Forums » RP Discussion » Psychopathic Tendencies Does Not Make A Villain

I’m working on a character that is on the psychopathic spectrum.

The Mayo Clinic describes psychopathy as a personality disorder where, the person “typically has no regard for right and wrong. They may often violate the law and the rights of others.” Often, psychopaths have little empathy, antisocial behavior and lack inhibitions. This definition varies as some people with tendencies are not violent and can experience empathy with people they share a bond with.

This said, you can have psychopathic tendencies and at the same time, not be a villain.

WuT.

Yeah, I’m going there but stay with me.

This character(Ellory) can create vivid hallucinations through touch. Ellory doesn’t decide what hallucinations are triggered. In fact, he doesn’t know and definitely doesn’t have an interest in knowing.

Now. A brief background.

Ashley Ryan, Ellory’s father had an intense desire to be immortal. Drove this man insane. So much that it inspired him to commit “endangering crimes with intent to defame the Coven”. I won’t go too in depth but they burnt him at the stake. There’s a study that psychopathy is triggered in childhood by a degree of neglect. Ellory’s mother watched her husband burn. That would seriously impact anyone alone. Add the fact that your son can trigger hallucinations through touch. I’m not saying that she purposely decided to neglect him but she did lock herself in her room for a good deal of his childhood.

Like.


Just imagine trying to hold your mom’s hand while crossing the street and she starts screaming about flames.

....

this was legit going somewhere besides being a brainstorming dump of words but I appreciate you staying for my rambling.

ANYWAY.

If you have any tips on making him workable in a roleplay with this type of disorder, please throw in your thoughts/opinions.

This is a nice topic. Very good one actually.

A villian is a villian because they actively make the decisions to do wrong things, to do immoral things, or things against the laws of their world that others around them see as immoral or evil.

Someone with mental illness that does wrong things or immoral things isn't a automatically villian.

You have to actively choose to be a villian, and coherently make your decisions in order to be a villian.

I don't personally believe someone who did not or does not coherently chose to do something, could ever be classified as a villian. Psychopathic tendies or not.

There's also the whole concept of a villian might be a villian to one person but a hero to the other. Villians are heavily based on whose telling the story and whose POV it's in, ya know? I often relate to villians more because the supposed heros are even worse, vain and hypocritical than they apparently are.

Topic seemed too good of one for me to not chime in on. A+

I appreciate it.

(,:

When I write mental illness, I try to make it as realistic as possible. With Ellory, I wanted to make him aware and he is. He knows the effect he has on people and the decisions he makes are his alone and did not arise because the state of his mind.

The fact is, a great many people with clinical psychopathy aren't monsters at all. Often they end up in positions of authority and power of course, CEOs, Lawyers, Doctors even, but they're not that cliche serial killer/super villain because of their empathy problems.

I admit, I LIKE a villain who's perspective you can understand, i've always preferred the antagonist to the outright "just evil" trope but I also like nominally "good" guys who aren't totally well... white knightish.

I love when someone thinks about how a characters'a ability, how their childhood, how their life will have impacted their development and personality. So YAY!

But that's the thing, being emotionally numb doesn't make you evil, not by any stretch of the imagination.

I have a few characters myself who could fit this same sort of rule. Esk who's mother couldn't love him for several reasons. He looked too much like his father, a man she hated. His power was terrifying to her. She was scared of the child and encouraged his siblings to avoid him because she thought she was keeping them safe. He grew up never getting any love from his mother, being feared by his siblings, it messed him up. He started to fixate on what he COULD do to keep himself useful, a sort of level of self preservation. If he was USEFUL they'd need him, rely on him, and that was the closest thing to affection he could get.
He's actually outright described himself as "a psychopath" when talking to his brother about his inability to form emotional connections with people.
Thing is, he's actually wrong. He may have tendencies but he isn't actually psychopathic. He HAS empathy, he just buries it. Same with his emotions.

Jarral on the other hand had no more trauma really than any other member of his species, least not till his early teens. He was always just a bit.. detatched and odd. His species are all a bit wierd but he's wierd to them even. It was made worse by his being outcast and his interaction with demons of course but prior to that point he'd already adopted a view that his life wasn't important and the greater good was all that mattered. He'd already made the concious decision to take risks and sacrifice people, including himself, without any guilt or hesitation.
He doesn't have the same morality as normal people. How much of that is because he's an alien and has an alien outlook and how much is just him, nobody really knows but he is quite willing to literally murder a newborn baby to save the universe.
Which from a lot of perspectives could put him squarely in "villain" territory. But he isn't evil, he's just... really emotionally numbed and lives his life in grey morality.
He really doesn't seem to be able to empathise with people, he views everything with this very detatched manner. It's unsettling to people.

