Anakin Skywalker's Personality Disorder?

Continuing to poder some of these questions, I looked at wikipedia's entry on Borderline personality disorder. Here's an excerpt:

"Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is defined within the fields of psychiatry and clinical psychology as a mental condition characterized primarily by emotional dysregulation, extreme "black and white" thinking, or "splitting" (believing that something is one of only two possible things, and ignoring any possible "in-betweens"), and chaotic relationships."


Could the whole discussion of light vs. dark be missing a larger point, ie that there are more grays than the Jedi or the Sith, in the respective dogmatic viewpoints, are willing to immediately acknowledge? Could Anakin's BPD (which I still don't really buy, but think is an interesting theory) have been exacerbated by the extremely black & white viewpoints of both Jedi & Sith? It certainly would go a way toward explaining such dichotomies in Anakin's statements such as "If you're not with me, you're against me."




Second, here is wikipedia's rendering of the DSM's criteria for a diagnosis of BPD. I've added my own italics to specifics which seemed to me to be pertinent to Anakin. I've also added comments to clarify my understanding of the relevance, hopefully it will read clearly:


1) Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. [Not including suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5]

2) A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.-(My comment: look at how Anakin's feelings about Padme went from totally idealized to disgusted enough to kill her in about five seconds on Mustafar).

3) Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.

4) Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, promiscuous sex, eating disorders, substance abuse, reckless driving-(my comment: tee hee remember the Coruscant chase scene from AOTC?), binge eating). [Again, not including suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5]

5) Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior.

6) Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days)

7) Chronic feelings of emptiness.

8) Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights).

9) Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms.-(My comment: Anakin certainly exhibits periodic paranoia-look at how conviced he was, explicit in the ROTS novel and implicit in the film, that Obi-Wan and Padme were having a relationship behind his back.)



Just to be clear, I'm not really buying this or taking it terribly seriously, and perhaps modern psychology is not terribly relevant to a space fantasy. I do think, however, that it's rather interesting. A lot of these criteria certainly do seem to fit, and I can see why the APA would make this diagnosis. I wonder what possessed them to do something so periferal and frankly juvenile in relation to their profession, btw.

 

I think we're supposed to see the dark side as inherently corrupting. It takes characteristics and distorts them or exagerrates them, in much the same way that a chemical imbalance might.

 

I'd hardly say Anakin had his sense of moral reality to begin with. He paid lip-service to the Jedi Code at best, and if there was some other moral code guiding his actions, I didn't see it. Anakin did what he wanted because it was what he wanted. He couldn't bear to lose Shmi or Padme, and knowing beforehand that it was going to happen probably karked with him even more.

 

Is there some theory going around that the reason Anakin turned to the dark side, because he was mentally ill?

 

No. You can say Anakin was borderline. BPD isn't a mental illness. Drugs don't work on it and it's not even considered a disease.

 

Anakin very much did have his own moral code. He risked his life to save Obi-Wan, his fellow Jedi, and even the "expendable" clone troopers all throughout the war. When he discovers Palpatine's true identity, his first action is to draw out his lightsaber and report to Mace Windu, and it's not until later that he starts to have second thoughts.

 

^ Hey, no one said he was all bad.

"There's still good in him."

 

I felt the need to chime in here, because I have a parent who most likely is an undiagnosed borderline, and I have been living with the family-destroying ramifications of that for almost 40 years. I have a lot of books on borderline disorder and family dysfunction in general, some of which were written for therapists and not for public consumption.

After considering the article at some length, my vote on this is no.

A lot of people show borderline-like behavior but aren't true borderlines. Many people who are relatives or spouses of borderlines believe the dividing line is the capacity to be self-aware and self-reflective.

Many people write in to the online relatives-of support group and say, "OMG! I do that! Could I be borderline??" The answer is typically no, because if you have enough perspective on yourself to actually reflect on your own behavior and wonder if you're mentally ill, you're not truly mentally ill.

