The Sociopath

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"I see no difference between things and people."

The Sociopath is far from your ordinary criminal or villain. Combine a willingness to cross the Moral Event Horizon without a shred of guilt, a keen sense of other people's mental and emotional fault lines and a Lack Of Empathy and you have the consummate evildoer.

The Sociopath displays the following:

  • Super Lying Skills: Not just any ordinary good liar, The Sociopath is good enough to fool any Living Lie Detectors in the cast, can pass any polygraph with flying colors and fool even you, the viewer. Many crime dramas and thrillers have The Reveal that the crying victim or seemingly-insane defendant was really The Sociopath pulling the wool over the eyes of everyone involved and only the hero sees their true side in the last private moment between him and the sociopath. Alternatively, showing a villain beat a Living Lie Detector is a way to show The Sociopath in a setting where psychiatric terms aren't common descriptors.
  • Superficial Charm and Persuasion: The Sociopath is a Machiavellian plotter, skilled at reading people, understanding emotions and desires, and manipulating them using their aformentioned lying skills for personal gain. Most of their friends, family and colleagues are horrible at noticing they're being manipulated. Expect a Hannibal Lecture if the hero ever confronts them with their manipulations. This aspect is what makes them an example of how Evil Is Cool.
  • No Conscience: Utterly ruthless doesn't begin to describe them: except for when trying to appear normal, they disregard any social norms, rules and morality in pursuit of their own self-centered goals. The Sociopath will do whatever it takes: lie, cheat, steal, or use outright violence without the slightest hesitation, disgust or remorse and for as little as The Evulz. Murder and violence have no more emotional weight than eating Chinese takeout or some other mundane activity and they have no concern for the direct or collateral damage they do to other people, and are unable to understand why anyone should.
  • A Troubling Childhood: Since they were old enough to strangle a kitten, The Sociopath has been the way they are. Any flashbacks to their childhood will involve creepy, monotone emoting, tortured puppies, defiance, and a Dark And Troubled Past of child neglect to explain it all, though some sociopaths come from loving, stable backgrounds to hammer home just how un-correctable their personality disorder is.

The Trope Namer is an old edition of the DSM which used the term to refer to a personality disorder now known as Anti-Social Personality disorder. Though the terms sociopathy and psychopathy are still recognized in some circles, they have no official standing. See Analysis and Useful Notes. Lack Of Empathy for more detailed information.

Note that while The Sociopath has overlap with Complete Monster, a villain can qualify for the latter without overt or covert indicators about their mental state that would indicate sociopathy.

Compare Sociopathic Hero and Comedic Sociopathy. See Evil Cannot Comprehend Good, What Is This Thing You Call Love and Evil Feels Good


