have conversations with himself in two voices.
Dark Sasami: Just confirming that yes, Sméagol and Gollum do argue with each other in the book. One of the few things Peter Jackson didn't Ass Pull.
Ununnilium: My conclusion: time for a re-read!
Red Shoe: I'm not quite sure what this: "Furthermore, unlike in dissociative identity disorder, the two personalities sometimes share memories."
means. In TV land, the personalities are almost never aware of the actions of each other. In real life, they almost always *are* (At least, the "primary" personality is almost always aware of the actions of other personalities). (For that matter, in Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, Jeckyll was always aware of Hyde's actions (Which I don't think any adaptation has ever honored.)).
Actually, it seems like most of the properties of Multiple Personality Disorder on TV are lifted from the lies that the doctors told the Boston Strangler while trying to prove that he was faking it (He was trying to look like a "textbook case" so he pretended to have every symptom they described).
Shazzbaa: *never done this before, lemme know if I'm doing this wrong* I'm confused about this bit: "For instance, the other personality is very nearly a character in their own right, with not just different mannerisms, but often different opinions." — it implies that this is not normal, or not the way it would be in real life; whereas I was under the impression that many multiples perceived their "alters" to be entirely different people... so that representation would actually be consistent with the real life "disorder." Am I misunderstanding?
Shape-changing and voice changing are, however, myths.
And for the record, everything I've seen asserts that some multiples share memories among their selves/alters/"personalities", and some do not — it can go either way. And, Red Shoe, I believe the movie version of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen honoured that detail, as the good doctor says something to the effect of his greatest curse being that he remembers Hyde's actions.
Bossman: In the Killer 7 entry, if you're counting Harman as one of Garcian's personalities, then the number he has is eight. Oh, and it can go much higher depending on the theories you ascribe to: is Young Harman (from Killer 8 mode) separate? His original Emil personality? Or Samantha (add two because she has a split personality)? What about Trent and Izawaru? Hell, how about everyone else Garcian has killed? It must be crowded in there.
Meiriona: I seem to remember an account of a woman with 22 personalities, they did a book called IIRC, the 22 faces of eve. Can anyone get more details?
There's a woman in Paranoia Agent with splits, but I can't recall her name or any other information, besides that the two communicate through phone messages and eventually fight one another. Can anyone shed light on this?
Her name is Harumi Chouno. She is a legit split personality. Harumi herself is a mild tutor who gets proposed to by a co-worker. Maria is her "other" personality, a prostitute. Throughout the episode, Harumi keeps throwing out Maria's things and trying to distance herself from the Maria personality. In the end, they have a huge fight (Maria is shown pulling on Harumi's hair, but in reality, she was probably just flailing about) in the middle of the road, which is when Shounen Bat clubs her.
Ankh: Removed this, as it's actually an example of genetic memory, not split personality. It's a parody on the whole "thinking your Napoleon" or some other important historical figure insanity shtick that's often used in fiction. There actually is Napoleon in there, it turn out Fred was such a loser, the genetic memory of Napoleon manifested and is now trying to take over his mind.
- There's also Fred and Napoleon Bonaparte, a split personality both of which are voiced by the same actor.
Alan: Would Cloud qualify for this? Between the fake SOLDIER facade he created that we are initially introduced too, the memories of a completely different person stored inside him, his inner child that speaks to him and the actual Cloud, Cloud kinda suffers from a mixed case of Split Personality, Identity Amnesia, Split Personality Takeover, and a friendly case of the Enemy Within.
BritBllt: I don't think so. They're not really split personalities: it's more like his personality got rewritten into a combination of his old personality and Zach's personality, along with a psychic link to Sephiroth just for good measure. It's an interesting situation in its own right, but I wouldn't call it a split personality - more like the reverse, a personality "fusion".
BritBllt: This entry was cut from...
- The first animated series Scarface episode went so far as to describe the Ventriloquist and his dummy as two separate people who were born trapped in the same body, with Batman making an analogy to Siamese twins. Split Personalities Do Not Work That Way, to put it mildly, but the series did go on to provide a more realistic portrayal of Dissociative Identity Disorder with Two-Face, whose personalities are different facets of Harvey's mind.
To...
- The first animated series Scarface episode went so far as to describe the Ventriloquist and his dummy as two separate people who were born trapped in the same body, with Batman making an analogy to Siamese twins.
For the following reason...
- Cut that bit because there are many people (...please let's not get into the wording, we'll be here all day) with it who would disagree with the clinical view and say that yes, they *are* multiple people sharing a body. And each personality being a one-dimensional thing, limited to one facet of the 'original,' is something few would agree with: some say they have *always* been that way, and were never one who 'split,' and some who say they definitely were one until a great trauma occurred still have more to them than "Bob's Anger" or "Alice's Fear," let alone the usual-for-fiction Jekyll And Hyde case. This troper has met several MPD people through a friend who is one (again... this is a Wall Of Text in the making *without* getting into the wording) and has yet to see a depiction of multiple personalities in television that rings true. United States Of Tara gets closer - clos*er* - than most.
And I'm restoring it to the original form. The essential reason is that the episode had Batman describing the clinical situation as two separate people born in one body. He wasn't describing it from the Ventriloquist perspective, he was describing it as a physical truth, as though there were two brains in one body. That's in contradiction to real-life psychology, and was revised by the writers later, which is worth mentioning.
Now, on a more conversational note, I've also got a background in, and experience with, mental illness, and have known two DID patients. Yes, it's an unnerving experience to hear someone talking about themselves in the plural, and especially to have someone's inflections, body language, everything change with no warning at all. But that doesn't add up to them being literally different people, it just means we're all human, and we're all prone to relying on external cues, especially body language, for our ideas of what a "person" is. That's why DID is such a popular disorder in fiction: it really cuts to all our questions about identity, consciousness and individuality.
But relying on a person with a mental disorder to objectively assess themselves is a lost cause. A mental disorder means the person who has it is mentally "disordered": they're in the heart of the storm, and in no position to clearly look at themselves and see what's going on. The best they can offer is what it feels like for them, what the mental state looks like from the inside. And while that's crucial information too, the point of psychiatry is that sometimes people can't see what's happening to themselves, and it takes trained professionals on the outside to recognize it and help treat it. With DID, the person's coping mechanism is to keep their mind split up into different identities: they need to believe that in order to keep functioning. So naturally someone with DID would vehemently insist that they've always been that way, and that the other personalities are different people, but though their feelings are genuine, they can't be taken at face value. It's a symptom of the disorder, and consciously admitting that those other personae really are facets of themselves is the hardest, most painful step in recovery.
