Psychopathic Manchild: Difference between revisions

 

{{quote|''"I know you, you're the mad kid everyone's scared of."''

 

The '''Psychopathic Manchild''' is a dangerous villain, either a teenager or an adult, [[Man Child|with a childlike nature]], which creates a dissonance between innocence and savagery. Such characters can become repositories for [[Nightmare Fuel]], especially if their childishness is never explained. Contrary to the term, many examples are not necessarily psychopaths in the clinical sense. [[Misaimed Fandom]] may not be out of the question, either; sometimes the character's more "[[Moe]]" attributes will be picked up on and subjected to [[Flanderization]].

The exact extent of the character's childishness will vary, and in general Psychopathic Manchildren can come in several varieties, with possible overlap. Such a character may:

 

 

Whichever version these types of characters qualify as, often they are not fully aware of how nasty their actions actually are. In some cases (though not all), a [[Heel Realization]] may cause the character to [[Character Development|develop into a better person.]] A more innocent or well-intentioned Psychopathic Manchild may be a [[Noble Demon]].

One way to use this character is to face him off against a [[Jade-Colored Glasses|jaded]], [[Knight in Sour Armor|cynical]], or [[Dark Is Not Evil|shady]] [[Anti-Hero]], to play with traditional hero-villain relationships by making the villain more innocent than the hero (at least in theory). Easier if he's a major villain in his own right.

 

 

{{examples}}

* [[Complete Monster|Johan Liebert]] of ''[[Monster]]'' is a classic Type B example. His goals and desires are still those of an eight year old but as an adult he pursues them with an appropriate level of sophistication. Exactly how childish he really is can be hard to judge given that he's an excellent manipulator.

* [[Tower of God|Quant]] is a Ranker of the Tower, a position commanding great respect and implying a terrifying amount of power, which he does possess. His greatest weakness is his incredible immaturity, which not only let him self get lead on TWICE by the examinees he had to train and test, but also caused 197 people to die because he didn't give a shit about concocting a complicated preliminary exam and just settled with a 30 minute death match. His childish disposition would make him a B or C-class case.

** Android #17 is Type B. Even more so in the [[Bad Future]] of Future Trunks' timeline.

** General Blue technically qualifies. Although he has [[Sorry, I'm Gay|other reasons]] for disliking Bulma, his exact reaction regarding Bulma's attempts at seducing him is extremely similar to a little kid not wanting to interact with the opposite gender due to a fear of cooties.

** It's possible that she ''was'' just [[Naive Everygirl|a nice, cute, but immature young woman]] ''at least'' partially driven insane by the Death Note. Given Light Yagami's [[Jumping Off the Slippery Slope|flying leap off the slippery slope]] from an idealistic young man who [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|thought he was doing the right thing]] to a maniacal tyrant willing to kill anyone and anything [[A God Am I|to further his raging god complex]] and Teru Mikami's astonishingly short break from a focused, serious lawyer [[Knight Templar|with an inhumanly high standard of justice]] to a barely coherent [[Ax Crazy]] psychopath, it's not too hard to imagine that the Death Note has an unspoken [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity]] rule that Misa was affected by. For example {{spoiler|after she permanently gives up the Death Note}}, she's [[Genki Girl|completely harmless and probably quite fun to be around]], unless you're Takada.

** Light himself qualifies as Type C (flirting with [[Cute and Psycho|D]]). When L details the psychology of Kira to the police, one of them suggests that they could stop him by no longer publishing the name of convicts in the news, as he clearly was getting the names of his victims from the media. L states that won't work because Kira will then simply start killing people he ''thinks'' are guilty and will further blame the police for any innocent people he kills, and L specifically identifies his childlike personality as the reason for this. Sure enough, Light does display lots of childlike evil throughout the series, such as killing the fake L for insulting him on national television and his need to gloat to L and Near when he thinks he's beaten them. His [[Villainous Breakdown]] at the end takes the form of a blatant childish fit.

* Machina of ''[[Hayate the Combat Butler]]''. He nearly kills Hayate, even stating it wouldn't be murder, and the next chapter he's turned into a canine-like. Tail, ears, speech patterns. Gets very excited when his master gives him money to get something to eat. He orders 100 hamburgers.

