How to make a character (villain) crazy? [CLOSED]

[Purplify]

Although the being respectful part, could get a bit difficult, because he's the villain...
But i'll try, of course, and i won't make fun of anyone, just, someone COULD get offended because, as i said, he is the villain...

[Purplify]

I forgot to mention actually he's the villain, oops
(i edited the title)

[JessJackdaw]

I dont think it's a bad thing for you to have a mentally ill villian. Actually I find it more tragic that the villain is mentally unstable than if it were the calculated actions of a healthy individual.

I can give you an inside source a least. My biological dad is severely mentally ill. His case is a combination of extreme paranoia and schizophrenia. He has utterly convinced himself the hallucinations he sees are real and refuses to medicate himself. He has good days where he doesn't talk about what he sees and others where he can't stop talking about the aliens he's seen tinker with him and expounds endlessly on how he is the chosen prophet of an alien tribe. There have been times where he looses touch with reality to the point that he doesn't realize he's hurting people.

It seems disturbing to us. It still is to me, but to understand a character like this, you have to comprehend that even though their line of thinking is distorted they believe with all their heart that they're the only sane person in the universe. At least for my father, he is convinced that his normality is absolute, no matter what the outside world said.

This is not the case for every mentally ill person, and I would research for sure. Just also do your best to make your character relatable despite being ill. Have your character swing back and forth on that spectrum, touching the audience on a good day while tragically reeling backward on a bad one. The mentally ill can be amazingly powerful characters if written outside their stereotype.

[Purplify]

Thank you so much for this reply, it really helped! Also, sorry to hear about your dad... Stay strong!

[Purplify]

I also need to remember that I can't use stereotypes or it'll seem offensive and just edgy

[donathinfrye]

As others have said, research! But also, don't think of your villain as needing to be evil for the sake of him being a villain. Think of how the reader can sympathize with him, how his perspective might make sense in a twisted way (to him, at least). Make your audience love to hate him. He'll be much more compelling that way, and it will allow you to explore his mental illness with authenticity and the moral authority of understanding of that illness. Mentally ill people can be dangerous, can certainly be "villains" (in fact, many people we would label as being "evil" in real life are mentally ill). But how much cooler is it to force your audience to ask themselves, "Does the villain need justice here? Or does he just need help?"

Point in hand, the villain/protagonist of my comic, I, NECROMANCER suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It's a great storytelling device because it allows me to explore his past in flashbacks, and it makes him unpredictable, violent, things that make him simultaneously sympathetic and very dangerous. Whether or not I succeed in writing the character with the appropriate level of nuance, I won't speak to personally, but it certainly isn't for lack of effort.

Hope any of the above is helpful. : )

[indagold]

you're looking for bipolar if it's mood swings. As a sufferer myself you gotta understand how complex it is, mania is literally like being on cocaine/meth and depression, is well depression. It's not surprising someone would do something aggressive or impulsive in mania but likely they regret it afterwards and hate themselves for doing it. Likely they ruin friendships, relationships and stuck alone fearing when they'll fall into mania again.

A villain i'd imagine would be more sympathetic, they do impulsive things they cannot control, getting angry or saying inappropriate things. I'd think you'd have to do a lot research first because it's more than just being suddenly angry or calm and it is after all an illness and not a personality trait. I know some people just go on weird shopping sprees and buy hundreds of stuffed penguins and toilet covers while manic. It's not all anger and sadness.

[El_Psy_Congroo]

Just to highlight previous stuff: Do research, be respectful, and don't just make the mentally ill person the cartoon villain, at least grant them some depth and/or sympathy.

EDIT: sorry, I didn't realize the first DSM link needed special access (my mum's a psychiatrist, so she had it) Here's another source: http://psychcentral.com/disorders/

[shazzbaa]

I gotta commend you for really wanting to do it well! I have a lotta admiration for not being afraid to ask and really taking the advice and recommendations to heart!!

But i'll try, of course, and i won't make fun of anyone, just, someone COULD get offended because, as i said, he is the villain...

