Thread:Valkerone/@comment-24859393-20190930183931/@comment-14660436-20190930191539

I was about to, because what you're doing has been bugging me for a while. You definitely seem confused about how the Psychotic category works.

For one, some of the characters you apply these random "Psychopath to Psychotic" changes to are either nowhere near insane enough to qualify as psychotic or fit psychopathy to a T.

Case in point: https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Frank_(Once_Upon_a_Time_in_the_West)?diff=prev&oldid=3200345

Ask yourself this: In what part of Once Upon a Time in the West does it ever show that Frank is suffering from some kind of psychosis or anything like that? All of the qualifications for him qualifying as a psychopath are right there: Complete lack of empathy and/or remorse for any of his actions, manipulative, puts on superficial charm in his downtime, and most importantly, he does not suffer from any psychotic episodes (which boil down to hallucinations or consistently unpredictable and wild behavior). He's perfectly calm about most of his heinous acts throughout the whole movie. Same applies to the Cousins: they care about no one else but themselves and each crime they commit certainly doesn't involve them screaming their heads off, nor are they even severely deranged.

Also, axe crazy? Since when does axe craziness alone have anything to do with a villain being psychotic? Even psychopaths are capable of being violent when need be (someone like Ted Bundy had diagnosed elements of psychopathy). Where is it stated that we judge the criteria of a villain being psychotic if TV Tropes just so happens to mention that a character is "Ax-Crazy" (I mean, that's one of the reasons why I assume you did this with Frank, Thrax and Clarence)? Clarence is aggressive and sadistic, but he is not full-blown insane. He doesn't meet the criteria, full stop.

Villains like Frank Booth and J.S. Steinman are what psychotic villains are supposed to be. Booth is uncontrollably insane and constantly suffers from wild mood swings, while Steinman has devolved into shrieking animal who cannot tell the difference between what is real and what isn't (hallucinating about the Greek goddess Aphrodite). From a clinical standpoint, Steinman perfectly fits the criteria. Both characters "ax-crazy", sure, but that alone isn't what makes them psychotic: their over-the-top, blatant and clinically diagnosed insanity does.