Then you need to see this.
This is the Hare Psychopathy test based on Dr Robert D Hare's original definition and tests to determine if a person is a bona fide psychopath.
By the way, psychopaths are not normal people. They're not even nice people. They don't even relate to, identify with or have compassion for so-called normal people.
Just look at the defining characteristics and tell me of whom this reminds you. There are 20 identifiable characteristics, and all of them can be attributed to Michael Moon.
This is the Hare Psychopathy test based on Dr Robert D Hare's original definition and tests to determine if a person is a bona fide psychopath.
By the way, psychopaths are not normal people. They're not even nice people. They don't even relate to, identify with or have compassion for so-called normal people.
Just look at the defining characteristics and tell me of whom this reminds you. There are 20 identifiable characteristics, and all of them can be attributed to Michael Moon.
1. GLIB and SUPERFICIAL CHARM
The tendency to be smooth, engaging, charming, slick, and verbally facile. Psychopathic charm is not in the least shy, self-conscious, or afraid to say anything. A psychopath never gets tongue-tied. They have freed themselves from the social conventions about taking turns in talking, for example.
(Michael, like Archie and Ben Mitchell before him, has the innate ability to charm the leaves off magnolia trees. Look at how he snookered, on various occasions, Roxy, Jean and MyAssholeAlice. Look how he manages to stay in Alfie's good books after all the shit he's dished him).
2. GRANDIOSE SELF-WORTH
A grossly inflated view of one's abilities and self-worth, self-assured, opinionated, cocky, a braggart. Psychopaths are arrogant people who believe they are superior human beings.
This is Michael's signature characteristic. He considers himself far and above more superior than anyone living in Albert Square. In fact, when he was courting her, he encouraged this attitude in Janine. He's definitely opinionated, cocky and not afraid of putting his opinion about. Look how he tried to intimidate Phil about Sharon.
3. NEED FOR STIMULATION or PRONENESS TO BOREDOM
An excessive need for novel, thrilling, and exciting stimulation; taking chances and doing things that are risky. Psychopaths often have a low self-discipline in carrying tasks through to completion because they get bored easily. They fail to work at the same job for any length of time, for example, or to finish tasks that they consider dull or routine.
Michael convinced Jack to buy the boxing club, then sat back and let Jack develop it. Michael's done nothing but take whatever small profit is attributed to him. He couldn't even be bothered to look after his own daughter, but wasn't above using her as a babe magnet to attract various women who would do the work for him.
4. PATHOLOGICAL LYING
Can be moderate or high; in moderate form, they will be shrewd, crafty, cunning, sly, and clever; in extreme form, they will be deceptive, deceitful, underhanded, unscrupulous, manipulative, and dishonest.
Shrewd, crafty, cunning, sly, clever ... all of these adjectives apply to Michael. As for the lying, Jean's scam, anyone? Look at the rest of the adjectives - deceptive (yep, many examples), deceitful (just ask Alfie and Tyler, his own relatives), underhanded (Jean),unscrupulous (Jean, Janine), manipulative (how long is a piece of string?) and dishonest (goes without saying).
5. CONNING AND MANIPULATIVENESS
The use of deceit and deception to cheat, con, or defraud others for personal gain; distinguished from Item #4 in the degree to which exploitation and callous ruthlessness is present, as reflected in a lack of concern for the feelings and suffering of one's victims.
JEAN. He didn't give a rat's arse about her, even trying to convince her, through booking an undertaker, that her daughter was dead. It hasn't bothered him one iota that he knocked his cousin's wife up.
6. LACK OF REMORSE OR GUILT
A lack of feelings or concern for the losses, pain, and suffering of victims; a tendency to be unconcerned, dispassionate, coldhearted, and unempathic. This item is usually demonstrated by a disdain for one's victims.
EVERYTHING about this. He felt nothing for scamming Jean. In fact, it was Janine who repaid Alfie everything Michael scammed, including Jean's lottery win. And also his wife - Michael's behaviour in the wake of Scarlett's birth and when Janine returned home with the baby was exactly as was described above. Even NOW, his regard for his wife is nothing less than disdainful, exactly the way it was when she was suffering from PND and he relentlessly accused her of being a rubbish mother.
7. SHALLOW AFFECT
Emotional poverty or a limited range or depth of feelings; interpersonal coldness in spite of signs of open gregariousness.
Just observe his recent behaviour with Alice and his performance Friday night.
8. CALLOUSNESS and LACK OF EMPATHY
A lack of feelings toward people in general; cold, contemptuous, inconsiderate, and tactless.
Describes Michael in every sense, especially the contempt and the tactlessness exhibited on Friday. People are stupid to be taken in by this man.
9. PARASITIC LIFESTYLE
An intentional, manipulative, selfish, and exploitative financial dependence on others as reflected in a lack of motivation, low self-discipline, and inability to begin or complete responsibilities.
