Lina
Diagnosis: Oppositional defiant disorder
Symptoms: person often loses temper, often argues with adults,
often actively defies or refuses to comply with adults’ requests or rules,
often blames others for his/her mistakes or misbehaviors, is often touchy
or easily annoyed by others, is often angry and resentful, is often spiteful
and vindictive.
Symptoms of Character: Obviously Lina loses her temper
all of the time, often over things that others would barely be angry about.
Lina argues with *everyone* and quite often refuses to do what she’s told
by her elders. She periodically does blame others for her mistakes
(although not overly often, which is good) and is certainly easily annoyed
by others. She is often angry and resentful (especially towards the
far bustier Nagha and Amelia) and can be quite spiteful and vindictive,
particularly as seen in the episode where Martina places the curse on her
and she continues to beat up Martina even though it is hurting her.
ODD is typically given rather than just average teenaged rebellion when
the potential person with ODD is willing to do things just to spite the
other person even though the action will hurt himself/herself, which Lina
clearly proves to be willing to do.
Treatment: Counseling.
Gourry
Diagnosis: None. Gourry seems to be fairly well
grounded, although, after watching him hang around with this crowd, I might
say "masochist" except that he derives no sexual pleasure from it.
Zelgadis
Diagnosis: bipolar disorder (probably II or the "potential"
VII)
Symptoms: bipolar disorder (also known as manic-depression,
for bipolar I) is marked by drastic mood swings. Although someone
with bipolar disorder usually behaves normally, they will have depressed,
manic, and mixed cycles which are very disruptive to life. Depression
is marked by two weeks or longer of a greatly lowered mood usually accompanied
by a change in appetite, lack of sleep or too much sleep, crying, becoming
upset over very little, lack of energy, lethargy, looking at things in
a very negative sense, etc. Mania is characterized by at least a
few days of a greatly accelerated mood, particularly a lack of sleep, too
much energy, flight of thought, aggression, a williness to take stupid
risks, tremendous happiness or unhappiness, etc. A mixed mood combines
aspects of both mania and depression.
Symptoms of Character: Zelgadis certainly appears to be
depressed at times with his "why do I even bother living" speeches and
"why I hate everything" sorts of behaviors. Although he does not
seem to be overly edgy or sleep deprived, his apparent taste for caffinated
beverages and alcohol, not to mention his barely controlled rage at Xellos
may show signs of mania, especially as mania must only occur *once* for
a diagnosis of bipolar. More so, Zelgadis’ obsessive quest for something
(gaining strength, killing Rezo, finding a cure) may be indicative of manic-depression
as obsessive personalities are often linked to the disease for unknown
reasons. (Particularly creative, driven obsessive people, such as
Lord Byron, Virginia Wolf, Patty Duke, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, etc.)
Zelgadis is also the grandson/great-grandson of Rezo who also seems to
show signs of bipolar disorder, which is highly genetic. (In fact,
a fairly large number of psychiatrists are hesitant about claiming that
someone has bipolar disorder unless there has been a diagnosis of a family
member.) Zelgadis is also referred to as a "berserker" or someone
who will become manic in battle. This has been accomplished throughout
history either by drugs or mania. Zelgadis also behaves in an archetypical
manic fashion at the beginning of Slayers when (perhaps induced by
the tremendous stress in his life), he stays up all night plotting how
to do various things and even rather rashly rushes at Shabrinigdo.
Zelgadis’ depression also seems to become greater as the day goes by, which
is fairly typical in bipolar (unlike more typical depression where someone
becomes less depressed as the day goes on).
Treatment: Lithium or Depakote. (both mood stabilizing
drugs) If these are unavailable, reduce Zel’s stress, and make certain
that he gets plenty of sleep each night as sleep cycles are tied closely
to this illness.
Amelia
Diagnosis: Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
Symptoms: excessively fidgety or squirmy, easily distracted,
has difficulty awaiting his/her turn, blurts out answers to questions,
has difficulty following instructions and sustaining attention, shifts
from one activity to another, has difficulty playing quietly, talks obsessively,
interrupts, doesn’t listen to what’s being said, often loses things, engages
in dangerous activities
Symptoms of Character: Amelia is certain a bit overactive
at times. She’s easily distracted and seems to have trouble doing
quite what she’s supposed to even if she fully understands what it is that
she’s supposed to do and wants to do it. She talks a lot, interrupts,
and certainly doesn’t bother listening to all of what’s being said.
