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[arkham-dossiers]

Patient File: Prince Demande

Ruler of the Black Moon Clan of the Planet Nemesis.

Depending on which reality you are going by, he has two origins:

- Demande and his fellow members of the Black Moon Clan descended from the followers of a terrorist cult leader in Crystal Tokyo known as Death Phantom. While unaware of this connection, they still adopted Death Phantom's symbol of a black, upside-down crescent moon as a sign of defiance toward the Moon Kingdom that ruled over the Earth. They became a terrorist cult themselves, fighting a futile battle against Neo-Queen Serenity until a mysterious figure named Wiseman appeared and told them to come to the planet Nemesis, where they could gain the power they needed.

- Demande and his fellow members of the Black Moon Clan descended from an insurgent army who resisted Neo-Queen Serenity's rule at the dawning of Crystal Tokyo who was defeated and banished to the planet Nemesis. As the eldest son of Nemesis' ruler, Demande grew up taught by the royal advisor Wiseman, who fueled a deep hatred of Earth in him and the desire to conquer it.

Whichever the case, Demande is the same man: possessed of great royal pride and dignity, a calm disposition that suppresses the burning passions within his heart, a sense of loyalty toward his comrades, a strategic and calculating mind, the ruthlessness to do whatever it takes to achieve his goals, and a distinct joy in flaunting his dark powers granted to him by Nemesis' Malefic Black Crystal.

At first, Demande's objective is relatively simple: depose the Moon Kingdom and liberate Earth from its rulership. Demande believes that the planet being ruled over by people who aren't strictly human, particularly Neo-Queen Serenity, who play God for the actual human inhabitants of the planet and force them into a utopia of eternal peace and infinitely slow aging is blasphemous: a blight upon human history and human nature. He and the Black Moon Clan are unable to appreciate it the way most do, either because it's something in their brains due to whom they were descended from or because they're stuck on Nemesis due to what their ancestors did. So there's a sense of envy involved, and the spiritual and philosophical claims they make being a mere justification to cover up the petty jealousy.

Wiseman and the Malefic Black Crystal, however, twisted Demande's vision. He soon found it not enough to just depose Neo-Queen Serenity: he now decided one god-like ruler needed to be replaced with another...namely, himself. And once he began thinking of himself like a god, Demande decided that conquering Earth wouldn't satisfy him. He no longer wanted to take power from the rulership of Crystal Tokyo; he desired to rewrite history so that Crystal Tokyo never existed in the first place and that the Black Moon Clan's rulership was the only one the Earth ever knew. To that end, he made use of the Malefic Black Crystal's time-warping powers, sending his minions 1,000 years into the past in an attempt to change the future.

But there was to be one final twist on Demande's motivations. When he invaded Crystal Tokyo and met Neo-Queen Serenity face to face, he was struck by two things: her sheer beauty, and the cold look of contempt in her eyes as she looked at him. A look of superiority to him, as if he was something less than human. The combination of lust and rage Demande felt over this turned into an obsession. In any way he could, he wanted to break Neo-Queen Serenity, to make her submit to him and acknowledge his superiority, and to have her for himself: mind, body and soul. He now wanted to rule over Earth with her at his side, as his "Queen"....though in reality, as his slave.

Safir, Demande's younger brother, had stood solidly behind Demande's original objective and was completely distraught at how Wiseman, the Malefic Black Crystal, and Neo-Queen Serenity had warped his desires. No matter how much he argued with him over it, even to the point of refusing to wear Malefic Black Crystal earrings like the rest of the Black Moon Clan, his words went unheeded. Although Demande loved his brother, he would sacrifice nothing for his sake. In Demande's mind, whatever he wanted he would have.

The prince showed the worst of himself when he captured Sailor Moon, the teenage 20th Century self of Neo-Queen Serenity. Dressing her up as her future counterpart while unconscious, when she awoke Demande used his Evil Eye ability to paralyze her and force a kiss upon her. Demande's intention was unquestionably to rape her, although given his sense of royal pride and dignity he would not attempt to do so outright. Instead, his plan was to mentally break her down, slowly and painfully, until all sense of resistance was gone and she was hollowed out enough to give in to him. Mercifully, she was able to be rescued from him before it ever came to this point.

