Sociopathy and Psychopathy the wikipedia article.
Yes, I know it's wikipedia. I know wikipedia isn't exactly reliable. Still, it's easy and convienient. It also states that there's functionally very little difference between psychopathy and sociopathy. Given the medical definitions and such for each, okay, I'll go along with that.
Now. Lets look at some of this.
They make a superficially good first impression.
Hey, weren't we all talking about how interesting Chunin Exam Day was when it first popped up? But then we quickly realized it was full of character bashing and fail. This is normally an extremely subjective sort of thing. We all have different tastes, and what keeps one reader interested may not keep another interested.
However, with both of Perfect Lionheart's main fics, Chunin Exam Day, and Partially Kissed Hero, it's an extremely common reaction to enjoy it at first, because we're all desperate for new fics and he DOES have a good command of spelling and grammar. And then, we gradually either just get turned off or are actually repulsed because the characterization of his fics are so abhorrent. I'd say this is easily a common enough reaction to be a trait of psycho/sociopathy.
Psychopaths also lack empathy towards others in general, resulting in tactlessness, insensitivity, and contemptuousness.
This is most people's social (via reviews, IMs, or board posts) experience with Perfect Lionheart. If it's not praise, giving him the legitimacy and attention that he needs, he will be an utter cock to you. He's already left a few forums in a huff before, he's made repeated rude comments to his detractors in his notes, and he's known for being contemptuous of people in general.
Sure, any of us who happen to have alienated a large population of our peers/readerbase and are under frequent attack are going to defensively declare the whole lot of them usless twats. It's sheer self defense. We do it to make ourselves feel better. But what makes Perfect Lionheart stand out more than the average?
One, he snapped and started dismissing people as ignorant liars and trash talkers who were actually trying to help him and were only tempering otherwise positive comments with some constructive criticism. In fact, he replied with his now infamous 'You point out my mistakes, I'll add MORE'.
The second part also ties into another trait, 'Aggressive narcissism and Grandiose sense of self-worth'
In his various public posts, when discussing things not directly related to his fic, he's been known to promote a 'new system of thought', basically his own moral or philisophic code, which dismisses the vast majority of what we believe is right in favor of some sort of anticipatory eye for the eye you haven't poked yet thing. I don't understand it, I admit. Other's who have read this are welcome to weigh in. It's not my intention to simply dismiss his words as the ravings of a madman without knowing exactly what they say, I don't want this post to be the burning of a strawman, but I'm serious, that shit is insane (and I believe I can safely say I KNOW insane posts when I see them) and it's very difficult to read. Even more so now that he's taken down most links due to the volume of shock and incredulous hate mail he got in response. He's like a wannabe Ayn Rand but even further off the 'none of you are perfect enough to judge me' cliff of pretentiousness. He honestly believes he is a step towards perfection in human evolution. Shit, it's right there in his handle.
As a result, he's condescending at best towards his fans, and utterly contemptuous of anyone that doesn't give him the recognition that he feels is his rightful due.
Psychopaths gain satisfaction through antisocial behavior, and do not experience shame, guilt, or remorse for their actions. Psychopaths lack a sense of guilt or remorse for any harm they may have caused others, instead rationalizing the behavior, blaming someone else, or denying it outright.
This is the biggie. Have you seen what his main characters inevitably do?
It's much like the general wish fulfillment we see in so many super!Naruto or super!Harry fics. You lack power in real life, you emphathize with a character that you see as being just like you, that is, a lot of unrecognized potential and getting no respect from the people around him, you write a fic where said character gets the power and recognition he truly deserves after doing a few 'obvious' things to learn new skills or powerups. These writers often see the series author as unfairly holding the character back when it's so obvious they should have a power level of over 9000 by now. Or 900000. Or even more.
But whereas your usual super!Naruto writer is satisfied with Naruto getting super strong, flipping off authority, beating up the badguys, and getting a harem of hot girls to satisfy his frustrated real life lusts, Perfect Lionheart isn't anywhere near happy stopping there.
