authorship

i will get back to the Queensryche analysis later.

i have a moment's thought about the placement of narrator, editor, author, and character.  specifically, the relationship these htings have with personalities.

the average person is the author of their story.

they have the opportunity to shape the course of their lives, they have the choices to make that extend the plot forward, and they are not awlays bestsellers.  more importantly, some of the choices made create new paths and choices to make, just like laying a plot down for a character.  we also understand that conflict is interesting, and that a story without conflict is unreadable.  thus, we know that we will get involved in situations, learn from them, and continue on.  we sometimes sabotage ourselves, much like an author writing in hardships for a character, but we rise out of them or succumb to them just as characters do.  in the end, we have control and intent, but sometimes the story leads us in a direction we originally did not intend.

but a narcissist is a hero -- or a tragic suffering protagonist -- in their own tale, and someone is making sure that they are always put into situations where they are on stage and on display.  often, they do what is necesssary to assume that center-stage role, always first, always most important or most noble.  sometimes, though, it is another who chooses to put us there so that others can revel in our suffering.

for the average person, fate is at least a slight curiosity.  we can not help what happens to us, but it's not like there are factors plotting against us.  it's actually more like an author with a direction they need to go, and they are not creating a mary-sue.  we are not always the most important.  sometimes, important plot points need to occur and our characters and our surroundings suffer due to the direction the story needs to go.

but the narcissist... they are unhappy with this idea.  the bigger picture is less significant -- the only part that matters is that they are aggrandized by the events, and all else is diminished in comparison.

it's an important difference.

take, for instance, the rise of Donald Trump in politics and media.  sure, a wealthy businessman who has been in and out of the public eye for years is not the best example for humility.  but the air of bulletproof arrogance that perhaps has made him appealing as a leader to those who flock to the brash who appear strong is telling -- he legitimately thinks that he's the hero of this story.  David Tennant mentioned on a talk show that "Trump doesn't see himself as the villain" in the same news cycle that the Don lies to cover his tracks after mocking a disabled reporter.

if there are consequences, he will see them as someone's actions against him, and he will be the tragic hero, noble to the core and braving hardship because others are jealous of his success.  there will not be a moment of humility where he admits that perhaps he shouldn't incite violence in others if he wants to be a respectable leader or even a remotely decent human being.

we all have our unreliability.  there are blind spots we all have, to ourselves and others, and sometimes these are needed to keep order.  no one person can look at the world from the eyes of everyone else -- in fact, the mere suggestion that some people dare to consider how other might might feel is met in certain circles with outrage and scorn.  after all, that's all feminism is as it handled by non-extremes (and those actual extremes are far more rare than its critics would imply).

we are all in control of some aspects of our lives.  those who deny it are either of so much privilege and security that they have never needed to acknowledge this, or those who have early on learned that life is hard and nothing can be counted on.

Nikki, in Operation Mindcrime is the latter -- some smalltown punk who gets in way too deep, because he's never learned any other way.  his perceptions are broken, though in a different way that Trump's.  he might not be a narcissist (or, at first, a sociopath), but he is a casualty of our society.