Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics

"And then let's talk about Madeline," Shiller began again. "I think you should have noticed that Madeline isn't normal either. In fact, I highly suspect that this seemingly pitiful woman is the real culprit behind the wholesale slaughter of her family."

Batman finally snapped back to reality because Shiller had started speculating, so he asked, "Why would you suspect that?"

"Because of that research notebook."

The moment had come, Batman thought. Indeed, every Shiller could deduce the truth directly from the tiniest, fragmented clues.

Hearing Shiller mention the research notebook, Batman believed that he must have used the Psychoanalysis Method to come to the conclusion that Madeline was the perpetrator of the tragedy.

Because there was actually nothing wrong with that notebook; it was insufficient as evidence to judge a person's character. But Shiller said it anyway, which meant he might have empathized with something.

What Shiller said was unexpected: "Based on my experience, when Madeline talked about her family's ordeal, her demeanor was too detached. She might be a narcissistic psychopath."

"Experience? What kind of experience?"

"Some... experiences dealing with criminals," Shiller paused before continuing, "I've seen many similar felons, and they all give me this impression."

"So it's also a kind of feeling?"

Shiller shook his head and said, "I'm just generalizing. If you really want the details, I can tell you that Madeline's phrasing has a conspicuously God's-eye view, macroscopic and objective."

Shiller leaned back in his chair, recalling as he spoke: "Everyone lives in the first person, so when they describe what they've seen, it's always subjective."

"For example, when murderers confess their crimes, they will conceal certain aspects. Some concealments are intentional, to lessen their culpability, but others are unintentional."

"Within these unintentional concealments, some are because their brains have beautified their actions, and others are due to the discrepancy in information brought about by their subjective perspective."

"They often say 'I saw' or 'I think,' which are obviously subjective ways of narration. For instance, 'I saw him collapsed in the corner with blood all over his face, and I wondered if he might be dead.'"

"These are some of the confessions I often hear, and I think you must also hear them often because many murderers, despite their brutality, are sane—not madmen or psychopaths. This method of narration is what normal people would have."

"But that's not the case with Madeline. Her perspective on such an incident is 'Someone collapsed in a corner somewhere. They were murdered.' That's not at all a subjective narration; it's more like an objective judgment."

"If what she was talking about was unrelated to her, perhaps it could be explained. But she described the death of her relatives. Once you insert the identity of the relatives into the narrative, you will realize how chillingly cold that sentence is."

"After all, who would describe the death of their own relatives by directly saying, 'Mother lay in the corner of the kitchen, she was murdered,' 'Sister lay across the dining table with a triangular hole in her chest,' or 'Father lay face down on the stairs with two trails of blood above his arm'?"

"Perhaps the later Madeline was excellent, and she learned how to summarize an event with the most succinct wording. However, when she went through all this, she was not very old. Her subjective consciousness should have been more prone to emotional influence, so the images in her memory shouldn't be as clear and objective as an autopsy report. Even if she recounted images of monsters, it would seem more normal to me."

"This proves that when Madeline went through all of that, she didn't crumble emotionally because of fear; she didn't even feel fear. She blandly accepted everything, remembered everything, and could still recount it clearly years later."

"This is actually a very terrifying thing. If the whole event wasn't a catastrophe for her, what are the chances she became a survivor just by luck?"

"In conclusion, I believe Madeline has mental disorders, and there's a good chance she's a born psychopath. Of course, there's no solid evidence that the tragedy was crafted by her, but she is definitely not the completely innocent victim as she describes herself."

And Batman, having listened to all this, realized that this Shiller possessed an exceptionally keen insight. Putting aside the analytical methods, he was also a quite outstanding detective.

However, Batman couldn't just put aside the analytical methods because he had already grasped the gist of these conclusions after reading Madeline's diary. What he wanted was the deeper meaning behind it all.

"Psychopathy?" Batman probed, considering this was related to professional psychological knowledge; it might lead to Shiller's analysis of Madeline's personality.

But unexpectedly, Shiller began analyzing Joker.

Starting with the difference between Madeline and Joker, he profoundly demonstrated to Batman the difference between a psychopath and someone with antisocial personality disorder.

Many people call Joker a maniac, but to be specific, he is someone with antisocial personality disorder—broadly considered mentally ill, but not the madman commonly perceived by the public.

The reason, as mentioned before, is that Joker is rational. All of his actions are interest-driven. It's just that the interests he pursues are inherently evil, which makes him appear insane.

The biggest difference between him and a psychopath is that psychopaths are not driven by interest but by desire.

Let's put it this way: Throughout history, many famous figures in upper-class society have had antisocial personality disorders— even in modern times, quite a few have admitted to this.

And the reason for this issue is that antisocial personality disorder is highly interest-driven, even to an extreme degree. It means they are unscrupulous in achieving their goals, disregarding all social norms and morals, and even capable of overriding instincts and obliterating humanity.

