Why Sociopaths Make Poor (Fictional) Villains

As I have noted before, it has become common in certain quarters to assume evil people are sociopaths or psychopaths (I think they're pretty much the same thing), especially those in high places. This is something I object to for a variety of reasons (it seems to me to be a convenient way of "Othering" people one doesn't like and avoiding facing the reality of human fallibility), but one problem is that it reduces complex (albeit wicked) people into caricatures.

This io9 article written by a psychologist goes into a lot of detail about the symptoms and signs of psychopathy. Among others, psychopaths are not capable of normal emotions. They're also quite shallow emotionally. This article states they might intellectually understand the concept of sadness, but they won't feel it. The article states that Sherlock, for all his claims to be a sociopath, is not a cold, calculating machine focused only on his own gratification. Specifically, he is capable of emotional attachments, something psychopaths simply are not. This TVTropes page discusses how most fictional villains aren't actually sociopaths because real sociopaths are real-life "flat characters."

Here are some villains, both real-life and fictional, that from what I know of them don't appear to be sociopathic and are all the more complex characters for it.

Loki-The villain Loki from the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been referred to as a sociopath and in terms of bad behavior, he's done a lot--the attempted genocide of the Frost Giants, the attack on New York City that killed many thousands of people, etc. However, he has entirely too many emotional attachments. The driving force of his antics in the first movie is trying to please and/or show himself worthy of his adoptive father Odin. He sabotages Thor's coronation not (necessarily) because he wants the throne for himself but because he thinks Thor would be a poor king (and at this point in Thor's personal development, he'd be right). In the second film, when Odin calls him onto the carpet for his attack on Earth, he says he wanted to rule humans as a benevolent god--like Odin himself rules Asgard. The second film also shows how attached Loki is to his mother Frigga, including his total meltdown when he learns she was killed by the Dark Elves. He also throws Jane Foster out of the way when one of the Dark Elves throws a vortex grenade at her, even though she'd slapped him earlier. This shows he cares enough for Thor to save his love interest even if he doesn't care for the squishy mortal Jane (and he might--note the "I like her" comment after she slaps him). He's also too emotionally "deep" to be a sociopath--go to the TVTropes page for the first film, his character page, and the page for the second film and you'll see all sorts of explorations of his character.

Most importantly, Loki is supposed to be a tragic figure. If he was never "good" to start with, he can't fall into evil and make the audience sad.

Khan Noonien Singh-The greatest Original Series villain of them all, he was a dictator on Earth who fled into space and upon being defrosted in "Space Seed," nearly took over the Enterprise and was only undone by the treachery of the Starfleet officer he'd seduced. In Star Trek II:  The Wrath of Khanhe successfully took control of a Federation ship and seriously damaged the Enterprise, killing Scotty's nephew (the relationship is made clear in a deleted scene that's included in some DVD releases) and eventually no less than Mr. Spock. A pretty bad dude? Yes. However, when Kirk exiles him he was a remarkably good sport about it rather than lashing out as some kind of psychotic man-child. He accepts the presence of Lt. McGivers among them despite her ruining his plan (and according to some sources killed other Augments to make sure she was respected) and it was her death that drove him to such vengeance against Kirk. Many of the Enterprise crew admired him as "the best of tyrants" even though they knew they had to beat him. The Wikipedia article lists a bunch of positive traits uncharacteristic of a psychopath (I'm thinking primarily the "not threatened by the success of others" and encouraging other people), with the exception of the whole "lack of regard for the rights of others" part. Obviously that's not good, but that makes him a villain, not (necessarily) a psychopath. The Wikipedia article also describes him as possessing many of the same traits as Kirk, but in much larger helpings. A "Dark Kirk" is a lot more interesting than some emotionally-shallow monstrosity any day.

Adolf Hitler-We all know just how monstrous Hitler was--not only did he start WWII (in Europe) and kill six million Jews and six million others in the Holocaust, but his intention was to turn the Slavic peoples into helots for the German Spartans at a planned cost, according to my high school history textbook, of fifty million Slavic lives. Heck, just look at Generalplan Ost, something so hellacious that many people defend Stalin's industrialization-through-forced-labor-and-famine as the most viable alternative. However, this wicked man still had some very human traits. This article here corroborates Hitler's devotion to his mother (and how normal he was as a teen--he doesn't display obvious-in-hindsight warning signs like Eric Harris here), something that extended to some degree of protection for his mother's Jewish doctor later. His mistress Eva Braun's two suicide attempts seem to be motivated by a desire to get Hitler's attention--if he weren't capable of emotional attachments, that wouldn't have worked (as it did the first time). Seriously, from a purely pragmatic perspective why bother with someone that unstable? For all his many sins he must've had some legitimate feeling for her.

