As a mental health educator, I focus on family dysfunction, and this is the stuff that keeps me up at night. Most importantly for this video is, is C3 Po the somewhat lovable, greatly annoying Star Wars droid, possibly a covert narcissist? So a very different video for me today, including my lifelong and deep love of the Star Wars franchise.
Paired with, there's actually so much social media content out there about defining what narcissism is, but not a lot about what it isn't, and I thought that maybe some pop culture fictional characters might be a fun way to look at narcissism in a different way. At least I think that that would be fun as a mental health, uh, content creator.
And I know you've all wondered as much as I have about the personality and mental health of the droids in Star Wars, and I know you toss and turn just like I do about deep questions. Like, does maybe K two SO struggle with his identity? Does he struggle with disassociation after being a former imperial droid?
Reprogrammed as a rebellion diehard.
I've cleared a path.
The other question I have is, do gok Droids have feelings, and what does it say about humans the way that we treat Gok droids?
More importantly, who made IG 88, and how did he go from being a murderous droid to a murderous rogue bounty hunter? And how did a droid like that achieve the human psychological concept of individuation, such as what we learned from Carl Jung and how did he also learn to protect and care for Guru in terms of attachment?
Like this is the stuff I think about. As a mental health educator, I focus on family dysfunction, and this is the stuff that keeps me up at night. Most importantly for this video is, is C3 PO the somewhat lovable, greatly annoying Star Wars droid, possibly a covert narcissist. He certainly likes sympathy.
He certainly draws attention to himself. He certainly struggles to read the room.
Goodness, ham, solo. It is IC three po
and he can be pretty rigid and kind of domish.
Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to one. Never tell me the odds.
He's kind of a people pleaser and he wants to be seen in a certain way.
Can all that be calculated? Or is that maybe an extreme hypothesis kind of silly? Or is there something to it actually, and there's more questions, food for thought. What would it be like if anyone out there had C3 po? As a parent who had a parent with kind of his personality?
What message? The one you've just been king, the one you are carrying inside your rusty innards, just you reconsider playing that message for him.
And most importantly, and you might be going WTF, why are you making this video? I'm just, I'm probably sick of my usual content, that's why I'm making this video. So the narcissistic mental health disorder of covert versus overt is so much a topic in our culture and in our online mental health, social media that perhaps it's in there too much.
And that would be interesting to look at and somehow we're gonna get to with C3 po. Does it narc or does it not Narc. A few important things first about C3 PO are helpful, yet very self-important naysayer in the franchise. First is he's a fictional character. We're not really diagnosing anyone here, not a real person.
The second thing is, is he is a robot programmed with a human personality, which is kind of problematic, and we might see that kind of less problematic with ai, um, being so prevalent right now. But you know, it's kind of like there's so many loopholes or holes in this story. He's, he's a robot, he's got a human personality.
Just be, be patient with me. Uh, his personality is fiction based on kind of an annoying personality and robots. Having a humor character traits is kind of wild. I'm just trying to say that. And another part of like holes in this story is just like how in Star Wars, how there never seems to be a shortage of planets that all have oxygen and, and there's millions of planets where we only have one planet with oxygen.
Anyway, holes in the story. Also C3 po. The third part is, is he's got a mission in all of his scenes.
Do you understand anything they're saying? Oh yes, master Luke, remember that I am fluent in over 6 million forms of Kim. What are you telling them?
I don't mean like a secret subplot, but he is like a human being, being that he has consistent subconscious psychological motivation.
And when writers are building characters, they might ask, what's their motivation?
James, you gotta bite down motivation. What's uh, what, what? What is my motivation?
Typically, that tends to be he brings attention to himself. Think about difficult people in your life. Often difficult people have a subconscious motivation like we see with C3 PO, for example.
Have you ever been around an aggressive helper? Who feels like they're a failure unless they fix something for you or worse, they get offended when you don't actually want their help. Other characters have motivation as well. Like how might R 2D two's character have a different motivation from C3 po?
What makes that Droid more lovable and less like tension? Creating
R 2D two, Hans.
One could argue that R 2D two's motivation is about being brave and helpful without seeking praise, which is we're now, we're kind of getting into the covert narcissism stuff quite the opposite, which see three po there. R 2D two is pretty chill. But I think if the droid could roll his eyes at C3 po, he would, especially when C3 po is being super passive aggressive with him.
Scrap pile and don't let me catch you following me.
Also a trait of covert narcissism. Now let's look at a few brief bullet points to cover covert narcissism or AKA, like the other narcissism. Overt narcissism tends to be known as super aggressive. Self-important, grandiose aggrandizing, vain and interpersonally difficult and deeply damaging with a mark.
