About extreme narcism in character development. We all have some healthy and normal narcism in us. This is about situation near or inside the realm of narcissistic psychopathy. Steps of narcissistic "logic": Step 1. The logic of narcism is projective. A narc can't see or admit his/her own faults, dishonesty or weaknesses. But he/she can't bee totally blind to them. So he/she "unsees" them in him/herself by seeing them in other people. To a narc his/her target persons, target situations, target networks... become twisted pictures of his/her own faults, weaknesses and dishonesty. So... By definition of projective "thinking" a narc is unable to recognise a reality. He/she does not see it, but a blanket of projections, his/her own negative traits in other people. That is why his/her world swirls around him/her. He/she actually feels it that way. Emotionalism overrules perception here. Step 2. Via not recognising reality and other humans as they are, a narc goes to constant war with reality. And in that war all means are allowed to he/she and nothing is allowed to targets. Step 3. War is about going over borders and ruling conquered territory. And that is his/her agenda. Step 4. Unbalancing, misleading, intelligence, fortifying, alliances, breaking targets alliances, misguiding, stealt operations, breaking commitments, breaking all rules, dehumanising and marginalising target... All that is big part of Narc Wars. All those are forms of manipulation. Narcissistic manipulations is mostly intermediated. It goes through some third parties. If there is no third parties, then a narc manipulates his/her target to a fight against his/her own inner world. He/she kind of splits his/her target to two pieces that can't co-operate or even fight against themselves. ("Am I a bad person?", "Do I remember this right?", "Am I sane?"...) Step 5. A narc is seeking asymmetria he/she can use as a benefit. Narc Wars are symmetric. Step 6. Narcissistic agenda is not to win but to submit, control and exploit. Extreme form of that is to make target to die - often via targets own hand. The destruction off a target "proves" that a narc have been right all the time. That is the ultimate "win" for this type of narcissistic person. Step 7. Who'll be the target? Anyone who sees what is going on, becomes a target. If you disagree, you are on the way of being targeted. If you compete about the same resources - or she thinks that way, you'll be a target. If she envies you, you'll be a target. Some targets are low level, some are high level. The closer you are, the bigger is the possibility that you become a high level target. Backstory? There might be one - or not. That is not as relevant as many people think. It might be partial trigger, but only partial. Backstory does not produce this kind of narcism. It might colour it, but it does not make it. Pathology? You bet! Are there loops in projection? Seek info about projective identification. Isn't that like fighting against him/herself? Yes, but only in the territory of others and mainly others pay the prize of those wars. Can a narc heal? Yes. Healing of a narc is similar as a healing of an addict. He/she must notice that there is a massive problem and he/she is that problem. But most narcs are unwilling to do that. So they deny it. And that denial makes recovering impossible. (Like a drug addict who does not admit his/her own part in the problem. Then prediction is lousy.) So there is the point where a narc decides not to take responsibility about his/her situation but to keep outsourcing problems. That makes it mainly self selected problem. That is morally important thing. There is pathology, but there is also an individual choice to keep on going that way. Can a target recover? Yes. Hard, but possible. Be yourself. Don't let carrots effect you. Don't let sticks effect you. Do what is needed. Cut all ties to that toxic person. All. If it takes time, it takes. Just take care that all the flying monkeys go away, you don't have anything he/she can grab and build a wall between you and that person/group/ideology/network...
I'm not asking anything. I'm opening this topic to free speech, ideas, discussion... If you have something valuable to ad to this topic, then... Go ahead. If you need a question, you can invent your own as long as you don't blame me about asking it.
If you want to write a narcissistic character, watch the following documentaries in the following order: Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened on Netflix. Then follow it up with Hulu's Fyre Fraud. Both of these documentaries cover the same event of the ill fated Fyre Festival, but Netflix gives a good overview of the event, including a timeline and Hulu's examines more the social media influence of the event. After you've done that and you've watched every youtube video you can find about Billy McFadden and the Fyre Festival, you next need to move on to Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos and read everything you can find about that topic. Why? Well, because people have created this myth of the narcissist. The myth isn't necessarily wrong, but narcissists are people and do contain complexities. We kind of view them as individuals who set out to destroy people's lives, and that's just not always true. Billy McFadden or Elizabeth Holmes woke up one day and said, "Hey I think I'll start this thing up with the purpose of defrauding the universe." When reading about how they created their respected entities, it's very clear that they had every intent originally to deliver on their promises. Billy McFadden really did want to create a generation defining music festival and Elizabeth Holmes really did want to revolutionize the healthcare industry. So where did it all go wrong? Well, this is where the lack of empathy towards others stood in their way. They wrapped themselves up in this idea of success that neither one seemed to care how they did it. Neither one had any qualms about lying. They recklessly spent their investor's money. They both severely endangered other people's safety, and they probably didn't think anything of it until it started to catch up to them. I mean, Elizabeth Holme's machine not working right had potentially severe health risks. She didn't care until she was slapped with a lawsuit. Billy Holmes not even having basic infrastructure set up for his music festival could have endangered people's lives. He didn't care until it all came crashing down. So it didn't matter that they had no intention of harming anyone originally. That's what they ultimately did. They scammed people, because in their minds it wasn't wrong to do that. Once they set the world on fire, I guess they figured they'd be beyond responsibility, and that's not how it works.