In the end, not only did Demande fail in his objectives, but he also discovered that Wiseman never cared about them to begin with and that he was using him and the Black Moon Clan as pawns in his own scheme of universal destruction the whole time. While in one reality he is killed by Wiseman immediately afterward and so is unable to fully process the significance of this, in the other this realization is accompanied by him having to be forced to kill his own brother Safir who attacks him when under Wisman's mind control power, as well as the realization that the Silver Crystal of Sailor Moon / Neo-Queen Serenity is the most powerful source of energy in the universe and that he and his Malefic Black Crystal never stood a real chance of defeating it. All of this on top of each other destroys all of Demande's sanity in one fell swoop. He grabs both the Silver Crystal of the past and the Silver Crystal of the future and threatens to press them together, which will create a paradox that causes reality to implode and wipe everything out. Laughing, he says that he believes in nothing and no-one anymore, and that he will gladly kill himself and take everyone else with him to prove that in the end he and not Wiseman is the master of his fate and that in the end he controlled the Silver Crystal's power. But he gets thwarted, and then killed.

Diagnosis: Prince Demande is unquestionably a sociopath. He only holds personal attachments to blood family like Safir or those who think and feel as he does like the rest of the Black Moon Clan, but otherwise cannot relate to others or entertain alternate viewpoints. His lack of empathy over the victims his actions create and his lustful desire to claim Neo-Queen Serenity without truly loving her reinforces this, as does the fact that he never expresses remorse for his actions, only regret that he was used by someone else. The negative energy of the Malefic Black Crystal only worsened him, causing him to develop narcissistic personality disorder and delusions of godhood, ultimately leading to his mental breakdown.

This patient is extremely dangerous. Avoid at all costs.

[arkham-dossiers]

Patient File: Lysandre

It's the 4th of July.....so naturally I'm analyzing a Frenchman.

In public, Lysandre is the head of Lysandre Labs, a charitable philanthropist responsible for the Holocaster technology used across the Kalos region. In secret, Lysandre is the boss of Team Flare, a criminal group that wants to wipe out all life in Kalos, and then the world, save for a chosen few that will restore the environment to its original natural beauty and purge all perceived ugliness from life.

The difference between Lysandre's public perception and his true self is quite stark. What led a man of privilege like him to such extreme, misanthropic beliefs? And is there anything that can remedy it?

To start with, it must be noted that Lysandre is descended from ancient Kalosian royalty, being the brother of the infamous King who built and activated the Ultimate Weapon of legend. This status warped Lysandre's view of people early in his life. It made him believe that certain people are inherently better than others, that they are "chosen" for greatness. This belief also placed a great sense of burden upon him, as he made it his life's mission to live up to that greatness. He saw it as his duty to provide for his region, to give to those less fortunate, to help shape a brighter future for everyone.

But Lysandre's ideals ended up clashing with reality. For everything he provided, there were people who misused or squandered it. For all he gave to the poor, he couldn't single-handedly solve income inequality meaning there were always more poor people in need. And for as much as he tried to create a better future, he ended up seeing signs everywhere of a worse on. Some signs may have been legitimate, many likely just in his own paranoid mind, but whatever the case it left him devoid of satisfaction and fulfillment. Being a man whose emotions burn fiercely, Lysandre began to feel deep hatred. Hatred for people who didn't notice or care about how they were affecting society. Hatred for the poor whom he saw as "parasites" who didn't fight hard enough to advance themselves in favor of taking from those who worked for their fortune. And hatred for things like deforestation, pollution, crime, war, and general lack of decorum. Lysandre became a misanthrope, seeing fault in everyone but himself and "chosen ones" that he deemed respectable like himself.

While Lysandre does feel remorse for the lengths he is willing to go to in order to cleanse the world of all that he perceives to be ugly, knowing it to be morally wrong, he keeps himself on this path anyway because he feels it's the only solution and that as a chosen one it is his burden to bear - that he has come too far to turn back now. Despite this, Lysandre is pathologically hypocritical. He wishes to be someone who gives, and yet his ultimate plan is to take the lives of many. He hates selfish, greedy and frivolous people and yet many such people make up the ranks of Team Flare all because they had a lot of money which Lysandre automatically thinks makes them self-sufficient workers who benefit society. And he considers himself to be an idealist even though his view of everything and what must be done about it is so deeply cynical. It's to the point where he can manipulate and threaten and do unimaginably cruel things while still insisting it's other humans, including his victims, that are the problem. In one famous instance, he wept for the Pokémon of the world that he felt he had no choice but to kill, saying as long as they exist humans will be tempted to abuse them as tools, making them and others suffer. He says this while he is enacting a plan that is abusing Pokémon as tools, making them and others suffer! The depth of his delusion and utter lack of self-awareness is stunning to behold.