* Pegasus J. Crawford / Maximillion Pegasus from ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh (anime)|Yu-Gi-Oh]]''. He steals people's souls (including a small child's), attempts to take over a company by killing the CEO and pursues Ancient Egyptian artifacts with no regard for anyone in his way, all to bring his wife [[Back from the Dead]]. In his spare time he watches cartoons and loves them to the point that he creates an ENTIRE DECK based around them. [[Schrödinger's Cast|In the anime]], he [[Heel Face Turn|becomes a good guy]] later on, though. (Ether type C or type B)

** One of the newest members of the [[Psycho Rangers|Blackbeard Pirates]] {{spoiler|San Juan Wolf}} seems to apply. In his past, he was a Pirate who committed crimes "so atrocious they were effectively erased from history itself", a bounty likely to be in the upper multi-millions, and when caught offscreen, was transferred to the lowest level of [[The Alcatraz|Impel Down]], and to earn his freedom from there, was {{spoiler|forced to kill everyone in his cell on orders from [[Evil Counterpart|Marshall D. Teach]] and co.}} Also, he is the largest man alive in the show, easily dwarfing Oars at least four time over, and is compared to a walking Sears Tower. But, in his first appearance, he {{spoiler|peeks out from Maineford HQ's main building like a curious child, has an expression like he was caught stealing from a cookie jar when spotted by Mooks, expressed surprise that a Vice Admiral knew his name, and was scared by Whitebeard and hid while the rest killed him.}}

*** Let's not forget his classic "They found me!" line , which is all the more hilarious when one looks at this [http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/4434/juanwolf2.jpg size comparison pic], yes the circled person is one of the regular giants.

* Rip van Winkle from ''[[Hellsing]]'' is an excitable young woman who likes to sing opera and enjoys killing things. She intends on conquering the world for [[Those Wacky Nazis|Millennium]].

* Vincent from ''[[Pandora Hearts]]'' might as well be the king of this trope due to his nasty habit or slicing up dolls with scissors and {{spoiler|causing the tragedy of Sabrie}}.

* [[Expendable Clone|Eva-R and Eva-Q]] in ''[[Seikon no Qwaser]]'' are [[Happiness in Slavery|conscious of and delighted with being playthings]], meant to suffer and die for Eva Silver. And yet in a backwards way, they regard any prospective dominant (i.e., anyone they look at) as their plaything, and are quick to break any 'toy' who isn't breaking ''them'' to their satisfaction.

* ''[[Naruto]]'' has a mixture of villains who act mature and others who act like kids, though to be fair the same is true of the heroes.

** The Type B Deidara is even worse and commits ''suicide'' just because Sasuke had beaten him and was treating him with indifference.

** Sasori is a mix of B and C. He is an insanely talented and cold-blooded Puppetmaster in his 30's, who also transferred his essence into a puppet resembling his 15 year old self, and was more or less beaten by a memory of his parents coming to hug him. [[Justified Trope]], though: Sasori's parents were killed in battle by Kakashi's father Sakumo when Sasori was a baby ''and'' he left the Sand Village when he was around 15 years old after killing and turning the 3rd Kazekage into one of his puppets. From his broken childhood to his subsequent defect from his village, he grew cold and stoic due to the lack of parental love. His emotions were stunted to that of an abandoned, forgotten child.

** Pain is a deliberate inversion however, as his villainy derives from a twisted version of Jiraiya's philosophy that growing up is based on suffering; since he has suffered so much, Pain believes that he has matured into [[A God Am I|godhood]] (in a non-Westernsense).

** What, no Hidan? The anime portrays him as a big Type B: he's pretty much the Akatsuki version of a [[Hot-Blooded]] teenager in the body of an adult man.

* Gates from ''[[Full Metal Panic!]]'' is an over-emotional [[Cloudcuckoolander]] who acts rather like a child throwing temper-tamtrums, and whose completely random actions would be [[Laughably Evil|hilarious]] if they didn't involve [[Ax Crazy|killing so many people]].

