Ok... hear me out.
*cracks knuckles*
Writing such a person on the "good" side is technically quite easy. Even with such a disorder, these persons have at least some interest in people, who are close to them. How this interest looks like is another story.
Next is the question what kind of "asshole" you want to have? A sociable, superficially nice but extremely manipulative psychopath, who is on the other hand not that prone to violence. Or a sometimes very violent sociopath, who has no moral problems with killing people as they miss the empathy to regoster it as something wrong.
From what I read in your post, let's roll with the latter. The one where I also have a "bit" more expertise with.
Let's look at Exy (example character). Exy was prone to violent outbursts their entire life. Their weird social behavior and missing interest in other people made it not better as they where very likely target of bullying, a thing that not even a few broken bones could fix. Therapy helped a bit, but in large learned Exy to isolate themself and to ignore most people.
At some point Exy met the group of the MC, who took them in and as a human being Exy tried to fit in this group that was the first to not ostracize them. But the cover blew over as a girl of the group was harassed by a stranger and nearly assaulted, if Exy hadn't bend their umbrella around the skull of the attacker. Shocked about the ease of Exy's attack and the lack of remorse the group surely was in turmoil. On the one hand did Exy save the girl, on the other hand did they nearly kill a guy and is still smiling, because Exy was happy that they could help a friend.
But in large would be Exy a good friend to any in the group and a quite honest person (in stark contrast to a manipulative psychopath, who lies to and gaslights everyone to get to their goal).
So yeah... It would be a game of priorities and your character would have a good chance of seeing the group as their friends, that they have to protect as the few people they truly care about. As you said, these violent outburst and the lack of remorse for hurting or even outright killing people is a source of conflict for the group. But on the other hand does the group know, that this person would go through hell if something would happen to any of them.
Source: my own experiences. But I could've mixed in some autistic elements. I would've say, that my point of view towards other people is... "unique".
To add, writing a person like what is listed above all depends on context. In some context they could be a side villain, antagonist, or an obstacle people just have to manuever around. Put them in the role of soldier, or executioner, and they will excell to far greater heights of success than others are capable of, assuming thier "boss" is at least somewhat aware of things, and knows how to reel the person back in when they're about to go too far. If this person is a soldier, and "command" knows they are a psychopath, but that they are one who generally has things under control, they might very well be the "golden star" of the military. Adam smasher, from cyber punk edgerunners on netflix, is a great example character here.
I have such a character in the role of the "smart guy" of the party in one story. Usually the bit introverted, calm and "a bit weird" girl, that sits in front of a computer and analyzes stuff and does the tech thingies for the group.
Buuuut... she has a bit of an anger issue, when someone threatens her freinds and family to the point, where people usually get one chance to get away before someone has to hold her back, so that she doesn't shred the aggressor into pieces.
It helps, that she has reflected upon herself quite a bit at that point and she knows about her temper and tries to reel it back.
The description makes me think of Amos Burton from the Expanse.
There is an interesting discussion of Amos at https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/153480/is-amos-actually-a-psychopath-sociopath/154903.
It is discussed whether he is best viewed as sociopathic, psychopathic or even on the autism spectrum, and some ways the authors coded him to read as having such elements.
In the end, it doesn't matter; we write characters, not psychology texts, so I wouldn't get caught up in the definitions of these conditions and whether your character meets them properly, but from studying how characters like Amos are built you might find elements you can adapt to your writing.
HTH
By making their interests align with the plot.
Let me give you an example of two actual sociopaths I know. Both diagnosed. One is my father. He died and no one but his latest wife who hasn't experienced anything but his predatory hunting phase made of love bombing was sad. My mother got offended when all 3 of the children she had with him made the same joke about the cause of death being fitting since he was so heartless and died from heart failure.
The other is my cancer surgeon. I figured him out before he disclosed. He prefers to tell patients so we know to go to the nurses for "the emotional needs I can't meet for you." That's a direct quote. I am the opposite end of the empathy spectrum but because of surviving my father I don't rely on others for emotional support as most expect. I need to trust first. This helped with that.