Diagnosis: Lysandre suffers from a triple whammy of Paranoid Personality Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder, and Narcissistic Personality Disorder, with sociopathic tendencies as well even if he lacks the criteria to be a full sociopath. Treatment will be exceedingly difficult, but one aspect of his warped psyche can be used to the advantage of this end: his respect for fellow "chosen ones". Lysandre is not narcissistic enough to believe that only he has value, as he takes the views of other chosen ones seriously even if he disagrees with them - a prime example being his friend Professor Sycamore. If such people keep working with Lysandre to show him better alternatives to the problems he sees than his genocidal aims, it is possible that he will calm down and adjust to a safer way. It will take a lot of time and effort, but it is recommended as the only way to save him. For if he isn't saved, then the likelihood of self-destruction is great, and unfortunately Lysandre is a man with the will and power to take many others down with him.

This patient is sometimes dangerous. It depends on whether or not he views you as among the "chosen" or not. If he does, you may engage with him intellectually. If he does not, avoid at all costs.

[arkham-dossiers]

Patient File: Cell

The ultimate creation of the brilliant scientific mind Dr. Gero, Cell is a bio-organic lifeform created from the cells of many powerful warriors such as Goku, Tienshinhan, Piccolo, Vegeta, Freeza and King Cold.

Beginning as Imperfect Cell, this monster was committed to the same goal as any warrior: growing stronger. For Cell, this meant killing people and absorbing their life force. His ultimate objective, however, was absorbing two specific victims: Androids 17 and 18, as the supercomputer Dr. Gero programmed to create Cell designed him specifically to evolve to his perfect form through their forced assimilation. Because he would be vulnerable pursuing this goal no matter how much life force he absorbed, nature granted Imperfect Cell a sneaky and sly personality. He was quick-thinking, cautiously calculating, and adapted well to unforeseen situations. This allowed him to evade the Z Warriors long enough to grow in power to the point of being able to challenge Androids 17 and 18. Despite Piccolo and Android 16's best efforts to prevent it, Imperfect Cell is able to absorb 17 by using 17's own teenage overconfidence against him.

Now Semi-Perfect Cell, his psyche undergoes a change along with his appearance. Overwhelmed with the dramatic uptick in power that came with absorbing Android 17, Cell becomes far more arrogant and less prone to thinking. He also becomes obsessive about achieving his goal of absorbing Android 18. Whereas as Imperfect Cell he could afford to take his time, as Semi-Perfect Cell he is like someone who has had a dopamine high and is now desperate for another one. As a result of these new factors, Semi-Perfect Cell is highly volatile and intolerant of setbacks. This might have led to his undoing had it not been for Vegeta allowing him a window of time to actually come up with a strategic idea, which he utilized to absorb 18.

At last, he becomes Perfect Cell. Whereas the great power gained from absorbing the first android had made Cell more unstable, the greater power gained from absorbing the second actually stabilizes him again. He achieves a state of zen, his purpose for which he was designed having finally been achieved. After this, there is nothing for him, nothing left in him....nothing, of course, but the influence of the cells that are flowing through his artificial veins. The desire for a challenging opponent to test his power against and validate his ego from his Saiyan cells, the sharp perceptiveness from the cells of Tienshinhan, the megalomaniacal theatricality and brooding isolationism from the cells of Piccolo (his first and second lives respectively), and the faux-regality and sadistic cruelty from the cells of Freeza and his father. They all blend together to shape Perfect Cell's personality, as well as his new motivation: live for pleasure, at the expense of everyone else, the "imperfect" lifeforms whom he looks so down upon. To this end, he initiates the Cell Games, aptly named since both things it accomplishes - fighting other warriors and terrorizing the planet's civilian population - are like a game to Cell.