Contents

[edit] Examples

[edit] Anime & Manga

  • In Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Kyubey has reasons for his actions, he does not hesitate to employ Half Truths for his means, and to lead one of the True Companions into certain death knowing full well there was nothing she could do. And he flat-out states that he is of an alien race which likely has a Hive Mind, and to whom emotions as we know them are mental illnesses.
  • Seishirou Sakurazuka mori from Tokyo Babylon, although he may or may not have managed to fall in love with Subaru.
  • Johan Liebert, the eponymous Monster. The title suits him.
    • And really, the title is strangely not wasted or exagerated. He comes off as a true sociopath without too much Card Carrying Villainy or even too much spotlight.
  • Michio Yuki from MW, who was the prototype for Johan.
  • Yami Bakura and Yami Marik from Template:Yu Gi Oh. The first one is far deadlier than you think and you'll learn why in the "Dawn of the Duel" arc.
  • Darker Than Black: The Contractors are this in theory (and popular belief in-universe), but Hei at least is proof this isn't necessarily the case. Then again, Hei isn't a true Contractor, and he's arguably more sociopathic than most, since his most pronounced character difference seems to be that he can become angry.
  • Akagi has some sociopathic qualities. He has no regard for his own life, can't be threatened, doesn't care about rules, will cheat if he can and generally doesn't really care about other human beings. He isn't really malevolent, however, unless you manage to piss him off.
  • Dilandau Albatou from Template:Vision Of Escaflowne, although he was more psychotic than sociopathic. Also, remember that he was originally a she. ...And that's the nicest thing about what was done to her by the Big Bad of the series.
  • Light Yagami, the Villain Protagonist of Death Note, becomes one as the series progresses and his ego expands. By the time his father dies, Light is more upset that his father failed to do what Light wanted of him than the fact that he's dead!
    • Mello's also a strong candidate, given his aggression, tendency to put himself and others in danger, and superficial charm. On the other hand, the author has pointed out that he doesn't think Mello was an inherently bad person, because he shows genuine empathy for his accomplice Matt. While he has strong aggressive personality disorders, he probably isn't a full sociopath.
    • Light was probably a successful psychopath all along, the kind who make up a large percentage of world leadership rather than the kind that make up a large percentage of the prison population; he degraded into the more antisocial kind with the possession of the nasty book of death. He never shows any actual empathy for anyone, even in his relatively nice and highly-socialized period where he'd lost his memories.
      • Misa Amane, too. The histrionic kind. In one of her earliest appearances she's quite calmly contemplating how to kill Rem just because it would probably be more convenient. The fact that she fiercely and insanely pair-bonds to Light doesn't actually make her less of a psychopath, it just makes her one with poor self-esteem.
  • Sakyou from Yu Yu Hakusho is a textbook example. As a child, he lived a normal life and had loving parents and siblings...whom he detested for no reason. He later got a job in a pet store, abusing and killing animals for the hell of it. Then he became a gambler, and then a crime lord, and by the time of the series, has plans to open a portal linking Demon World to the human realm just because "life would be more interesting" that way.
  • Azusa from Hot Gimmick. Some have said that Ryoki qualifies as one, but he seems to be more of a Borderline, or perhaps Narcissistic Personality. Hatsumi, meanwhile, seems to have some traits of Dependent Personality Disorder. Actually, most of the characters are probably diagnosable with some sort of mental illness or personality disorder.
  • Due to brain damage suffered in infancy, Kazuo Kiriyama of Battle Royale cannot form meaningful connections to anything (a condition known as pseudopsychopathy in real life). The manga shows him mastering painting and the violin... and immediately throwing out both his artwork and his instrument when he's finished with them. He only associates with his "friends" because they won a coin toss; when they lose a second coin toss on the island, he slaughters them.
    • Interestingly, he is VERY self-aware that he is a sociopath. One of his lines, is that he sometimes gets 'confused' on right and wrong. When he slaughters his friends, he takes no pleasure in it. It is just something he has to do. Afterwards, however, he becomes a Determinator, dedicated to winning, with few lines.
  • Let Dai: Dai doesn't understand empathy or why Jaehee cares about anyone other than Dai and himself.
  • In the 2003 anime of Template:Full Metal Alchemist, Envy, Zolf J. Kimblee, Wrath, Frank Archer, and Dante are all examples of this. Envy, Kimblee, and Wrath are excellent examples of low-functioning sociopathy, while Archer and Dante lean towards the high-functioning end of things.
    • In the FMA manga and Brotherhood anime, Envy, Pride, Shou Tucker, and Kimblee are this as well. This version of Kimblee is a particularly chilling example of high-functioning sociopathy, being an extremely intelligent, extremely self-aware psychopath in the vein of Hannibal Lecter, masking his lunacy beneath a Template:Faux Affably Evil facade and a bizarre code of honor.
  • Psycho For Hire Ali al-Saachez, and siblings Michael and Nena Trinity of Template:Gundam00.
  • Agon Kongo of Template:Eyeshield 21 is this, along with having every single trait that characterizes antisocial personality disorder. Fortunately, with the series' scope being limited to high school football and a shonen jump title, most of his truly horrendous acts are stopped before they could follow through.
  • Grings Kodai from Pokemon Zoroark Master Of Illusions. He fits all of the above criteria plus is one of the most sadistic monsters in Pokemon history.
  • Lloyd from Code Geass cheerfully refers to himself as a sociopath.
    • A true sociopathic character from the same anime is Brittanian knight Lucciano Bradley.
  • Muruta Azrael of Gundam Seed. He's smug, arrogant, condescending, misognynistic, loses his temper at the drop of a hat, finds the very idea that he could lose to be inconcievable, and views his subordinates as expendable pawns in his personal vendetta against the Coordinators. His superficial charm cannot cover his inner monstrousness for long, with continued exposure to him alienating even his staunchest supporters, and while he's bright, he has a definite inability to learn from experience. Even his bravery--he does after all, lead the assault on ZAFT from the front--stems from his arrogance, and he's far more afraid of losing than he is of dying.
  • Wolf Guy Wolfen Crest features quite a few examples, such as Yandere Nightmare Fetishist Ryuuko Kounuma, the Knife Nut Kuroda brothers, and especially Haguro Dou.
  • From Naruto we have Hidan, who unlike most characters in the series has no positive traits and never did. He slaughtered his village simply because he was disgusted with their pacifistic way of life, and performed gruesome rituals to attain immortality for himself. He's also Axe Crazy and cruel for its own sake. On top of that, even the series itself seems to posit him as the most unsympathetic major villain, as he's exempt from the Cycle Of Revenge Aesop pervading the storyline with his Fate Worse Than Death (though it helps Shikamaru's case that Hidan has nobody who would care about his cruel fate barring potential allies).
  • 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!)
  • Big Bad Naraku from Template:Inu Yasha.
    • As a conglomerate consciousness nothing about Naraku's psychology is normal. Also that many characters act like sociopaths when introduced and then receive Character Development. Including people like Kouga, although arguably he never actually shakes the title.
  • An aversion to the normal presentation of The Sociopath occurs in Haruhi Suzumiya, in which the title character Haruhi has all the symptoms of Antisocial Personality Disorder except animal cruelty (unless you count Mikuru). She's harmless to society in general and played sympathetically, just extremely impulsive, domineering, and an eternal source of exasperation for Kyon.
  • Medaka Box: A lot of the characters are sociopaths to some degree (the title character narrowly escaped becoming one herself), but Ajimu takes the cake: not only does she regard people as things she's a Physical God. There's also Shiranui, who pitted her friends against an Irish wolfhound (a giant dog that was used to hunt wolves in Ireland) because it was funny.
  • Full Metal Panic: Gauron is a Combat Sadomasochist and Death Seeker with a Hair Trigger Temper, No Sense Of Personal Space, No Social Skills, an utter Lack Of Empathy, and an obsession with the hero that borders on the ephebophiliac. His successor as Big Bad, Mr. Gates, is worse, being an example of psychopathy at its purest. Like Gauron he's a Bad Boss with a ridiculously exagerated Hair Trigger Temper, and a total Lack Of Empathy. He's also a Large Ham and a sexual predator who is implied to have slept with two teenage girls, jacks off to images of squirrels and kittens, talks about the many, many uses for a dead body, and takes a completely insane delight in causing as much damage as humanly possible; he's also oddly unconcerned about his own death in the TSR finale. Averted by his replacement, Leonard Tesstarossa who's more of a Narcissist than this.
  • In the first couple of episodes of Black Cat many of Train's assigned targets seem to posses sociopathic traits.
    • Big Bad Creed Diskenth has many of the characteristics of Antisocial Personality Disorder; it hurts him rather than helping him as he is oblivious to his underlings' opinions of him.
  • Arguably, Izaya Orihara of Template:Durarara, who has absolutely no Freudian Excuse for the crap he pulls. Upon first introduction in the novels, he organizes a fake suicide group and talks to two suicidal girls about why they want to kill themselves with a big ol' smile on his face, mocks them for wanting to end their lives, and he's even taken aback when one of them tells him that he's wrong. He then drugs them, stuffs them into suitcases and asks his courier to "plop them on a park bench somewhere". It's outright stated that this is nowhere near an isolated incident and implied that he's even sold his past victims to loan companies. This scene isn't much better in the anime, where he orchestrates a girl's kidnap and rescue, mocks her thoroughly, holds her over the edge of a building, then watches from the sidelines with a gleeful smirk when she decides to jump (thankfully, someone cared about her safety a little more). It's also likely that he's the one who sent her photos of her father with another woman, which caused the start of her angst in the first place. Throughout the course of the series, he manipulates humans and supernatural beings For The Evulz, breaks many a cutie, orders hits on his enemy, manipulates a ten year old Yakuza princess into attempting to kill said enemy, stomps on a girl's cellphone while laughing like a maniac and generally hurting and using anyone and everyone who comes in contact with him and not even giving a shit about who gets hurt and sadistically enjoys every minute of it.
    • However, it becomes Template:Subverted when we learn about his past and realize that there is at least one person he cares for - Shinra. It's so extreme that he's more or less Yandere for him (though not in the romantic sense) to the point that he's stalking the man who hurt Shinra and setting him up for two huge crimes even though he realizes that he could get into trouble too. He even gets close to breaking down at the thought that he might have to betray his only friend to advance in his own goal.
    • Also, Izaya's never said that he is unable to love, just that he simply has no desire to.
  • Sosuke Aizen from Bleach He puts on an affable façade, is the most manipulative character in the manga (with the possible exception of Kisuke Urahara), sees people as little more than pawns and tosses them aside once they've outlived their uselessness, harms people just because he can (just look at what he made Hitsugaya do to Momo), and tortured and killed who knows how many shinigami in order to create the Hogyoku, just so he could 'stand in Heaven'. He's responsible for the creation and near-execution of the Vizards, and came pretty close to destroying Soul Society itself. Mayuri has sociopathic tendencies as well, given the lengths he goes to in the name of 'research'.
    • Mayuri is definitely a sociopath. As his "evil-counterpart" on the villain's team, Szayel Apporo Granz, and quite a few other Arrancar, and by definition all normal Hollows. That some Arrancar aren't this is actually the remarkable part, but plenty of them aren't, even among the total bastards.
    • Nnoitra Jiruga and Kenpachi Zaraki also count.
    • And now it looks like Aizen has a contender in the equally Affably Evil and manipulative Shukuro Tsukishima.
    • Incredibly, another contender has come along, with none of the Affably Evil of either, yet the A God Am I mentality of Aizen: Giriko Kutsuzawa. He kills his wife to test his ability.
  • The Caligula Delphine Eraclea from Last Exile is a decadent aristocrat with zero empathy and manipulates everyone around her for her own amusement.
  • Mad Scientist Akihiro Kurata from Digimon Savers.
  • The Unreliable Narrator and Villain Protagonist Itsuki (Boku) Kamiyama from Goth.
  • Gihren Zabi, de facto Big Bad of the original Mobile Suit Gundam is an Evil Prince with a Lack Of Empathy so severe it's almost awe-inspiring. Caring nothing for others, Gihren turns his brother's funeral into a political rally, condescends to his other siblings, isolates his father while plotting to steal his position, and uses Weapons Of Mass Destruction to lethal effect. Ambitious, overconfident, manipulative, and a brilliant orator Gihren lacks the sadism and For The Evulz motivation of many psychopaths and sociopaths, but nevertheless profiles as a charismatic, Machiavellian personality taken to such an extreme that there really is no other word for it. He also has the shallow affect, limited emotional range, shamelessness and total fearlessness associated with the most extreme psychopaths--even at the end, when his sister has a gun against his head it never seems to cross Gihren's mind that he could possibly lose.
  • Millions Knives, Big Bad of Trigun seems to have developed this as part of his Face Heel Turn when he went mad from the revelation that Humans Are Bastards. He Used To Be A Sweet Kid, though children are generally a bit patchy at empathy given they're not fully cognizant of other people as individuals. Given Knives went into his Roaring Rampage Of Revenge when technically about a year old, he never seems to have gotten past this developmental stage, emotionally. Though in many respects he's a Magnificent Bastard.
    • As well as completely disregarding human feelings, which doesn't really count since he hates them, he mindslaves his psychic 'sisters' into a giant million winged angel without really noticing they didn't want to, and torments his twin brother.
  • The Huckebein family of Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force.
  • Nakago in Fushigi Yuugi will go to any means to achieve his goal of godhood, and manipulates anyone who can advance his goals, and kills them when they are of no use to him. He manipulates Yui into making him a god, and knows that she would be eaten by Seiryuu after wards, and kills one of the Seiryu warriors when he has no other need of him.
  • Hody Jones from One Piece; Fukaboshi's description of him fits the definition, as he's done many horrible things including revoking the prejudice of humans by assassinating the queen and blaming it on a human he had hired to work for him only to betray him and later taking over the kingdom and killing anyone who got in his way.
  • Katejina Loos, of Victory Gundam, is an interesting Character Development example. She starts out as one of the heroic main cast with Uso. However, even then, you could see signs of her true nature rising to the surface. After she is captured by the Empire, she charms her way into joining the BESPA and manipulates everyone else around her. She then turns against the Federation Forces and tries to kill Uso on multiple occasions. She kills off five of the established cast members. She does all this to fuel her own ego and to take advantage of any situation given to her.
  • Kino of Kinos Journey displays no regard for human life or suffering. Complete with a traumatic childhood.