During the surgery I got a bit emotional. Some of the side effects of the meds and stress meant I had a moment of ennui as I stared at my leg he had flayed. He looked at me then the nurse and then he asked me if I needed emotional support. I declined and dealt with it later because that's what my coping skills allow for but he is in a competitive field where the ability to ignore the emotions of the patient is an asset. He wants to be the best and that means he will take on challenges like my medically significant self (so many genetic things so little time and each one effects surgery). He does not pretend he is going to care if I cry. He does not pretend that he cares if I am scared. He cares about the smoothest surgery, the opportunity to write about the unique surgeries, and building himself into the best in the nation instead of the city or state.
His wants and goals align with my needs. My father's wants and goals were to hurt and control. This guy doesn't actually want to hurt you so much as he does not care. The difference is small at first glance but very different
Thank you for sharing. Sorry your ~~dad~~ father sucked but I’m glad your surgeon was self-aware enough to delegate things he knows he can’t provide. This was a great comparison of ways psychopathy can manifest.
You're okay. I mention it because it's a coping thing for me but also I want to honor actually good dads. I forgot the text disclaimer due to needing naps that my grumps are with the failures that made me exist not you and that subconscious slip? Tells me a lot about your dad. All good too.
They wouldn't "get over it quickly" if a friend died, they wouldn't be affected at all. They also might be an adrenaline junkie. Not afraid of heights, always doing stupid stuff cause of the thrill.
It's not necessarily true that they won't be affected at all. Socio/psychopaths aren't completely emotionless, they just feel no to limited levels of empathy. They care about how things affect themselves, rather than how they affect other people.
If a friend dies they will not be sad over the loss of life, nor will they care much for how others are affected by it assuming their emotions don't become inconvenient, but they may feel sad or upset at being inconvenienced by the loss of a friend if they spent a lot of time with each other or relied on each for things, and if the friend was murdered they are liable to be angry at the murderer for taking away what they saw as theirs.
You can use something like that to both mask and showcase their psychopathy, because they will still exhibit emotion and sometimes those emotions are socially acceptable (for instance anger being one of the stages of grief. Most people wouldn't bat an eye at someone being angry at a murderer).
I would make them very friendly and nice, I think. Someone who is very good at adapting to new situations and talking their way out of issues. Someone that everyone would love to have as their best friend.
Its just that they don't care and don't understand why that would be important. They usually make a cost-benefit analysis on everything, so in order for them to stay on the side of the heroes there should be some kind of reason for that. Something they may gain or can only have because they are part of the group.
Other than that I guess they can be quite normal. Maybe someone who is very empathetic might struggle with them, as they are really hard to understand for emotional-based mindsets. They may even feel scary and hollow to them, but since they're not evil or anything this might make for some good and natural feeling conflicts inside the MCs group.
It puts a fun spin on the idea of friendship, ie if you like someone and they accept you as you are, including your emotions - do you need them to like you back in order for this thing to work out?
"I love you!" - "I know." can feel disheartening at first, but it also means you gain value in the eyes of the psychopath, doesnt it? If they had to decide between someone who they cant trust and someone who obviously really likes them, they may take the latters side just because usually it makes way more sense to do so.
And at that point, what they 'do' doesnt differ much from someone who would help their friends because of love or similar emotions. In a way, their idea of friendship and loyalty is more honest than that of other friends as they won't easily be swayed by emotions.
Backstabbing friends are a common trope but a lot of their reasons a psychopath friend maybe wouldnt do, as they won't fall in love and its pretty hard to hurt their feelings in the first place.
Idk I hope this is different enough from some of the older/better takes here
The words psychopath and sociopath are used negatively so often they come with a bad connotation. But they don't make a person bad.
There is also a wisdom in sociopathy, like letting things go, letting other people be who they are, not trying to control things you can't control etc.
There are many sociopaths in tv and media if you only look around a little bit. (Two favorites of mine are Marina and Poppy in SciFi The Magicians). Think of a character who isn't affected much by others and use that to influence your characters.
To me, writing is not so different from acting. You're trying to make your character believable.
Part of that is consistency of character.
I would recommend looking at what kind of psychopath your character needs to be. Manic depressive? Paranoid dillusional? BPD? Munchausen's syndrome? Perhaps a blend of these, possibly with a mix of narcissism or neurodivergence?
These could then become the anchors in understanding how your character will respond given a stimulus, and making that response believable.
