Is Fawful likely a psychopath?

[cheat-master30]

Okay, he's definitely narcisstic beyond any reasonable doubt (he's truly self absorbed), but he definitely seems to fit the list they often use to diagnose real life ones (maybe add a few points to compensate for the lack of 'adult' stuff in the series).

Here's the list, from an article on The Guardian recently:

Item 1 Glibness/superficial charm

Probably check.

Item 2 Grandiose sense of self-worth

Understatement of the century. He goes around with a camera crew, spot lights and likely microphone, brainwashes the population into acting like he's a celebrity, redesigns everything to resemble himself, redesigns the POPULATION to look like himself, calls him Lord Fawful at every possible instance...

Item 3 Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom

Likely. He does a heck of a lot without much purpose.

Item 4 Pathological lying

Yep.

Item 5 Cunning/manipulative

Probably, although he doesn't really need to be with mind control powers.

Item 6 Lack of remorse or guilt

All Mario villains are like this. For the Dark Star/Shadow Queen, it's basically part of being evil demonic beings, but Fawful and Dimentio are way too cheery when trying to kill everyone.

Item 7 Shallow affect

Item 8 Callous/lack of empathy

See 6.

Item 9 Parasitic lifestyle

Probably a basic super villain character trait. None of them have ever generally worked a honest day in their lives.

Item 10 Poor behavioural controls

What controls?

Item 11 Promiscuous sexual behaviour

N/A, Mario's a family friendly series.

Item 12 Early behaviour problems

Not sure, but I'm going to assume though. Could probably apply to Bowser.

Item 13 Lack of realistic long-term goals

How realistic is world domination as a goal? Then again, he does actually have the means to achieve it.

Item 14 Impulsivity

Yep.

Item 15 Irresponsibility

Yep.

Item 16 Failure to accept responsibility for own actions

Isn't this basically the same as the above?

Item 17 Many short-term marital relationships

Too narcissistic to care.

Item 18 Juvenile delinquency

Probably.

Item 19 Revocation of conditional release

N/A

Item 20 Criminal versatility

Does 'don't get caught or care until they die' count?

Then again, it could be interesting to wonder... what possible psychological problems would they classify Marioverse characters as having in a more realistic setting?

For one, every villain, and Wario for that matter is probably narcissistic in some way.

[SMBBQ]

Interesting...I guess Fawful is 100% crazy then (not like we hadn't figured it out already).

[thedude3445]

Yeah that was kind of obvious

[Sarisa]

Most good videogame (and other) villains meet the criteria. For fun, I'll put the omnicidal clown Kefka Palazzo (Final Fantasy VI), a personal favorite tragic villain (Necro)saro/Psaro (Dragon Quest IV), and the lovable lug Bowser (needs no introduction).

It's a bit of an unfair comparison, since Kefka and Saro get one game to make an impression and Bowser has a series, but I like those two.

Item 1 Glibness/superficial charm

Kefka: Not really. The insanity showed through too clearly.

Saro: He's a good orator; I'll say yes.

Bowser: Definitely some charm there, although not glib. Hearty.

Item 2 Grandiose sense of self-worth

Kefka: He doesn't believe others have any worth at all.

Saro: Yes. To be fair, he can back it up.

Bowser: He decorates his castle with statues of himself. QED.

Item 3 Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom

Kefka: Not explicit, but he does feel the need to destroy regularly.

Saro: Perhaps; why did he bother with the tournament, then run off?

Bowser: Explicit, several times.

Item 4 Pathological lying

Kefka, Saro, Bowser: No. They may lie, they may be delusional, but even Bowser doesn't feel the need to make up stories about himself.

Item 5 Cunning/manipulative

Kefka: Yes, in his own particular idiom.

Saro: Definitely.

Bowser: He tries. He's not good at it, but he tries.

Item 6 Lack of remorse or guilt

Kefka: Definitely.

Saro: Yes.

Bowser: A teeny tiny bit.

Item 7 Shallow affect

Kefka: Yes.

Saro: No.

Bowser: No.

Item 8 Callous/lack of empathy

Kefka: "Nothing can beat the music of hundreds of voices screaming in unison!" - Kefka Palazzo

Saro: No; he rescued someone just because she was in trouble.

Bowser: Yes.

Item 9 Parasitic lifestyle

Kefka: He has a job! Admittedly, it's being an evil emperor's troubleshooter for problems that call for dishonorable solutions, so I'll say yes.

Saro: Presumably.

Bowser: He comes out and says so.

Item 10 Poor behavioural controls

Kefka: He would score much higher on this quiz if he had any.

Saro: In the end, yes.

Bowser: See #14.

Item 11 Promiscuous sexual behaviour

Kefka: N/A, censorship policy.

Saro: No, very loyal to his lover.

Bowser: N/A, family friendly series.

Item 12 Early behaviour problems

Kefka: No; he was driven mad by an experiment later in life.

Saro: N/A, no data.

Bowser: Yes. He was trouble from the start.