Unfortunately for Cell, he inherits the weaknesses of those whose cells he shared as well as their strengths. Goku ends up playing to these weaknesses, exploiting the same flaws in Cell that Cell had earlier exploited in Vegeta. With the promise of Gohan achieving a higher form of power that would offer Cell the ultimate challenge, Cell deliberately stokes Gohan's rage until he transforms into Super Saiyan 2. Cell is then not met with the ultimate challenge, as a challenge by definition can be overcome. Instead, he is met with the ultimate brick wall, a power that so thoroughly dwarfs his own and a combatant who's all too willing to give him a taste of his own sadistic medicine. This triggers a complete psychological breakdown in Cell, which only increases when Gohan punches him so hard that he pukes out Android 18, thus reverting back to Semi-Perfect Cell.

With his perfection gone and no chance of victory, Cell initiates his self-destruct mechanism in the hopes of taking Earth with him, a desperate move that is thwarted thanks to Goku's sacrifice. But then, because his core nucleus was not destroyed, Cell fully regenerates as Super Perfect Cell, back in perfect form but now with his power elevated to match that of Super Saiyan 2 Gohan. While this is able to reverse his prior breakdown, the aftereffects are still clear in how much more aggressive Cell is. Worse still is the new conclusion he has come to thanks to all of this: he isn't meant to live just for fun, but for destruction. He isn't perfect because he's the most powerful, but because of the destruction that power can wreak yet survive through. Cell decides that Dr. Gero wanted him to upend the established order and eliminate all life in the universe, refilling it with perfect bio-organic life such as himself, which in his Perfect form he is capable of doing.

Thankfully, Gohan, with the aid of his father's spirit, is able to fully and finally obliterate the monster before things can reach that point.

Diagnosis: The biggest consistent in Cell's psychological makeup is his lack of empathy for others and lack of concern for anything beyond himself and what benefits or hinders him. He may show respect or even fondness for certain others, but it's never to the point where he de-centers himself from his worldview. This quality is pronounced to such a degree that it is easy to diagnose him as a sociopath, with added narcissistic personality disorder acquired in his Semi-Perfect form and becoming more severe in Perfect form.

This patient is extremely dangerous. Avoid at all costs.

[arkham-dossiers]

Patient File: Prince Lotor

Born to Emperor Zarkon, ruler of the Galra, and the Altean scientist Honerva (also known as the witch Haggar), Lotor revealed himself to be a prodigy early in his childhood, possessing intelligence and maturity far beyond his years. Unfortunately, these rare gifts went largely unappreciated by Lotor's parents, both of whom were driven mad by an overdosage of raw quintessence and now only valued power and domination over others. As far as they were concerned, the only future Lotor had was that of a warrior, brutally instilling in him the Galran creed of "Victory or Death". Despite this, Lotor abhorred the warlike ways of the Galra and desired to change them, truly believing that the same imperialistic ends that his people sought could be achieved through diplomacy and peaceful persuasion.

Lotor's efforts were met with tragedy. Even when he succeeded at taking control of a planet through his methods and establishing a quintessence harvesting operation through the consent of its population, Zarkon was angered by his son defying his upbringing and had him knocked out. When Lotor regained consciousness, the planet had been destroyed and all its quintessence taken at once, and Zarkon now proclaimed that Lotor was banished from the Galran Empire's territory. Something within Lotor snapped that day. While his ideals remained the same, never again would he seek to achieve the results he wanted through honest means, and never again would he be fully open and trusting with another person. And while he got by through his reputation as the Galran prince, he all but disowned that side of his heritage in his personal life, identifying as Altean instead and becoming more fixated on the secrets of the Alteans and of quintessence than ever before, vowing to use them to save the universe from his father's despotic reign someday, keeping himself alive through quintessence for hundreds upon hundreds of years.

While his powerful natural mental fortitude kept the full effects of quintessence-induced madness at bay, it still undeniably affected Lotor and impacted his moral judgement. He became obsessed with achieving his dream: a peaceful universe ruled over and defended by him, with all its grateful inhabitants showering him with the love he had been denied by his own parents. He even created a prototype for this sort of universe by finding every surviving Altean he could and creating a secret colony for them to live in under his protection, which naturally earned him their perpetual reverence. He was like a god to them; they trusted him whole-heartedly. Which made it all the crueler for Lotor to betray that trust, weeding out the strongest in natural quintessence and sending them to a "second colony"...in actuality a laboratory where their quintessence was slowly drained from their bodies and studied in all manners of experiments, as well as used by Lotor for sustenance as he desperately needed to keep living so that he could see his glorious vision for the universe's future through.

