by replaceablehead » Fri May 15, 2020 7:54 am
You know when you hear someone articulate what you're trying desperately to articulate and it's just so perfectly put? That's how I felt watching this.
He fundamentally understood that the Zodiac is a kooky, zany, fruity guy. Maybe not a full blown schizophrenic, but probably odd, antisocial and bizarre. I feel like we forget just how bizarre his behavior was, even for a serial killer.
I don't think any serial killers are totally without their eccentricities. Take Bundy, famously said to present as very normal, rubbish! Bundy was an observable weirdo, you'd have to be daft not to notice his outlandishness. And yet most people remember him as charismatic, well spoken and handsome. Certainly on the most superficial level he could sustain an appearance of normality provided the interview didn't go for more than a minute, or two. But watch longer footage and you can see the tentacles come out.
The bottom line is that I am convinced that Zodiac was odd enough for his oddness to draw attention. You can't switch that kind of eccentricity on and off like a light switch. Mild mannered, utterly boring and ordinary real estate agent by day, campy supervillian by night. It's doubtful. Was he highly intelligent? Doubtful. was he geeky pseudo-intellectual who probably drove friends and family crazy with his obnoxious know-it-all attitude? Very likely.
I read the letters and I want to reach through the page and give his musical theatre arse an atomic wedgy. The dude was weird. Can we agree on that? I think the idea that he was unremarkable is it's own kind of contrarian fantasy. As if it's more exciting and controversial to imagine him as some kind of Clark Kent who could shed his eccentricity just by removing his glasses. Some people are just uncomfortable with mental illness and they refuse to recognize pathological behavior, perhaps because they can't countenance the idea of ones mind malfunctioning, or it conflicts with their desire for people to be culpable and responsible for their actions.
The guy wrote ciphers and wore a costume during at least one killing, drew "treasure" maps, bomb diagrams, made tasteless jokes, referenced musical theatre and he called him self the "Zodiac". Just dwell on that for a moment, that's some profoundly zany shenanigans if you think about. I mean that's literally the kind of stuff Sideshow Bob gets up to. I think we get used to it and we get kind of desensitized to his bizarre behavior, it becomes normalized. Most serial killers don't get anywhere near that level of whacky. And yet despite that some still think he's going to turn out to be some total sleeper suspect, cruising under the radar with a totally normal, unremarkable life and personality.
I think schizotypal personality disorder is quite a compelling theory. It's highly speculative. But it strikes a chord with me. Something about the letters that's hard to put my finger on. Some people see it and think, "oh maybe Asperger's, or some such" and I think it's because people are more familiar with AS, but I think the oddness people are picking up on is actually a certain schizoid quality.
Something about the warped perception, the sense the writer is almost delusional, but not quite; viewpoints that are (superficially) intellectually complex, but bizarre and overthought.
The thing I most observe in schizotypal people and schizophrenics too, is this sort of warped perception of interpersonal interactions. Unlike people with AS who seem to be somewhat socially blind, or to have sort of poor social vision, people who are schizotypal are more like a person with warped vision, kaleidoscope eyes. It's all twisted, upside down, inside out. But it can be so detailed and convincing. Listening them describe an interpersonal conflict, maybe a fight they had with a family member, it can have you convinced the family member was in the wrong, even if its odd and outlandish, they appeal to subjectivity and you want to believe them because you don't want to invalid their experience. It can be so detailed and deep, not unlike the depth and detail that some schizophrenics have when talking about a delusion. It can be convincing until you see them interact with the family member in question and you just see this profound disconnect between what actually occurs and is said vs. their perception. Like whole conversation and events took place in there head and the one or two words the family member actually says only serve to confirm their odd belief. And it's so much more than a different point of view. It's bizarre in the most profound way.
Take for example Zodiac constantly becoming offended, or miffed by seemingly insignificant comments made by police. If you imagine that through his letters he is holding a sort of conversation with the police and the public, then its a conversation that shows a very warped perception of the way the police and public view him and warped perception of the "conversation" they're having. It's as if at times he anticipates a different response, or views the Police's response in a way that's not at all what it is. It's like he's on a different wave length, but one that goes far beyond normal differences and subjective experience, or beliefs.
I feel like I get a little of that in the Zodiac letters, a warped view of the world, but one that is bizarre, inappropriate and eccentric. Also a whiff of actual delusional beliefs, as though the writer is acquainted with the edges of reality, maybe has had a looser grip when under stress. Maybe they don't really think they'll have slaves in the afterlife, but maybe they have this weird openness to the idea that they might, a sort of predisposition to magical thinking.
I see all mental illness as a spectrum and I think there is far more crossover than I think anyone truly understands.
Having said all that, the idea that the Zodiac has/had any particular mental illness is highly speculative. But I do strongly argue that at a minimum he would have been noticeably odd, and I think if you take anything away from this video it's that.