[edit] Cartoons

  • Avatar: The Last Airbender: Princess Azula, and her father Ozai even moreso - Azula has at least some humanizing qualities, though she mostly tries to bury them due to both her father's influence and her mistaken beliefs about her mother's love. Ozai, by contrast, doesn't seem to feel anything for anybody but himself. Not his son Zuko, his daughter Azula, his brother Iroh... he doesn't even bat an eyelid when admitting he framed and banished his own wife! The saddest part is that neither of them used to be this way, but the conditions in which they group up and the parental influence on them shaped them into being such uncaring, self-centered monsters. Word Of God has it that, since she's still just a teenager, Azula might get better with time. Ozai... not so much.
  • Eric Cartman in South Park. Let's see, he has no conscience, he's incredibly racist, oh, and he *deep breath* tried to restart the Nazi movement, joined the Special Olympics and pretended to have Tourette's for personal gain, put a classmate in a Saw-inspired trap, infected one of his friends with AIDS somehow, oh and turned a kid's parents into chili and fed it to him.
    • He hates Jews and idolises Adolf Hitler. However he does not idolise Hitler because he hated Jews; he does so because Hitler was one of the greatest manipulators that history has ever known and Cartman is also a manipulator; thus he mimicks Hitler's hatred of minorities. Cartman just doesn't get that Hitler was also a monster.
    • In the episode "Toilet Paper", Stan and Kyle confess to doing something bad, for which Butters had unfairly been blamed. Cartman could not understand Stan and Kyle's guilt. In the end, he's the one who ends up confessing though... because he realized that he'd get off with a lighter punishment for confessing, not because he felt any guilt.
  • Kevin 11 from Ben 10, and when the Time Skip sequel shows had him become good, first Kevin's Evil Counterpart Darkstar and then the evil alien Aggregor came around to fill the void.
    • Ultimately, it's revealed that for Osmosians like Kevin and Aggregor, using their powers to absorb energy (which Kevin did as a kid, and Aggregor still does) induces a sociopathy-like state. Kevin stopped absorbing energy before Alien Force began, which was what allowed him to regain his sanity.
  • Lotso from 3 used to be a good toy until a tragic incident caused him to "snap," and now he no longer believes in the concept of love or the bond between a child and a toy; Word Of God even describes him as now permanently believing the love his own owner had for him was nothing but an illusion, which he even yells out at one point ("She never loved me!")
  • Big Bad Slade from Teen Titans. He admits as much in "The End: Part 2".
  • Word Of God describes the villains Jackal and Hyena from Gargoyles as sociopaths.
    • Jackal's a sociopath, Hyena is a psychopath.
    • Xanatos tries to be one of these, but he's eventually forced to confront the fact that he genuinely loves his wife and son, and after his Break The Haughty moment in The Gathering he gave the gargoyles their home back.
  • The Ice King from Adventure Time is a rare sympathetic example, as his sociopathy NEVER works out in his favor. Then it's learned he used to be a normal person who went insanely sociopathic against his will because of the power of his magic crown. Even all the show's characters show pity for the poor guy after this... his Lack Of Empathy is just a sad, sad case.
    • The Ice King is more of a Narcissist than a Sociopath: he's self-centered, but his main obsession is with getting other people to praise him and acknowledge how great he is. Unfortunately, the only way he can think of making people like him is to force them to. The Ice King is also genuinely embarrassed when he appears foolish in front of prospective brides, something a sociopath wouldn't really care about. Really... a sociopath would have forced himself on a princess long ago. As a Narcissist, the Ice King kidnaps princesses... so that he can force them to socialize with him at his castle, "interrogating" them about inane little details about their likes and dislikes.
    • Lemongrab is a sociopath by the OLDER definition of the word (the definition that didn't have as many negative connotations, and was once used to describe Aspies), as in "one who is not able to understand the emotions of others" and "cannot read social cues." Because of this, he's grossly unsympathetic towards everyone, and doesn't realize that he's making everybody completely miserable.
    • Goliad has no empathy for others. She honestly believes that she has the right to do whatever she wants just because no one is powerful enough to stop her.
  • The Penguins Of Madagascar has King Julien XIII. He lies with a smile, he manipulates people, he treats people as objects, he often loses his temper, he lays claim to a job he's clearly not qualified for, and he never admits that he has a problem with any of those things. All this is covered by wit and charm and hilarious antics.
    • However, he also saves Skipper's life on a few occasions, has proved more then once that his "subjects" are the most important things to him, and has mustered up some empathy on several occasions. He is a case in point that not all sociopaths are monsters, and some may suffer themselves for their disorder.
  • Mozenrath from Aladdin the series.
    • Jafar from the movie was described as "Senor Psychopath" by the Genie, and with good reason too.
  • Most of the bad guys in X Men Evolution have shades of this. The Brotherhood is primarily filled with narcissistic and amoral mutants who, despite often been said to be more 'sympathetic' than normal, they're anything but when you take a good look at it. Pietro was self caring and allowed a train of bystanders be derailed and let it crash into one filled with fuel. Blob kidnapped Jean and showed incredibly creepy, rapist vibes, as well as other violent behaviour. Toad was amoral, selfish, vulgar, and cruel, with his attraction to Wanda being his only redeeming quality. Avalanche was aggressive and violent, and while he looked rather sympathetic in the second season, a number of things made it look like he was faking the nice guy persona he had during that season. Of the Acolytes, Pyro and Sabretooth are the closest we get to text book Sociopaths in a show for kids; the two attempted murder, enjoyed their work, and are the definition of why mutants may be a risk. Averted with Colossus and Gambit; the former a good guy forced to work for bad people, the latter a Card Carrying Villain.
    • Granted, the Brotherhood are eally more bullies and delinquents than sociopaths, given how it's implied none of them were brought up properly and that they feel like the world owes them (plus, they're teenagers). Several episodes indicate that they have the capacity to potentially reform in the future. Not as sympathetic as the Fan Dumb makes them out to be, but not utterly repulsive either.
  • The Big Bad of Season 1 of WITCH, Prince Phobos.
  • Jeff, Quagmire's sister's abusive boyfriend from one episode of Family Guy. As if beating his girlfriend over the smallest things wasn't monsterous enough. The gang has had enough of him and decide to take him to the woods to kill him, but he turns the tables on them, knocks out Peter and Joe, and beats Quagmire within an inch of his life, seemingly choking him to death. Then it turns out Quagmire survived (since he chokes himself for sexual pleasure), and rams Jeff into a tree, killing him.
  • Starscream from Transformers Prime.
  • Dark Danny from Danny Phantom definitely counts as this. He feels no emotion, single-handedly caused an apocalypse, and ruthlessly manipulated all the people who loved his past self, to their horrible deaths to ensure he would exist as he did.
  • Despite heavy censorship, Spider Man The Animated Series still managed to make their version of Cletus Kasady, aka Carnage, into a bonafide psychopath, portraying him as a Laughing Mad Bomber, who cackles with glee at the possibility of vaporising a city block--himself included--in his first appearance. He shows no remorse for his actions, and after becoming Carnage is downright eager to get back in action and start stealing souls for Dormammu (an Omnicidal Maniac who will consume the souls of everyone in the world if he is unleashed). He displays no regard for human life (least of all his own) and goes out of his way to injure anyone who tries to help him, including his psychiatrist, Anne Kafka.
  • Miss Power from Word Girl counts. She manipulates the entire town into bullying each other, she teaches Word Girl to mock the other villains, she throws Mrs. Botsford into jail for a disagreement they had, she severly beats up WordGirl, and she tries to kill Dr. Two-Brains. This was all her plan to Take Over The World. Also, she's one of the few villains in the show that do not have any redeeming qualities.
  • Squidward Tentacles. He's arrogant, and doesn't seem to care for anyone but himself. An example would be when Mr. Krabs handcuffed someone he refused to help uncuff him. Most of his paintings and statues are of himself, he genuinely calls others imbeciles, and in a few episodes he crosses the Moral Event Horizon by being elated that Sponge Bob or Patrick would be leaving, and in a flashback he tried using voo-doo dolls on them.
    • This is mostly after Seasonal Rot and Flanderization. In the seasons preceding The Movie, he was largely a Jerk With A Heart Of Gold.
    • Though, like the Ice King above, his attitude is more symptomatic of the Narcissist, particularly since he does care what people think of him, even if he also thinks that said people are his inferiors, and the hints that he's actually compensating for his cripplingly low self-esteem.
    • Mr Krabs will do anything for money no matter how small the amount. He has no qualms in feeding his customers tainted and unhealthy food to make a fast buck, and has little concern to the well being, and the lives of his employees. One of his few redeeming factors is he really care about his daughter Pearl. However, this is also after Seasonal Rot, and Mister Krabs used to be a generally decent guy who just happened to be greedy.
  • Harm from Young Justice tries to be this so that he can be pure enough to wield the Sword of Beowulf. He murdered his own little sister Greta because he loved her, and that love was the only thing holding him back. It ultimately doesn't work out for Harm because deep down it's only an act: the moment he sees his sister's ghost his repressed guilt gets the better of him and the Sword rejects him.
    • This seems to be a requirement for members of The Light.
  • In Gravity Falls there's Lil'Gideon he acts like an adorable kid, and swings to a total jerk, he is willing to use any diabolical scheme to get revenge on the Pines family and killing people is no problem to him.
  • Discord from My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic is a sadistic Reality Warper who Mind Rapes the mane cast and turns Equestria into a chaotic hellhole for no other reason than For The Evulz.