Darth Vader-On the issue of emotional attachments alone, Vader cannot be a psychopath or sociopath. He was quite attached to his mother and his first major crime -- the massacre of the Sand People tribe in Episode II -- was in reaction to her death. One could imagine a sociopath punishing someone for harming HIS kin, but his guilty feelings in which he confesses his sins to Padme look genuine rather than some kind of act to get her sympathy. A legitimate psychopath (at least a smart one) would keep it secret or, if he figured he'd be exposed, be "honest" but downplay it. In the third film, his devotion to Padme was what Palpatine (who credibly can be described as a psychopath) played on to corrupt him. If we're going to be playing armchair shrink, some psychologists have suggested he had borderline personality disorder. However, this article has been written in rebuttal. And he feels quite a bit of guilt over Padme's death--see this image here from this comic. Psychopaths can't feel guilt, period. And before his fall into evil, he was notably loyal to his friends.

Josef Stalin-Stalin, the dictator of the Soviet Union, presided over the mass starvation of Ukraine to export grain to fund industrial projects, his control-freak attitudes toward foreign Communists contributed to the rise of Hitler, and his paranoia-fueled purges crippled Soviet espionage efforts in the United States and the Soviet military on the eve of Barbarossa. Even though the opening of the Soviet archives reduced the number of his victims, his body count ranges from three million to 20 million. However, for all his wickedness, his mother recounted that he was a sensitive child. He was totally wrecked by his first wife's death, to the point his friends feared he would commit suicide, and however odious he was to his sons he was kind to his daughter. He also semi-adopted the son of a deceased friend. He also seems to have been at least a decent poet. An exceedingly wicked man, yes, but hardly a shallow one or one incapable of emotional attachments. This article here (which is about a book) attributes Stalin's horrors to his zealous adherence to Marxism-Leninism--basically he became evil because of the politics he adopted.

Genghis Khan-Genghis Khan founded the Mongol Empire, a realm that despite uniting most of Eurasia in a zone of free trade and travel required a ludicrous degree of brutality. The Mongols killed so many people it may have affected the Earth's climate. However, as a young man his wife Borte was kidnapped by rivals, raped, and soon after her rescue gave birth to a son of questionable paternity. Many men in the pre-modern era would have committed infanticide at this point and possibly even killed the mother as well. To his credit, Temujin did neither. Furthermore, when the paternity issue came up when it came time to decide his succession, Temujin seems to love all of his sons, is upset when they're fighting, and points out how hurtful their behavior would be to Borte. Despite the atrocities inflicted both personally and on his orders, this is a man capable of forming emotional attachments, so he can't be a psychopath.

Eric von Shrakenberg-Here we're getting a bit obscure, but he's one of the major characters of S.M. Stirling's Draka series. The books follow him from his youth in the Domination's military during WWII in which he's under a cloud for helping his illegitimate daughter with a serf concubine (one he was very attached to, to a degree his landholding family found quite unhealthy) escape to the United States all the way to his becoming the Archon of the Domination. Along the way he seeks to reform the Draka slave system and consents to more extreme proposals for super-weapons, secret wars in space, etc. only to horse-trade for his reforms and for defensive purposes. Although he's the one who pulls the trigger on a nuclear war that kills 1/3 of the human race, his hand is forced by the rash actions of his niece and he orders it only because he knows if he refuses, he'll be killed and someone else will do it. He even remarks that all his life he's sought to free his people from "a way of life based on death" but in order to do this, he'll have to inflict more killing than any human who ever lived. Afterward, with the Domination victorious, he allows the Alliance for Democracy's starship to escape the solar system and grants (limited) Citizenship to the Alliance survivors in space as well as telling his niece he's going to be handing out Citizenship liberally, "as many as I can swing."

Although by any objective standard he's the worst murderer in human history, he's a very sympathetic, thoughtful character, not a heartless monster. That's what makes him all the more tragic--the man who would abolish the slave system (or at least reform it drastically) if he could is forced by circumstances and his own sense of duty to commit genocide on a scale undreamed of in order to extend this system over the overwhelming majority of humankind.

