HMSaph
The first sentence says "a propensity for using charm, lies, manipulation or outright violence to get his way". Should it not be their way? Not only do female sociopaths exist, but the rest of the description uses "they".
Now that Hollywood Personality Disorders is a disambiguation link, the admins may want to change the use of it in the description part of The Sociopath main page to Personality Disorders.
Edited by WillBGood
Lock and description trim per discussion here
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I'll leave it here: Why is this page called "The Sociopath" and not "The Psychopath"?
Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: duplication?, started by reub2000 on Jul 21st 2011 at 1:38:07 PM
Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Needs Help, started by Vyctorian on Mar 20th 2012 at 7:07:29 PM
Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Misused, started by Stellarvore on Oct 30th 2020 at 7:20:56 AM
Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Misused, started by Stellarvore on Dec 27th 2020 at 1:03:36 AM
Ok now it's Hyde.
There is a bit of a problem with this trope page and the page "Moral sociopath". That problem is the difference between a psychopath and a sociopath. A psychopath has no morals where as a sociopath has twisted morals and sociopathy has more to do with upbringing. I tried to add to the page explaining this difference but someone decided to delete it. I'm not sure if it's just because they thought it didn't belong or if they thought it should be on the other page and I don't want to rewrite it if it's just going to get deleted again, so does anyone have another idea as to how to address this mistake?
Edited by ScotieRw Apparently this version of Hyde looks like a Jojo's character. According to people who have seen that anime and I guess understand it. Hide / Show Replies
The own bit mentioned that said difference is debated. And the terms are regularly used interchangeably.
Edited by MagBas
I don't think I said anything about it being debated, maybe someone else tried to add a note about it as well?
And just because two things are used interchangeably doesn't mean the difference shouldn't be known.
Apparently this version of Hyde looks like a Jojo's character. According to people who have seen that anime and I guess understand it.
Oh yeah now I remember. That was a error on my part the first article I read said it was debated but every thing on the subject I've read afterwards said other wise.
Apparently this version of Hyde looks like a Jojo's character. According to people who have seen that anime and I guess understand it.
I think this article has confused the words Psychopath and Sociopath - Psychopaths are the smart ones without remorse and are born and live that way; Sociopaths are the low-functioning nut-jobs and often a creation of a negative environment, being potentially curable (or at least, brought to a manageable state).
Following the wiktionary, psychopath is:
1- A person with a personality disorder indicated by a pattern of lying, cunning, manipulating, glibness, exploiting, heedlessness, arrogance, delusions of grandeur, sexual promiscuity, low self-control, disregard for morality, lack of acceptance of responsibility, callousness, and lack of empathy and remorse. Such an individual may be especially prone to violent and criminal offenses. 2- A person diagnosed with antisocial or dissocial personality disorder. 3- A person who has no moral conscience. 4- A person who perpetrates especially gruesome or bizarre violent acts.
And sociopath is:
1- A person with an antisocial personality disorder, exhibiting antisocial behavior that usually is the result of social and environmental factors in the person's early life.
should we really use the "wiktionary" definition? would be better to use the DSM or some other clinical source?
We can't use a clinical source because these aren't clinical terms. They're literary ones. A psychologist would describe the actual conditions (antisocial personality disorder, etc.).
Tsundere Fan
Why is it that Shallow Affect is linked with It's All About Me? Shallow Affect isn't selfishness, though it could be considered a trait for this trope. Shallow Affect would closer to The Stoic or Dull Surprise. Should I change that? Should I take this to the Repair Thread?
Urusai!! Baka!!
¿Que pasó que pasó vamos 'ay?
Alright as I open the subject in the forum [ https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1467699253018112300&page=1] some clear examples dont belong (and yes the topic is in itself very controversial, but still). Most notably this two:
The Velociraptors in Jurassic Park... come on... they are predators... include the sharks for all shark movies for that matter.
I better dont give ideas...
The other was Loki example from Thor, as his behavior in-universe shows that he is not sociopathic and even moans his mother dead.