[edit] Comics

  • The Joker, Arch Enemy of Batman.
    • The DC Universe also has Kid Karnevil, an adolescent Torture Technician first introduced in Shadowpact. He claims to emulate the Joker and ultimately wants to kill him. Old Greenhair is unimpressed.
  • Max in Sam And Max is described repeatedly in story as a sociopath, but The Devil's Playhouse Retcons him into having a conscience (who is highly repressed and suicidal).
    • Even before that, his behavior doesn't quite fit; he's more like a violent psychotic with psychopathic tendencies.
  • Gideon Graves of Scott Pilgrim.
    • Todd Ingram qualifies as well. He thinks he's better than everyone because he's a rock star and a vegan, he punches a young girl in the face just because she annoyed him, and he cheats on his girlfriend just because he feels like it, yet feels entitled to get in the way of Scott and Ramona's relationship.
  • Alfie O'Meagan from Nth Man The Ultimate Ninja is a textbook example: he tortures small animals, shamelessly lies and shifts the blame to others, has sudden outbursts of anger and arrogance, and lacks any sympathy or empathy for others. Problem is, he's also a Reality Warper and the most powerful being on Earth.
  • Sin City has Senator Roark and his Serial Killer son as probably the best examples of sociopaths. There are plenty of crazy people but they show at least some remorse or have emotional attachments here or there.
  • The Transmetropolitan Myth Arc features the protagonist squaring off against a sociopath who got himself elected President of the United States just so he could exercise his every sadistic whim unimpeded.
  • Lucifer, to no-one's surprise, would be considered a sociopath by human standards. He isn't one (human that is), and neither are many of the comic's other sociopathic characters.
  • The Juggernaut has killed countless people and caused untold destruction. And he will tell you all about it over a beer.
  • Lex Luthor is often described as being a sociopath, and he has done many heinous things without remorse. Some of those things being killing his father for startup capital (granted he was a textbook abusive father, too), curing his sister's disease then giving it back to her just because he could, strangling a black belt just because she had the gall to beat him in training, and (implied) letting a biochemist-turned-superhero die to give Superman a Heroic BSOD. Also, his (PostCrisis) motivation for hating Superman? Because he exists, and Luthor doesn't want someone more powerful than he around.
  • As we find out from Watchmen, The Comedian.
    • Although, interestingly enough, the Comedian is ultimately capable of realizing that what he did was wrong - he admits to doing "bad things" during his Villainous Breakdown to Moloch. Rorschach on the other hand is a Sociopathic Hero.
  • This is one of the defining traits of Hush from Batman. Unlike Bruce, Thomas had a poor relationship with his parents, to the point that he murdered them both. He thinks Bruce is lucky that someone else killed his parents, and doesn't understand why someone might prefer having parents to having a lot of money. In addition, he knows that Bruce is Batman, and thinks that he does it for fun.