* The villain from the second episode of ''[[Pumpkin Scissors]]'' shows signs of this, in that he kills the people in his charge as part of a fun game, and is hinted to be capricious to the people in his court.

* Michio Yuki, the [[Villain Protagonist]] of ''[[MW]]'', is either type C or D.

 

* [[Deadpool]].

* Bizarro and Solomon Grundy from ''[[The DCU]]''.

* Gideon Gordon Graves, the [[Big Bad]] of the ''[[Scott Pilgrim]]'' series, a Type C with some Type B qualities thrown in there just for fun. He's a wealthy and successful entertainment mogul, and the epitome of a [[Villain with Good Publicity]]. However, he seems to have the emotional intelligence of a [[Arc Number|seven year-old]]—he's petty, vindictive, possessive, can't handle rejection, and just wants people to adore him, even if he has to make them adore him against their will.

 

* ''[[Dragon Ball Abridged]]'': Nappa.

{{quote|"Look Vegeta...a Pokémon!"}}

* The ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic]]'' fanfic ''[[Cupcakes]]'' gives us [[Serial Killer|Pinkamena]] [[Torture Technician|Diane]] [[I'm a Humanitarian|Pie]], a [[Incredibly Lame Pun|Psychopathic MareFilly]] who loves inviting her friends to "parties" which start with silly jokes and end with their hideous and torturous deaths.

 

* Leatherface from ''[[The Texas Chainsaw Massacre]]'' is a mentally-retarded tool of his family, who uses him to [[I'm a Humanitarian|gather meat for their restaurant]].

** In fact most of the "quiet stalker" type horror icons fit this trope. Michael Myers, Leatherface, Jason Voorhees. More recently, we've added Jacob Goodnight (as played by Glen Jacobs/Kane) in ''[[See no Evil]]''. All of these examples result from childhood trauma as well. See, parents? See what happens when you treat your kids badly? They turn into axe-wielding hoodlums! Is that what you want? HUH?!?

*** Michael Myers is actually an aversion. In the original ''[[Halloween (film)|Halloween]]'' he just kills his sister without any real reason. Dr. Loomis describes him as being "pure evil". It wasn't until the remake that he became this. This was a major criticism since it took away from the looming mystique of the original character.

* Norman Bates from ''[[Psycho]]'' has a gangly childishness, due to his mother's isolating and dominating him.

** It becomes more obvious when Lila Crane snoops through the Bates home and comes across Norman's room.

* ''[[Chronicle]]'': {{spoiler|What Andrew becomes by the end.}}

 

* Lennie Small in the Steinbeck novel ''[[Of Mice and Men]]''. While he never means to hurt anyone, his mental handicap and brute strength lead him to [[And Call Him George|accidentally commit manslaughter]].

** While all that is true he's not really the best example and may tend to subvert the trope on some levels, since unlike most of the examples on this page he ''never'' tries to do anything bad at all (most of the others do bad things on purpose and may or may not know that what they're doing is wrong).

* Merricat in ''[[We Have Always Lived in The Castle]]''. She started out as a psychopathic child and is still very childlike though over 20.

** From the other extreme of the spectrum, the same book features Banjo, an even more child-like thug, who is clearly mentally handicapped, and comes across as [[Dumb Is Good|much more innocent]]. And he and Teatime are friends, of course. Or at least, he does what Teatime tells him to while Teatime treats him with dismissive contempt.

*** [[Evil Cannot Comprehend Good|It's implied that Teatime thinks this kind of devout servitude,]] in exchange for [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness|however long he decides to let you keep living,]] [[What Is This Thing You Call Love?|is what friendship is.]] It's kind of sad.

* [[Evil Weapon|Nightblood]] from ''[[Warbreaker]]'' is a lot like this, acting much like an optimistic child eager to please its owner—by killing things.

{{quote|'''Nightblood:''' I did very well today. I killed them all. Aren't you proud of me?}}

* ''[[In Death]]'': A number of the murderers can be considered this. That doesn't make them any less dangerous, though.

