Ahh silly research - gotta love it!
SAN DIEGO -- Anakin Skywalker, aka Darth Vader, suffers from a controversial mental condition and could use some couch time in a shrink's office, a team of researchers declared this week."He's suffering. And he's suffering from a disorder," said Dr. Eric Bui, a psychiatrist in Toulouse, France, who co-wrote a study that diagnosed one of the most villainous and heroic characters in the Star Wars canon as having borderline personality disorder.
According to the authors, who reported their findings at the American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting in San Diego, Skywalker meets the criteria for the condition: He has difficulty controlling anger, stress-related breaks with reality (after women in his life die or leave), impulsivity (dangerous pod racing), obsession with abandonment (those women again) and a "pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of ideation and devaluation" (hello, Obi-Wan).
In another sign that he's borderline, the authors argue that Skywalker suffers from an "identity disturbance." After all, he did become Darth Vader after being "very unsure of who he was and what he wanted."
Comments
Lol, the star-wars kid is a boy from my city ! Still funny to see his face !
Posted by: BenP | May 24, 2007 12:23 PM
Hmmm... this is not the first time I've heard of a fictional character diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.
Now the interesting research question: do humans find something inherently fascinating about such characters, and if so, why?
Posted by: Chris Hallquist | May 24, 2007 12:25 PM