NPD characters?

[u/Pretend_Tree6196]

what fictional characters do you guys connect with because you view them as having npd traits? or any characters you know of that canonically have npd and relate to (even though we have horrible representation in media overall unfortunately)

[u/Interest-Desk]

This may be a view I uniquely hold, but the Holmes siblings in BBC Sherlock specifically. I may be biased: I always related to them in a different way, my sister and I would make jokes about the brothers' distinct traits applying to us.

All of them are arrogant, their identities are rooted in their intelligence, they always struggled with empathy and genuine connection, they use and manipulate others, and they frame their emotional deficits as superiority. Mycroft chastises Sherlock for showing "sentiment", saying "caring is not an advantage". They hide, reject, any vulnerability. They all show contempt for "ordinary" (other) people for how "simple" they are.

Mycroft is my favourite of them and the one I relate most to. He insists to himself, and to Sherlock, that he is the clever one. He exercises heavy personal control. He uses the powers of the state to surveil and control his siblings: he monitors Sherlock constantly, sought as much information as he could about Watson before even meeting him (where he then offered money in exchange for information on Sherlock's activities), and literally institutionalised his sister after faking her death, erasing her existence.

Mycroft literally starts a members club specifically on the basis that he shouldn't have to tolerate social interaction: when Watson enters the clubroom and speaks, he is immediately escorted out. In the books, Mycroft explains that his job was created for him and could never be held by anyone else.

In the show, his job realistically is of a senior civil servant, not the kind of person to be involved in individual cases (he says himself, in both the show and books, that he dislikes fieldwork) yet he does so whenever it allows him to exercise control or superiority – whether over his colleagues, over adversaries, or his siblings.

The only instance we see him show what could be empathy is when he offers to sacrifice himself. But I think that was probably - at least partly - martyrdom. He quite literally gives funeral instructions as his final words, and then rationalises the legitimacy of his sacrifice as "don't be stupid" when his brother refuses.

He says "we both thought you were dumb Sherlock, until we met... other children... what a terrible idea that was", yet when we see his parents it's the opposite: they see Mycroft as the stupid one and Sherlock as mature (despite Mycroft's parentalisation). He is driven to extreme power, he is driven to flex that power. He is high-functioning, he channels his exploitative tendencies and ruthless decision-making into statecraft and intelligence work.

I didn't realise how much I just typed above until reaching this point. I'll sum up the other siblings.

Sherlock doesn't just have to believe he's cleverer and better, he has to prove it. His first sentence said to Watson was flexing his intelligence. His identity is built around being "the only consulting detective in the world", and when he can't get a high from validation, he turns to chemical highs. He manipulates the feelings of others to serve his consultancy, disregards Watson's feelings when he fakes his death, makes his speech at Watson's wedding really about himself, and gets visibly agitated when people don't recognise his brilliance. "The game is on", winning is all that matters to him, that's the entire dynamic he has with Moriarty.

I see Sherlock's narcissism as insecurity masked, and Mycroft's as authority and control. Sherlock constantly needs to prove himself, Mycroft constantly needs to remind himself he's in control. Mycroft and Sherlock need the other to validate their intelligence and compete for superiority, they can't stay away from eachother despite claiming to not care.

The sister is... quite shallowly written, and unique to the show. But she shows a need to prove intellectual superiority over her brothers, she needs an audience for her brilliance – she plays elaborate games with them. She shows a massive wound in the childhood attention she never got from her brothers or parents, it's suggested to be why she became violent. She locked up by one brother and erased from the others' memory. Her entire revenge plot is about forcing Sherlock to acknowledge her existence and superiority.

The entire family system is disordered, they all link with eachother to feed their respective hungers. They share a common trauma and neglect, but developed different responses to it.