* '' [[The Phantom of the Opera]]'': Type B and C. In the original book the Persian and Erik himself lampshade Erik's attitude as childish, and despite his multiple talents, he is [[Above the Influence|not interested in sex]] but to [[I Just Want to Be Loved|have a beautiful wife]] and [[I Just Want to Be Normal|a life like any other guy]]. It’s only [[And Then What?|when he actually triumphs that he realizes how impractical those dreams are]]. Also the Persian treats him as a spoiled child when he interrogates Erik about Raoul and Christine destinies.

* In ''[[Dracula]]'', Mina Murray draws upon the new science of Criminology to profile Count Dracula and describes him of being of the "typical" criminal mind- childish, in thought and behaviour.

 

* Reese from ''[[Malcolm in the Middle]]''.

** Hal says it best in one episode: "He has no more sense of right and wrong than a treefrog."

*** Of course, the hero in question was [[Large Ham|played by]] [[William Shatner]].

**** But only when the once-hero-gone-insane is impersonating Kirk, yes? If not, then someone's incredible make-up skills should also have been put to use in "Arena" (for starters).

* Jackman's [[Jekyll and Hyde|Hyde]] persona from ''[[Jekyll]]'' is repeatedly stated to be a child who just happens to have the intelligence and drives of a full grown man.

* The title character in the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' story "The Celestial Toymaker". {{spoiler|Lose his games and you become one of his toys. Win and he destroys the world. By the way, he cheats a lot.}}

* Chang on ''[[Community]]'' enjoys wielding the power of being a teacher a little too much, and is shown to be very immature playing mind games with his classes.

* Lucas Taylor in ''[[Terra Nova]]'' {{spoiler|seeks to destroy Terra Nova and the entire world in which it is located killing over a thousand innocent people, all because he wants to get back at his father for not saving his mother when he was a teenager and generally not giving him enough attention growing up}} proving that being a genius scientist is no bar to living up to this trope.

 

* The main character of the Thomas Fersen song and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIel5ImMFh0 music video] "Hyacinth".

 

* [[Greek Mythology|The Minotaur]] is sometimes presented this way, especially in ''[[The Storyteller]]''.

* [[Satan]] occasionally gets this portrayal, typically when interpreted as God's rebellious (and [[God Is Evil|possibly]] [[God and Satan Are Both Jerks|abused]]) creation [["Well Done, Son" Guy|who desperately wants the Heavenly Father's attention]]. This has become especially common recently, and can easily integrate with [[Satan Is Good|any moral alignment]] ([[Complete Monster|or lack thereof]]).

 

* The entire gimmick of Abyss in ''[[TNA]]'' is this trope. When he's a face, the sympathy is milked for all it's worth.

 

* Apply this trope to an entire species, add a healthy dose of [[More Dakka]] and [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe]], let ([[Rule of Cool|rule of]]) cool, and you've got the Orks of ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]''. They think that they should do "wot's fun." It's just the rest of the galaxy's bad luck that to the Orks, "fun" means "[[More Dakka|NEEDS MORE DAKKA!]] Dat's 'ow ya killz fings!" They're like big, green football hooligans with the mentality of a bunch of murderous kindergartners.

** Possibly Ogryns as well, given their fierce loyalty. See [http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Gav_and_Bob Gav and Bob] for a [[Tear Jerker]] example.

* [[The Fair Folk]] of ''[[Exalted]]'' are mostly this. They don't mean to be horrible, horrible monsters, but they don't understand how reality works. They hail from [[World of Chaos|the Wyld]], where most any being they encounter is simply a figment of either their imagination or another Fae's, so they have difficulty processing the idea that every individual they meet in Creation is an independent and sentient being. Furthermore, in the Wyld, [[Death Is Cheap]]. A Fae killed by another Fae can just shape himself back into existence with a thought, so they have trouble understanding why the Creation-born are so uptight about the stabbing.

 

* The Boomers in ''[[Gears of War]]'' and other Locusts of his size. The other locusts use cover effectively and yell orders to each other. The Boomer stands out in the open, points his gun in the general direction of the enemy, and dutifully says "Boom" before firing. That's all he ever says.