Anakin Skywalker shows too much capacity for this kind of reflection, IMO. After he kills Mace, he says, "What have I done?" He kills the Separatist leadership, but his tears afterwards show he isn't happy about having done it. At all times he is clear about exactly what he is doing, and of his true reasons for doing it. He tries to rationalize his crimes, and he agrees with Palpatine when his master tries to tell him they've actually done something beneficial, but his tears give away the fact that he does in fact know better.

A true borderline would probably go into what's known as a "dissociative state" and either truly not remember killing the people, or twist the facts so that he really believes a different version of events than actually happened. The closest I see to this in the EU occurs in _Dark Rendezvous_ ... Dooku does something that is awfully close.

People in my family do this ALL THE TIME, and it is eerie and hopeless to watch. They are convinced, after the most childish, infantile, and sadly destructive behavior, that they were completely in the right, and the other person was the one who wronged them. They will tell the most outrageous lies about it and honestly believe what they are saying. That is what they truly remember.

That, my friends, is mental illness, and no matter how little you understand Palpatine and how he can do what he does, even he does not operate at that level of disordered mental functioning.

It's pretty sobering to realize that Palpatine is saner than several of your family members.

 

Good post.

I think an interesting element that can be taken from the article, however, and applied to the EU, is a clearer real world analogue for the nature of dark side corruption. Dark Jedi do their thing, but the more and more steeped in the dark side they become the more prone they are to disordered thinking. Witness the beginning of Anakin's showdown with Obi-Wan on Mustafar, or anything at all Jacen Solo has done in the past five books.

 

Anakin had several factors that brought him to the dark side.

1. Palpatine. Before the last half of Ep3 he was a politician strenghtening the Republic and gaining more and more power to assist the Republic. Anakin looked up to him as being the very thing that Republic needed. Unity, order, strength, honesty. In Anakins conversation with Padme on politics it was very much in favor of a totalitarian type government. No beuracrats or democracy but one person working for the good of all that made all decisions.

2. Jedi Code: The code pretty much prevented him from having all the greatest things he desired. Saving his mother, loving Padme. He felt it was his duty to be a Jedi, and i'm sure he liked it, but I think we all agree that the old Jedi Code was a bit much.

3. Jedi Council: I truly think that Anakin was on the verge of leaving the Jedi if he didn't get Vaderized. He was ordered to spy on his friend and mentor. They did not afford him any respect when Palpatine had him appointed to the Jedi Council, and all in all through out Ep3 you got the feeling that Anakin was getting disillusioned by the Order.

I think that he was doomed from the start.

 

I don't. His personal conflicts with the code are his own problem, and part of the reason the Jedi weren't terribly excited about taking him on to begin with. He's unwilling to deal with the demands of being a Jedi.

He says as much in Episode 3.

Who you'll agree is not much of either a friend or a mentor.

It's not as if he was deserving of respect.

Oh, this goes all the way back to Episode II.

 

I don't agree with your respect statement (why did he carry it out?), but even so, I would argue that the Jedi were taught to respect things that they even felt "didn't deserve it".

 

Different issue.

Anakin was a political appointment. Palpatine appointed him to a Council he has no right to appoint people to. The Jedi select from their own ranks, and they wouldn't have chosen Anakin because he wasn't ready for that sort of responsibility, nor ready for a promotion. Still, they compromised: Anakin could be on the Council and be the Chancellor's representative, but he would not be promoted. Anakin becomes angry and whiny about how it wasn't fair and wasn't respectful to him, effectively proving the Council right in their decision.

 

Dead on. Anakin was always Vader under the surface. He never "turned dark" - he just allowed Palpatine to give him permission to drop the facade.

I'm starting to think that the good in Vader wasn't really there until he went into the suit, and on some level he realized what a jackass he'd been his whole life and how much suffering he had caused through his own stupidity and selfishness.

 

Isn't that true of any fall, though? People spend their lives resisting temptations to do bad things until they receive a justification to stop resisting.

 

I don't know if that's true for everyone. Obi-Wan seems like a good-natured fellow. I don't think it would occur to him under normal circumstances to do bad things. Being a nice guy seems to be his default state.