Lack of empathy in that covert is more the introverted version of what I just described. It's also known as vulnerable narcissism. Covert narcissism can be somewhat trickier to identify because it's way less obvious than overt, and there is still though problems of empathy. Here are some covert narcissistic traits.
Not all of them, but I just want to kind of give you a ballpark idea of this. Let's see. One is sensitivity to criticism.
How rude.
Another is being blaming and shaming of others.
This is all his fault.
Another is believes the world is against them in some way.
He tricked me into going this way.
Another is swings between idealizing and devaluing himself or herself and or others.
I never doubted.
Wonderful. So they can really be up here with you and then be down there and they can be that way with themselves. Another is difficulty fitting in.
I will not be quite chew barker. Why doesn't anyone listen to me?
Another is cultivates. A public image sharply different from their private behavior.
The mop head, like it would be stupid enough.
Another trait of covert narcissism is victim mentality.
Stop a typical crime.
Another is seeking appreciation and admiration.
I've isolated the reverse power flux coupling. Thank you.
And here are some of my thoughts on C3 PO's behaviors related to covert narcissism.
One is he punches down.
I've just about had enough of you. Oh my.
What have you done? I would much rather have gone with Master Luke than stay here with you.
He consistently picks on R 2D two and even criticizes Chewbacca, but really kind of kisses. But to Luke and Leia, like he idealizes a lot of humans that I find interesting, thinking of what I said earlier about that motivation, C3 PO is all about status and hierarchy, and humans are ideal to him and other robots and species are less than.
Why is because it's humans are the ones who tend to give him positive reinforcement.
See
what you
can do with him. I'll be right back.
Just you reconsider playing that message for him? No. I don't think he likes you at all. No, I don't like you either.
So when we think about narcissism, it's kind of the thing about like, who do you know? Who are you trying to impress? So that's kind of related to C3 PO's, um, like motivation is what I see.
And related to that, you get a sense of him that he lives in kind of an elegant fantasy world. I know that this is kind of out there, but like C3 PO isn't well suited for all the chaos and the battles like R 2D two is. But you can see him kind of being in a fancy diplomatic world in the elegance of something like, say the diplomacy of Mon Motley's affluent senate world on Kant.
And as we see in the and or with the Rebel Alliance leaders, like he would just fit in and see three P would love that vibe. Not so much the vibe of what we see in something like Jab his palace. And he's greatly put out and victimized by all that. He's kind of a bit cowardly at times. He's a bit fancy like that, and related to his self-importance, he thinks kind of highly of where his role should be.
Yet he was created on tattooing. I'm not saying cowardice is a trait of covert narcissism or a consistent one, but I am saying that secretive superiority is. Anyone out there have a parent maybe like this, that lives in a fantasy world of believing their life should be more elegant or fancy than it actually is, or they're better suited for that.
They might have a, if they would just listen to me kind of vibe as well of. A little bit of wanting to be seen as a bit dominant or, or helpful, you know, and it's a strange thing, but covert narcissism and, and I guess narcissism can sometimes be wrapped up in altruism, which is also confusing 'cause C3 PO wants to help.
So that's a bit about the case of C3 PO being covertly narcissistic. We have a collection of behaviors, but there's kind of missing one thing. We've got self-important. We've got that. He punches down. He chooses who to be kind to and who deserves kind of contempt from him. He has a motivation to be seen as a certain way, as helpful, as thoughtful, as useful, as proper.
He constantly draws attention to himself, either as victimized, not seen, or as value. Yet he doesn't really fit into the people he's trying to impress, which is also interesting and also kind of separates himself from his own kind. So there's kind of a loneliness kind of going on in there. He can be highly sensitive to criticism and he can be highly dramatic, but there is this missing piece in terms of those two mental health issues about narcissism and covert narcissism.
Here are some clips about that missing piece. Roll the montage.
Dying are to curse my metal body. I wasn't fast enough. It's all my fault. My poor master. You're all right. You're alright. You
did great.
You must repair him, sir. If any of my circuits or gears will help out, gladly donate them. He'll be all right.
Creepy. Where could he be?
They madman. They're heading to the prison level. If you hurry, you might catch them.
What are you doing there at three po.
Taking one last look, sir.
At my friends
Arthur, do you really think I don't have a heart?
So we can see from those clips there is the missing piece, which is the empathy piece. Like he can be greatly all of what we described so far, but he actually cares about his friends in a way and really wants to try to make sure that they're doing well.
