Villains with mental disorders?

[Giya Kusezu]

Hey all - I just wondered about something today. What are your thoughts about writing villains with mental disorders? I think this would be an interesting thing to dabble with, as would writing an antihero with a disorder.

It seems like whenever we encounter bad guys in popular media, if they have a disorder it is likely to be narcissism, insanity, or that they are a sociopath. But what about things like bipolar depression, OCD, anxiety, multiple personalities, etc? Do you think this would make for a more interesting villain? Or do you think it takes away from their power as an intimidating and/or hate-worthy character in a story?

Now don't get me wrong, I in no way want to villainize mental illnesses. I have dealt with major depression and extreme anxiety nearly my entire life, and I'm not some evil nut. But I tend to think about things like depression and psychology, and it made me wonder.

 

[Ireth]

I've seen exactly one movie with a villain who had multiple personalities, a horror flick called Identity. It worked really well to conceal who the killer was (i.e. which personality) until the end.

 

[WooHooMan]

Unless you know what you're talking about, I'd advise writers to stay away from mental illness. Psychology is a very complicated science and it's very easy to get into the "offensive" territory with depicting people suffering from mental illness as villains.

I've seen exactly one movie with a villain who had multiple personalities, a horror flick called Identity. It worked really well to conceal who the killer was (i.e. which personality) until the end.

You've never seen Psycho?

 

[Ireth]

You've never seen Psycho?

Nope! All I know about that one is that the villain had some serious mommy issues, and of course the infamous shower scene. (*screek screek screek!*)

 

[Feo Takahari]

I'd say Dissociative Identity Disorder is the one most frequently misused and abused. L.B. Lee (who has DID) has written a bit about "evil alternate personalities" (in the context of debunking a con artist who used DID as an excuse for his actions.) Anything can go badly if you don't treat it seriously, though--9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors has a laughable villain whose evil is driven by face blindness!

As for ones that could be used well, drug addiction is my first guess. I've also seen some great antagonists who had issues with fear and self-doubt, playing the part of an over-the-top villain to try to hide how scared they were.

 

[buyjupiter]

I've seen exactly one movie with a villain who had multiple personalities, a horror flick called Identity. It worked really well to conceal who the killer was (i.e. which personality) until the end.

That was a GREAT movie. I still recommend it. It was easy enough to follow without being too obscure and I didn't see the twist coming at the end. (I usually hate "twists" because they're usually very obvious to me. I knew how Inception was going to have to end, about 1/3 of the way through it.)

I did not like the way the idea of multiple personalities was handled in Psycho, however. It felt a bit...too neat, if you know what I mean. It was a very tidy explanation and from my understanding (granted I knew more about DID before I watched Psycho, so I wasn't going into it blind) DID is NOT a "tidy" disorder.

Which may be why I liked Identity more. Because the issue of multiple personalities was handled in a very non-tidy fashion.

 

[Russ]

I think writing characters with mental illness is a great idea.

While the area is complex, it is also (with great respect to the DSM V folks) still in its infancy and not well understood on so many levels. So there is lots of room for creativity.

Mental illness is part of the human experience and writing good fiction is all about exploring the human experience.

I see no reason why exploring or writing about villians with mental illness would not be a good idea.

 

[MineOwnKing]

A fantastical form of madness, is a major part of the series I'm working on, caused by exposure to an addictive element, not of this universe.

For me, it opens up creative doors and more interesting dialogue.

 

[Vilya]

I love the idea of having a villain with a mental illness. If anything I think it could make the villain more sympathetic, not to mention interesting. In an era where people are trying to shy away from villains who are evil, just for the sake of being evil, I think this adds an extra layer of depth, and could make things more realistic.

 

[StannisTheMannis]

I think it's an excellent idea - it adds a sense of reality to your villain. However, for the sake of accuracy, conduct *extensive* research on the illness. I'm talking books, articles, YouTube videos. It'll humanize your villain, make him less villainy (in a good way).

 

[Devor]

Of course people will complain about anything. But you should know that in the real world people with mental disorders are less likely to commit a crime, and far more likely to be the victims of a crime, than the general population, with the exception of sociopaths. So in my opinion, you should consider that the biggest conflicts, and probably the source of any villainy, are going to come from how people treat this person because of their mental disorder, and not directly from the mental disorder.

I mean, even most narcissists are shunned for it. It's the rare few who are successful enough to gain any sort of diva status, and even those are still going to have issues of being shunned for it.

 

[Feo Takahari]

I just found an article discussing the villain in the Daredevil TV show, who's autistic. The article as a whole isn't that useful, but there's some interesting stuff to dig into.

A disabled villain is always a dicey proposition—obviously disabled people are perfectly capable of being bad people, but for years, a villain’s disability has either been used as shorthand for othering them or making them scarier (Mason Verger from Hannibal, Two-Face’s ill-defined schizoid disorder, basically every portrayal of albinism ever) or a motivation for their villainy (the Lizard, Aldrich Killian in Iron Man 3). D’Onofrio’s Fisk is the exact inverse: he’s a very bad man whose apparent disability humanizes him, showing us just how vulnerable he is emotionally . . . The closest thing I’ve seen in an onscreen villain is Peter Dinklage’s performance as Bolivar Trask in the most recent X-Men film, whose dwarfism is never presented as a motivating factor, but parallels him with the mutants he fears. And on top of everything else, I absolutely love the idea of a villain keeping to the shadows not because he’s a secretive, Avon Barksdale-esque string-puller, but because he’s got no social skills . . . Fisk, in particular, gives me hope because he represents a creative process that can acknowledge disabled characters as complex, flawed and yes, evil, because that’s what people are like.

 

[willsonjohn90]

Hey all - I just wondered about something today. What are your thoughts about writing villains with mental disorders? I think this would be an interesting thing to dabble with, as would writing an antihero with a disorder.

It seems like whenever we encounter bad guys in popular media, if they have a disorder it is likely to be narcissism, insanity, or that they are a sociopath. But what about things like bipolar depression, OCD, anxiety, multiple personalities, etc? Do you think this would make for a more interesting villain? Or do you think it takes away from their power as an intimidating and/or hate-worthy character in a story?

Now don't get me wrong, I in no way want to villainize mental illnesses. I have dealt with major depression and extreme anxiety nearly my entire life, and I'm not some evil nut. But I tend to think about things like depression and psychology, and it made me wonder.

There are lot of novels and movies which have showcased such kind of mental disorder in villains its nothing new.