It's worth always remembering, a villain usually doesn't believe they ARE a villain. Nobody ever believes they're evil after all, they always have a justification for their actions (or should) even if it's twisted and wrong. People are very good at justifying atrocities to ease their guilt.

"I HAD to do it" "i was just following orders" "they deserved it" "the system is corrupt!" and so on.

Everyone has a reason for doing what they do and it's interesting to explore that.

Sounds like you're doing just that already. So whoo!

It's also fun I think to explore those points where the "villain" has goals that align with the "good guys" lol. I love those teamups. Recently in an rp i'm in one of the antagonists teamed up with the "good guys" (who really aren't that good at all, they're a bunch of freaking criminals!) to take on some slavers.
Thing is, from their perspective this guy IS evil. He's part demon, he's manipulative and cunning, he's a murderous monster but... he really hates slavers. So their goals aligned.
It was interesting and presented an interesting moral quandry for the "good guys" of "okay, how far are we actually willing to go here?" and "how different are we really?"
Which is always fun.

Anyway, characters like you describe are totally workable in an rp. You just need to consider why he'd be there, why he'd care and any lengths he'd go to to avoid his ability (does wearing gloves help?)
If the setup is something he might actually give a damn about, it'd be an interesting dynamic. Often it really is quite fun to have a bunch of characters with differing morality aligned on one common goal. The friction it causes as moral codes conflict and so on.
the horror of what one person is willing to do.
Ooooo it's so much fun!

I thought that psychopathy was genetic, and sociopathy was triggered through their environment?

It does seem that villains are frequently defined by their traits rather than their actions. This includes the demonization of many mental illnesses and physical traits. It's always struck me as problematic. It's assigning morality to conditions that are beyond choice.

When it comes to creating a believable psychopath who doesn't get forced into camp dark side, my suggestion would be to research two things: characters considered heroic who have been argued to have antisocial personality disorders (including James Bond and Sherlock Homes) as well as testimonies from non-violent individuals who actually do. There's a treasure trove of real experiences to draw from out there!

An observation on the opposite side of the same coin, I also see a lot of players failing to recognize that their characters are in fact villains due to their motivations and subsequent actions. They may be significantly abusive or promote unnecessary harm to others, perhaps operate on such a level of selfishness that it comes at the expense of others; but such behavior is commonly handwaved by either being normalized in a setting or considered negligible due to other traits in their character they consider positive. It's sometimes their relatability is used to excuse their more heinous actions, as though the complexity of the grey morality nearly all of us have is some kind of point based balancing act.

These tendencies are pretty frequent in real life judgments regardless of how far society has come. I suppose it shouldn't be that much of a surprise how a lack of discretion between what a person is and what they do reflects in a creative environment, but thanks for bringing attention to it! I love exploring ethics and psychology in characters, that aspect of development is part of what makes collaborative writing so appealing to me.

With Ellory, I’d say his tendencies sway towards narcissism.

He does wear gloves but mostly around his mother because most of his trauma stems from him trying to acquire her attention and overall acceptance.

However, in the same way, he’s not against using his power for personal gain.

He’s...difficult to write.

The two terms are used interchangeably and both share several similarities. However, I think what defines them the most is how they present themselves to the outside world.

Sociopaths, in general, tend to be more impulsive and erratic in their behavior than their psychopath counterparts. While also having difficulties in forming attachments to others, some sociopaths may be able to form an attachment to a like-minded group or person. Unlike psychopaths, most sociopaths don’t hold down long-term jobs or present much of a normal family life to the outside world.

I still consider both to be on the same spectrum though. I wouldn’t classify Ellory as either. He just has tendencies that fit an antisocial personality disorder.

Sorry if it sounds confusing. I’m just fascinated by the human mind.

Oh lord, me too and 10/10 I am always testing how far they can go in that development. Make your brain babies suffer I say.

Thank you thank you thank you!
A villain is often the protagonist of their own story, but it doesn't change them from still being a villain!