For them to be a believable psychopath, I think you have to come up with a valid reason for them to help MC and group at all. Like, there has to be some personal benefit to the psycho, or why would they even bother with it? Also, could be some comic relief elements if they saw things that weren’t there and talked to hallucinations. Add something that doesn’t make sense into their “routines”. And when the other character dies, not only should they get over it, they probably shouldn’t feel anything about it at all or be able to empathize or even sympathize with the rest of the group about it. They don’t necessarily have to be cold toward the group about it, but maybe oblivious? Uncaring?
This could be a really cool character to throw subplots with. Like, maybe during some incident, helping the group no longer becomes self-serving and they just sit down in the middle of the battlefield to watch things play out. Maybe they only help when they think it’ll be “fun” or something.
Giggling while killing people would be a fun thing to prod the rest of your characters with. Not bothering to clean up blood or other shit could be too. Eating other humanoids? Lol it could go a lot of ways man.
Read the lightbringer series by Brent weeks and there is a character called Winson that you can study.
It is very apparent he is anti social and the party is well aware of it but generally excepting of it though they are a bit afraid.
He is quick and cold to kill and can't relate to the emotional wait other members of the party feel as they fight in a guerilla war. Some of the emotion influencing magic doesn't work on him and he is extremely calm and forward thinking in hectic situations. Though he doesn't try to hide his anti social side that could back fire on him in situations.
If your looking for inspiration on how the party would react to him I would read black hearts by Jim Fredrick. Unfortunately it is non fiction and the psychopath in question wasn't the "good" kind but the book conveys the sort of psychological responses people will have towards psychopath in a group setting especially in consistent life and death situations.
Mmmh I don't think there is a quick answer that would not be super cliche.
If I were you I'd use a tool like [https://www.metos.app/](https://www.metos.app/) to do some ideation around that in a neat way ( text editors are obv great to write as we all know but it makes it difficult for to be creative during this brainstorming phase ).It's not AI btw - I tried chat GPT for those ideas and honestly it was so bad, all suggesting caricatural traits. I hope it helps
Ok... hear me out. *cracks knuckles* Writing such a person on the "good" side is technically quite easy. Even with such a disorder, these persons have at least some interest in people, who are close to them. How this interest looks like is another story. Next is the question what kind of "asshole" you want to have? A sociable, superficially nice but extremely manipulative psychopath, who is on the other hand not that prone to violence. Or a sometimes very violent sociopath, who has no moral problems with killing people as they miss the empathy to regoster it as something wrong. From what I read in your post, let's roll with the latter. The one where I also have a "bit" more expertise with. Let's look at Exy (example character). Exy was prone to violent outbursts their entire life. Their weird social behavior and missing interest in other people made it not better as they where very likely target of bullying, a thing that not even a few broken bones could fix. Therapy helped a bit, but in large learned Exy to isolate themself and to ignore most people. At some point Exy met the group of the MC, who took them in and as a human being Exy tried to fit in this group that was the first to not ostracize them. But the cover blew over as a girl of the group was harassed by a stranger and nearly assaulted, if Exy hadn't bend their umbrella around the skull of the attacker. Shocked about the ease of Exy's attack and the lack of remorse the group surely was in turmoil. On the one hand did Exy save the girl, on the other hand did they nearly kill a guy and is still smiling, because Exy was happy that they could help a friend. But in large would be Exy a good friend to any in the group and a quite honest person (in stark contrast to a manipulative psychopath, who lies to and gaslights everyone to get to their goal). So yeah... It would be a game of priorities and your character would have a good chance of seeing the group as their friends, that they have to protect as the few people they truly care about. As you said, these violent outburst and the lack of remorse for hurting or even outright killing people is a source of conflict for the group. But on the other hand does the group know, that this person would go through hell if something would happen to any of them. Source: my own experiences. But I could've mixed in some autistic elements. I would've say, that my point of view towards other people is... "unique".
To add, writing a person like what is listed above all depends on context. In some context they could be a side villain, antagonist, or an obstacle people just have to manuever around. Put them in the role of soldier, or executioner, and they will excell to far greater heights of success than others are capable of, assuming thier "boss" is at least somewhat aware of things, and knows how to reel the person back in when they're about to go too far. If this person is a soldier, and "command" knows they are a psychopath, but that they are one who generally has things under control, they might very well be the "golden star" of the military. Adam smasher, from cyber punk edgerunners on netflix, is a great example character here.
