Merlin is a forced sociopath

I know that title isnt going to be popular but for a second stop and think about it. A sociopath is someone who has minimal emotional connections to those around them and constantly uses people for their own ends. This is what Merlin has to do to save humanity. He has to keep his emotional connections minimized because at anytime, he might be forced to choose between his friends and the whole of the race. Where Merlin differs is that this isnt his natural way of thinking/acting. Hence why i say he is forced in to the role of a sociopath. We all know clythan was a true sociopath but stop and consider how parrallel their actions run. Both are willing to force an entire world to war based solely off theur belief that they are right. Both push the conflict in ways ot never would have gone on its own. Both use the people around them to pursue this agenda. The one thing that saves Merlin from being just as bad as clythan is that he regrets what he is compelled to do. Is Merlin a sociopath himself, no i dont think so. But i fully believe he was pushed in to the role of having to become one.

O.o

Merlin does not have "minimal emotional connections" to those around him. He very clearly cares about everyone who knows who he truly is. Even those outside of the Inner Circle are capable of receiving empathy from him, such as Earl Thirsk and Stefyny. Also, while Merlin has no issue with killing people who "need killing", he does routinely beat himself up over the deaths of people whose only crime is being trapped in someone else's lies, such as the semaphore crews during the Canal Raid and the crew of the galleon transporting Thirsk's family. So he is definitely not a sociopath by any stretch.

Potato wrote:O.o

Merlin does not have "minimal emotional connections" to those around him. He very clearly cares about everyone who knows who he truly is. Even those outside of the Inner Circle are capable of receiving empathy from him, such as Earl Thirsk and Stefyny. Also, while Merlin has no issue with killing people who "need killing", he does routinely beat himself up over the deaths of people whose only crime is being trapped in someone else's lies, such as the semaphore crews during the Canal Raid and the crew of the galleon transporting Thirsk's family. So he is definitely not a sociopath by any stretch.

Well... IMHO, of course, but those scenes of "routinely beating himself up" just lack credibility. With all respect to RFC, but (IMHO!) such scenes never were strong part of his writing. For me, they always looks like "sorry, guys, its time for sheduled five-minutes self-loathing. Don't forget to cheer me up afterward, I need to be a good mood next time when I kill another couple of NPC's".

I have to say that I really don't see this.

Merlin (and Nimue) don't show a lack of remorse or consistent irresponsibility in work or family environments. Very much the opposite in fact, with Cayleb forcing him to take downtime, the various members of the Inner Circle telling him not to take more responsibility than is justly his. Repeatedly, in fact. Merlin's lies and deceptions and physical aggressiveness are by necessity rather than pervasive. Simply put, they don't manifest where they aren't needed. And he has shown anything but a reckless disregard for his personal safety or that of others. When safety has been disregarded (the bit with the krakens in OAR comes to mind, and potentially endangered his whole mission), there has always been at least a moral, if not always rational, basis for it. He isn't impulsive or erratic, and he has held down a steady task for what, 9 safehold years now? And it isn't one that is going to 'end' when the CoGA gets shuffled off.

Now, Clyntahn I would argue has more of the hallmarks of a psychopath than a sociopath. He appears outwardly charming and trustworthy while being stone-cold manipulative. That was how he got the Grand Inquisitor's seat in the first place, and Duchairn eventually realizes (I think it was in MTaT) that Clyntahn had been manipulating the Go4 and CoGA into a jihad from the very beginning. Everything we've seen out of Clyntahn has been to minimize risk to himself, and he's shown no real emotional attachments (cycles women through his bed, and even Rayno is more about pragmatic usefulness to Clyntahn than emotional attachment). The one real problem with that is that he does show some...I'm not sure 'remorse' is the right word just after Merlin has done his 'meet the real Langhorne' bit just before he's hanged. Of course, that could be a manipulative attempt to save his life so...

Kael Posavatz wrote:I have to say that I really don't see this.

Merlin (and Nimue) don't show a lack of remorse or consistent irresponsibility in work or family environments. Very much the opposite in fact, with Cayleb forcing him to take downtime, the various members of the Inner Circle telling him not to take more responsibility than is justly his. Repeatedly, in fact. Merlin's lies and deceptions and physical aggressiveness are by necessity rather than pervasive. Simply put, they don't manifest where they aren't needed. And he has shown anything but a reckless disregard for his personal safety or that of others. When safety has been disregarded (the bit with the krakens in OAR comes to mind, and potentially endangered his whole mission), there has always been at least a moral, if not always rational, basis for it. He isn't impulsive or erratic, and he has held down a steady task for what, 9 safehold years now? And it isn't one that is going to 'end' when the CoGA gets shuffled off.

Now, Clyntahn I would argue has more of the hallmarks of a psychopath than a sociopath. He appears outwardly charming and trustworthy while being stone-cold manipulative. That was how he got the Grand Inquisitor's seat in the first place, and Duchairn eventually realizes (I think it was in MTaT) that Clyntahn had been manipulating the Go4 and CoGA into a jihad from the very beginning. Everything we've seen out of Clyntahn has been to minimize risk to himself, and he's shown no real emotional attachments (cycles women through his bed, and even Rayno is more about pragmatic usefulness to Clyntahn than emotional attachment). The one real problem with that is that he does show some...I'm not sure 'remorse' is the right word just after Merlin has done his 'meet the real Langhorne' bit just before he's hanged. Of course, that could be a manipulative attempt to save his life so...