[edit] Fan Works


[edit] Movies

  • Little Sweetheart: Thelma, a nine year old girl who is willing to blackmail, steal, spy and murder her best friend to get her way.
  • American Psycho: Patrick Bateman. A perfect example. On the starpulse.com article about the most believable sociopaths in film, Bateman scored higher on the sociopathy checklist than Hannibal Lecter and the Joker.
  • 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.
  • Vincent from Collateral. He's even described as such, in story.
  • 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.
  • Catherine Tramell of the Basic Instinct series is a rare example of a female sociopath in popular culture. A charismatic, seductive, narcissistic author, Femme Fatale, pathological liar and Serial Killer, she manipulates and causes the deaths of nearly everyone in the story, including many of her lovers and her own parents, largely for her own personal gain, amusement and to inspire her novels with no real remorse whatsoever. She is even described as such by multiple characters in the films.
  • Geaer Grimsrud from the film Fargo. A mute, nearly emotionless man with a love of pancakes, he reveals his true colors when he murders a police officer and several innocent people nonchalantly, and later kills an innocent woman for simply making too much noise and shoves his partner into a wood chipper for mouthing off to him. He does all of this without changing his emotionless demeanor whatsoever.
  • Daniel Plainview is gradually revealed to be one as There Will Be Blood progresses.
  • Anton Chigurh from No Country For Old Men. He seems to view people much like cattle, and shows absolutely no remorse or consideration for any of the horrible deeds he performs throughout the movie.
    "What's this guy supposed to be, the ultimate badass?"
    "I don't think that's how I'd describe him."
    "Well, how would you describe him?"
    "I guess I'd say he...doesn't have a sense of humor."
  • Waldo Lydecker from 1944's Laura.
  • Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars certainly qualifies. Lack Of Empathy ? Check. Manipulates people like chesspieces and only emitting shallow emotions? Check. Experiences extreme rage and is uplifted when hurting enemies? Check. That's just in the movies. The expanded universe has him being a sociopath even when he was a kid (including murdering his parents and siblings), and is incapable of feeling regret when committing heinous actions and various misdemeanors (including manslaughter when driving like a maniac). His cloning attempts only make his sociopathy even worse.
  • Professor Moriarty is portrayed as such in Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows. People are just pawns to him, employment termination involves life termination ("No loose ends"), he has a ginormous ego, has superficial charm, and is completely ruthless.
    • Holmes lampshades this by diagnosing him with "moral insanity", a dated term for ASPD.
  • From The Lion King: The two main villains, Scar and Zira, qualify. They also show great contrast between High Functioning and Low Functioning sociopathy, with the more calculating Scar being the more high-functioning and the deranged Zira being more low-functioning.
  • The Warriors Luthor from the Rouges kills the gang leader Cyrus, and blames it on the Warriors, all because he felt like doing it.
  • Stoker: Uncle Charlie is one of these in the screenplay, superficially glib, manipulative and charming, but he seems to have a seriously low threshold for physical aggression and beats several people to death with his bare hands or whatever's handy. His affection for his niece is more as an extension of himself than anything else. India seems to be likewise, but she's more of the Hollywood, unnaturally-cool-and-collected variety.


[edit] Literature

  • Kevin Khatchadourian, the eponymous character of We Need To Talk About Kevin. A teenage school shooter and torturer, he has been a monster ever since he was a young child. Kevin has a severe case of sociopathy; his disorder results in him never relating to other people and finding everything to be dreary, pointless and uninteresting. Every day of his life. By the time he is a teenager, he exists in a constant state of And I Must Scream.
  • Discworld has Jonathan Teatime in Hogfather. According to the book, he "sees things differently from other people, in that he sees other people as things." He even spent a significant amount of his time theorizing how to kill the various holiday entities of the Disc, like the Hogfather, the Soul Cake Duck, and even DEATH himself.
    • Lady Lillith has shades of this as well, what with being a high-caliber Tautological Templar. While not quite as Ax Crazy as Teatime, she's likely done at least as much harm in the long run, most of it presumably more long-lasting. Never once does she stop to think if her idea of "good" has anything in common with other people's.
  • Roose Bolton from A Song Of Ice And Fire is possibly one. Capable of extreme cruelty and betrayal, while never wavering from his Dissonant Serenity. Although his lack of emotions and total detachment from other humans is actually more indicative of a schizoid mental disorder.
    • His son Ramsay (who is a sadistic serial killer) is more of a typical sociopath.
    • Gregor Clegane. Case-in-point: he burned and scarred his little brother's face over a toy. A toy that he had thrown away.
    • Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish is beginning to show shades of this beneath his Affably Evil, Magnificent Bastard personality, and even more disturbingly, he knows how to feign and manipulate emotions to his advantage.
  • Somerled from Juliet Marillier's Wolfskin. He commits genocide, fratricide and rape, has no empathy, and his only reaction to human pain and sufering is mild curiosity. He also thinks Despotism Justifies The Means
  • Lord Voldemort is a textbook sociopath. In his younger days before he became Obviously Evil, he was a canny manipulator brimming with superficial charm. He does not understand love, viewing other people - including his own followers - as merely tools to serve his ends. Also, the "persistent killing" part fits him pretty well.Though the book posits a reason for his sociopathy. His mother seduced a Muggle with a love potion, and it was a completely loveless union. Riddle Sr. did not truly love Merope back, diplaying affection only under the influence of the potion. This absence of love in Voldemort's conception was the reason for his complete inability to love. Dumbledore also believes that had his mother not lost the will to live and died in childbirth, but instead raised Voldemort and loved him, his sociopathic tendencies might have been avoided.
    • Bellatrix Lestrange definitely falls under this category as well. She definitely does have emotions, but she is unable to extend any of these emotions to anyone outside her own social circle of bigoted murderers.
    • It is questionable whether Dolores Umbridge is also a sociopath (albeit to a slightly lesser extent), but since she completely lacks a conscience and only displays kindness to people to win them over so that she can use them for her cause, she probably is.
  • Alex from A Clockwork Orange (both the book and the movie). Although considering the Crapsack World he lived in, the general deconstruction of human morality, and Alex's own status as an Unreliable Narrator, it is debatable exactly where he falls on the in-universe scale of Chaotic Evil.
  • Some interpretations of Sherlock Holmes. Another, probably much straighter example is Sherlock's Evil Counterpart Moriarty.
  • Though many of the supernatural creatures in The Dresden Files exhibit elements of sociopathy (notably vampires who fully embrace their predatory nature and many of the nastier Winter Court sidhe), the most obvious example is the all-too-human Nicodemus, a man so thoroughly and unapologetically (and yet often politely) evil that a Fallen Angel works with him as a genuine partner. Nick's wife Tessa and daughter Deirdre are also candidates.
  • Henry Bowers in IT by Stephen King is a prime example of a sociopath, as he matures from a schoolyard bully to a murderer. Had he not been institutionalized, he likely would have ended up eventually going on a shooting spree.
    • In the same book, Patrick Hockstetter is explicitly described as a sociopath, with no grasp of the fact that others are in fact real, and at five years old killed his baby brother for disrupting household routine.
  • In the gruesome flashback scenes in the Inspector Lynley novel This Body of Death, one of the three boys shows most of the listed traits. As an adult and one of the murder suspects, he turns out to be innocent and eventually dies redeeming himself. Since the author has a degree in psychology, this may well be intentional.
  • Count Olaf of A Series Of Unfortunate Events. He burns down a hospital to cover his tracks, kills at least one person per book to further his agenda, seems to view violence as rather entertaining, is extremely narcissistic, has a sense of entitlement to a fortune that isn't his and is able to manipulate and charm anyone but the children. Oh, and he's perfectly willing to kill children.
    • Subverted in book 13 when we find out he loved Kit Snicket and he he saves her life and is shocked that the Baudelaires would even think that he would hurt their parents. Also, he has a Freudian excuse - it's implied that the Baudelaire parents killed his parents with poison darts.
  • Ivar Ragnarson of The Last Light Of The Sun. He doesn't see people as people, murdered his sister for laughing at him, sheds no tears over his dead brother, has to keep reminding himself to speak to people as though they were equals, and loses his temper when irritated. At one point he murders a captured earl just to make sure the mercenaries he's hired won't think of just ransoming him and going home; Ivar has lots more For The Evulz murder and mayhem planned for them. He's the bad guy.
  • Caine from Gone is confirmed by Word Of God to be a sociopath. His Lack Of Empathy becomes clear early on, but his status as this is confirmed when he tells a pack of mutated coyotes that they can feed on young (some daycare-age) children because . . . there was no reason not to. He actually manages to be a nuanced character, though; the real complete monster is his Dragon, Drake.
  • The Silence Of The Lambs: Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a Serial Killer and an Evil Genius, and perhaps one of the most famous examples of the inhumanly charismatic and exceptionally intelligent "elite psychopath" popularized by Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer.
    • Though Dr. Chilton's diagnosis ("Oh, he's a monster") is likely more accurate, it's hardly a clinical diagnosis.
  • The Talented Mr Ripley.
    • The movie's central plot essentially is the interplay of two sociopaths. Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law) is a rich kid whose bumming around Europe on his plutocrat father's dime. Tom Ripley is a young blue collar musician willing to impersonate a fellow Princeton grad, defraud Dickie's father of a rather nice expense account to "convince" Dickie to come back, then play Dickie off his father to bum around Europe. Both display a great deal of superficial charm, little remorse about lying and manipulating others, quick tempers, a willingness to lash out violently when it suits them, and no qualms with defrauding the old man. Dickie has no problem blowing off a young Italian girl he impregnated, and when she is Driven To Suicide, he seems more upset at how this affects him. Tom lies his way into high society and is willing to lie, steal, and murder to stay there. Marge, Dickie's girlfriend, describes how when Dickie takes note of you it's like being in the sun. This is a common trait among sociopaths. Tom has a similar trait and facility for lying. The few moments where either shows an emotion similar to remorse may seem to break the mold, but even real sociopaths are not completely inhuman. Sociopathy exists on a sliding scale.
  • Psycho For Hire Anton Chigurh from No Country For Old Men is a particularly potent example.
  • In the RCN series, Adele Mundy's bodyguard Tovera is a complete sociopathic monster who knows she needs Adele to act as her conscience to keep her functioning in society, and enjoys, as much as she can be said to, serving Adele (and by extension, Daniel Leary) because it gives her plenty of opportunity for authorized mayhem. For her part, Adele is very scrupulous in not asking Tovera what she does in her free time for amusement when she disappears into the city's slums.
  • John Wayne Cleaver is a deconstruction of a sociopath: he's completely aware that he is nothing less than a nascent serial killer who has yet to kill anyone, but is also every bit as aware that acting out his fantasies of killing would ultimately lead to his arrest and execution. Having to kill someone to save his mother's life at the end of the first book seriously fucks him up, and leads into the plots of the other two.
  • In the Red Dwarf novel "Last Human", the alternate Lister is a full-fledged sociopath, nicely outlined in his psych profile.
  • Richard Lopez of Ship Breaker is a drug-addicted, Axe Crazy, Archnemesis Dad who suffers from massive mood swings and a severe inability to connect to other people. He has no qualms about threatening to maim his son, or cut out a girl's eyes, and eventually tries to sell Nita's organs on the black market. His attitude towards his son, Nailer, is especially volatile, shifting from almost fatherly affection to an attempt at Offing The Offspring at the drop of a pin. He kills without remorse, and no one, not even Nailer, is sad when he dies.
  • In the Privilege series, Kaitlynn Nottingham is this. She kills her best friend's dad, who happens to be her lover, and has no qualms with killing one of her classmates so she can get into a secret society. The protagonist, Ariana Osgood, arguably counts as this, since she kills at least 3 people in the book and only feels remorse about one of them.
  • John Dread of Otherland is explicitly described as a sociopath, complete with a psychologist telling the police how he was the scariest person he'd ever attempted to treat, because he could tell that Dread did not see him as a person, but merely an object, to be evaluated on his usefulness and killed without a second thought if he became too inconvenient. Dread is given the Freudian Excuse of a drug-addled prostitute mother who brutally abused him in order to turn him into a weapon against the world she hated. It worked.
  • Razim from Alex Rider is this to an unbelievable degree.
  • Jadis the White Witch from The Chronicles Of Narnia is up there with Iago. Superficial charm? Check. Above average intelligence? Check. Pathological egocentricity? You betcha! Incapacity for empathy or remorse? "So much for love."
  • The 13 year-old piano student who ruins Reiko's life in Norwegian Wood.
  • In the Young Adult novel Rosebush, it turns out that Langley Winterman is this, as she's the mastermind behind the hit-and-run and she casaully uses and manipulates people to get what she wants.
  • Massie the Villain Protagonist from The Clique.