Bernie Madoff-Madoff is routinely considered a corporate psychopath (think the book Snakes in Suits)and given how unbelievably destructive his crimes were, it's easy to see how this account is credible. However, something that clashes with that portrayal was his taking all of the blame for the Ponzi scheme on himself. Psychopaths routinely blame others for their problems and refuse to take responsibility. He was pretty obviously trying to shield his family and associates from the blame--not surprising considering how other people were part of the plan--but the fact he was willing to protect others rather than sell them out to save himself is fairly telling. He was greedy, selfish, dishonest, and generally slimy--but his taking responsibility for his actions undermines the idea that he is a psychopath.

Magneto-This gets tricky due to all the retcons and the abominably out-of-character moment in the the second X-Men filmwhen he decides to kill all ordinary humans. However, in the comics, between his escape from the concentration camp and his daughter being killed by an angry mob frightened by his mutant powers (something I remember very vividly in a flashback scene in a comic I read a child), he lived a fairly normal, loving family life. No abuse, no affairs, no secret serial killing while maintaining an upstanding facade, none of that. This biography here describes how his creators never intended for him to be a "bad guy" per se and he's described as "charismatic, noble, and wise." When he thinks he nearly killed the young Kitty Pryde, it horrifies him so much he renounces his terrorist ways for a time and later even becomes a teacher at Xavier's school, returning to villainy only after a series of murders of mutants. There's a line I remember from one of the comics in which Xavier points out Magneto refraining from some particularly large act of villainy and says that Magneto knew that going through with this would make him a Hitler, something a Holocaust survivor would not want to be.

This is not to say that there aren't psychopathic villains, both fictional or historical. However much I object to using "psychopath" as some kind of post-Christian attempt to pathologize moral failings or even political disagreements, I'm not such a fool to ignore the obvious physical evidence for it. Prominent Nazi Reinhard Heydrich seemed like a totally amoral killing machine, with the only "complicated" aspect to him being his self-loathing over possible Jewish ancestry. Palpatine and Columbine mastermind Eric Harris I've already mentioned. The sadistic degenerate Ariel Castro seems to fit as well.

However, if I were writing a villain, I wouldn't use them for models and neither should you. The ones I listed above are much better examples. They're deeper, more complicated character rather than two-dimensional monsters. And if you can write them well enough that at least some readers will take their side over the protagonist, Internet fan controversies raise awareness and thus sell more books. :)

Movie Review: "The Avengers" (2012) (SPOILERS)

Saw The Avengerslast night.  The movie absolutely rocked. Here's my review telling you why:

The Good

The best part of this movie is Joss Whedon's script.  It's so well-done that the movie functions just as well as a comedy as a superhero film without being unintentionally funny (the danger with this kind of thing) at all.  The funniest part is when Loki tries to browbeat the Hulk into submission and the Hulk absolutely destroys him.  The entire audience in the theater I saw it in broke out in cheers, laughter, and applause.  There are also a lot of other hilarious lines, to the point I can't list or remember all of them.  Here's a selection:

*When Nick Fury chats with the imprisoned Loki and in response to Loki rambling about ultimate power, basically shuts him down and tells him to call when "ultimate power" wants a magazine or something.

*When Tony Stark refers to Hawkeye as "Legolas."

*The Black Widow Natasha Romanoff's reaction to being ordered to recruit Banner.  Bozhe moi, which is Russian for "Oh my God."  I thought it was a bit more obscene, but either way it works.

*Loki's comment upon seeing the lightning that he's not fond of what (or who) happens next.

*Thor defending Loki against the other Avengers and when they reveal just how many people he's killed, Thor admits he's adopted.

*Iron Man's "Shakespeare in the Park" line to Thor, especially the part about wearing drapes.

On a related note, the chat between Loki and the Black Widow reveals just how much of a total monster Loki has become since his sympathetic depiction in Thor.  He gets really psychotically, spitting-on-the-glass enraged, calls the Black Widow a "mewling quim" (according to TVTropes, "quim" is synonymous for a word that begins with "c" and rhymes with "bunt") and the way it came off to me (especially the "intimately" part), he was threatening to have mind-controlled Hawkeye rape and torture her to death, then free his mind long enough for him to realize what he's done and then kill him.  Damn it, he needs to die.

The movie also has some nice shout-outs to the earlier films, including a reference to Stark Enterprises no longer making weapons.  The impression I had from the first Iron Man is that Stark was shutting down the weapons line temporarily due to Stark weapons ending up in the wrong hands, but given how Stark makes references to being the leader in green energy, maybe he had the company totally reorient.  Meanwhile, Captain America discovers lots of loot from the HYDRA villains of the Captain America movie.