By the time Lotor was allowed to return to the Galran Empire, he had been firmly twisted into a cold, calculating and even cruel person who displayed great pleasure in toying with his opponents, manipulating them to his own ends, and even making them suffer. Not even his own loyal followers were safe from him - when he learned one was being used to spy on him against her will by Hagarr, he didn't hesitate for even a second before striking her dead in cold blood. He then proceeded to use his other followers' natural misgivings about this as well as the dead end his plan had hit to manipulate them into "betraying" him...exactly the convincing scenario he needed to convince his former enemies, the Voltron Alliance, to bring him on board as an ally. In this position, he was finally able to kill his father in a duel and become the ruler of the Galra. He then proceeded to skillfully manipulate the Paladins of Voltron into aiding him in a plan that, unbeknownst to them, would ultimately end with Voltron's destruction and supplantation by his own "defender of the universe", the Sincline Beast, made from an interdimensional comet that allowed it the ability to phase in and out of the quintessence field between realities. He also manipulated the Altean Princess Allura into providing him assistance through her falling in love with him...an easy feat considering that he was just as genuinely in love with her in something of an Oedipus Complex, as she greatly resembled the woman his mother used to be, the woman he still admired even though he never knew her and he despised her present witchy self.

When his true colors and intentions were exposed and his plan began to crumble around him, Lotor's priority was now squarely on keeping Allura at his side, as his passionate feelings toward her had become overwhelming; the fantasy of ruling a new Altean Empire side by side with her too enticing for him to easily give up. But when it became clear that he would have to give it up, with Allura even comparing him to his hated father for good measure, the mental wall Lotor had erected between his psyche and quintessence-induced madness collapsed. This was only made worse as Lotor used the Sincline Beast to start jumping in and out of the quintessence field with reckless abandon, now single-mindedly fixated on destroying Voltron and its Paladins, his beloved Allura included, so that nothing would stand between him reshaping the universe to his own desires.

Diagnosis: Lotor is a very interesting case study, and needs to be discussed both without the effects of quintessence considered and with it considered. When you completely ignore the quintessence factor, then Lotor displays clear symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder over the abuse he received from his parents and Galran society growing up, and the mental defense he turned to in response was the development of a narcissistic personality disorder. As noble as his intentions for the universe are, they are tainted through the prism of his narcissism: he must be the one to bring about the change, he must be the one to rule over the universe and enforce the peace through totalitarian means, he must be worshipped and loved by all. Even the romantic feelings he develops for Princess Allura are rooted in his self-image as the tragic, misunderstood heir to Altea and his fantasy of being his people's (read: Alteans) savior and ruler of a new Altean Empire. He is only able to empathize with Allura because of what she is rather than who she is and what she has personally been through, which is why he is unable to understand why she would take the truth of what he had done to his Altean colony subjects so badly and would view him with such revulsion for it.

With the quintessence factor at play, Lotor is a psychopath. Beyond lacking empathy and having a grandiose self-image, he is also petty and cruel, chronically dishonest, possessing superficial charm that he uses to manipulate others with, forms no legitimate connections, displays an utter lack of remorse or conscience about the immoral means he is pursuing his noble ends with which includes torture and murder, and is driven by a deep well of rage and entitlement that we get to see in full during his final battle with the Paladins of Voltron.

Lotor's tragedy is that neither diagnosis I presented would hold true had he been born and raised in a healthy environment. Indeed, Lotor would have become a devastatingly potent force for good if his parents had been loving toward him and he had never been exposed to quintessence. As his regretful mother Honerva / Hagarr proclaimed when all was through: "He deserved better. Better than I could give."

This patient is dangerous under regular circumstances. Extremely dangerous when under the full influence of quintessence. Avoid!

[arkham-dossiers]

Patient File: Edelgard von Hresvelg

This is a patient whose life has multiple outcomes, but only one root.

The root in question is that she is one of many children borne by Ionus von Hresvelg IX, the Emperor of Fodlan's Adrestrian Empire. During the first few years of Edelgard's life, she was instilled with a sense of imperial pride...and imperial responsibility. This on its own would be unremarkable given her circumstances, but said circumstances soon changed drastically. After an internal coup effectively removed Emperor Ionus from power beyond that of a figurehead, Edelgard and her siblings were locked in the palace dungeon and experimented upon by a shadowy collective of mages.