[edit] Real Life

NOTE: Must be actually professionally diagnosed with sociopathy.
  • Ted Bundy. He raped, tortured and murdered women for several years, including 2 12-year-old girls, while appearing to lead an exemplary life. Yes, this sadistic Serial Killer was a member of the Crime Prevention Council, a political staffer, and a volunteer at a suicide hotline. If Ted hadn't done "those things," today he'd probably be holding elective office.
  • Hermann Göring, the Reich Marshal of Nazi Germany and the initial second-in-command to Adolf Hitler. Also the founder of the Gestapo. He was diagnosed as a narcissistic sociopath, and found to have the highest IQ among the Nazis at the Nuremberg Trials. Cruel, corrupt and self-indulgent, he amassed enormous wealth at the expense of his country, during wartime. Neither did he give two shits about any National Socialist ideals - when they asked him why he joined the Nazi movement in the first place, his explanation boiled down to "I did it For The Evulz."
    • And yet Goring also rescued several Jews and Jewish families from the Nazis, making sure they were able to get out of Germany, mostly because they'd showed him some kindness when he was poor or otherwise in a bad way. And by all accounts he really did love his daughter. His brother was an opponent of the Nazis who used Hermann's name to smuggle Jews out of Germany- Hermann knew about this, and turned a blind eye.
      • He also deeply loved his first wife Karin -- enough that he maintained a shrine in her honor after she died.
  • Reihnard Heydrich, Himmler's deputy and SS governor of Bohemia and Moravia, is almost universally seen as this by historians. The man planned the Holocaust with ruthless efficiency (what's more, before the age of 40), was a skilled manipulator, and practically ran a private spy agency to better blackmail political opponents. Kenneth Branagh, who played him in Conspiracy, said he felt that Heydrich wasn't even particularly anti-Semitic: if he had been ordered instead to exterminate tennis players or Eskimos, he would have done so with just as much enthusiasm.
    • One episode from his personal life alone pushes him over the edge here. As a young naval officer, he impregnated his fiancee and then left her. His reason? Any woman who gave herself away so freely was beneath him. It backfired when Admiral Erich Raeder dismissed him for refusing to marry her, only for him to (quickly) withdraw under the protective wing of Heinrich Himmler. He despised everything, his bosses included, and cared only for power.
  • Robert Hare estimates that around 1% of the population is made up of psychopaths. Other Psychologists have gone even higher, some going as high as 5% of the population (1 in 20 people).
    • Those percentages mostly account for 'functioning sociopaths', meaning people such as grifters, con artists, and shady used car dealers because they're unempathic enough to not be bothered by swindling people but are still affected by stronger moral conventions like 'murder is bad'. Violent sociopaths, like Bundy and Dahmer, are much more rare, sitting at perhaps .5% of the population.