Although a case could probably be made that practically all of the characters
in Slayers have ADHD, Amelia comes to mind the most after reading the symptoms.
Treatment: Ritalin
Sylphiel
Diagnosis: Dependent Personality Disorder
Symptoms: Person is submissive and clingy
Symptoms of Character: Uh, yeah. See above.
Treatment: Therapy.
Martina
Diagnosis: Borderline Personality Disorder
Symptoms: absence of psychosis, impaired ego integration, contradictory
view of self, unstable relationships, repetitive self destructive behavior,
hypersensitivity, impulsive behaviors, chronic/major depression, helplessness,
hopelessness, worthlessness, guilt, anger, anxiety, loneliness, boredom,
nondelusional paranoia, manipulative self-mutilation or suicide gestures,
intolerance of aloneness, conterdependance, manipulativeness, dependancy,
masochism/sadism, demandingness, entitlement, shift in mood lasting only
a few hours, uncontrollable, inappropriate laughter, etc., etc. (you
can tell I found a good source)
Symptoms of Character: Martina certainly seems a little
confused as to who she is, particularly after the fall of her kingdom.
She’s certainly manipulative and very sensitive and her behavior after
she is cursed herself would show that she is self destructive as well,
not to mention her diving off of roofs, etc. She’s very lonely and
is constantly looking for men to fill that void (which is very common in
female BPD people) She is very demanding and believes that she deserves
to get things. Martina is tremendously moody, although her moods never
seem to last long. She is certainly has a large number of problems,
but she never seems to become delusional. (Even in her conversations
back and forth with herself while pretending to be Zolmalgustar, she seems
to still be situated more or less in the real world.)
Treatment: As with all personality disorders, intensive
counseling.
Xellos
Diagnosis: Antisocial Personality Disorder
Symptoms: failure to conform to social norms, deceitfulness,
irritability and agressiveness, reckless disregard for the safety of self
or others, lack of remorse
Symptoms of Character: Between remorselessly killing thousands
of gold dragons, lying, concealing information, betraying friends, etc.
Xellos fits this description perfectly. Of course, with his plethora
of weird behaviors, he could probably be found to have quite a number of
other personality disorders, sex disorders, etc. including sadio-masochism,
schizotypial, etc.
Treatment: Psychoanalysis, therapy, possibly even drugs.
Filia
Diagnosis: Intermittent Explosive Disorder
Symptoms: failure to resist agressive impulses that result in
serious assault attacks or in the destruction of property
Symptoms in Character: How nice…an easy one. I’ll
just give examples: Filia attacking Gourry with her mace after he
looks up her skirt, Filia ravaging the town as a dragon after Xellos taunts
her, Filia…well, most of what Filia does, actually.
Treatment: Anger management sessions and drug therapy.
Valgarv
Diagnosis: Paranoid Schizophrenia
Symptoms: delusions or frequent auditory hallucinations relating
to a single theme, including delusions of grandeur, persecution, or jealousy.
Tend to be agitated, confused, or afraid.
Symptoms in Character: This is the form of schizophrenia
that tends to manifest itself in the most "normal" way. Valgarv,
with his desire to destroy the world (come on, how many sane people desperately
want that?) to his paranoid belief that everyone is trying to kill him
(which, I guess, does have *some* basis in reality) to possibly even delusions
of grandeur. Valgarv certainly seems agitated and has periods of
being afraid. Although some of his symptoms would seem manic, the
long duration for which he seems to be plotting the destruction of the
world quite seriously leads me to believe that this paranoia is caused
by the cancer of the mind.
Treatment: Drugs (thorazine, haldol, possibly lithium
or other mood stabilizers as well as the anti-psychotics), individual therapy,
family therapy. (Yeah, I could just see Filia, the high elder, Xellos,
Garv, Valgarv, etc. all before a therapist trying to work out their difficulties
with each other. Maybe Filia could tell Xellos "I am sorry that I
was so hostile towards you")
Nagha
Diagnosis: Narcissism
Symptoms: grandiosity, need for admiration, lack of empathy
Symptoms in Character: See above. Didn’t I just describe
Nagha? Nagha also seems to have a phobia relating to blood, and perhaps
a few other social disorders considering her lack of modesty and bizarre
laugh.
Treatment: Counseling