The cruelty of the experiments, which turned Edelgard's hair white and cut her natural lifespan in half, also caused her great psychological and emotional trauma, as did the suffering and eventual deaths of her siblings around her. As the only one to achieve the desired result of the mages' experiments, the ability to bear two Crests rather than just one, Edelgard holds massive survivor's guilt. All of this - in tandem with one of the few childhood memories prior to the experiments that she vaguely retained, where she was gifted a dagger by a relative and told to cut out her own path in life beyond what's expected of her - is what shaped Edelgard into who she is now and influenced the extreme actions she took.

In several timeline branches, Edelgard allies herself with the mages in order to serve their purpose while also scheming to betray them once she has obtained the requisite power and knowledge to efficiently do so. Living a double life as a student at the Garreg Mach Monastery's Officers Academy and as a masked terrorist known as the Flame Emperor, Edelgard manipulated her classmates and cut deals with criminals in order to bring instability to Fodlan, particularly the Church of Seiros that runs Garreg Mach and holds sway over most of Fodlan's society and governing bodies, with the end result being her as the newly crowned Emperor of Adrestria declaring war on the Church and its allies so that Fodlan may be united under the Adrestrian banner. In one timeline, she prevailed, while in others she was defeated and slain, although the results of the war still led to a changed Fodlan and a united government full of societal reforms.

In other timeline branches, however, Edelgard was able to betray the mages early on. As a result, she dropped the Flame Emperor guise and was instead able to manipulate the Church into acting as the aggressor toward Adrestria, now justifying a war in retaliation. Sometimes she prevailed, sometimes she didn't, and sometimes a compromise was reached, but in all cases she was able to survive.

What all of these timelines share in common is Edelgard's almost monomaniacal focus on her end goal: destroying both the Church of Seiros and the mages, and unifying Fodlan under the Adrestrian Empire so that it can be completely restructured for the better, abolishing the nobility and Crest system in favor of a meritocracy. In contrast to most warmongers, Edelgard has no intention of holding onto power. Once her end goal has been achieved, she plans on appointing a successor and stepping down to live out whatever years remain in her shortened life in peace. It's a peculiarly selfish brand of selflessness she has: ruthlessly forcing her will and ideals upon the population of Fodlan all so that they and future generations can reap the benefits rather than herself. She similarly rationalizes all the deaths her war causes this way: many will die, but if her reforms to Fodlan are put in place many more will live. There will be little chance of anyone else having to suffer the way she and her siblings did.

That is ultimately what Edelgard's motives boil down to: the desire to prevent future victims of what she was put through, by eliminating every factor that led to her suffering. The Church of Seiros, the system favoring bloodlines and the power of Crests that it perpetuates through its false gospel, the corrupt nobles, and of course the mages...Edelgard hates them all for what happened to her and her siblings, but she does not seek their demise out of a desire for vengeance. Having accepted what is done cannot be undone, Edelgard instead focuses on the future, with the past and even the present firmly pushed behind her. This is what grants her the ability to emotionally detach and repress even her own moral compass to an almost sociopathic degree in order to do what she believes is necessary. As she herself puts it: "My regret. My grief. My whole life. I've thrown it all away...into the darkness..." She is fully aware that others will see her as a villain for this, but she is willing to embrace that label so long as she can change Fodlan for the better.

Edelgard's greatest fear is forging personal attachments to others. Not only does she fear losing people she grows close to like she lost her siblings, but she fears being close to people will be a greater burden on her conscience, making her hesitate and second-guess the path she's taking even when she whole-heartedly feels it's a path she needs to stick to. In the worst case scenario, Edelgard isolates herself so much that she is consumed by her lack of self-love and her need to prevail by any means necessary, transforming herself into an inhuman monstrosity as a result. Conversely, in the best case scenarios, Edelgard discovers that being close to people willing to share her path with her and taking input from them even if it goes against what she believes is achievable and healthy, leading to her showing more emotion and vulnerability rather than stoically take on every burden by herself. This usually comes about through Byleth, the human avatar of the reincarnated Nabatean goddess Sothis.

Diagnosis: Taken on the whole, Edelgard appears to suffer from a frighteningly potent combination of post-traumatic stress disorder, high-functioning avoidant personality disorder, and mild dissociative tendencies. Her past is both everything and nothing to her simultaneously, having shaped her psychology even as said psychology centers around fixating upon the future at the expense of all else. Depending on what point of her life she's at, treatment and improvement is possible, although victims tragically unpreventable.