I do think this trope in particular should be discussed and clear guidelines should be use, and reach to some consent. Some of the issued that different users have mentioned in this page are very good concerns.
An good example are the animated film section, which is BASICALLY a list of villains from every recent animated movie. We should discussed further the issue and developed some sort of consensus.
Should we allow examples where the character has sociopathic tendencies due to going crazy or developing them later in life? It seems that, as hard as it is for us emotional humans to accept, true sociopaths are always born with it.
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That's actually still up in the air. Sociopathy is sometimes defined as inborn and sometimes as learned behavior. Ask a different doctor, get a different opinion.
Scoiopathy is an upbringing thing while psychopathy is from birth, how ever you don't just snap and become a either.
Apparently this version of Hyde looks like a Jojo's character. According to people who have seen that anime and I guess understand it.
Um, I'm fairly new to this site, but aren't most the characters on this page (and most of the identifying signs) already present on the Lack of Empathy page? Or is that page for people who actually have ASPD, while this page is for those who just act like it?
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I'm too lazy to look into all the details, but I would assume that Lack of Empathy is a type of Jerkass that isn't necessarily a villain while Sociopathy is an actual disorder that is very likely to be an extreme case of evil for it's highly anti-social status.
"Hell exists not to punish sinners, but to ensure that nobody sins in the first place." - Eikishiki Yamaxanadu (Touhou)
Chaotic Greedy
Shouldn't Moral Myopia and/or It's All About Me belong to the list of symptoms too?
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die." Hide / Show Replies
Moral Myopia does not belong; that's about very biased morals, these persons have none at all.
A blog that gets updated on a geological timescale.
Moral Myopia is about caring about some people than others; its not about morals, and sociopaths can indeed have morals- see Moral Sociopathy. Sociopaths can care about others in very selfish ways and can definitely fall into Moral Myopia (especially if the subject of the Myopia is themselves).
My Namesakes
If a character has empathy towards innocents and children and doesn't harm innocents, but is also a Blood Knight Torture Technician who sadistically enjoys fighting, torturing, and killing Complete Monsters without feeling any guilt and is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold Deadpan Snarker towards innocents, does he still count as this trope or as a psuedo-sociopath?.
"Think like a man of action, act like a man of thinking, and don't be a dumbass." Hide / Show Replies
Yes, but do you still think that the character I described is a sociopath?
BTW, you mean the original definition (over-the-top Anti-Hero Played for Laughs) or the Trope Decay definition (any over-the-top Anti-Hero)?
Edited by Kersey475 "Think like a man of action, act like a man of thinking, and don't be a dumbass."
No. A character like that isn't a sociopath. A sociopath couldn't give a fuck less about children and innocents. All they see are props, tools, toys, and obstacles.
When did I become such a bleeding-heart? I'm the one who shouldn't be caring!
Exactly. The key trait to identifying a sociopath is Lack of Empathy. You can have one or two of the traits on the "sociopathy criteria" list without actually being a sociopath, as long as one of those traits isn't "lack of empathy". You can be charismatic and prone to boredom, but if you are still capable of feeling empathy, you are not a sociopath.
It seems like a character like Gregory House can show a Lack of Empathy, but still not be a sociopath/psychopath. It also depends on your criteria. ASPD in the DSM-IV can be fulfilled by meeting ANY 3 criteria out of 7, none of which are lack of empathy. Lack of empathy is one of the criteria on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist.
Considering that this site is about culture and not psychiatric manuals, it seems like calling someone a sociopath who doesn't meet the criteria is valid if a lay person would consider such a person to be a sociopath.
House doesn't actually lack empathy though he just hides his cause he's a dick.