I have a mentally ill villain as well! There's two things I try to keep in mind for this:
-- I try not to look at it as "will someone get offended," but more "is someone going to be hurt." I have a very close friend with Dissociative Identity Disorder/Multiple Personality Disorder, and when we see yet another character with a surprise evil alternate personality, it's not that we're OFFENDED.... it just sucks, because multiple people are so mistrusted for that reason already! When you see something that looks like what you've experienced, it's exciting -- then when it's just an excuse to make a character frightening, it... it just feels bad. I just don't wanna make anybody feel crappy in the way I portray my characters!

-- the second thing that can really help with this is to not make the mental illness the CAUSE for villainy, or a way to make the character scary. To bounce off my DID/MPD comment, the most positive portrayal I've ever seen of MPD came from a villain -- Good Cop/Bad Cop from The Lego Movie. He has two very different personalities that are working together and occasionally disagree.... but that quality is not what puts him on the bad guy's side. The mental illness can definitely affect the way the character acts and the things they do, but be careful of falling into "he did X bad thing because he's crazy" reasoning. I feel like even piling on sympathy makes it hard to mitigate that unless the mental illness is really the point of the story!

Any specific mental illnesses that would have these symptoms? I'd like to study one and do it right.

I'm not an expert so I can't give a specific recommendation, but a basic place to start would be just looking up some things on wikipedia, for the simple reason that it'll link you to other, related mental illnesses. So you look up things like Bipolar or Borderline, read the article and see if it might fit, and then start looking into it in-depth if it seems like it might be a good match -- or start clicking on other mental illnesses that might fall under similar symptoms or the same general banner if it doesn't quite work for your character.

A really invaluable source for research I'm gonna suggest is support forums for whatever mental illness you choose -- hearing about the experience straight from people who've actually dealt with it, and seeing advice for how to deal with it well might help you with a character who "can kind of hide it."

And I know everyone's gunshy about tumblr but like.... seriously, search tumblr for posts tagged with that mental illness. Take stuff with a grain of salt, because there's no way to know which posts have experience or expertise behind them, but when you come across someone talking about their actual experience to a community of people that want to support them, that's tremendously valuable insight.
The other thing you might find there is that different mental illnesses will kind of have different "stigmas" associated, so there's no across the board "here's the right way to portray mental illness in general." For example, OCD is often portrayed as a silly joke, so a lot of people with OCD really want others to see that it is an actual hardship and not a funny personality quirk. Whereas "psychotic" illnesses like schizophrenia tend to be portrayed as tragic or frightening, so a lot of people who actually experience and deal with these mental illnesses really want to see psychotic characters who aren't tragically afflicted.
And I mean, you can't please everyone and that's not your job, but seeing people say "here's the thing everyone leaves out when they make characters with my experiences" is super useful insight either way.

[KSlinger]

Disorders can make someone seem strange, but it's the behaviors they display that are unsettling, not the disorders themselves.

Having epilepsy, being unable to processes certain colours, feeling compelled to cut off your own arm-- these things in themselves do not make a person creepy, it's how they choose to deal with these disorders that does.

Imagine a ruthless killer who only sleeps in rooms tinted with dull red light because they are unable to tolerate other types of colour without triggering a grand mal fit. How unsettling would it be to find yourself in that dark red room, unable to see very well yourself, knowing you're in their domain and for once there is nothing holding them back?

Perhaps your villain is an autistic savant who conceives of the world in ways beyond human capability. How would they talk to people? Imagine you, as a human, create a formula that allows you to communicate with worms using flexes and twitches of the skin- the only form of communication they can recognise. Imagine having to recount Shakespeare to a worm using that primitive system. Imagine the patience and the frustration you would feel. To the worm, what you're saying would probably come off as infantile, disjointed and nonsensical, but the truth is that the worm is incapable of understanding the bigger message.

Apply that to your villain and the alien exchanges they would have. Imagine being the hero and knowing what you take from those conversations is barely a thimble full of your enemies' greater understanding. I, for one, would be terrified.

