This seems to be a huge topic of controversy, especially in the writing community.
In the wake of my last post, “A hero is a hero, but everyone loves a good villain,” I was involved in a mildly heated discussion on whether or not villains should be written with mental disorders.
There is a lot of negative response surrounding this topic. And villains with mental disorders can sometimes be misinterpreted as the author villainizing the illness instead of the character.
A few people argued that villains with mental illnesses shouldn’t be created at all, because it promotes the idea of simply being “crazy” or “insane.” They also are under the impression that only villains are every depicted as having mental illnesses.
Personally, I believe that there is a right and wrong way to go about creating characters with mental illness.
The problem we face when stepping over into the realm of mental disorders, is that pretty much anyone, villain or not, can be categorized into some kind of disorder, even if it's not what the author intended. Sometimes, it's simply just the personality/attitude they happened to give the person, villain or hero.
No matter how much it influences the character or how much the story hints at it, most of the time, it’s never just outright stated that anyone has any sort of disorder. It’s really different for everyone too. Some people let their disorders define them and try to use it as an excuse for the things they do, while other do not, and some even become very successful in life despite their invisible demons that they face down every day.
Captain Hook has PTSD, Two-Face is obsessive compulsive, Jafar is a sociopath (generally known as Antisocial Personality Disorder), Gaston is narcissistic (Narcissistic Personality Disorder is an actual thing), Cruella De Vil is just downright out of her mind, the original Maleficent is probably suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder (like, why else would you wanna kill a baby over not getting invited to the party?)…
None of these are stated outright, but anyone who’s taken a basic Psychology class and is asked to look for it, would be like, “Damn.”
A lot of villains tend to become paranoid about losing their status, leading to a breakdown of their mental state, and it influences them, but they still have the ability to differentiate right and wrong and take conscious actions. They don't always necessarily mean they have any sort of disorder, even if it may seem that way.
Their mental illnesses don’t define them, even if it’s clear, such as Azula’s psychosis towards the end of AtLA when she starts banishing everyone for fear of being overthrown, having hallucinations, and then even turns on herself, chopping her hair apart. It’s never stated, “She has a mental illness that justifies her actions.”
I mean, there are people who are just downright “crazy,” like the Joker, who was originally just a murderous psychopath. No reason for anything they do, they just DO because they can.
But then there’s The Killing Joke, where he was an engineer in a chemical plant who ended up falling into a vat of chemicals, and his new appearance and other traumatic events throughout that day caused him to have a severe change in personality, changing him into the Joker.
He was a good guy gone bad, just wanting to support his pregnant wife.
Then, in The Dark Knight, while he’s clearly a psychopath, he tells the story of how he got his scars, which could have been his breaking point. However, he changes the story every time he tells it, so we can’t be certain as to what has made him be the monster we see in this stage of his life.
I've already been criticized for using Batman villains as an example, because it's only highlighted to show how sick they are to justify them being a villain, but not every book/movie/comic is like that.
However, if you say that someone with schizophrenia is a murderer simply because he’s schizophrenic, then that’s a huge problem. I’ve never seen that, though. Sure, I’ve seen things like Law & Order where the person is deemed not guilty by mental defect, but again, it’s different for every person. Not everyone who is schizophrenic will have a psychotic break and kill someone.
Again, it’s not generally stated outright that someone has any sort of mental illness, and it can apply to heroes just as much as it can apply to villains, it just happens to stick out more with villains, because (at least to me) they’re more memorable unless someone gets really creative with the hero.
Batman definitely has some sort of PTSD, haunted by his parents deaths, and also an intense phobia of bats.
Holden Caulfield (though i wouldnt consider him to be a hero) is clearly suffering from being bipolar and having manic episodes,
Ariel is a hoarder and suffers from dysphoria,
Flounder and Piglet have major anxiety problems,
Rabbit is obsessive compulsive.
The lists go on and on for both sides.
Now, I’m not saying that you should go around diagnosing every villain and hero, because it’s simply not true that everyone has a mental illness, and not every writer creates a villain or hero in the mindset that they can be classified into one. I’m just saying that most characters can be portrayed that way if you really think hard about it and analyze them (I was required to this a lot in both Psychology and English classes).
Of course, as writers, we should never use these to justify a person’s evil deeds, but (at least in what I’ve seen) that is a rare occurrence.
Yes, mental illness can affect decision-making, but it’s never the illness making the decision for them, and most of them know what their actions will lead to.
None of these people are defined solely by their mental illnesses, nor are the illnesses villainized, which is absolutely 100% a no-no in writing. If you write a villain correctly, then the person is villainized, not the illness, regardless of its effect on their mindset.
So, as writers, we should never villainize mental illness, and as readers, we shouldn’t focus solely on what disorders they may or may not have. It’s not the mental illness that makes them who they are, it’s their choices and actions, regardless of whether they have an illnesses that may be influencing them or not.
I’m sure it can be done well, but only if it’s really a story about overcoming mental illnesses.
Unfortunately, it’s a terrible sad truth that not everyone is able to overcome them, and bad things can happen, either to the person or to the people around them. But again, that should be reserved for writing solely geared towards shedding light on mental illness, not motivating a villain.
However, you need to still keep in mind that some people with mental disorders do happen to do terrible things, sometimes just because of whatever they might be dealing with inside their head that they can’t handle. Some sociopaths tend to murder simply because they’re a sociopath (antisocial personality disorder, generally).
As I’ve said more than once, it’s different for everyone, but the truth of it is that some people with mental disorders do what they do simply because they have a mental disorder, and it gets backed by psychological analyses of the person.
This happens in real life, so to have it in fiction isn’t farfetched at all. It just shouldn’t be written as a generalization of everyone with the illness being a murderer or something like that, and it shouldn’t be written at all unless the author knows what they’re talking about.
Whether you believe so or not, saying it's okay to write characters (villain or not) with mental disorders, is NOT ableism. Ableism is DISCRIMINATION, which is not caused by writing about mental illnesses. That's like saying that everything written about people of color facing racism makes you a racist. It's not the same.
Also, to completely avoid any kind of topic because there are stigmas and bias around it isn't going to overcome the stereotypes, it's going to allow them to stay exactly what they are, perhaps even get worse. If you don't face controversy and try to overcome it, nothing is ever going to change.
The matter of the fact is that some criminals ARE criminals because of their disease. That, however, is not villainizing the illness, it's showing the harsh truth that not every person with a disorder has the strength to overcome their demons.
What are your thoughts on creating characters with mental disorders?
Before you comment, I have one request:
Keep it calm, keep it civil, keep it respectful.
Throwing around terms like "ableism," especially at someone that you really don't even know, is extremely rude. Some of us, including myself, suffer from mental disorders too. So, don't just assume that we're talking out of our asses.
Feel free to totally disagree with me. However, as I said, please be respectful and keep it civil if you intend on commenting.