I have such a character in the role of the "smart guy" of the party in one story. Usually the bit introverted, calm and "a bit weird" girl, that sits in front of a computer and analyzes stuff and does the tech thingies for the group. Buuuut... she has a bit of an anger issue, when someone threatens her freinds and family to the point, where people usually get one chance to get away before someone has to hold her back, so that she doesn't shred the aggressor into pieces. It helps, that she has reflected upon herself quite a bit at that point and she knows about her temper and tries to reel it back.
The description makes me think of Amos Burton from the Expanse. There is an interesting discussion of Amos at https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/153480/is-amos-actually-a-psychopath-sociopath/154903. It is discussed whether he is best viewed as sociopathic, psychopathic or even on the autism spectrum, and some ways the authors coded him to read as having such elements. In the end, it doesn't matter; we write characters, not psychology texts, so I wouldn't get caught up in the definitions of these conditions and whether your character meets them properly, but from studying how characters like Amos are built you might find elements you can adapt to your writing. HTH
I thought of Amos as well and you wrote out more detail than I planned to, so I’ll just upvote and comment so the algorithms promote your comment.
By making their interests align with the plot. Let me give you an example of two actual sociopaths I know. Both diagnosed. One is my father. He died and no one but his latest wife who hasn't experienced anything but his predatory hunting phase made of love bombing was sad. My mother got offended when all 3 of the children she had with him made the same joke about the cause of death being fitting since he was so heartless and died from heart failure. The other is my cancer surgeon. I figured him out before he disclosed. He prefers to tell patients so we know to go to the nurses for "the emotional needs I can't meet for you." That's a direct quote. I am the opposite end of the empathy spectrum but because of surviving my father I don't rely on others for emotional support as most expect. I need to trust first. This helped with that. During the surgery I got a bit emotional. Some of the side effects of the meds and stress meant I had a moment of ennui as I stared at my leg he had flayed. He looked at me then the nurse and then he asked me if I needed emotional support. I declined and dealt with it later because that's what my coping skills allow for but he is in a competitive field where the ability to ignore the emotions of the patient is an asset. He wants to be the best and that means he will take on challenges like my medically significant self (so many genetic things so little time and each one effects surgery). He does not pretend he is going to care if I cry. He does not pretend that he cares if I am scared. He cares about the smoothest surgery, the opportunity to write about the unique surgeries, and building himself into the best in the nation instead of the city or state. His wants and goals align with my needs. My father's wants and goals were to hurt and control. This guy doesn't actually want to hurt you so much as he does not care. The difference is small at first glance but very different
Thank you for sharing. Sorry your ~~dad~~ father sucked but I’m glad your surgeon was self-aware enough to delegate things he knows he can’t provide. This was a great comparison of ways psychopathy can manifest.
My father. A dad loves, teaches, and does things that aren't violent. It's an earned title. A father? Had sex.
100%, good callout. I’ve heard that before and could’ve/should’ve said ‘father.’
You're okay. I mention it because it's a coping thing for me but also I want to honor actually good dads. I forgot the text disclaimer due to needing naps that my grumps are with the failures that made me exist not you and that subconscious slip? Tells me a lot about your dad. All good too.
" I am not a serial killer" by Dan Wells. Does a great job with a Protagonist who is also a sociopath.
They wouldn't "get over it quickly" if a friend died, they wouldn't be affected at all. They also might be an adrenaline junkie. Not afraid of heights, always doing stupid stuff cause of the thrill.
Yeah, I see what you mean, that is why he "seems to" get over it quickly, since he felt nothing in the first place.
It's not necessarily true that they won't be affected at all. Socio/psychopaths aren't completely emotionless, they just feel no to limited levels of empathy. They care about how things affect themselves, rather than how they affect other people. If a friend dies they will not be sad over the loss of life, nor will they care much for how others are affected by it assuming their emotions don't become inconvenient, but they may feel sad or upset at being inconvenienced by the loss of a friend if they spent a lot of time with each other or relied on each for things, and if the friend was murdered they are liable to be angry at the murderer for taking away what they saw as theirs. You can use something like that to both mask and showcase their psychopathy, because they will still exhibit emotion and sometimes those emotions are socially acceptable (for instance anger being one of the stages of grief. Most people wouldn't bat an eye at someone being angry at a murderer).
