- "The Gand known as Zuckuss is clearly schizophrenic and exhibits multiple personality disorder."
- ―Gawynn Karastee
Schizophrenia was a severe mental illness that was often characterized by delusions and hallucinations. Sufferers would sometimes demonstrate a proclivity to violent behavior. This condition could affect multiple species, such as Aleena, Gands, and Humans.
Schizophrenia was a mental illness that would afflict its sufferers with delusions and hallucinations. These hallucinations were often auditory and would manifest as voices. Some schizophrenics would have visual hallucinations, as exemplified by the Aleena Jedi Kazdan Paratus, who believed that his junk constructs of the Jedi Council were actual living individuals.
Schizophrenics would sometimes exhibit violent behavior. Victor Jun, an Alliance recruiter, would often act on the orders given to him by the voices in his head, which sometimes involved murder. Zuckuss, a Gand bounty hunter, also suffered from schizophrenia, which developed after he had left his homeworld. Co-morbid with his multiple personality disorder, the condition caused him to hear voices and it contributed to the Gand's violent outbursts. It was speculated by Gawynn Karastee, the forensic psychiatrist who diagnosed Zuckuss, that the Gand's mental illnesses may have stemmed from his role as a findsman.
Although most common with living sentients, droids and other machines are also capable of possessing schizophrenia. The Millennium Falcon, for instance, often had schizophrenic arguments with itself, as a side-effect of its owners modifying the ship's computer to utilize three different models of droid brains.
Behind the scenesEdit
Schizophrenia, as a disorder, first appeared in 2001, with the publication of The Essential Guide to Alien Species. In a journal entry attributed to Gawynn Karastee, the mental illness served as a retcon to explain the drastic personality changes in Zuckuss, most notably in his appearance in The Bounty Hunter Wars series and the previously-established canon of Of Possible Futures: The Tale of Zuckuss and 4-LOM. The disorder appeared again in the Star Wars Roleplaying Game supplemental Ultimate Adversaries, with the introduction of the character Victor Jun.
Due to its derivation from Greek for "split-mind," schizophrenia, in media, is sometimes depicted similarly to dissociative identity disorder. For example, in both the The Official Star Wars Fact File 61 and the Star Wars: The Official Starships & Vehicles Collection 8, the characteristics of Zuckuss's schizophrenic diagnosis were described as being more akin to multiple personality disorder, with the illness being termed as simply "schizophrenia". However, real-world schizophrenia is characterized by delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech patterns, abnormal psychomotor behavior, and a negative or flat affect, which are not present in a diagnosis of multiple personality disorder.
- Star Wars: The Force Unleashed video game
- The Force Unleashed novelization
- The Mandalorian Armor (First appearance) (Retcon) (Symptoms only)
- The Essential Guide to Alien Species
- Ultimate Adversaries
- The Official Star Wars Fact File 61 (BOU15-16, Bounty Hunters - Zuckuss)
- Star Wars: The Official Starships & Vehicles Collection 8
- "Mon Mothma's 5 Facts"—Star Wars Insider 129
- Millennium Falcon Owner's Workshop Manual (real-life book)
Notes and referencesEdit
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Ultimate Adversaries
- ↑ Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (video game)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 The Essential Guide to Alien Species
- ↑ Star Wars: The Official Starships & Vehicles Collection 8
- ↑ The Mandalorian Armor, page 247. Zuckuss hears Gheeta's voice inside his head.
- ↑ The Official Star Wars Fact File 61
- ↑ Millennium Falcon Owner's Workshop Manual
- ↑ Tracy Knight. "More Simply Human." On Writing Horror. Ed. Mort Castle. 2nd ed. Cinncinatti: Writer's Digest Books, 2007. 147.—"Schizophrenia and Multiple Personality Disorder (now termed Dissociative Identity Disorder) are distinct clinical entities. Please write this down in large block letters. If I accomplish nothing else in this chapter other than to reduce the grotesque number of times this error is made, I will consider my existence on this planet well spent."
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia. American Psychiatric Association. Retrieved on January 03, 2013.
- ↑ APA DSM-5. Schizophrenia, proposed revision. American Psychiatric Association. Retrieved on November 10, 2011.(Requires registration)
- ↑ APA DSM-5. Dissociative Identity Disorder, proposed revision. American Psychiatric Association. Retrieved on November 10, 2011.(Requires registration)
- ↑ Dissociative disorders: Symptoms. Dissociative disorders. Mayo Clinic. Retrieved on January 03, 2013.
- Schizophrenia on Wikipedia