Bree!

I'm not exactly a Star Wars fantatic, but I love psychology-- so I thought this Wired article was a riot. It's totally obvious that Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vadar has issues, but now a team of researchers have actually spent time intellectualizing this:


"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.

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."

Before you climb up on that soapbox to declare that there are real sick people that need help out there, know that there is a purpose:

The diagnosis helps explain why teenagers -- no strangers to borderline personalities -- find Skywalker so appealing, said study co-author Rachel Rodgers, a psychologist in Toulouse. They may like him, she said, "because he's very similar to them."

Read the rest on Wired.

ps. Everyone knows that Piglet was paranoid and insecure, but did you know Pooh is supposedly ADHD & OCD? If anyone knows where to find more fictional character pschology, link me!