Manufacture fear from behaviour and context, not labels. It's the difference between a friend telling you 'watch that guy, he's a real psycho' and you getting a strange feeling you're being followed over the course of a number of weeks.

[Purplify]

thanks a lot, that will probably come in handy!

[Purplify]

Yes, he is not only the villain because of the illness, he is smart and kind of corrupt, since he is in charge of his area/city and it's armed forces. He has very strict rules and kills people kind of easily. The illness is just to convey that everything is not alright, because he will have violent outbursts (even though he's kinda violent all the time), and like one second he's laughing, one second he's angry etc.
He has a twisted mind, even without an illness.

[Purplify]

yes, but, he is also a killer and a vampire, sooo

[donathinfrye]

yes, but, he is also a killer and a vampire, sooo

Check out that link I posted. So is mine (sort of)! Always room for nuance.

Nobody "just has a twisted mind" or is "just a killer". Human beings are complicated. There are deep, driving reasons for violence. Sometimes, it's mental illness. Sometimes, it's sociological. Sometimes, it's survival. Does he do it to hold onto power? Why is that power so important to him? Does he do it because he can't control his bloodlust? Maybe at one point in his life, he struggled with the morality of that bloodlust! There's power in showing the readers why your villain's mind is twisted, and maybe giving them a reason to care about him despite how twisted he is.

You can totally do the "he is a vampire and therefor he is evil" thing. But the best villains are always the heroes of their own stories. From their perspective, they are doing the right thing.

And if you are creating a mythology where being a vampire means that you are this soulless, evil thing ... then you can still get your readers to sympathize! What was he like before he was a vampire? What is his tragedy? Make them mourn for what might have been if his life hadn't taken the turn it did. Showing moments of kindness, moments of charisma, moments of vulnerability, sadness, etc ... it's going to give you a more dynamic, scarier, more compelling villain. Regardless of whether or not you tie in mental health issues.

In my opinion at least! : )

[zilo]

To me, your initial description made me think of a psychopath, which is a personality disorder and could well serve your purpose of making someone seem mentally unstable while at times able to control themselves. Of course, if it's a mental illness you want to portray then I fully agree with what people have said before me - research it (that goes with psychopathy as well).

[Purplify]

Ok, so, vampires have (in my world) become civilized, but he likes to think vampires should kill. Also, he makes his men kill for disobeying very strict rules. I guess he just wants to cause death since he's a vampire.

[Purplify]

I love that people are actually helping me with this, thank you all!
I don't want the character to just be an offensive, edgy stereotype

[lunaartemisasama]

Watch "Suicide Squad" movie :p. For me Batman have the most interesting villains. I actually find really interesting the Joker/ Harley Quinn love/hate/mad relationship, because it is a sign of a typical abusive relationship with codependency and Harley Quinn's "friendship" with Ivy , that's a more healthier relationship actually .

If someone changes his temperament it can go from simple anger management issues to a bipolar disorder. For example the Joker is a psychopath because he doesn't feel empathy, he doesn't feel bad because of his actions. On the order hand, a sociopath have a conscience they just prefer not to listen to that. Light Yagami from Death Note might be a good example

I suppose in the Internet you will find a lot of information.

[Purplify]

Well, from what i have been reading here, i think i should get into psychopathicism (or something) and bipolar disorder because i dont think he feels empathy and he has mood swings.
Also, idk yet fully about this but an idea came to mind that he could maybe have hallucinations, any kind, and ive heard that schizophrenia has visual and auditory hallucinations... Is this true?

[NickRowler]

There are many types of mental illnesses and I strongly strongly recommend researching them before putting them in your story. A lot of times, people will take a disorder and use it without really understanding what it is. Like bipolar is not split personality disorder. Depression is not just being an emo kid.

It is possible to make someone "crazy" without slapping a mental ill label on them. Stuff like paranoia, narcissism, being a control freak, being super hyper, impulsive, greed, extreme bigotry, going against social norms, etc. could also make a character seem crazy.