So while he still has some drama, some have said online that C3 a PO could potentially be somewhat histrionic with the overly dramatic overly domish stuff. He's cringe a lot of the time, which kind of adds to some funny moments and some tension in the films. But it doesn't all quite fit into covert narcissism.
He displays care and he displays bravery. At times. He displays empathy and he cares or might actually have some shame about how he is seen. Narcissism is really about a disconnection from empathy and also a disconnection from healthy shame. C3 PO might go dramatic and say everything is his fault, like in the trash compactor scene, but there's some sincerity there that we're a.
Covert narcissist might make it performative that he didn't save somebody to draw attention to himself. And I know that that can be kind of a fine line. And sometimes with C3 po it's hard to tell what's performative and what's not. But the missing piece again, is the empathy. So does C3 PO narc or not?
No C3 pl, while having many traits is not primarily covert due to his ability in having and displaying empathy and I think experience some healthy shame here and there that I see in him. And you might be asking if, if you've stayed here this long, well, what is he then, when we're thinking about this fictional character as.
Maybe an actual person and maybe someone maybe in your family who is like C3 PO or like a parent. That parent will draw attention to themselves and importance or maybe some victimization. Maybe that's part of that parent's childhood trauma or not. They might aggressively help you or try to, and then take it personally when that's not warranted.
They might try to impress a certain type of person while putting other people down. They might be highly controlling and annoying. But actually really care for the wellbeing around them, which is again, that missing piece to covert narcissism. The empathy piece, if I had to go with giving C3 po a diagnosis or an issue, it wouldn't actually be a diagnosis from a mental health perspective, but I would call C3 PO aggressively co.
He's what the British would call a try hard in British English. Try hard refers to a person who tries too hard often in a way that appears forced or inauthentic. It implies excessive effort, especially when trying to fit in or appeal cool or be successful. So who is C3 PO dependent upon if he is aggressively codependent for his emotional wellbeing?
I actually think he's really dependent upon humans for validation. For his self-worth. And it's different than something like traditional codependency. We can all relate to wanting to be seen and wanting to be liked, and in the motivation to be liked and appreciated by humans. C3 PO can become aggressive.
There's that codependent aggression. He'll start berating R 2D two about playing the message for OE one Kenobi from Princess Leia. That R 2D two isn't doing it right, like you're making me look bad. Perhaps a non-aggressive codependent person doesn't get nasty so much about people getting in their way or their motivation, but they're still codependent in.
In addition, in a weird way, I actually see Luke Skywalker as a traditional codependent because he refuses to give up on his murderous father,
if you will not turn to the dark side. Then perhaps she'll,
but maybe that's for another video. So imagine having a parent who refuses to give up on an incredibly abusive father that's codependency in its traditional form.
Like maybe that parent has some magical thinking about who the abuser can become. So why codependent C3 PO is dependent upon humans for his self-worth. If he were to grow out of that, he might mature. Out of that motivation and see himself as an equal or not be so focused on, um, one up, one down and be more like R 2D two Does R 2D two has more self-respect?
He's more authentic because C3 PO for whatever reason, maybe it's 'cause of his trauma, is he's just got this need of approval and for his self-worth. So some final food for thought when we compare C3 PO to some other droids such as. K two SO, perhaps C3. PO's opposite, who is levelheaded? No frills. He's even funny at times, or even comparing him to R 2D two, like we've already mentioned, we can see that C3 PO takes himself a little bit too seriously.
But for direct and total contrast, check out the Star Wars Marvel comic series. Dr. Afra where a rogue archeologist befriends two murderous droids, one being a C3 PO lookalike, uh, who is named triple zero and is companion bt, who is like R 2D twos lookalike. You can really see the empathy in C3 PO compared to the sadistic murder.
Droid triple zero, uh, who likes to torture humans as his main motivation, and he gets enjoyment out of that. Like that's his programming, the total opposite. And guess what? There's. Total lack of empathy with triple zero. Any who may the force be with you and also with you. And if you're curious about any of my work, any of my, my mental health work, check out my website patrick tian.com.
And so that's my argument. I hope that this was fun. Oh, in a secondary last diagnosis. First three PO is the drum roll please. Is he's just a pain in the ass. He's not a narcissist.
How rude.
That's it folks. Let me know if this was fun for you. Making it was a blast for me. And as always, may you be filled with loving kindness.
May you be well, may you be peaceful and at ease, and may you be joyous. And to prove the lifelong diehard fan, my 1977 C3 po, my 1980, the ones that got broken up, that can be put in Chewbacca's back and the Empire strikes back. That's the street, Fred. See you later folks.
