BASIC CONCEPTS

— When novelists claim they do not invent it, but hear voices and find stories in their head, they are neither joking nor crazy.

— When characters, narrators, or muses have minds of their own and occasionally take over, they are alternate personalities.

— Alternate personalities and memory gaps, but no significant distress or dysfunction, is a normal version of multiple personality.

— normal Multiple Personality Trait (MPT) (core of Multiple Identity Literary Theory), not clinical Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)

— The normal version of multiple personality is an asset in fiction writing when some alternate personalities are storytellers.

— Multiple personality originates when imaginative children with normal brains have unassuaged trauma as victim or witness.

— Psychiatrists, whose standard mental status exam fails to ask about memory gaps, think they never see multiple personality.

— They need the clue of memory gaps, because alternate personalities don’t acknowledge their presence until their cover is blown.

— In novels, most multiple personality, per se, is unnoticed, unintentional, and reflects the author’s view of ordinary psychology.

— Multiple personality means one person who has more than one identity and memory bank, not psychosis or possession.

— Euphemisms for alternate personalities include parts, pseudonyms, alter egos, doubles, double consciousness, voice or voices.

— Multiple personality trait: 90% of fiction writers; possibly 30% of public.

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Sunday, March 7, 2021

“The Foundation Trilogy” (post 1) by Isaac Asimov (post 3): Villain with special powers, said to be “mutant,” has symptoms of multiple personality


Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy won the Hugo Award for best all-time series in science fiction (1). But the 600-page work does not say much about the psychology of its characters until page 400, when the backstory and psychological attributes are given for The Mule, a man who has just conquered the galaxy.


The Mule says, “It was not possible for me to lead a normal childhood. My mother died before she saw me. I do not know my father. I grew up haphazard, wounded and tortured in mind, full of self-pity and hatred of others. I was known then as a queer child. All avoided me; most out of dislike; some out of fear.” Enough happened in his childhood to indicate “that I was a mutant,” but he, himself, never realized it “until I was in my twenties” (2, p. 400).


What he means by being “a mutant” is that he has extraordinary mental powers. He is telepathic to some extent, but his greatest power is to magically manipulate the feelings of other people so that they are either fearful of him or dedicated followers. Moreover, “anyone who did catch me in the act would leave me with a slice gapped out of his memory” (2, pp. 403-404).


Comment

The villain is nameless, which is rare in real life, but common among alternate personalities. He had a traumatic childhood, as have most people with multiple personality, but which would not be necessary in order to have a genetic mutation. His being partially telepathic means having a certain amount of co-consciousness with other personalities. And he can do things to make other personalities fear or like him. Moreover, he can leave other personalities with memory gaps, a cardinal symptom of multiple personality.


1. Wikipedia. “Isaac Asimov.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov

2. Isaac Asimov. The Foundation Trilogy: Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation [1942-1953]. Introduction by Michael Dirda. New York, Everyman’s Library, 2010. 

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