Mentally Ill

This category is for antagonists who have any type of psychological disorder and can be deemed as mentally unstable or antagonists suffering from mental disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), dissociative identity disorder (DID or in this case dissociative antagonists), schizophrenia and psychosis.

These characters can be tragic, since the trait of being mentally unstable is not being fully aware of their actions and not being in full control of themselves. Examples of which include many Yanderes, the Nina Einstein, Bae Su-mi and Anniyan. In addition, many people (both in fiction and real-life) suffer heavily from mental illness and can struggle on a daily basis, so villains who have difficulties with their mental health can often be seen as sympathetic, if not, redeemable.

Nevertheless, mentally ill antagonists can qualify as Pure Evil if they have no redeeming factors and if their mental illness and limited views on reality don't interfere with their moral agency or knowledge of right and wrong (e.g. Esther Coleman, Miss Gribben, Mysterio, Black Noir, Friedrich Steiner, Black Mask, Piella Bakewell and Margaret Goodnight).

Notesedit | edit source[]

• To qualify as mentally ill, a character must have horrible behavior, beliefs and commit actions which do not stem from their cultural beliefs unless it severely hinders the character's activities.
• Characters who have simple phobias (e.g. Hopper) do not count, as nearly everybody has at least one phobia. They should go under Paranoid instead of this category.
• Not all antagonists are mentally unstable when they first appear. While some are, others who were sane to begin with suffer experiences that causes their sanity to snap, like Andrew Detmer and Lucy. The primary causes for this are prolonged abuse and humiliation. A severe-enough degree of fear can do it too, but less commonly.
• Psychopaths/sociopaths will never fall under this category as they are fully aware of reality and are not crazy, whereas mentally ill villains are not completely aware of reality and have limited views on it.
  • Please do not add psychotic villains or dissociative villains under this category as those categories are subtypes of mentally ill villains and adding all three categories on the same villain at once would be redundant.
• Non-humanoid entities and demons never count (e.g. Valak), regardless of how evil they can be. To them, such acts are normal or a simple spiritual/cultural function. The only time non-humanoid entities can count for this category is if they clearly display human-like intelligence.
• Do not automatically equate mental illness with villainy, as many heroes can also be mentally ill, and it is possible to be neurotypical while still being a bad person.
• Villains who only feigned mental illnesses and don't actually have any do not qualify.