This patient is not dangerous if approached in peace.

[arkham-dossiers]

Patient File: Xehanort

This patient has been studied in three different environments, each one yielding fascinating results that reflect his complex psyche.

As a human: Xehanort was found critically injured and without any memory beyond his name by Ansem the Wise, the ruler of Radiant Garden and a brilliant scientific mind. Once recovered, Xehanort was appointed one of Ansem's apprentices in his scientific research and kingdom maintenance. The natural sense of fear and aimlessness that an amnesiac has coupled with the life debt he owed him made Xehanort attach himself to Ansem quite strongly, very quickly coming to view him as a father figure. As such, he threw himself into his work more fervently than even the other apprentices who had been there longer, displaying a natural inclination toward learning and absorbing knowledge in the process...perhaps a clue to his forgotten past.

When Ansem needed a test subject for his first psychological experiment to undergo research into the darkness of the human heart, Xehanort readily volunteered, hoping it might awaken some buried memories. Unfortunately, the darkness of Xehanort's heart was the shadow that Ansem cast upon him, a shadow he feared he'd never escape...that nothing he did would be enough to live up to his "father's" great legacy. The psychological experiments, combined with the frequent needling of one of Ansem's other apprentices, Braig, made Xehanort spiral into a dissociative episode where in private he began writing his own diary under the name of "Ansem".

It's at this point that Xehanort began to showcase a deep lack of empathy, as he persuaded his fellow apprentices to help him kidnap human test subjects for more experiments on the darkness of the heart, breaking their sense of self and turning them into Heartless. The more this inhumane research progressed, the further Xehanort spiraled, as the reports he wrote under Ansem's name showcase his inferiority complex increasing as he began to feel like a tiny, insignificant part of a larger universe beyond his comprehension.

A key point transpired when, unconsciously summoning a Keyblade, Xehanort unlocked the door to Radiant Garden's heart, which sent ripple effects across the universe. After this event, Xehanort developed a sort of monomania, now completely obsessed with the universe's cosmology and how it relates to darkness and the Heartless. This led to him and the other apprentices creating a machine that mass produced Heartless, beginning a threat that spread across many worlds. When Ansem the Wise finally discovered Xehanort's writings, all done under his name, he confronted him. This confrontation was the last straw in Xehanort's deteriorating mental and moral condition. In order to truly be Ansem, the real Ansem could no longer stay in his life to contradict this. Xehanort thus banished Ansem to a pocket dimension in the Realm Between that he had discovered in his research: the Realm of Nothingness. The emotional toll this took on Xehanort sent him into a temporary state of psychosis, as he once again unconsciously summoned his Keyblade and struck down his fellow apprentices while declaring "I'm not Xehanort! My name....is Ansem!"

Upon recovering, Xehanort consciously threw away anything of his old life and continued to live as "Ansem", eventually allowing the ravaging of his own kingdom in favor of throwing away his own body to become a Heartless himself, as the ultimate conclusion he had reached in his obsessive studies was that the Heartless are the true form of every living being and that the universe must be consumed by darkness so that all hearts become Heartless...with he, "Ansem", as their supreme ruler. From a mortal man to a Heartless...to a god.

As a Heartless: Ansem, as we shall now be calling the patient, is an extension of where we left him off as a human. But unlike his human self, which we saw grow and change the more psychological burdens he developed, Ansem is rigid and unchanging. The power of his convictions is absolute. He believes that darkness is the true nature of existence and that as the only one wise enough to learn and comprehend this, he is a chosen avatar of darkness itself. Unlocking the Door to Darkness and absorbing the Heart of All Worlds to become a deity is nothing short of destiny; in his mind he is fulfilling the will of darkness and correcting all that is wrong with the universe. This peculiar form of narcissism, where he sees himself as superior to all other lifeforms but inferior to darkness yet the recognition of this inferiority only reinforcing how superior he is, drives Ansem just as much as his continued thirst for knowledge does. He doesn't simply seek the truth, he seeks his truth, a truth he unquestionably believes to be correct. When acquiring physical form through the possession of Riku, Ansem showcases his narcissism through a haughty tone of voice and body language such as crossing his arms while looking down at others as though they are but insects crawling at his feet.