** Don't forget the oh-so-bland "SKY FIRE" when you fire a mortar.

** [[Fridge Horror|...Out of what?]]

* In ''[[Double Switch]]'', {{spoiler|Eddie}} seems to be this. He seems like a normal [[Nice Guy]] who is a genius. Unfortunately, he wants an Egyptian statue so badly that he ''will'' hurt or kill to get it. He seems to be bothered by what people say about him at some points. It is also pretty sad to see him reduced to crying "Mom! Mommy!" by the end of the game.

* [[Those Wacky Nazis|Edward]] [[Mad Doctor|Richtofen]] from [[Nazi Zombies]] is a type C.

 

* Thog from ''[[The Order of the Stick]]'' is a half-orc fighter/barbarian with extremely violent tendencies, a sunny disposition, and an Intelligence score that's probably no higher than 5. Xykon, the [[Big Bad]], occasionally has some childish tendencies.

* Richard from ''[[Looking for Group]]'' often shows childish tendencies and extremely bratty and whimsical behaviour.

* [[Small Name, Big Ego|Christian]] [[Butt Monkey|Weston]] [[Instant Humiliation - Just Add YouTube|Chandler]] in ''[[Sonichu]]'' is a Type E. The twist is that he is the comics' author.

 

* One possible interpretation of HABIT from ''[[Everyman HYBRID]]''.

* Blaine Eno and Cillian Crowe from ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'' are each brutal killers brought onto the island specifically to spice up the competition (it's implied that the terrorists actually broke Cillian out of his asylum to take him to the island), but Blaine is mentally and emotionally seven years old and has no real grip on what he's doing, while Cillian is almost literally under the control of an imaginary, daemonic, friend named Haddy.

* ''[[SCP Foundation]'': Dr. Wondertainment, considering the [[My Little Panzer|toys]] he/it makes.

 

* ''[[Futurama]]''{{'}}s Bender, the alcoholic, amoral gambler who deals porn and has no qualms with selling children as dog food occasionally becomes incredibly childish, most notably in the Mom-centric episodes.

{{quote|"Mom! Mom! Look at me, Bender! Hey-ho, I want attention!"}}

* Baron Vain from ''[[The Modifyers]]'', the [[Big Bad]] who gleefully goes "Yay!" when his favorite agent shows up, to ecstatically feeding incompetent henchmen to a gigantic fish while playing opera music.

* The Earl of Lemongrab of ''[[Adventure Time]]'' has many characteristics of Type B of this trope; he's physically an adult, but he acts like a bratty little kid most of the time—thanks to his creator messing up his brain accidentally in a science experiment. He's a nasty, sour, unpleasant person who literally sends everybody in the Candy Kingdom to the dungeon for ''one million years''. He throws tantrums when he doesn't get his way, and overreacts to small situations—whoever disagrees with him is immediately screamed at and imprisoned. He isn't a psychopath, though; his goal is to maintain a kingdom that's orderly, quiet, and clean. He tries to achieve his goal through screaming, [[Disproportionate Retribution]], and generally just being a mean-ass tyrant. Oh- and he's only about one or two years old chronologically, though he was created to be an adult. So he is a man-child both literally and figuratively. If any of this is confusing, that's okay. Even Princess Bubblegum, his mother, says "it's complicated."

 

== Meta ==

* [[Card-Carrying Villain]]s frequently come across this way.

 

* [[Michael Jackson]], who convinced himself that he was Peter Pan, named his home "Neverland Ranch" as a result, and was ''very'' close to children.

* Assuming that Ghost from ''[[True Capitalist]]'' Radio is not the most talented troll in history he qualifies as this. Troll or not the character Ghost is an insane, ranting, racist, xenophobic, misogynistic manchild best known for trademark temper tantrums (aka cans.wav) which are thrown for the most trivial reasons and the large collection of terms he uses to describe the male anus, which he does a little too often.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Madness Tropes]]

[[Category:Characterization Tropes]]

[[Category:Subverted Innocence Tropes]]

[[Category:Villains]]

[[Category:This Index Has Had a Hard Life]]