Item 13 Lack of realistic long-term goals

Kefka: Yes - world domination. Although he does it, so I'm not sure it's unrealistic.

Saro: Yes - extermination of humanity.

Bowser: Yes - his marriage to Peach is so wrong it tears a hole in the universe, and the lesson he took from that is that he needs to make a new universe.

Item 14 Impulsivity

Kefka: Very, very impulsive. Blows up cities on a whim.

Saro: Yes.

Bowser: Very.

Item 15 Irresponsibility

Kefka: No, he tries to do his chores. It's not his fault the castle he tried to burn down ran away.

Saro: No, he's a man demon with a plan.

Bowser: Some. He feels some obligations towards his minions, and keeps the Koopa Troop together, but isn't responsible otherwise.

Item 16 Failure to accept responsibility for own actions

Kefka: To quote Neil Gaiman, he's "so far beyond good and evil that he couldn't find it with a telescope on a clear night."

Saro: Yes.

Bowser: Absolutely.

Item 17 Many short-term marital relationships

Kefka: N/A, no marriages and censorship policy.

Saro: No, in a stable relationship.

Bowser: N/A, no information. Where did his children come from anyhow?

Item 18 Juvenile delinquency

Kefka: N/A.

Saro: N/A.

Bowser: We don't see him between early childhood and adulthood, but there is no reason to assume he wasn't a juvenile delinquent.

Item 19 Revocation of conditional release

Kefka, Saro, Bowser: N/A. There's not a jail in their three worlds that could confine any of them. (I take that back. Kefka was thrown in jail, but only as part of a plan to trick the heroes. It worked.)

Item 20 Criminal versatility

Kefka, Saro, Bowser: All successful warlords, which does take a certain set of skills. Bowser is the most versatile of the three by far.

Final tally:

Kefka: 12/16, 75%. For a villain considered the defining psychopath of Final Fantasy, shockingly low; he's just too insane to score for "fitting in." Taking those two questions out, he goes up to 12/14, 86%.

Saro: 11/17, 65%. And he mostly lost points for responsibility and monogamy. Enix likes its serious villains, doesn't it?

Bowser: 14/18, 78%. Highest of the lot, even after throwing out the points he gets for childhood misbehavior the other two can't score (which would take him down to 12/16, 75%).

A straight-up videogame/cartoon villain, one missing only 1 or 2 out of 15-17 that apply, is a pretty boring character; to make the character interesting writers give the character flair or contradictory good points, and the latter is the road much more often traveled.

I'm not sure where I was going with this. I think I initially wanted to contrast the types and see if it made a large difference on the assessment (no, it doesn't).

[Koopalmier]

^
You know... Bowser is just a bit more insane than other Mario characters. That doesn't make him insane by Mario standards. I mean, Mario cold easily score 10/18 on that test.

[Sarisa]

By Mario standards, Bowser is quite sane, except for his obsession with the girl he has a crush on. Which is, unfortunately, not uncommon in real-world humans.

One would expect a heavy overlap between psychopathic traits and villainous traits, especially on the "aggressive narcissism" half of the scale (glibness/superficial charm, grandiose sense of self-worth, pathological lying, cunning/manipulative, lack of remorse or guilt, emotionally shallow, callous/lack of empathy, failure to accept responsibility for own actions) where any decent villain should score 6/8; most aren't pathological liars (fabricating stories often for no obvious reason), and many lack either glibness or emotional shallowness but not both. 0-2 is common in straightforward heroes, 3-5 could be an antihero or a friendly villain, but characters that score 6+ are villains. In D&D terms, this is the Good vs. Evil half of the scale.

The "socially deviant lifestyle" half of the scale (need for stimulation/proneness to boredom, parasitic lifestyle, poor behavioral control, promiscuous sexual behavior, lack of realistic, long-term goals, impulsiveness, irresponsibility, juvenile delinquency, early behavioral problems, revocation of conditional release) has three criteria inapplicable to most fantasy villains and sexual criteria aren't applicable to villains in juvenile material (in the US at least). After that scores vary; most villains lack "realistic" long-term goals, but I can think of villains that score 1/7 up to 7/7, and insane villains do score higher on this subscale. It's rare for a hero to score more than 3.

In some fantasy universes the criteria also get tangled up in the question of "what measure is a non-human [or non-Toad]". Mario games since Paper Mario have averted this, and most games have ignored this (Lufia II and Phantasy Star IV have professional monster hunters), but Dragon Quest games after Erdrick and some other Enix-related titles neither avert nor ignore the trope and the result, while closer to folklore, can result in some weird answers.

Edit: Someone should run Pokey/Porky Minch through the scale; I don't have the time for a detailed analysis right now, but off the top of my head he scores at least 16/17.

[cheat-master30]

I put Fawful through this:

psychcentral.com/cgi-bin/narcissisticquiz.cgi

Yeah, he nearly got twice as high a score as the baseline to be narcissistic. He got 38, and that was me assuming he was at least somewhat modest. I think that's about the range you're in if you're confirmed to be a complete lunatic.