Wow. The reason why he married Janine, as she said - he loved being able to spend the money she provided. Didn't blink at Jack subbing him. As for his responsibilties, he's quite happy to have Alfie support a son he doesn't acknowledge and palmed his daughter off on anyone so he could swan about the Square.
10. POOR BEHAVIORAL CONTROLS
Expressions of irritability, annoyance, impatience, threats, aggression, and verbal abuse; inadequate control of anger and temper; acting hastily.
Again, with Janine and before that, with his father and his brothers.
11. PROMISCUOUS SEXUAL BEHAVIOR
A variety of brief, superficial relations, numerous affairs, and an indiscriminate selection of sexual partners; the maintenance of several relationships at the same time; a history of attempts to sexually coerce others into sexual activity or taking great pride at discussing sexual exploits or conquests.
Where do I begin? Kat, Roxy, Kat again, Janine ... he was even trying it on with Kirstie Branning a few months back. Also, the way he tried to manipulate Kat into feeling the same lackadaisical way he felt toward the sex act.
12. EARLY BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS
A variety of behaviors prior to age 13, including lying, theft, cheating, vandalism, bullying, sexual activity, fire-setting, glue-sniffing, alcohol use, and running away from home.
We don't know enough of his backstory to expand upon this, but we know he behaved abnormally enough around Eddie's second family.
13. LACK OF REALISTIC, LONG-TERM GOALS
An inability or persistent failure to develop and execute long-term plans and goals; a nomadic existence, aimless, lacking direction in life.
Nomadic, aimless existence. Wandering about with no direction.
14. IMPULSIVITY
The occurrence of behaviors that are unpremeditated and lack reflection or planning; inability to resist temptation, frustrations, and urges; a lack of deliberation without considering the consequences; foolhardy, rash, unpredictable, erratic, and reckless.
Urging Jack to buy the boxing club, his various sudden affairs and attachments to various women, Roxy, Kat ...
15. IRRESPONSIBILITY
Repeated failure to fulfill or honor obligations and commitments; such as not paying bills, defaulting on loans, performing sloppy work, being absent or late to work, failing to honor contractual agreements.
Chief amongst all of this is Tommy and his attitude toward him. Michael doesn't want to pay for either of his children. He couldn't even pay MaAssholeAlice for her services.Also, his never showing up to Scarlett's hospital appointments or supporting Janine emotionally in the aftermath.
16. FAILURE TO ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR OWN ACTIONS
A failure to accept responsibility for one's actions reflected in low conscientiousness, an absence of dutifulness, antagonistic manipulation, denial of responsibility, and an effort to manipulate others through this denial.
Surprise, surprise. Not.
17. MANY SHORT-TERM MARITAL RELATIONSHIPS
A lack of commitment to a long-term relationship reflected in inconsistent, undependable, and unreliable commitments in life, including marital.
Kat. Then Roxy. Mostly Janine. He married her for her money, then sought to manipulate her into believing in her own low self-worth, enabling him to control her behaviour and her fortune.
18. JUVENILE DELINQUENCY
Behavior problems between the ages of 13-18; mostly behaviors that are crimes or clearly involve aspects of antagonism, exploitation, aggression, manipulation, or a callous, ruthless tough-mindedness.
Once again, we don't know enough of his backstory for this period to make any assessment, but we know during this time, he was friends with Jack Branning, spent the nights at Jack's house and suffered from sleep-walking which is not normal. Scratch the surface and you're bound to find something there which points to Michael Moon.
19. REVOCATION OF CONDITION RELEASE
A revocation of probation or other conditional release due to technical violations, such as carelessness, low deliberation, or failing to appear.
Jean, Janine.
20. CRIMINAL VERSATILITY
A diversity of types of criminal offenses, regardless if the person has been arrested or convicted for them; taking great pride at getting away with crimes.
Michael is a con artist. That, in itself, is borderline illegal. What he did with Jean most definitely was illegal, and he got away with that. Appropriating Derek Branning's horde of stolen gear and getting Liam to flog it was against the law. Money laundering, passing counterfeit money, attempting to leave the country with his child without her mother's consent ... shall I go on>
Now, try to tell me Michael Moon isn't a psychopath and deserves our pity and support.
Most of this could be used to describe Janine to be fair...
ReplyDeleteMost, but not all. Janine is a sociopath, and there's a difference. All of Janine's issues are based upon actual events which happened in her lifetime and which affected her perception of reality - not her mother's death as much as Frank's repeated abandonment of her, passing her from pillar to post, taking her under his care only to dash off chasing some new adventure or piece of skirt. That also contributed to her feeling of marginalisation within her family dynamic and a sense that people she should have been able to trust - Frank, Clare, Ricky, Diane, Roy Evans - let her down majorly, which is manifested in her trust issues.
