: Re: Can I conceal an antihero's insanity - and should I? I have an idea for an anti-heroic sci-fi character whose character arc runs from spoilt rich girl, to a refugee in the rubble of human

@Welton431

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I will agree with both Anna Fitgerald and Viktor Katzy:

First, as Viktor says, I don't think saving the sociopathy for the end is a good idea, and
Second, as Anna says, if the narrator knows her thoughts, I don't think you can hide it anyway.

Where I differ is that the narrator doesn't have to have an opinion about what they are narrating, they don't have to summarize and call her out as a sociopath. They just describe the important facts and thoughts necessary for the reader to understand what is going on.

So one technique you can use here (and should use very early to establish it) to increase the suspense is surprise. Think of your MC as a predator animal, living very much in the moment. She is an opportunistic killer, her plans and thoughts do not normally include killing. She doesn't have to take any delight at all in killing. It is a high-risk tactic, she could be caught, people fight back, she could be injured or killed herself. Her plans could be exposed, she could be exposed.

High functioning sociopaths don't want to get caught and take pains to not get caught. They treat people as objects, pawns and pieces to be manipulated by various means, often with money. They do understand pleasures, sexual, sensual, drug induced and so on, those pleasures are often their own entertainment, and they deploy them as means of manipulation.

So killing is a last resort, or emergency resort, she would much rather use other means to get her way. Bribery, sex, blackmail, threats, drugs, framing people for crimes, engineering public embarrassment, humiliation and ridicule, faking evidence, arson and explosions, using prostitutes to seduce men under secret surveillance, using hit men or mobsters or gang members to do her dirty work and make it easier to appear innocent.

She is not above pulling the trigger herself, but evil people seldom gain power alone: They have a gang of like-minded loyalists that are brutal, and loyal only because of the money and power they are granted by the queen. It isn't love or sex that keeps them in line, it is avarice, and practicality: None of the henchman try to take the throne, because the first to try will be weakened and slaughtered by the rest; it is a pack of lions (that will attack and eat their own injured).

The advantage of making her kill as a last resort (but we must see this play out early to establish it) is the plans she is thinking about normally avoid killing, but when she makes a mistake and it becomes necessary, she is quick and ruthless. It's a knife in the neck to sever the vocal cords, then she has a big mess to clean up, and too bad because she was looking forward to her date later, and has to cancel it.

The advantage of her having henchman, however she recruits them, is she can give them vague orders that they carry out: "This would be easier if he resigned in scandal. Don't you agree, Charles?"

Sociopaths surround themselves with sociopaths, that hire more sociopaths. They accumulate them in their path through life, finding a way to form a partnership, but she needs to keep an edge over them. That will seldom be sex with the sociopathic henchmen: they also have no romantic feelings about it and are just as satisfied with a prostitute or pickup. So it should be some other kind of advantage the henchman can't buy.

That said, sex can be a very effective tool in manipulating non-sociopaths with useful positions of power into do her bidding.

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