This is, in fact, what sets him apart from those authors. Perfect Lionheart writes his fics so that not only does Naruto or Harry get super strong and able to ignore authority, they also gain the ability to start changing the attitudes and personalities of the people around them. Mostly girls, he's got plenty of frustrated lust, obviously. This, this right here, is the power that Perfect Lionheart wishes for so desperately in real life. He sees himself as an all knowing, all wise person, a rare beast with a gifted intellect and moral compass. Life, for everyone, would be so much better if he were allowed to go into them and iron out their insecurities, their neuroses, and pretty much everything else about them he doesn't like.
Your average super!Naruto writer simply has him smack the badguys around and then the girls go 'Oh, my hero!' and jump in bed with him and each other. It's shallow, there's no characterization, but BECAUSE it is shallow and thoughtless we can safely dismiss it as idle fantasy.
Not Perfect Lionheart. He actually has some idea of how people work... Except he gets it all wrong.
psychopaths "use charisma, manipulation, intimidation, sexual intercourse and violence" to control others and to satisfy their own needs.
In other words, they've got an excellent grasp of the carrot and stick approach to human emotions and behavior. It seems almost instinctual to them. However, people are actually more complex than simple operant conditioning would make you think. It works to some extent, but deep down inside, everyone is different, and you can't just train people like that.
"What is missing, in other words, are the very qualities that allow a human being to live in social harmony"
Perfect Lionheart's main characters turn his secondary characters into so many emotionless, amoral robots. His biggest sin isn't writing OOC characters, it's the way he deliberately crafts his characters to be utterly fucking evil. He destroys their personalities in the process. He's been known to do this by having his insert character go in and literally edit the character's memories, so that they have a different backstory and everything. Do you understand that this is, in essence, killing them and replacing them with a doppleganger? There's a reason pod people and shapechanger stories have been a popular staple of horror stories for centuries.
Because that shit is WRONG. It's abhorrent. The way, in the story, they go into different character's minds is RAPE. It's mindfucking on the worst level. Even Itachi's Tsukiyomi of Sasuke wasn't that bad. What's even sadder is how the 'good' characters, that is, the ones Perfect Lionheart likes, welcome it. Like a broken woman so lacking in options she consents to the rape because she has no other choice.
And then, when they're 'fixed', oh my God.
Look at the medical experiments Tsunade carried out on Sasuke and Kakashi in Chunin Exam Day. It's 'justified' as per the psycho/sociopath tendancy, by handwaving it away as nothing permanent, they won't remember it on the reset, the things they learned from the experiments were worth it, it's didn't really happen, there's nothing wrong with writing this sort of fic, we should do this with condemmed prisoners in real life, etc etc
What the FUCK!?
That's like saying it's okay to rape a girl while she's asleep as long as you use a condom, since there's no lasting harm and she won't remember it in the morning. No, it IS NO DIFFERENT. Shit, man. There is no justifying that kind of thing! The mearest attempt marks you as something less than human! In other words, a sociopath! There's no empathy there. Sasuke and Kakashi, and also Sakura, by virtue of never recognizing Naruto's (and by extension Perfect Lionheart's) true greatness in the series have marked themselves as anything goes targets for Naruto's vengeance (Perfect Lionheart's frustrations at the world around him.). Naruto goes through Chunin Exam Day collecting people, and each and every one of them is changed to suit what Perfect Lionheart thinks they should be like. Not only does he not understand that what he's destroying IS their personality, he thinks its okay! He thinks its great, praiseworth, and does not understand, and thus gets angry at, YOU for not praising him!