For some people, it's more of a struggle, and for Anakin, I don't think his heart was ever really in it.

 

It's a maturation process, and its the reason the Jedi Code exists. Like Yoda tells Luke, there's a point in your training where the dark side becomes very hard to resist. We see Luke go through this struggle. Finally, he throws down his lightsaber and says, "I am a Jedi." I wonder if this is as much a realization as a statement of defiance. Luke has passed the threshold and is now beyond that difficult part of training. His father, however, fell.

Hm...that's tricky. He certainly seems to be torn up all the time about how he keeps falling short. Is it possible that it was such a difficult struggle for him to stay good that giving in to the dark side offered him relief?

 

Yeah, but in the beginning in Ep1 and Ep2, and the books in between he had his dark moments because of his past, but deep down he was a good person.

We see that in Ep6 after all. Personally I felt sorry for him. I can't stand Lucas' directing but he nailed that scene showing Anakin shedding tears after he owned everybody.

Or you could say he did exactly what the Force wanted him to do.

Purge everybody using it and reset it to zero for the next generation.

 

Actually, it's the other way around. He turned and hated himself for 20 years, and this fueled the dark side. He's like the yin/yang of the GFFA, which makes this character still iconic and interesting today while others kind of languish with us in the SW fandom, only. Vader was always under Anakin (just like our dark side is under our light side), but Anakin was always under Vader (vice versa). I read an interesting article about Vader/Anakin through George's eyes right before ROTS came out (Empire, I think it was), and he talked about how symbolically Anakin's whole life is balance and yin to yang. He even referenced that Anakin spent about the same time in the light, as Vader did in the dark. It was an awesome read, also about Anakin was both the "galaxy" (when he's light, there's hope, when he turns the galaxy turns) and the embodiment of the Force and how it can be both cruel and merciful. (Now I gotta go find that mag.)

 

Going back to the topic of mental illness,

I'm starting to think that the good in Vader wasn't really there until he went into the suit, and on some level he realized what a jackass he'd been his whole life and how much suffering he had caused through his own stupidity and selfishness.

This is what marks Anakin/Vader as making his decisions rationally, and NOT mentally ill. The mentally ill do not realize what jackasses they are being and the last thing they can think about is the suffering they cause others. They aren't capable of considering other people on the same level as themselves; as fellow beings who have the same feelings to be hurt that they do.

Dark Jedi do their thing, but the more and more steeped in the dark side they become the more prone they are to disordered thinking. Witness the beginning of Anakin's showdown with Obi-Wan on Mustafar, or anything at all Jacen Solo has done in the past five books.

I don't know about Jacen Solo, because I'm not following that. But, while Anakin's decisions are made first selfishly out of desperation and the inability to withstand the pain of loss, and then out of necessity, they are not disordered thinking in the sense that someone truly mentally ill would make the same decisions.

How does Anakin get into this mess? The whole time he knows that sacrificing Padme` to save the Republic from the Sith Lord is the right thing to do. And he tries to do it, and for a short time he is doing the right thing. But ... the loss. The loss. Anakin can't stand the pain, and so his thought process is, "I know what is the right thing to do, but it's hurting me too badly. Therefore, I choose -- " rationally, fully aware of the stakes -- "to save Padme` over the elimination of the Sith Lord. I'll try to blunt the consequences, so that I can keep Palpatine alive, save Padme`, and yet prevent Palpatine from taking over," -- and there's yet more evidence of a healthy mind and ability to reason -- "but if it comes down to it, it's gonna be Padme` I save."

A borderline would probably flip out into an emotional storm and blindly attack Mace Windu when he sent him upstairs, later on have difficulty recalling exactly what happened when he first started to attack in uncontrolled aggression, and then supply his blank spots with what he wished happened and believe that sequence of events was the truth.

Now we move upstairs into Palpatine's office. Anakin walks in, and there's Mace about to kill Palpatine. We see Anakin act rationally here in accordance with his priorities: Don't let Palpatine take over if possible, but saving Padme` takes priority. First he tries to reason Mace into arresting Palpatine rather than killing him. Then when that doesn't work, he disables Mace so he can't kill him. Anakin is taking the least violent way to achieve his own objectives here, reasoning with a rather cool head, given that he's made the selfish choice we've talked about.