[edit] TV

  • Dexter:
    • The eponymous Dexter Morgan, the most famous Sociopathic Hero and Serial Killer Killer on TV, is an example of a sociopath with a moral code his father instilled to direct his murderous urges at other killers. As such, he self-identifies as a sociopath but he usually only lies & manipulates his targets or people who are trying to hunt him down or to maintain a facade of normalcy (he initially gets into a relationship with Rita entirely as a disguise). With his Character Development, he's a hybrid of schizoid and sociopath who displays enough guilt, love and empathy to qualify as a reformed sociopath.
    • The Ice Truck Killer, Miguel Prado, Jordan, Travis, Trinity and Lila 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.
  • Criminal Minds encounters a "pure psychopath" about once a season. Interestingly, despite the hundreds of cases the BAU have investigated, only 9 characters have been listed as genuinely psychopathic. They are Adrian Bale, Nathan Harris (who was not actually a criminal), Frank Breitkopf, The Boston Reaper, Ray Campion, Raymond Donovan and Sydney Manning, Danny Murphy, and Greg Phinney. Of these, The Reaper is probably the worst, being an utterly amoral psycho who killed people for no better reason than a desire for fame, and went after the police when they dared to try and stop him.
    • Jeremy from the Season 6 episode, Safe Haven is a 13-year old "budding psychopath", with severe attention deficit problems and antisocial tendencies. He can't pay attention to anything for more than a few minutes, has a serious lack of impulse control, lies complusively and convincingly, killed his neighbour's dog, regularly tortures his little sister, and tried to poison his entire family with rat poison in the Thanksgiving turkey. After being abandoned by his mom he goes on a cross country killing spree as he attempts to return home and murder her, killing entire families and torturing the mothers. He has no real emotions (as is repeatedly demonstrated), but fakes them incredibly well, and at one point expresses a very creepy sexual interest in a girl who can't be much more than ten. Rossi suggests that they should keep him on file for a reason.
  • Mr. Rabbit on The Kill Point, who manages to be the Token Evil Teammate of a bank robbing crew. He beats the hostages unprovoked, psychologically tortures one of them for no particular reason, carries around the severed ear of an Iraqi soldier he previously tortured to death, and tells Captain Cali that he considers the hostages "cattle" and "sheep being led to the slaughter." He ends up getting beaten to death by the leader of the team, because Even Evil Has Standards.
  • It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia: Every character is a sociopath. They're frequently doing things that are unethical if not illegal, stabbing each other in the back, and no one in the gang is able to stick to a plan.
  • Smallville: If we are to believe Lionel Luthor, his Bastard Bastard Lucas is one of these. Lionel himself, and his son, Lex, both display traits of the disorder as well, but not enough to qualify. A much better example is probably Earth-2's Clark Luthor aka Ultraman. A promiscous Professional Killer and Psycho For Hire, he lies like a dog to everyone he meets, has a violent, Hair Trigger Temper, and switches between moods quickly enough to give you whiplash. His adoptive father, Earth-2 Lionel is likely an example as well, with a Lack Of Empathy that runs so deep it's almost frightening. The same goes for Serial Killer and Torture Technician Desaad.
    • Lx-3, Lex's clone and Shadow Archetype from Season 10's "Lazarus" is a solid example. He spends all his time on-screen committing mass murder, has a Hair Trigger Temper and a sadistic streak, seems to actively enjoy murder for its own sake, and hates everyone. He tries to kill every person he meets.
    • Bob Rickman, corrupt salesman with Mind Control powers who has no qualms making his enemies kill themselves or brainwashing innocent people to kill for him. His pesticide plants were massively toxic, spreading cancer and environmental damage, which he took delight in being able to get away with thanks to his powers.
  • Heroes has a few among its villains, notably Arthur and Sylar . Elle Bishop was actually diagnosed as a sociopath and displays extreme aggression coupled with no empathy.
    Elle: The shrinks diagnosed me as a sociopath with paranoid delusions, but they were just out to get me because I threatened to kill them.
    • It's also heavily implied that she wasn't naturally a sociopath so much as driven insane after her father had used her in various experiments relating to her power. She seemed to be growing out of it but never got the chance for redemption.
      • Bob Bishop most likely is one. Letting a sociopath raise a child to become a sociopath...
    • Sylar's own father is a case. When asked why he murdered Sylar's mother and sold him to another family, he replies that he doesn't even remember because "it didn't matter to me."
  • Servalan of Blakes Seven is another rare female example.
  • Francis from Malcolm In The Middle qualifies. Early on in his life he deliberately set a teddy bear of his on fire by dousing it with lighter fluid. During his childhood, after Reese and Malcolm were born, he frequently tortured them, stole their toys, locked them in a closet, and presumably scarred Reese on the shoulder with a bayonette. Probably one of his greater joys is tormenting his own mom. During his teen years, he also frequently made destructive revolts for no reason outside of just for the heck of it or simply to spite his mother. One instance of this is his stealing a neighbors car and then proceeding to total it. He also frequently smoked, did drugs, and slept around, also getting four nose pierces just to spite his mom, who said that she'd put him in military school if he goes so far as to get one. He seemed to become more sane when he joined a Dude ranch, but he then reverted back after he was fired, and it was implied in the season finale that the reason why he got a steady job and wanted to keep it a secret was to further anguish his mother about being jobless for his own entertainment.
  • Nora Dershlit from I Carly. The only thing she cares about is to make friends, but her perception of what counts as "friends" is so horrifically skewed that she believes locking the iCarly gang in her basement against their will qualifies, ignoring their repeated expressions of the fact they don't even like her, believing she can force people to be her friends. She has absolutely no remorse for holding people against their will and outright tries to murder Gibby when he comes to save the iCarly gang. In her second appearence, she once more holds them against their will by holding Spenser hostage and torturing him on a giant wheel to keep the iCarly gang under control, even implying she can and will kill him if it comes to it. She also shows the Manipulative Bitch qualities of the trope, feigning remorse for her actions to trick the iCarly gang into agreeing to release her from prison and luring them into her trap again. She's also confirmed to be a sociopath In Universe, even referring to herself as one.
    Carly: Nora... You're a nutcase!
    Nora: The correct term is disturbed, lonely sociopath.
    • The largest example of this trope would be Sam Puckett. She fits most of the signs without the torturing animals part.
  • On Dark Oracle, Omen appears to be one of these initially, but his genuine liking of Cally and slow development of human emotion keeps him from falling fully into the trope. Villain Of The Week Claudia, who believes "if it feels good, do it," might well be a low-functioning sociopath. And then there's the comic book characters, Blaze (a hot-tempered Jerk Ass who has no qualms about breaking a fellow student's arm), Violet (a Manipulative Bitch who enjoys scaring the crap out of her victims), and comic!Sage (who plays mindgames with Lance, screws around, and tries to off several girls with a poisonous snake).
  • The eponymous Sherlock Holmes of The BBC's Sherlock certainly plays with the trope a lot. He doesn't care at all about the people who bring him his cases, only solves them to keep himself from getting bored, and then charms, lies to and manipulates everyone involved to solve the mysteries. Ends up being a subversion though, since despite having all the other traits of a sociopath, he's missing the black heart
    Moriarty: If you don't stop prying, I will burn you. I will burn the heart out of you.
    Sherlock: I have been reliably informed that I don't have one.
    Moriarty: But we both know that's not quite true.
  • Charlie Harper from Two And A Half Men probably qualifies as a sociopath. For starters, he often shamelessly sleeps around and manipulates women (and the only time he doesn't try to sleep with a woman is if that woman is married, although sleeping unknowingly with a married woman happens as well) and some of the instances possibly could also qualify as statuatory rape or require him by law to get registered as a sex offender had it been real life, and he doesn't seem to have any remorse for what he did. He's also extremely dispicable around those near him.
  • The Master from Doctor Who is this with a generous helping of megalomania.
  • There's a good chance that Mordred from Merlin is one of these. He is a rather unemotional child, seems quite apt at manipulating the adults around him, shows no remorse when he kills several armed men, and responds with anger rather than grief when his father is executed.
  • Alice Morgan from Luther. She's Hannibal Lecter in drag, with a healthy Villainous Crush on the hero, no ability to empathise with others and a Nietzsche Wannabe streak.
  • CSI had a few of these as killers of the week. One possibility is the teenage killer in "Unsual Suspect" and "Goodbye and Good Luck". Another appeared on an earlier episode, and it was even lampshaded how she could switch personalities on a whim.
  • CSINY had one, possibly two of these. In one episode, a young woman manipulated an older guy into killing a woman at a French Revolution themed party. Stella is annoyed that they can't prosecute the girl, because she didn't commit any actual crime, she just pulled the strings to get the other guy to act.
  • Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger: a borderline case is Dr. Mikoto Nakadai, the man is a super smart surgeon who was so bored with his life, that when he became Abare Killer he joined the Evolians and use his powers to what he consider as good use. In which case he formulate his own evil plans that are close to working and make the old villains look comical. It doesn't help the fact that he had a shard of the Evolian god Dezumozorlya.
  • The default setting for vampires in Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Newly turned vamps are The Berserker, Chaotic Evil mold, if they are not quickly dusted then they start to grow a brain, but rarely emotions or feelings unless magic is involved.
  • Marlo Stanfield from The Wire. Unusual in a show well-known for it's Gray And Grey Morality, where even the most hardened criminals are capable of kindness and are often shown doing ordinary things. A ruthless drug dealer, Marlo has no qualms and seemingly no moral compass. One of his defining moments is when he was a security guard with a family killed...just because. He is also the most prolific criminal on the show, with over a dozen victims to his name. His personality is remarkably reminiscent of a Serial Killer.
  • Law And Order Special Victims Unit had a serial-killer prostitute (based on Aileen Wuornos) who displayed the "cocktail personality" where she'd become a troubled mentally-frail patient for the psychiatrist or a seductress for Detective Stabler. Her son was the only thing she cared about and it turns out she killed his mother and kidnapped him as an infant.
  • Person Of Interest: Root demonstrates all the clinical symptoms of this (pronounced Lack Of Empathy, lack of proper understanding of morals, etc.)