His hypocrisy literally knows no bounds. Look at the beginning of Chunin Exam Day. Sasuke is portrayed as a lazy nobody with everything handed to him on a silver platter, and everyone falling all over themselves to assist him so they can catch a glimmer of the spotlight that's on him. Naruto breaks into Sasuke's apartment, finds some scrolls given to him with techniques on them that Sasuke never read because 'his prissy ass couldn't be bothered', steals them, and, OH BY THE WAY, steals some family heirlooms because Sasuke didn't appreciate them anyway and sells them to a pawnshop. He also raids Sasuke's bank account for the lulz.
Do you see what is wrong with this? Because Perfect Lionheart doesn't. Perfect Lionheart can't, because he is a sociopath. Naruto hates Sasuke because Sasuke steals techniques.
I'm not EVEN going into the right versus wrong aspect of stealing valuable information when you're in a freaking NINJA VILLAGE. Let's ignore that for now.
Naruto then steals techniques from him. This is laudable behavior.
Sasuke steals techniqes. This is bad.
Naruto steals techniques from Sasuke and everyone else by pretending to be Sasuke. This is good.
Sasuke steals. Bad.
Naruto steals. Good.
Sasuke steals techniques, used in fighting and making yourself a better ninja.
Naruto steals techniques, and because he's pissed that Sasuke was given all this stuff, steals his remaining family mementos and hocks them at a pawnshop because Sasuke deserves it. Haha Sasuke you have a tiny dick and you suck and your balls are about to be crushed.
MOTHERFUCKER ARE YOU EVEN READING THE SHIT YOU ARE WRITING?
Over the course of the story, Naruto BECOMES Sasuke, and Sasuke becomes worse than Naruto. Sasuke is the buttmonkey of all jokes. He has a small penis. He has tiny balls. Both of which are frequently cut off, crushed, or otherwise mangled while the people Naruto has gotten into the head of stand around and CHEER. And laugh. Sasuke never actually tries, but resents Naruto for suddenly being better than him. The other adults that weren't already Naruto fanboys also resent Naruto getting better than Sasuke, using the guise of 'you're not ready to have such power.'
Too fucking right Naruto isn't ready to have that kind of power! Look what the monstrous little shit does with it in the story!
Psycho/sociopaths do not experience shame, guilt, or remorse for their actions.
Psychopaths also have a markedly distorted sense of the potential consequences of their actions, not only for others, but also for themselves.
Oh motherfucker. Hit the issue on the head right there. Chunin Exam Day is a Groundhog's Day ripoff, where we see the permutations of the changes made at the beginning of the day over and over again throughout the rest of the day, and the rest of the month in this case.
But Perfect Lionheart has no clue about how people would actually react. Naruto needs to be killed on a daily basis about the point he loses touch with what is being an inhuman monster and what is being an angry child.
Protip: He stopped being an angry, frustrated child trying to make his mark on the world and started being an inhuman monster THE VERY MOMENT PERFECT LIONHEART STARTED WRITING HIM. It's like the midas touch, except every character Perfect Lionheart 'improves' he remakes in his own image, that of a complete sociopath with no actual regard for other people's feelings, rights, or wants.
And in the fic, the girls praise Naruto for it. Oh, Perfect Lionheart Naruto, you're so perfect. Make super race perfect babies with me. We'll raise them to be carbon copies of dear old dad's personalities and morals, because they're clearly so perfect it would be a cardinal sin to deviate in the slightest.
Meanwhile, the bad bad nasty terri-bad adults that have been foolishly overlooking the fact that they should have made Naruto their king have been running around ineffectually flopping their hands and making Oh My noises. Their halfassed plots are quickly handled and provide amusement to Perfect Lionheart/Naruto because he's clearly the superior being.
Psychopaths lack realistic, long term goals.
Chunin Exam Day. Q. E. D. Motherfucker. Just look at his characters and what they're doing.
"Oh, don't take it so seriously!" his fans say. "It's just a fic. Those parts are crackfic, and the rest is more serious!"