It's possible that a borderline could accomplish this, but after this, Anakin remembers it exactly as it went down. His mind doesn't slip in incorrect details that make him look blameless to himself later on, or omit things that led to utter disaster. Whereas I have witnessed people whom I know molested children have no conscious memory of the acts. *ZAP!* The brain just removes the memory, and now the person can't understand why things are the way they are. Anakin, as we see during the Frankenstein-esque "NOOOO!" scene, remembers exactly what he did. NO mental illness is erasing his worst acts for him.

So, Mace is disabled. What Anakin doesn't expect is that Palpatine will now take the opportunity to kill Mace, thereby making Anakin an accessory to murder and removing any option of remaining in the Jedi Order -- or out of prison -- permanently. Now if he wants to remain with Padme and save her life, he has to eliminate the Jedi Order, because if he doesn't, that Order will soon be coming to eliminate him. It's a selfish, cowardly decision, but it is a rational

 

I disagree. I understand that the view you're arguing for is what GL was attempting to go for, but I think he failed miserably. The Anakin we see on screen from the beginning of AOTC onward is, at no point, actually "light." He is, simply put, an *******, a reprehensible character with no visible redeeming qualities. He is dark from the moment he steps onscreen, and his supposed "dark side" turn falls flat dramatically in ROTS because he was never light to begin with.

I understand that that's not what GL was going for, but that's what he ended up giving us, anyway.

 

QFT.

(I also think, as my sig says, that he was never redeemed, either, but that's for another post)

 

If you'll reread my post, I was talking about the corruption of the dark side, as it is most clearly illustrated on the landing platform on Mustafar, when Anakin is more steeped in the dark side than he ever was before and ever will be again. Once Anakin has pledged himself to the dark side and allows it to take hold of him, it corrupts his entire way of seeing the world. Do you doubt that Anakin believed, until the end of the movie when everything gets screwed up and he ends up in the suit, that he had stopped an assassination attempt? Did he not truly believe that the Jedi would rebel and kill all the senators, and that slaughtering children would h

 

That's an opinion I've heard, but then again, I thought it worked so it's subjective viewpoint, IMO. I truly saw a torn person in the garage in AOTC, and all throughout ROTS. And the novelization takes it twenty steps farther, and that's still part of Anakin's characterization.

Not once he - or most others we've seen get corrupted - are truly steeped in the dark side. I'm not accusing Anakin of having BPD, but rather saying that it may be useful to think of dark side corruption in terms of mental illnesses with similar symptoms.[/quote]

I agree. I think the dark side works like a drug or chemical (in terms of symbolism) at first, especially. Anakin was more dangerous on that platform on Mustafar than he ever was as Vader, IMO. Especially in terms of the lack of control. As a more mature Vader, he had learned to master the monkey on his back.

 

Completely disagree.

I think it was shown quite well Anakin's turn to the darkside. He may have seemed cocky and arrogant, but his turn was more a disillusionment (sp) of his view of the universe he lives in. His steady manipulation by BOTH Palpatine and the Jedi. Except Palpatine offered him the one thing that he desired most and that was life with Padme.

So on the one hand you had the Jedi Council, and the Republic: Both have failed him in some manner or another. The Jedi masters spurn his power and what he can contribute, the code of the Jedi denies his happiness and well being, and the Jedi Council forces him to spy on his friend and mentor (granted with good reason). The Republic fails because it's weakness allowed the Clone Wars in th first place, and it's ineffectual leadership is only saved by one man.

In the TPM, ANakin was very selfless, this continued in AoTC up until the end when he married Padme. You may not have liked Anakin Skywalker but the guy was a hero up until he cut down Mace Windu. Even though Palpatine offered him the world, he was a jedi and he served. Now if Mace had man'd up and killed Palpy when he had the chance we wouldn't have had any of these problems.