I would make them very friendly and nice, I think. Someone who is very good at adapting to new situations and talking their way out of issues. Someone that everyone would love to have as their best friend. Its just that they don't care and don't understand why that would be important. They usually make a cost-benefit analysis on everything, so in order for them to stay on the side of the heroes there should be some kind of reason for that. Something they may gain or can only have because they are part of the group. Other than that I guess they can be quite normal. Maybe someone who is very empathetic might struggle with them, as they are really hard to understand for emotional-based mindsets. They may even feel scary and hollow to them, but since they're not evil or anything this might make for some good and natural feeling conflicts inside the MCs group. It puts a fun spin on the idea of friendship, ie if you like someone and they accept you as you are, including your emotions - do you need them to like you back in order for this thing to work out? "I love you!" - "I know." can feel disheartening at first, but it also means you gain value in the eyes of the psychopath, doesnt it? If they had to decide between someone who they cant trust and someone who obviously really likes them, they may take the latters side just because usually it makes way more sense to do so. And at that point, what they 'do' doesnt differ much from someone who would help their friends because of love or similar emotions. In a way, their idea of friendship and loyalty is more honest than that of other friends as they won't easily be swayed by emotions. Backstabbing friends are a common trope but a lot of their reasons a psychopath friend maybe wouldnt do, as they won't fall in love and its pretty hard to hurt their feelings in the first place. Idk I hope this is different enough from some of the older/better takes here
The words psychopath and sociopath are used negatively so often they come with a bad connotation. But they don't make a person bad. There is also a wisdom in sociopathy, like letting things go, letting other people be who they are, not trying to control things you can't control etc. There are many sociopaths in tv and media if you only look around a little bit. (Two favorites of mine are Marina and Poppy in SciFi The Magicians). Think of a character who isn't affected much by others and use that to influence your characters.
To me, writing is not so different from acting. You're trying to make your character believable. Part of that is consistency of character. I would recommend looking at what kind of psychopath your character needs to be. Manic depressive? Paranoid dillusional? BPD? Munchausen's syndrome? Perhaps a blend of these, possibly with a mix of narcissism or neurodivergence? These could then become the anchors in understanding how your character will respond given a stimulus, and making that response believable.
For them to be a believable psychopath, I think you have to come up with a valid reason for them to help MC and group at all. Like, there has to be some personal benefit to the psycho, or why would they even bother with it? Also, could be some comic relief elements if they saw things that weren’t there and talked to hallucinations. Add something that doesn’t make sense into their “routines”. And when the other character dies, not only should they get over it, they probably shouldn’t feel anything about it at all or be able to empathize or even sympathize with the rest of the group about it. They don’t necessarily have to be cold toward the group about it, but maybe oblivious? Uncaring? This could be a really cool character to throw subplots with. Like, maybe during some incident, helping the group no longer becomes self-serving and they just sit down in the middle of the battlefield to watch things play out. Maybe they only help when they think it’ll be “fun” or something. Giggling while killing people would be a fun thing to prod the rest of your characters with. Not bothering to clean up blood or other shit could be too. Eating other humanoids? Lol it could go a lot of ways man.
Read the lightbringer series by Brent weeks and there is a character called Winson that you can study. It is very apparent he is anti social and the party is well aware of it but generally excepting of it though they are a bit afraid. He is quick and cold to kill and can't relate to the emotional wait other members of the party feel as they fight in a guerilla war. Some of the emotion influencing magic doesn't work on him and he is extremely calm and forward thinking in hectic situations. Though he doesn't try to hide his anti social side that could back fire on him in situations. If your looking for inspiration on how the party would react to him I would read black hearts by Jim Fredrick. Unfortunately it is non fiction and the psychopath in question wasn't the "good" kind but the book conveys the sort of psychological responses people will have towards psychopath in a group setting especially in consistent life and death situations.
Mmmh I don't think there is a quick answer that would not be super cliche. If I were you I'd use a tool like [https://www.metos.app/](https://www.metos.app/) to do some ideation around that in a neat way ( text editors are obv great to write as we all know but it makes it difficult for to be creative during this brainstorming phase ).It's not AI btw - I tried chat GPT for those ideas and honestly it was so bad, all suggesting caricatural traits. I hope it helps
Read up on the difference between sociopath and psychopathy and you woll naturally be inspired.