"War without fire is like sausages without mustard." - Jean Juvénal des Ursins
Should we split this page up into two different ones? One being a useful notes page on the actual disorder featuring only real life professionally diagnosed examples and one being called Hollywood Sociopath where most of the fictional examples would go? I say this because the forum thread, YMMV page and headscratchers page for Disney's Frozen has been the grounds of a strong disagreement about whether a certain character qualifies and the most common claim is "he doesn't display enough poor impulse control" and that we are overstepping our bounds by supposedly diagnosing someone unprofessionally. The primary difference would be characters who are violent psychopath/sociopaths but have enough intelligence and self control to reign in the poor impulse control and mostly display the Lack of Empathy, charm and manipulative tendencies because that makes for better bad guys.
"War without fire is like sausages without mustard." - Jean Juvénal des Ursins
thequickandtheliving
Okay I noticed there have been a lot of changes just now on this page, including deleting other people's entries according to..I'm not entirely sure why. But I think it's just not cool to delete other people's entries without good reason. Some of the changes are arbitrary, and some are just singular opinions. The fact is, this is an under-researched phenomenon that has conflicting synonyms and definitions. I think it's really nasty to delete someone else's entries and then just put your own from your own favorite show. The Vampire Diaries entries for Klaus and Katherine were valid, and removing Klaus completely and switching Katherine to "Though it isn't certain, Katherine from The Vampire Diaries may be an example. She says that she cares about others, but it's difficult to say for sure that she does" is unhelpful. If one person felt like she fits then that's more in keeping with these pages than completely changing it to adding characters that "may" fit the trope. Either it fits, is a subversion, or an aversion. If you're not sure, it should just be discussed here, hashed out, and then changed accordingly. And was there not enough space to add the new Supernatural entries that were added too? Removing Bellatrix because "neither bellatrix nor vanitas qualify, as their emotions are simply too strong. whatever pathologies they have, it isn't sociopathy" is a very shaky, subjective opinion, and feigns authority that isn't there.
Those are just some smaller changes. Can someone else go through these recent revisions and clean them up and/or reverse the entry deletions? A lot of the changes seem arbitrary, heavily subjective and removed a lot of good examples and material, seemingly at whim. Honestly, the above changes annoyed me, that someone would so clearly change someone's else's entries according to their opinion rather than new information or something a little more objective on a trope that's already so complicated, so I don't want to do the revision myself and create something biased and even more arbitrary as a result. It really comes off like someone imposing Opinion Myopia, and according to a very shaky, subjective, personal definition of this trope. Full overhauls should be done with more caution than was used here, regardless of how well-versed the user(s) thought they were in the trope.
Edited by 216.99.32.42 Hide / Show Replies
This is a fair point: when I edited this article I'd been on an obsessive kick, reading through all the research into the disorder I could find, and wanted to update this page with a more comprehensive list of traits as defined by the Psychopathy Checklist. So it was "at whim", so to speak, but it wasn't arbitrary.
That said, I deleted those examples because I think they fit the trope far too vaguely. My reasoning was that, if The Sociopath is just going to be a list of people who do bad things with any sort of relish, the trope loses all meaning as an analytical tool because it's just too broad.
However, I see now that I was too hasty. I don't think that examples are as subjective as all that, as this isn't actually a subjective trope. But I should have discussed it here before deleting anything. So for that I apologize.
I haven't been on this site for a long time, and I forgot the correct etiquette.
These examples are Zero Context Examples, and need more details.
- Johan Liebert, the eponymous Monster.
- Michio Yuki from MW, who was the prototype for Johan.
- Yami Bakura and Yami Marik from Yu-Gi-Oh!. The first one is far deadlier than you think and you'll learn why in the "Dawn of the Duel" arc.
- Frieza from Dragon Ball Z fits most of this to a T. As does Cell for that matter (maybe he inherited it from Frieza's cells!)
- Mad Scientist Akihiro Kurata from Digimon Savers.
- The Unreliable Narrator and Villain Protagonist Itsuki (Boku) Kamiyama from Goth.
- The Huckebein family of Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force.
- The Joker, Arch-Enemy of Batman.
- Gideon Graves of Scott Pilgrim.
- Professor Padraic Ratigan from The Great Mouse Detective, natch.
- Alex from the Adventure Time fanfic named after her.