I liked Captain America's old-fashioned values, including belief in self-sacrifice, his politeness (referring to Romanoff as "ma'am"), and his line to her about how there's only one God and He doesn't dress like the Asgardians do.  In many films, the depiction of someone with a pre-counterculture value system serves as an excuse to show that this value system is wrong.  In this one, however, Captain America serves as a good example to the point of inspiring greater self-sacrifice on the part of Iron Man and becoming the de facto leader of the Avengers.

I also like how they elaborated on the Black Widow, including giving her a back-story and some character moments during the confrontation with Loki.  A lesser film would have made her just eye candy, the token female character, or (most insultingly) a damsel in distress, but this was just so much better.  And as TVTropes points out, in one scene, she outsmarts the God of Lies.

The Bad

Only a few problems I can think of with the movie, and they're pretty minor.

Firstly, the Chitauri should have really seen the end of The Phantom Menace.  Never make it so that if your command ship gets blown up, your entire army shuts down.  Not only did the aliens' flying cyborg monster things drop dead, but so did their individual soldiers.  With the portal closed they were doomed anyway, but this is a major flaw on the aliens' part.  In real life, if an aircraft carrier were destroyed, did all the aircraft shut down and all of the sailors die?

The TVTropes article suggests the aliens didn't trust Loki with command of an army, but did they trust him so much they were willing to risk an entire army of their own people dying in the event of treachery?  If the aliens had some kind of "in the event of treachery" plan, something like Order 66 from Star Wars (in which the clones turn on their Jedi commanders and kill them) would have been better.

Secondly, when Banner first turns into the Hulk the first time, he's totally out of control and destructive much like one expects the Hulk to be.  However, when he deliberately transforms to defend New York from the aliens, he seems to be in total control, with the exception of smacking Thor upside the head after a particular fight.  The end of the second Hulk film depicts Banner deliberately inducing the transformation in to the Hulk and grinning as he does so, which implies he's gained some control over it.  However, if the cause of him being uncontrollably destructive the first time is Loki's staff rather than the nature of him being the Hulk, this could be shown onscreen.  Say, cutting between Banner "hulking out" and the mini-tesseract in Loki's staff pulsating while ominous music plays.

Thirdly, I didn't like the anti-weapon/technological theme about the tesseract.  When Captain America reveals to the team that SHIELD is manufacturing weapons based on HYDRA's tesseract research, most of the Avengers get all moralistic and whiny about using the tesseract to make weapons even though Fury stands his ground on why this is a good idea.  As he pointed out, a minor alien invasion leveled a small town in Thor and as we later learn, there are other hostile alien races out there.  After the Chitauri invasion, we see Fury telling the World Security Council (the UN?) that he put the tesseract safely out of human reach and we see Loki and Thor taking it back to Asgard.  I would think that after seeing an alien invasion trash Manhattan, the team would a bit more accepting of the need to arm up.

(Although to be fair, the main reason said invasion happened is because Loki offered the tesseract to the Chitauri in exchange for them helping him take over Earth.  Maybe some kind of mixed message where they return the tesseract to Asgard--since it's technically theirs anyway--but insist on the need for the derived gear?  After all, it wasn't the tesseract that caused the events of Thor.)

The Verdict

Probably the best movie I've seen this year.  10 out of 10.  This is the first time I've given this great a review.  There's a good chance I'll see this one again and I'll definitely get the DVD.

By the way, in addition to the "stinger" depicting Thanos, apparently the U.S. version features another post-credits stinger depicting everyone getting shwarma.  I missed that one.

Movie Review: "Thor" (spoilers)

I saw the new move Thorlast night, in 3D no less.  Here's my review...

The Good

It was an action-packed, enjoyable movie that was rarely dull.  The creators of the film did a good job developing the motivations of the main divine (alien?) characters (Odin, Thor, Loki).  Both Thor and Loki desire to emulate and/or impress their father, driving Thor to behave in a belligerent manner toward the Frost Giants and Loki toward treachery.

I liked Tom Hiddleston's performance as Loki and his gambit, which involves betraying Asgard to the Frost Giants and later betraying the Frost Giants himself.  His deception of Thor when he is in exile on Earth was also clever.  I also liked how he attempted to claim the hammer himself when visiting the SHIELD base.

As far as mortals are concerned, Stellan Skarsgård's portrayal of Dr. Erik Selvig, mentor of astrophysicist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) was quite humorous, both when he gets Thor out of SHIELD custody and later when he and Thor engage in a drinking contest.

The battle in which the Lady Sif and the Warriors Three face off against the Destroyer was tactically well-planned.  It makes sense for the Warriors Three, who are men and in the case of Volstagg (Ray Stevenson) fairly physically substantial, to bear the brunt of the robot's attacks while the physically weaker (but I assume quicker) Sif sneaks around and takes the Destroyer by surprise.

