Star Wars As a Window Into the Psychopathic Mind

J. Wesley Judd discusses the use of Star Wars to study psychological disorders in an article for Pacific Standard. Lando Calrissian as a gambling addict? Well, that's certainly one possibility. Darth Vader as a sufferer from PTSD, or someone with borderline personality disorder? There I have to disagree. The guy just wants to rule the world--or the universe. Or else he's a Gray Eminence. ;) Nothing difficult to understand there--move along, move along--most of us run into his type all the time. IMHO, he doesn't have a personality disorder. He's ambitious and he knows what people with personality disorders want to hear. Now, the Emperor--there's someone with a personality disorder. More about the use of Star Wars for such purposes in a paper by Ryan C. W. Hall and Susan Hatters Friedman, Psychopathology in a Galaxy Far, Far Away: the use of Star Wars' Dark Side in Teaching, 10 Academic Psychiatry 1 (May 2015) (subscription may be required).