- Nicky Santaro in Casino. And speaking of mobsters played by Joe Pesci, Tommy De Simone in Goodfellas probably counts as well.
- Heathers features Jason Dean, who is originally seen as simply Troubled, but Cute before revealing himself as one of these.
- The Scorpio Killer from Dirty Harry.
- As you later find out in the film Chinatown, Noah Cross.
- Peter and Paul, the protagonists from the film Funny Games.
- Aaron Stampler from the film Primal Fear.
- Frederick "Junior" Frenger from the film Miami Blues is a textbook example.
- Daniel Plainview and Eli Sunday are gradually revealed to be sociopaths as There Will Be Blood progresses.
- Waldo Lydecker from 1944's Laura.
- His son Ramsay (who is a sadistic serial killer) is more of a typical sociopath.
- Some interpretations of Sherlock Holmes. Another, probably much straighter example is Sherlock's Evil Counterpart Moriarty.
- Psycho for Hire Anton Chigurh from No Country For Old Men is a particularly potent example.
- Razim from Alex Rider is this to an unbelievable degree.
- The 13 year-old piano student who ruins Reiko's life in Norwegian Wood.
- Massie the Villain Protagonist from The Clique.
- The Ice Truck Killer, Miguel Prado, Jordan, Travis, Trinity and Lilah also count.
- Profit: Jim Profit
- Around half of the cast of Oz, most notable with Simon Adebisi and Chris Keller.
- Serial killer Hoyt from Rizzoli And Isles.
- Servalan of Blake's 7 is another rare female example.
- The Master from Doctor Who is this with a generous helping of megalomania.
- Kefka Palazzo of Final Fantasy VI, is a particularly over the top example of this.
- Likewise, the jester Dimentio from Super Paper Mario.
- The Suikoden series has a few, with the most exemplary examples being Luca Blight and Childerich.
- One of the more unstable versions of this trope is Albedo Piazolla from the Xenosaga series, particularly in Episode 1.
- Purple Eyes from Pokémon Ranger :Guardian Signs depending on how you look at it.
- Kratos from God of War would definitly qualify, for oh so many reasons. That is, if you don't just take it a step further.
- The Order of the Stick: Xykon, even before he became an undead abomination.
- And Belkar, of the Comedic sort.
- Mozenrath from Aladdin the series.
- The Big Bad of Season 1 of W.I.T.C.H., Prince Phobos.
- Starscream from Transformers: Prime.
- El Malefico from Mucha Lucha:The Return of El Malefico.
- Other characters, like Mr. Burns (especially in the season 1-7), Sideshow Bob and Cecil Terwilliger are not far behind.
- In Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Darth Maul fits all the criteria to qualify as one.
This is a form of Weblinks Are Not Examples, and needs details.
- MAG ISA — All the villains of MAG-ISA are this personality type. The higher up the ladder you go, the more evil you are. (1) (2)
Call me Stick
Why exactly is Villain Sue referenced?
Hopefully I'll feel confident to change my avatar off this scumbag soon. Apologies to any scumbags I insulted.
Is it possible for The Sociopath to not be a Complete Monster?
Oh, Equestria, we stand on guard for thee! Hide / Show Replies
Yes. The character can fail on either or both of the first two CM criteria.
That was the amazing part. Things just keep going.
Legs of Justice
Why is that the main page states that female sociopaths are rare in Real Life? I've never heard that.
I totally hate my avatar. Just saying. Hide / Show Replies
Statistically the majority of people diagnosed with ASPD are male. Quoth wikipedia: "The prevalence of this disorder is 3% in males and 1% from females, as stated in the DSM IV-TR."
Of course there are psychiatrists/psychologists who say that there may be as many ASPD females as males, it's just they are just a lot less likely to be diagnosed as such for a variety of reasons...
Edited by MrMorley
Sick Boy from Trainspotting also seems sociopathic, but is outshadowed by Begbie.
The link Analysis.The Sociopath should be changed to Useful Notes.Sociopathy.