The arrival of Sif and the Warriors Three on Earth, in their attention-grabbing Asgardian outfits, was really funny.  The townsfolk look at them like they're freaks and the SHIELD agents watching Foster and her team openly wonder if the Renaissance Faire has come to town.

The Asgardians being extraterrestrials with advanced technology who were mistaken for gods by primitive humans makes more sense than them actually *being* the Norse pantheon, as I believe the case was in the comics.  I also liked the scientific jargon Foster used to describe how they traveled between worlds, as well as Thor's astrophysical explanation for the World Tree being a constellation of some kind containing the different Norse realms (planets rather than planes of existence).

I liked the mythology references, like when Odin arrives at Jotunheim to retrieve Thor and his friends and he's riding an eight-legged horse--Odin's horse in Norse myths, Sleipnir, had eight legs.

I also liked how Heimdall told Thor that Foster was searching for him and we then see Foster using her gadgets linked to SHIELD technology to search space for Asgard's star.  That was done well.  Sif's facial expressions indicating she's interested in Thor romantically are also a nice touch, considering both she and Foster were love interests for Thor in the comics.

Finally, the scene where the locals find Thor's fallen hammer and establish a carnival/barbecue around the site while they try to pull it out of the ground (even using a pickup truck and chains at one point) was downright hilarious.  Usually when there's an alien landing or something like that, the government arrives immediately and takes control of the site.  Having the local rednecks find it first and what they try to do with it was one of the more original elements of the film.

The Bad

Foster developing feelings for Thor like she does seemed rather quick.  It is foreshadowed--when Thor sets off toward his hammer's landing site by herself and the others abandon him, she is the last to do so and keeps looking at him--but it's not clear what the basis for it is.

Is it just physical attraction (which I can buy--at a female friend's birthday party in which I was one of the few males, the girls went on at length about actor Chris Hemsworth's musculature), the fact he represents proof of her theories (which Portman said in an interview were viewed as crazy by most of Foster's scientific peers), respect for his willingness to sacrifice himself for the others that he develops later, or some combination thereof?

Selvig does describe her late father as being a man who never listened and Thor admits he is like this as well.  Is there some Electra complex going on here?

The above musings do represent a good basis, but I think the whole thing was done a bit quickly.  It didn't harm the film much.

Also, SHIELD releases Thor, who has invaded their complex and beaten the hell out of a lot of their soldiers, into Selvig's custody despite Selvig's explanation for what happened being clearly nonsense and them knowing the ID Selvig supplied for Thor being fake.  Agent Phil Coulson, the SHIELD man in charge, does tell his minions to follow Selvig and the others--is his goal to somehow find evidence to justify arresting Foster and her intern, since they don't have trespassing and multiple counts of assault and battery (Thor) and forgery (Selvig) to justify that?

We later see SHIELD agents in the town, indicating that the orders are at least being carried out.  It might have been better to have them eavesdropping on Thor's conversation with Foster and relaying what was being said to SHIELD.  Maybe some SHIELD subordinate objects to Thor being freed and Coulson points out that he wasn't very talkative--then when they're recording his conversation with Foster, Coulson can look at his subordinate and be all, "See?"

Developing the characters of the Warriors Three would have been better.  The only one who seems to get much development is Volstagg, a glutton and general party animal.

Finally, an explanation for why Bifrost simply could not be rebuilt might have made Thor's sacrificing his future with Foster to prevent the destruction of Jotunheim more obvious.  I'm assuming the Asgardians built their city themselves, although their human appearance suggests they might be humans who've learned alien technology rather than being aliens.

Having Loki scream "WE DON'T KNOW HOW TO REBUILD IT!" just before he screams that Thor will never see Foster again would make this clearer.

The Verdict

Nine out of 10.  This was a fun movie.

Trailer for "Thor" Movie

Saw this last night at a friend's party.  I haven't historically been a fan of the "Thor" comics but this looks kind of cool.

I see they're not going with Thor and company being the actual Norse gods, based on the comment about magic and science.  I think it was Arthur C. Clarke who said sufficiently-advanced technology is not distinguishable from magic anyway.  Are they conveniently human-like aliens, then, or humans who had developed uber-advanced technology and masqueraded as gods?

In Norse myth, if I remember right, Odin was the god of war.  Here, he seems inclined to maintain peace while Thor just wants to fight.  I guess when it's one's own realm one is maintaining, it's in one's interest to keep the peace.

Not sure if I'll go see it, but it looks like it'll be a fun movie if I do.