The Antagonist's Gift: A Wise Son
"The quiet camaraderie of survivorship and the wisdom that comes with it ... can be comforting." (Dr. Ramani Durvasula)
The video below keeps popping up in my Zettelkasten references to inform my protagonist’s character arc.
It’s one of my favorites in Dr. Durvasula’s series on narcissistic abuse on YouTube. When I first saw it, I immediately noted it as a good go-to for describing what kind of sadder, but wiser person my protagonist should be by the end of my novel.
After watching this video again in the context of thinking through the Finale of my novel, I realized I needed to connect the qualities that Dr. Durvasula identifies to Kathleen Spracklen’s 28 character traits.
So here goes …
Patience
Narcissistic abuse victims put up with mental and emotional pain throughout the entire relationship with the narcissist in hopes that their willingness to endure suffering will pay off when the narcissist realizes how much investment the victim has put into the relationship and then will reward the victim with love and gratitude. This never happens.
Questions as I write:
Why does Jess remain patient in the five years in which he endures Vicky’s abuse? How do his reasons change, especially when he could get away from her and be independent when his apprenticeship ends? How might his reasons be a mix of selfishness and unselfishness?
How does Jess’s patience serve him well in his life in America? How does he experience gratitude for patience exercised toward him? How does that reinforce his commitment to patience?
How does Jess’s patience hurt him when Vicky shows up and begs for his forgiveness?
What is Jess still missing that makes him believe that constancy and patience should take precedence over other traits that would serve him better in this situation (such as circumspection, loyalty, responsibility, magnificence, and in particular, foresight)?
Resilience
Narcissistic abuse victims have to be strong to survive. But the resilience especially comes in when the relationship is over and the person has to rebuild his selfhood from scratch.
Questions as I write:
How does Jess hold on to joy and his love of living throughout his time under Vicky’s control? Are these always healthy strategies? If they aren’t healthy, why does he believe that they will work?
Although Jess finds strong family support in his new life in Hodgeman County, what traits or abuse damage make it hard for him to accept it? What makes it possible for him to start healing?
Circumspection
Narcissists use manipulation and gaslighting to keep their victims feeling small, incapable, and stupid. Healing from this abuse includes learning or relearning to trust one’s intuition and to reject black-and-white thinking.
Questions as I write:
How is Jess’s natural growth from a teenager to a young adult stunted by Vicky’s efforts to undermine his still-forming young brain and its executive functions?
How does learning to constantly question himself and devalue his strengths in intuition, empathy, and nuanced thinking dull his giftedness and hurt his career and relationships?
What happens to his natural physical abilities and strengths when he starts rebuilding the ability to deeply focus, feel, and appreciate life again?
After reentering Vicky’s life, how does the realization that he is at risk of losing these hard-won gifts motivate him to view her treatment of him differently?
Honesty & Sincerity
Narcissistic abuse teaches the victim to question reality. One of the painful realizations a victim has to face is his role in perpetuating a false narrative he had to buy into to make the toxic relationship work. This collaboration has hurt his ability to recognize and accept truth.
Questions as I write:
How does this segment demonstrate how Jess is changing in his definition of “truth”?
When he is confronted with possible evidence of Vicky’s lies and commits to making excuses for her, how does this start to chip away at his own commitment to truth?
How does this external and internal dishonesty ruin his relationships and undermine his own growth?
When he is forced to accept the truth, how does he rebuild the trust he broke, both with himself and others?
What roles do honesty and sincerity play in Jess’s decision to confront Vicky with what he has learned about her?
Humility
Narcissists often seek out victims who are naturally humble so this quality can be weaponized and turned against them. A person who tends to appreciate others’s role in their success and can recognize and accept their own weaknesses is in a particularly dangerous position when the narcissist twists this quality into a cancer that eats the victim alive from the inside.
Questions as I write:
Jack has worked hard to instill humility in his son, hoping that he can keep his son from following in his mother’s footsteps. How does this backfire when Vicky gets control of Jess’s internal value system?
How does secondary character Will Posten’s struggle with humility provide Jess an opportunity to come to terms with what kind of person Vicky really is?
Meekness
Meekness is another quality that narcissists hope to weaponize in a potential victim. The goal in twisting this quality is that the victim will do the narcissist’s work for them by demeaning themselves through negative internal self-talk.
Questions as I write:
Jack has worked hard to teach Jess to value helpfulness and to aspire to be a positive influence in a community, hoping his son will use his inheritance wisely. How does this backfire when Vicky gets control of Jess’s internal value system?
How does secondary character Alma McDowell’s struggle with meekness provide Jess an opportunity to come to terms with what kind of person Vicky really is?
How does Vicky’s demonstration of meekness make Jess believe she has truly changed when she tries to lure him back to London?
Finale State
How does all the above contribute to Jess’s pinnacle trait of foresight moving into the rudder position by the end of the novel?
How does Jess’s stabilized anchor position of the above traits help him to realize how much he owes to his father’s mentoring and self-sacrifice?
How is Jess both ashamed of his failure to trust his father at the beginning of the novel, but also comforted that he has justified his father’s faith that Jess would eventually stabilize and grow into the kind of man who could be trusted to use his inheritance unselfishly?
How does Jess’s story explain his faith (and the theme) regarding why God permits wickedness and suffering?
Wow. This is amazingly deep. I haven't worked with extremely deviant personalities using the character traits. It is gratifying to see how they hold up in the extremes.