People, I know what drugs can do to you. And it ain't crack that's making him write like that. It's fucking Evil. Yes. Evil. With a capital fucking E. There's so much of it in Perfect Lionheart's works that I'd swear he was mainlining it, smoking it, swallowing it, and dropping it in his eyes too.
You say it's just a fic, right? Doesn't really matter? Well, what you do with your spare times says a LOT about you as a person. Me, I enjoy reading, cooking, fishing, tinkering, and long walks on the beach after anal. Perfect Lionheart likes making this little fictional human ant colony and then playing God, but as a vengeful, insane god who will rain down great wrath on any who do not bow before his chosen ones.
You know another one of the traits of psychopaths and sociopaths? Torturing animals as a kid.
Animals aren't people, and torturing and killing animals isn't as bad as torturing and killing people.
But just look at the torturing and killing going on in Perfect Lionheart's perfect little world. Do you see parallels here, maybe? Obviously, torturing and killing fictional characters isn't as bad as doing it to real animals, but you know what?
It's in the same general area. To even THINK of the kind of shit Perfect Lionheart has his characters get up to there has to be something wrong with you. To write it down, you just need a desire for attention.
But to defend it? Oh, it's just a crackfic? Oh, they won't remember it after the next reset?
You can't defend that. The only thing worse that thinking it, writing it, or enjoying it is trying to defend it. Look, we all have mean urges sometimes. Get cut off in traffic, you want to make that car explode with your mind. Get turned down for a date, maybe you wish you could make her more promiscuous, or you might even indulge in a little rape fantasy.
But most people, almost all people, don't do that not just because they're afraid of the consequences, or its too much effort, or it's impossible to do in the real world...
They don't do it because it is wrong. They know its wrong. They have the fantasy, but that's part of the thrill, being a little naughty, doing something wrong.
Perfect Lionheart does not have that same thrill of wrongdoing, and that honestly scares the fuck out of me. He doesn't get the thrill of wrongdoing because he doesn't understand that it is wrong. He doesn't know what wrong is. And yet, somehow, everytime he's faced with a moral compass choice, he picks the one that is frankly and utterly wrong.
That, people, is Evil.
I am not a particularly religious man, but if I was, and I believed in demonic possession, I would say he was possessed, or maybe was simply the child of the Devil himself. When I learned about brain chemical imbalances and structure deformities, and how they explain why people randomly go berserk and kill people, or how a parasite in cat poop causes schizophrenia, or how seratonin and dopamine imbalances can cause all sorts of mood and personality disorders, I thought that science had finally put the nail in the coffin lid of evil. It's not evil, it's just bad wiring and messed up neurotransmitters. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't put people in jail, or shouldn't kill them for certain offenses, because they still did something wrong, and we still lack the knowledge to fix them, either before or after, and be sure that they stay fixed.
But then I started reading Perfect Lionheart's works. And I talked to other people who've read his works. And I told them my opinions and they told me theirs, and I've been utterly horrfied to realize that Perfect Lionheart has no soul. He is actually fucking Evil.
Holy shit.
This isn't just me talking. I haven't read all of his works myself, just as much as I could stand of Chunin Exam Day and Partially Kissed Hero, plus various forum posts he's made. I'm not even the originator of the sociopath theory.
I credit Dusttraveler, a friend of mine, with the sociopath theory. He's also the one who pointed out that he's actually evil. Many of these arguments are actually his.
I've also discussed Perfect Lionheart at length with Lambotrist, and somewhat with Anonymous (though of course Anon has to be taken with a grain of salt, heh), and Landreau contributed ideas to this statement, and various other people as well. The vast majority of it comes from Dusttraveller, Lamb, and I, however.
Feel free to quote, repost, or otherwise spread this around. I'm not on a crusade against Perfect Lionheart, which I believe can be proved by my complete lack of commentary on the issue, at least since the last time the topic cropped up in a thread I actually follow and I said 'Fuck Perfect Lionheart'. I just wanted to clarify my position based on my comments of the other night, so there's no misunderstanding.