Clyntahn - charmong and manipulative? Where? He never shown any of this two qualites.

I remembered something from Asimov's "The Robots of Dawn", where the inventor of the humaniform robot (robots that resemble humans outwardly and who mimic human behavior better than other regular robots) stated that the robot's positronic brain cannot be truly humaniform without a body that is equally human looking. Brain and body are linked and if a humaniform brain was placed in an ordinary robotic body, it would inevitably become robotic rather than human in its behavior. And even with the human appearance, R. Daneel Olivaw is still robotic is many aspects of his behavior, especially his inability to get bored or a fundamental lack of curiosity. The same would apply to Merlin, as he has a decidedly human brain and potentially a soul, but is still ultimately a machine. Just being potentially immortal is likely to change his attitude towards time, right along with his processing speed, which allows him to do or think faster (and accomplish more in thinking in a second than most humans would). And as Merlin reflects, his invulnerability to attack by the humans around him makes his attacking of them an obscene video game or VR simulation in which he cannot get killed.

Also, I have a feeling his disabled high speed interface would actually humanize him more relative to Nimue, as it forces him to slow down to human speed on that at least. Our physical limitations as humans dictate our behavior and attitudes, especially where power is concerned. If something is beyond your power, you cannot move in a certain direction, both literally and figuratively. Just as Clyntahn could not overrule Duchairn and Magwair (and Traynair at first) because he needed them, Merlin's power is ultimately limited given that he needs people to act en masse in a certain way but cannot accomplish this if they reject him as a demon. Yet being limited in some ways, especially in relation to Nimue's capabilities, make him less machine-like at least if not more human. If he could simply shut down his emotions, he would be machine-like. He can't do that but I suspect that he can become more apathetic to humans as time goes by, and as he sees his friends and family (or his equivalent thereof) die from old age or as experience and PTSD turn him harder. So in this respect, Merlin and Clyntahn are mirror images. Merlin is the personality of a fundamentally decent human trapped inside a machine who could become a sociopath as a result if he isn't careful. Clyntahn was a hardened and corrupted zealot in a human's body who was already a sociopath. Both use other people to complete their respective missions in life yet ultimately Merlin doesn't relish and isn't indifferent to the human suffering he causes as a result whereas Clyntahn actually seemed to enjoy it.

I think it may be fairer to say that he makes decisions that could be seen as sociopathic. Even then, it's a stretch.

He has a mission. He has a goal. He has to make decisions to further progress to that goal. That sometimes (oftentimes?) requires making decisions that will result in the deaths of people.

Welcome to military command.

He values his people. He truly cares, but in the end, he has to make decisions that may cost them their lives. The fact that he has to decompress from the results of his actions is in fact a sign that he's processing normally.

I hesitate to say mentally healthy, because a) he's a machine, and I'm not sure we have a good grasp on what a healthy baseline would BE for a PICA, though it APPEARS to approach homo-sapiens normal and b) it connotes that there is nothing wrong. There is plenty wrong - people are dying, he has wins and losses and stress, and he's dealing with it.

As a being that can speed up his thought processes, 5 minutes loathing is probably an eternal hell. RFC could write whole novels just on that, but we'd all be incredibly depressed.

Ender would be closer to a "forced sociopath". He didn't KNOW the "assets" were real people, and burned through them like the objects he perceived them to be. When he discovered that fact....boom.

Dilandu wrote:

Potato wrote:O.o

Merlin does not have "minimal emotional connections" to those around him. He very clearly cares about everyone who knows who he truly is. Even those outside of the Inner Circle are capable of receiving empathy from him, such as Earl Thirsk and Stefyny. Also, while Merlin has no issue with killing people who "need killing", he does routinely beat himself up over the deaths of people whose only crime is being trapped in someone else's lies, such as the semaphore crews during the Canal Raid and the crew of the galleon transporting Thirsk's family. So he is definitely not a sociopath by any stretch.

Well... IMHO, of course, but those scenes of "routinely beating himself up" just lack credibility. With all respect to RFC, but (IMHO!) such scenes never were strong part of his writing. For me, they always looks like "sorry, guys, its time for sheduled five-minutes self-loathing. Don't forget to cheer me up afterward, I need to be a good mood next time when I kill another couple of NPC's".

I wouldn't necessarily say they 'lack credibility', but I'd agree they're not the strong part of the MWW's writing, like social banter.

Having to directly, physically kill people who you know aren't really any more 'evil' than the people on your own side (talking Semphore crews, not Inquisitors) would be fairly PTSD inducing, if not even more psychologically damaging. The justification of necessity is irrelevant to the immediate emotional damage.

You know, I just absolutely love it when people summarize another's conduct over decades with wonderful psychological phrases such as "minimal emotional connections" and similar conclusory statements, and then attempt to use those "conclusions" to justify pejorative and demeaning labels such as "sociopath."

It just does my heart good somehow to realize that someone else in the world has drunk some sort of social kool-aid and is now trying to get us to swallow it too.

Sorry, I get tired of hearing the drivel, especially when I'm looking at a forum discussing science fiction. And if this seems a bit harsh, my apologies. I just get a bit fed up having this kind of stuff crop up wherever I turn my head.

I would also like to place this little pearl of Weber wisdom into the thread record, if it so please the court:

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... hold/340/1

Merlin's "Guilt" from the man himself.