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Inglourious Basterds

R

Riva

Guest
He's opportunistic and amoral, not a psychopath. :)

Excellent point.

But i should point out to you that Psychopaths are opportunistic and immoral.

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The issue here will be in proving my point to you and others is that most people do not know about psychopaths. Naturally thanks to movies, since movies are the only source of our education about Psychopaths we tend to believe that they are just crazy people who goes on a killing stream from time to time.

One of the most memorable psychopaths of Hollywood is the Joker from the Dark knight. Although he is a psychopath I wouldn't say that he represents the true nature of them.

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They don't all always go BOOOOOOOOOOM!

Damn Interesting • The Unburdened Mind
 

ZPowers

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Landa is probably a sociopath, but I'm not as certain he's a psychopath.

Sociopaths lack morality or a capacity for guilt or remorse and are able to do terrible things, such as violent murder. Psychopaths fit this description as well, but they have a necessity to express violent emotion and rage, often through murder, and can have a delusional perception of the world (though this isn't always true). A sociopath would probably never needlessly murder or betray someone if they couldn't gain personally from it, or if they weren't obliged to do so (perhaps if they were bored and the punishment would be light or non-existent), though in such situations they wouldn't hesitate. A psychopath, like most serial killers, uses violent acts as outlets of emotion and seems to enjoy violence for violence's sake.

What makes me hesitate is Landa's incredibly emotional murder of von Hammersmark, which he had no compelling reason to do. It may be, however, that she did violate some kind of code (not based on morality) that he did adhere to. Sociopaths and psychopaths can adhere to kinds of codes; Ted Bundy was a volunteer on some Republican campaigns and John Wayne Gacy was a staunch Democrat, not to mention history's many amoral members of various religious communities. If this is the case, he may have done it as a form of revenge on behalf of, a final act of loyalty to, or mental release from the party he formerly associated with, and simply because he knew there would be no retribution. And besides, Landa didn't actually personally kill anyone else in the film, though I think some psychopaths can enjoy murder by proxy (I'm thinking Manson).

This seems hypocritical considering his immediate betrayal, but I think Landa did have a sense of loyalty to the Nazis. I say this because at the opening of the movie he noted his pride in his "Jew Hunter" nickname and the nobility of the German people to the French citizen, whom he had no reason to lie to one way or another. At the end of the movie, he tells Aldo that he dislikes the same nickname, but appearing disconnected from the ideology of the Nazis better serves his purpose and his appearance of reliability in this case.
 

Aleksei

Yeah, I can fly.
Joined
Mar 10, 2010
Messages
3,626
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ENTJ
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Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
Aldo- ESTP
Donowitz- ISTP
Bridget- ENFJ
Shoshanna- INFJ
Hans Landa- ENTJ (F? What?)
Zoller- ESTP
 

onemoretime

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Messages
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3h50
Landa is probably a sociopath, but I'm not as certain he's a psychopath.

Sociopaths lack morality or a capacity for guilt or remorse and are able to do terrible things, such as violent murder. Psychopaths fit this description as well, but they have a necessity to express violent emotion and rage, often through murder, and can have a delusional perception of the world (though this isn't always true). A sociopath would probably never needlessly murder or betray someone if they couldn't gain personally from it, or if they weren't obliged to do so (perhaps if they were bored and the punishment would be light or non-existent), though in such situations they wouldn't hesitate. A psychopath, like most serial killers, uses violent acts as outlets of emotion and seems to enjoy violence for violence's sake.

What makes me hesitate is Landa's incredibly emotional murder of von Hammersmark, which he had no compelling reason to do. It may be, however, that she did violate some kind of code (not based on morality) that he did adhere to. Sociopaths and psychopaths can adhere to kinds of codes; Ted Bundy was a volunteer on some Republican campaigns and John Wayne Gacy was a staunch Democrat, not to mention history's many amoral members of various religious communities. If this is the case, he may have done it as a form of revenge on behalf of, a final act of loyalty to, or mental release from the party he formerly associated with, and simply because he knew there would be no retribution. And besides, Landa didn't actually personally kill anyone else in the film, though I think some psychopaths can enjoy murder by proxy (I'm thinking Manson).

This seems hypocritical considering his immediate betrayal, but I think Landa did have a sense of loyalty to the Nazis. I say this because at the opening of the movie he noted his pride in his "Jew Hunter" nickname and the nobility of the German people to the French citizen, whom he had no reason to lie to one way or another. At the end of the movie, he tells Aldo that he dislikes the same nickname, but appearing disconnected from the ideology of the Nazis better serves his purpose and his appearance of reliability in this case.

Landa's a malignant narcissist. The emotion in the murder comes from the narcissistic injury of von Hammersmark thinking she was more clever than Landa was, and being able to slip one past him. In the same note, he doesn't have any real loyalty to the NSDAP, but he does like the status of being the most notorious SS member and being part of the "master race". He's smart enough to know Germany's going to lose the war, but he'll take what he can get until he finds his out. The Basterds offered him that out.
 

Little Linguist

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BAH! I hated this film. HA-TED. The only good part about it was Landa. Everything else sucked.
 

Aleksei

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I thought it was great.
 

Benny

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Oct 20, 2009
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Hans Landa- I think he is the ESTP. He is opportunistic and immoral. He likes to talk. He has no loyalty what so ever to anybody. Everything he does is for himself. He is charming and kind of acts like a conman.

Aldo- This guy is ESTJ or maybe ENTJ but probably S. He behaves like a drill instructor. Unlike Hans Aldo is very loyal and has a specific objective in mind at all times. He is a natural leader and his men trust him.

Shosanna- This chick is an ISTP. She's soft spoken, mysterious, and doesn't let any body take advantage of her or control her. Also, her idea of justice is murdering a large group of Nazis by burning down the building they're in.

The other characters are pretty minor and so any attempt at typing them is probably no more than a guess.

As for the whole psychopath topic. Hans is most definitely a psychopath/sociopath/ malignant narcissist. Whatever you want to call him. I wouldn't be surprised if Shosanna was diagnosed as a psychopath if psychologists got a hold of her either.
 
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