DeleteBelieve it or not, Janine also has a conscience and is able to show compassion and empathy. She has shown this many times, especially with Whitney's prostitution storyline, with her looking after her Butcher family in allowing Bianca and her children to remain in Pat's house at a much reduced rate of rent, in looking after Billy and Lola, who have thrown her generosity back in her face several times. If you recall, it was Janine who put up a reward for information regarding Heather's death.
Janine also loved Ryan Malloy, and even offered him the option of getting out of marrying her on the morning of their wedding. She did absolutely nothing to warrant his betrayal of her - a betrayal which was aided, promulgated and abetted by Kat Moon.
The difference between Janine and Michael is that her problems were caused by the conditions of her upbringing and they can be remedied. The core of her problems is her inability to trust, and that, with counselling (which she's receiving, incidentally) can be overcome.
Michael's problem, psychopathy, is congenital. His brain lacks whatever is necessary to feel empathy, compassion or even guilt. Hence, he feels no guilt when he sleeps with his cousin's wife and can't understand why she feels guilt when she's unfaithful. He would even have slept with Ronnie, his best friend's wife, if she hadn't recognised him for what he was, and felt nothing. It's why he genuinely thinks Alice is an idiot and tells her so. It's why he can wantonly manipulate people and feel nothing bad about having done so. Psychopathy can be inherited, and based on Eddie Moon's information about his first wife, a woman who callously put her oldest son into care because he had Downs' Syndrome, that she was a psychopath also, who used suicide attempts as a means by which to control his actions and behaviour.
So the differences are basically that Janine has a conscience and can feel empathy; Michael cannot. Janine can be helped through counselling; Michael cannot.
There have certainly been other psychopaths in EastEnders' history, as well as sociopaths. Nick Cotton, prior to Janine, was the previous high-profiled sociopath. There's a strain of psychopathy in the Mitchell line too - Archie, Ronnie and Ben.
I know we don't always see eye-to-eye, but you're right about this. I have a friend who was the victim of a psychopath. He wasn't some naive youngster with no experience of the world - far from it. But she was clever - they met through a mutual enjoyment of music, so that was her 'way in'. She was married at the time, but she left the marriage almost instantly and latched on to my friend and was talking marriage with him in a matter weeks, trying to alienate him from his family, trying to get him to chuck out his long-term partner and sell their home from under her so that they could 'be together'. She even asked to be 'connected' to one of his best friends so that she could 'get to know' him even better, and that's how I got to know her. But I had a bad feeling from the start - as a woman and a mum, it made my blood run cold to see how easily this woman left one husband (whilst 'caring' for her eight year old daughter, I might add' - although it became quickly apparent the daughter had been born purely as a weapon - awful) and then try to persuade my friend to play 'happy families' with her - in another part of the country to boot, which was another part of her attempt to separate him from those he knew, where he worked etc.
ReplyDeleteThat's the short version, which maybe doesn't do her 'justice'. Luckily someone tipped him off about her true nature - but it destroyed him for a time last year, he became a shell of himself. My friend then started reading up about psychopathy (I've read one of the books he was guided towards - not the one you mention, but a similar one) and after his 'recovery', set up a support group for people similarly affected. The scary thing is, he was expecting maybe a handful of responses... but there were loads of people who'd be victims of similar experiences.
Unlike Michael, Janine does have a conscience. It may not show itself as often as it should, because to her to show feeling is to make her vulnerable to more hurt, but it's there - and that means, with help, it could be nurtured again.
Sorry, I'm rambling, but basically I despair at those on DS who keep saying what a 'wonderful' person Michael is, or how 'hard done by. Having said that, I can't bear to watch EE much at the moment because it's just so awful in terms of quality and there are better things on TV or in my planner I can spend my time watching! But I do keep up through reading online - it's a kind of half-way house! J.C.
The Michael-Janine storyline just shows up how awfully dumb some people are. The number of women on DS, who cannot identify that Janine had PND and totally forget what happened to her in the wake of Scarlett's birth. Michael even overruled Janine on naming the child. If you remember, Janine wanted to name her child after Pat.
DeleteVery true what you say about Janine never letting her guard down. Showing her soft side from time to time opens her up for getting hurt, and she guards against that vociferously.
Michael is NOT a wonderful person, and you'd think Kat, of all people, would realise that. He shows no interest whatsoever in Tommy, and had she left with him when she was pregnant, she would have undergone much the same treatment as Janine. Neither she nor dippy Alice realise that Michael simply doesn't care, because he isn't capable of caring.
The number of people who continue to give this piece of shit the time of day and don't really recognise that something's not quite right about him is astounding - Alfie, Roxy, Kat, Jean ... What will happen is for him to do something really, REALLY bad that would affect all of them, and then we'll see how they take him.
At the moment, Janine is just playing the sort of mind games he played with her. It's all about control with psychopaths.