[edit] Tabletop Games

  • In Trinity, this is the dirty secret of the main branch of the vitakinetic order. Their powers make them intimately aware of the physical and mental health of people in close proximity to them. Quite a few of these healers find being surrounded by so much pain and decay so overwhelming that they voluntarily undergo a process that turns them into sociopaths, just so they can get on with their jobs without being constantly crippled by empathy with their patients.
  • Your stereotypical player character would probably fall under this category.
  • Chaos worshippers from Warhammer 40000 actually turn into this through The Corruption.


[edit] Video Games

  • A friendly nerdy character in Bully flat out calls Gary, your supposed "ally" in the game, a sociopath, to which the main character doesn't know what that means. It turns out the nerd was right, and all it took was for Gary to run out of medication to become a sadistic sociopathic lunatic who takes control of the entire school, ties up the headmaster, and then attempts to take over the entire town. Also, he makes a few good attempts to KILL the player in the final battle.
  • Morinth in Mass Effect 2. The mission overview after Samara's loyalty mission even says that her biotic powers would make her an excellent addition to the squad...if her "sociopathic tendencies were mitigated." Though you can kill Samara and recruit her anyway.
    • Quarian Admiral Daro'Xen displays several classic signs of sociopathy as well. She especially shows it in matters related to the Geth, whom she plans to, as a race, mind-wipe and return to their "rightful place" as the Quarians' slaves. Tali'Zorah flat-out calls Xen insane when this bit of info comes out, showing that even among the anti-Geth Quarians Xen's stance is seen as radical. Also, Xen apparently used to perform surgery on childhood toys; Tali's response is predictable. Lastly, she shows unhealthy interest in Legion (your Geth squadmate), once expressing the desire to dissect the poor thing to see what makes it tick (which Paragon!Shepard is having none of, by the way).
  • 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.
  • Tohru Adachi in Persona 4, who initially hides behind the mask of a Nice Guy, though when revealed shows himself as a sadistic manchild who finds entertainment in ruining the lives of others with a tendency of violently lashing out at women who spurn his advances.
  • Kingdom Hearts:
    • Vanitas inBirth By Sleep. Justified in that he's Ven's personified darkness. Makes you wonder what he'd be like if he were the darkness of someone less nice than Ven...
    • Nobodies are by their very nature sociopaths, since they lack the hearts required to form bonds or experience true emotions. The members of Organization XIII function at varying levels, with the exceptions of Roxas and Xion, the former of which actually does have a heart; the heart of the aforementioned Ven and the latter of which isn't even a Nobody. Another member, Axel, does gain emotional care for Roxas and Xion after hanging out with them, but it's only for them; he is still a sociopath in regards to anyone else.
  • Irenicus and Bodhi from Baldurs Gate II: Shadows of Amn. In their case, it's a magically caused condition, though from what we hear, they weren't exactly nice people before.
  • The real Alex Mercer from Prototype. After all, he "wasn't paid to feel."
  • Blaz Blue's own Relius Clover. In what can only be considered a seriously messed up logical extreme of the page quote, he even turned both his daughter and his wife into puppets! Completely unapologetically. For Science And then he attempted to kill his son when he demanded an explanation. Relius' sociopathy puts him in nice contrast to Blaz Blue's other Big Bad, Hazama / Terumi Yuuki, who is fully aware of the difference between "things" and "people", and greatly enjoys the misery innocent furniture cannot feel, but innocent humans can.
  • Hitman's protagonist, Agent 47, is a sociopathic clone who is also the best assassin the ICA, Agent 47's employer, has at its disposal. He tries to avoid unnecessary deaths, but that is only out of professional pride and a desire to avert suspicion; he will murder anybody who inconveniences him.
  • Purple Eyes from Pokemon 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.
  • Danny St. John from The Walking Dead, while Danny himself is mostly not explored, due to his limited amount of time on the game, we did find out, he was a cannibal, he killed Jolene just because she knew his secret, and he even gave Lee tips on how to cook him when he got trapped in the beartrap.
  • Dahlia Hawthorne from Phoenix Wright: Trials & Tribulations. She is arguably the cruelest and most evil character in the entire series, and has the longest list of intended murder victims out of any of the other killers Phoenix has encountered. At one point, she explicitly states that she has never cared for anyone or anything aside from herself, and she plots to kill Maya simply to get back at Mia from beyond the grave.
  • Hades from Kid Icarus Uprising. He starts a pointless war that results in the deaths of millions of humans for no other reason than to harvest their souls to either create more underworld monsters and do whatever else he wants with them, and has absolutely no remorse for his actions.


[edit] Webcomics

  • MAGISA -- All the villains of MAG-ISA are this personality type. The higher up the ladder you go, the more evil you are. (1) (2)
  • The Order Of The Stick: Xykon, even before he became an undead abomination.
    • And Belkar, of the Comedic sort.
    • Tarquin is quite the sociopath himself -- while his fans like to paint him as leather pants-wearing Noble Demon, that doesn't change the fact that the lives of others mean very little to him. Just look at how he "convinces" his wives to marry him, or how he forced Gannji and Enor to fight to the death because he thought Elan would enjoy it (and seemed confused when Elan wasn't thrilled with the idea). He's also got Lack Of Empathy down, as he told Malack (his supposed friend) to stop whining about his dead children and ordered him to work with Nale (who killed said children).
  • Angel, the Villain Protagonist of The Good Witch, remorselessly torments and ruins the lives of her friends, family, and anybody unfortunate enough to cross her path with her newfound magic powers. There are hints she is a "made sociopath," not originally being so cruel and self-centered but gradually cracking under an intense amount of bullying, but any sympathy that might have been gifted to her has long since passed; for God's sake, she turns people into articles of clothing, and keeps them sentient so that they can desperately try to find anyone to help them and eternally despair over their predicament!


[edit] Web Original

  • Survival Of The Fittest villains can quite frequently be sociopaths, with characters like J.R. Rizzolo and Jacob Starr being prominent examples of these traits. In spin-off The Program, Brigadier General David Adams has all the hallmarks of being one, given he doesn't seem to care at all about the imminent deaths of the students.
  • The Nostalgia Chick, especially with the "not understanding boundaries" thing. What's wrong with installing cameras in your friend's bedroom?
  • IN MSF High Forums, Seram Rosenbyme is meant to be one. Whether or not she can stay written as one of these, when she is engaged, is an interesting conflict for the player, and is likely to cause severe character drama in the future.
    • She does not possess the lack of long-term planning, but DEFINITELY lacks empathy.
  • Jobe Wilkins of the Whateley Universe. At age fourteen, he's already a threat to everyone who gets in his way. He views his family as opponents. He discovered a new cure for dysentery by experimenting on unwilling prisoners. He provided a way for his father to have mine workers by developing a serum that turned people into big green Ork-like creatures. He has all the empathy of a tarantula. Fortunately, he's not a Karma Houdini.


[edit] Notes

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