It is harsh, but one must admit that such a dispassionate character is more likely to achieve success in the sociological sense.

Upper-class people are not more likely to develop antisocial personality disorder, but people with antisocial personality disorder are more likely to become upper-class.

Yet psychopaths are more often seen in the lower strata.

Don't think that psychopaths are those who go crazy and start stabbing people on the street; those severe cases are rare. However, minor psychopaths are widely present around us.

One of their typical characteristics is self-sabotage.

This is the opposite of the highly interest-driven nature of antisocial personality disorder. Psychopaths do not pursue their interests and may even give them up to satisfy their desires.

For example, if a game is almost won and a teammate starts throwing, or a group project is nearly done, and someone messes it up, or a project is going smoothly until someone trips it up, or a child finds a good job and they make sure to ruin it.

More importantly, these spoilers are actually members of the group themselves, in other words, the so-called moles.

Many people think such individuals are irrational because the positive development of events would also be to their benefit.

If the game is won, they can get their rating up; if the group project is praised by a teacher, they ride the coattails of glory. Yet they insist on causing trouble, acting as if they're out of their minds, unable to understand their logic.

But in reality, this is an expression of psychopathy.

When the game is won, and they throw, it's not because they no longer want the points, but because they simply feel that their teammates shouldn't feel good—in fact, that they shouldn't feel better than them.

When the group project is almost finished, and they start disrupting it, it's not because they aren't afraid of the teacher's criticism, but rather than facing the teacher's criticism together, they don't want the others to gain more favor in the teacher's eyes than themselves.

The same goes for other matters, so this kind of psychopathy has a prefix: narcissism.

To be more specific, they can sacrifice any interest to satisfy their perverse desires of not letting anyone surpass them in any way.

As you can imagine, such people can't possibly do well in life.

Throwing a few kills in a game or messing up a group project isn't considered a major failure. Still, the key issue is that the symptoms of psychopathy cannot be controlled at will—when making critical life decisions, they also succumb to their perverse desires, thus forgoing readily available benefits.

Losing ground today, a pool tomorrow, sooner or later, they will have given away their entire lives.

If you observe these individuals closely, you'll find that their real-life situations are mostly failures.

Some of them might be able to pretend for a while, but they will inevitably make a few critical, wrong decisions like crazy, revealing their ugly true faces to everyone and wrecking their own lives in the process.

Many may wonder why some people, despite being capable and not stupid, lose their wits at crucial moments in life and continue on a downward spiral until they hit rock bottom, unable to turn things around no matter how hard they struggle.

Most would think it's just bad luck, but in reality, they may be psychopaths who surrender to their perverse desires, disregarding their own interests.

Shiller believes that Madeline's life trajectory fits this pattern precisely—it's a series of falls and falls until her death, where she never achieved the goals she set for herself.

If this character were made up by someone else, there might be the possibility of coincidence. But the creator of this character is Greed, a psychologist, all too familiar with similar cases.

Another piece of evidence that convinces Shiller of Madeline's mental problems is that Greed is a very greedy person; he would not choose only one when he could have both fame and fortune.

He set himself to be a second-generation rich man, which is predictable, but turning himself into an unscrupulous capitalist who oppresses the lower class is actually against his logic.

In a setting where backstory can be freely chosen, he could have made himself a wealthy righteous person. Money isn't inherently evil, so why choose only one aspect?

Therefore, Shiller firmly believes that the backstory Greed has created for himself must have a twist, and the hardest part to cleanse would be the denial of compensation to Madeline's family.

If the case itself didn't meet the compensation criteria and was a fraudulent insurance plot designed by someone, what the Siltex Medical Insurance Company did would be justified, and Greed would naturally be cleared.

The background written in Madeline's research notebook is likely a trick planted by Greed, which in time could become powerful evidence that Madeline is actually the villain.

Shiller is convinced that if the notebook were sent to a professional psychiatric assessment institution for evaluation, it would certainly conclude that Madeline is mentally unstable, which is exactly what Greed intended.

It can only be said that it was fortunate that in this story, the role of the psychiatrist was played by Bruce, whose remarkable academic skills failed to detect the inconsistency in the notebook at first.

Since others, not in matching professions, discovered it and could not speak out, Greed managed to maintain this villainous image.

At this moment, Shiller suddenly realizes, if Greed actually wanted to play a good character, just reversing the denial of the claim wouldn't be enough. He must also whitewash human experimentation and provide a reasonable explanation for inviting everyone to the lab; otherwise, would he not still be a kidnapper?

If we follow this line of reasoning, did Batman, knowing all of this, allow others to be brought to the lab because he guessed that Greed wasn't really prepared to do them any harm?

Shiller couldn't help but take another look at Batman, thinking to himself that he truly is deserving of the name Batman.