Do you think Sodou may have ASPD?

Interesting question and to be honest, I'm not sure. But sinde ASPD includes the element of psychopathy or sociopathy, one may also add: "psychopathy as not having a sense of empathy or morality, but sociopathy as only differing in sense of right and wrong from the average person". I would lean towards sociopathy. I think, Sodou feels he is in the right. But I'm sure there's a case to be made for the other.

And the other thing I'm not sure about is: How does the fact that Sodou has - tragically - fallen in love with Asami fit into this? With psychopathy the root of someone's behaviour is in his psyche, with sociopathy it's in the situation or circumstance. So is he a socipath who happens to be tragically crossed with love? Has he BECOME a sociopath BECAUSE he is tragically crossed with love? Him falling in love makes me tend towards sociopath also, because isn't the psychopath incapable of love?

I have to admit, he baffles me and I couldn't say. But maybe, at the end of the day, he's just a poor bastard who had the bad fortune of falling in love with Asami and his sanity caved in because of it...

Okay, my head is hurting now, lol!

I agree with you that on a continuum, he'd be on the sociopath side (and fairly "light" for a sociopath). I think his "love" for Asami is a fixation, but it is all about how Sudou feels. He has no problem lying to Asami or stealing from him. He even wants to make Asami suffer by killing Aki. While Sudou calls it love, I think it is more like a fixation--Sudou wants to be by someone rich and powerful and be rich and powerful, but he doesn't want to give any loyalty. Maybe he fundamentally cannot form real intimate relationships because he lacks empathy?

All good points, Anoni Grrl, and as I said earlier, it baffles me. I honestly can't say. But you raised a fascinating question for sure. I wonder if even sensei herself has thought this through on such a psychological level. :) Then again, all her characters are somewhat messed up, so I guess: Yes, she probably has. :D Also interesting thought about the "rich and powerful" aspect. Does Sudou "love" Asami or does he "love" what Asami represents? Mmh, I think I will have to read that chapter again some time soon. ;)

This is so interesting to me. These types of classifications were used to identify the most extreme forms of human behavior, People who existed outside the bell curve of expected behavior patterns. That might lead to them doing bad deeds, ex. Hitler. they were never meant to explain every day huamn behavior like simple hatred or jelousy. Being a one of the above is rare( I hope) you are born this way with out a feeling of empathy for others(sociopath) you don;t care because you don't have those feelings, period. Terrible abuse can a cause these conditions. As for ASPD diag. There are to many of these on the books that over lap and don't make any sense. It is hard to say without his full background. In closing in the underworld, this may be expected behavior. Guns, betrayal, violence, may be how they solve their problems. It would then be considered their norm , no? after all they are at war.

See that's the rub--if it's "normal" for their subculture, a person can have empathy and feelings an still act in cruel and inhumane ways. Only some of them have a disorder (or none) --and some people with such a disorder may never be as violent because they may just keep to themselves and do not act out as much. I thought of this because of the earlier conversation about Asami, and I thought maybe Sudou had more traits than Asami--but we don't really know if any of them consistently act that way outside of a "underworld" context.

Since we do not know the juvenile history, I'm not sure if any of the characters have the personality disorder, but to me, Yuri is somebody that I would suspect. As far as Sudou goes, he has anti-social behavior that meets the DSM criteria. I don't think he's in love with Asami. I feel that Asami is a tool that he can use for self-gain, that's why he was willing to kill Akihito, knowing that it would kill Asami inside. In fact, he states he would get pleasure by watching Asami in despair searching for Akihito. Sudou is one twisted person.