In spite of this, Ansem is also a master manipulator. While without physical form, he showed no difficulty suppressing his arrogance in order to better cajole the likes of Maleficent and Riku into doing exactly what he wanted them to do. The callous lack of empathy he showcased as a human is greater than ever before, as he shows no hesitation or remorse in throwing away his pawns once they have served their purpose to him and his own advancement. The lives of people and even entire worlds mean nothing to him, as his conviction that they are all fated to return to darkness means that he feels morally justified in his actions. He doesn't view himself as a villain the way that Maleficent and her compatriots do. He thinks he's the hero.

Ansem perished when, having been critically injured by Sora, Donald and Goofy, he opened the Door to Darkness and attempted to absorb the Heart of All Worlds. Unfortunately for him, its essence was light rather than darkness...too much light for him, a Heartless, to be able to withstand. In his final moments, Ansem was struggling to grasp how he could have possibly been wrong. The arrogant words he had once spoken, "One who knows nothing can understand nothing", came back to haunt him...as in the end, they applied to him.

As a Nobody: Xehanort's soul, refusing to accept the loss of his heart, reanimated his body into the Nobody known as Xemnas. While possessing all memories of Xehanort's activities prior to making the leap into darkness to become a Heartless, the lack of any emotion when recalling these memories is what allowed Xemnas to recognize that he was not that person in his memories, but simply his discarded physical vessel. An empty shell, never meant to exist to begin with.

Xemnas has an acute self-awareness wholly lacking in Ansem. While Ansem blocked out the inferiority complex he had developed as a human that drove him to that point, Xemnas remembers it clearly and is able to look upon his human self as the sad, psychologically imbalanced weakling that he truly was. In spite of this, the soul still carries the heart's will within it, and as a Nobody the will to become an omnipotent deity ruling over all other lifeforms burns more fiercely than ever. Because then Xemnas won't just be free of the shadows that Ansem the Wise and the universe at large cast upon Xehanort, but of the shadows truly existing beings with hearts cast upon him.

Utterly lacking in emotion, Xemnas naturally is just as adept as his Heartless counterpart at callous manipulation of others, if not moreso. Everyone is a pawn to be used for his own advancement toward godhood. Despite his arrogance, Ansem was more cautious in his actions due to his general weakness prior to gaining physical form. While just as calculating, Xemnas is far more assured in his power and thus is capable of acting more directly and ruthlessly. Then there is the matter of their visions for the universe. While Ansem operated under the belief he was serving a higher cause by plunging all into eternal darkness, Xemnas is under no such delusions. He seeks to reshape and rule the universe solely for himself, intending on making it a desolate void like the Realm of Nothingness, where all other lifeforms feel as empty as Nobodies and live as but extensions of him, forever enslaved to his will. Once not truly "existing", Xemnas would now define existence for all others.

Xemnas' ruthlessness is matched only by his intellect. Never a man to have just one iron in the fire, Xemnas constructs his plans with multiple contingencies. This also allows him to adapt quickly and casually to the unforeseen actions of others even as he continues trying (and largely succeeding) to predict such actions based on the person's psychological makeup and take full advantage of them. Because of this, he is able to gather and lead a group such as Organization XIII, full of different and often clashing personalities and agendas, to where it's him and his agenda that comes out on top.

Diagnosis: In the field of psychology, the human mind is often broken into three different sections: the ego which carries one's sense of self, the superego which is the product of nurture that feeds into the ego and safeguards the id, and the id which is the product of nature and holds all the most base instincts devoid of rationality or conscience. Xehanort was able to discard his superego, already tenuous as it was constructed by the man he felt such inferiority while standing beside, and divided himself into a pure ego, Ansem, and a pure id, Xemnas. What this reveals about the man is that he can safely be classified as a sociopath. Regardless of what his secret memories held, Xehanort was ultimately someone who valued himself and his hunger for knowledge above all else, could form attachments to other people but not maintain them, shamelessly engaged in dishonesty and manipulation, ultimately fell victim to strong emotions of jealousy and rage, and whose psychological coping mechanism for inferiority was excessive narcissism to the point of stealing the identity of the one he so admired yet envied.

This patient is extremely dangerous. Avoid at all costs.

[arkham-dossiers]

The asylum is open.

Patient dossiers shall be published in my own time.

I do hope that the fruits of my research are appreciated.