An idea I had, for actually a fairly important character but not necessarily a POV character, was one who basically was astronomically vain but not necessarily evil or cruel just really self-centered. Narcissistic but, oddly, shown in a less negative light. One of the key aspects is that she views herself as irresistibly beautiful, and for the most part virtually everyone agrees, male and female, but because she's always been jaw-dropping beautiful she's developed a level of narcissistic self-interest that borders on delusions of grandeur. And again, it's not exactly portrayed as her being evil, just a cunt, to put it mildly. Forgive me for leaving some of the names out but the titles can get kind of circuitous without background info. But here's what I mean: in the main romance arc of one of the POV characters, who is her husband--and for some backstory, he's basically the ruler of this future private military corporation/knightly order of space fighter pilots, so she's basically a corporate heiress and noblewoman as a result, so he's like Space Rob Stark and she's like Space Cersei--but anyway her husband is torn between the fact he's interested in her friend, call her Space Sansa, as well as her. This friend is just as torn up about it, not just because she wants to boink her BFF's husband but because they've basically been like sisters since they were children, so this is just as emotionally trying for her as it is for Space Rob Stark. BUT the thing is that when Space Cersei finds out about this, she's not hugely upset. Like not crying her eyes out, I'll kill you forever pissed off more just kind of annoyed that no one let her in on why there was so much tension, because she thought it was her fault or something. See, from her point of view, she has no real problem with him screwing Space Sansa because...well because she's better looking so why would her husband leave her for this other chick. To hear her tell it, at best it's a fling and at worst he's just thirsty. Speaking of thirsty, she's not so much fine but unmoved by the fact her de facto sister is screwing her husband because she was aware of how bad she wanted to for a while now and they can FINALLY get that shit out of the way and focus more on her being beautiful. So it seems like some kind of love triangle is forming but she just goes "Oh is that all, lol" and goes on about her merry way. Or put another way, imagine someone so earth-shatteringly egotistical and narcissistic and almost mind-numbing in her vapidity that she genuinely doesn't see anything wrong with her best friend and her husband screwing because why would he ever leave HER for this other girl, I mean she's like WAY out of this other chick's league so obviously he must not love this other girl as much as her, right? Right? It's like if Paris Hilton survived into the 23rd millennium and married Han Solo. And, shockingly, in the end it surprisingly works out for everyone concerned...well until the whole "my husband is the leader of an empire of mercenaries so he needs to wage war to pay the bills, and thus our lives are constantly wracked with ceaseless war and bloodshed" thing becomes a bit of a burden. Mind you, Space Rob Stark isn't a saint either, he's less of a White Knight and more like a less crazy version of the Punisher, but the whole moral ambiguity of the situation is the point.
I don't think a narcissist is a particularly interesting character because they are necessarily lacking in depth or development. They are pretty much the definition of a character without agency because their behavior is so predictably one dimensional and their motivations are nothing more than mental illness. What does this mean? What's a "narcissist war"? Does that require two of them?
1. They are often not interesting, but they role in the story might be. 2. Some of them can fabricate a ton of surprises. 3. Typo + bad writing. Narcissistic persons build asymmetric situations. Their aggressions use to be asymmetric. Asymmetric war is a good analogy of that. If you insult narcs giant but fragile ego in any way, she'll go to war against you. And that will be asymmetric. It is possible that you don't even know that you are under hostilities until too late. And everything she does and thinks, she tries to put on your shoulders. She blames you about things she does, thinks, feels, fears...
I agree with all of it except that "a narcissist is not interesting" - a narcissist is actually quite interesting if you are interested in figuring people out, because, they are like an impossible puzzle. I can only speak to my experience - a narcissist is unbending (unable to see other others POV) - they are not good listeners at all. You either agree with them, or, if not, their mind just turns into a machine figuring out a way to discount your idea (that clashes with theirs) at any costs, even if it means twisting the discussion or derailing it entirely. I don't even think they do this consciously. They can also be very compassionate and giving however. Helping family out when needed, or even strangers. BUT, the closer you are to a narcissist, the worse it is for that person. You said that in your opening post and it's very true. Narcissists also, are complete cowards. I think they are extremely fearful.
