Was Patrick Star secretly
a Sociopath?
SpongeBob Square Pants was a happy childhood show of mine. I
was blissfully unaware of what was going on back then and while I missed many
adult jokes including a scene of SpongeBob watching sea urchin porn and a joke
about prison rape looking back I can laugh at how this stuff was put in such a
show. Some things are not a laughing matter however, this thing being the
monster that is Patrick.
First things first in the title I used the word sociopath
for a reason. The reason I use sociopath is because I think Patrick has
antisocial personality disorder which means the person has a long term pattern
of manipulating, exploiting or violating the rights of others. Let’s take a
closer look at Patrick and prove this accusation.
First things first Patricks’ most defining characteristic is
stupidity. Sure there was a time where
you could describe it as charming and often it wasn’t particularly destructive.
The key thing here is manipulation is clearly mentioned in the definition of
antisocial personality disorder. Someone with this disorder would manipulate
people into believing they’re harmless and what they’re doing has no malicious
intent.
That being
said maybe things are more questionable when Patrick becomes malicious, destructive
cruel. I’m going to discuss a few examples although it should be noted that I
could never possibly go over every example of Patrick’s monstrosities in one
blog post. I will talk about what I think are some of the worst however
starting with an episode I actually remember disliking for its mean spirited
nature as a child, I’m With Stupid. As an adult I like to over analyse
everything and look into connotations and implications of everything but as a
child I was kind of easily pleased and hence an episode that bugged me back
then shows the evil intentions of Patrick.
The
episode starts with Patrick preparing for his parents coming over. He’s worried
because they think he’s stupid so SpongeBob offers to act stupid to make
Patrick look better. This starts off okay but eventually Patrick supposedly
forgets (Although could purposefully be ignoring) that SpongeBob is just
acting. The levels of verbal abuse thrown at SpongeBob, Patricks supposed best
friend aren’t funny and are kind of uncomfortable to watch. SpongeBob
eventually snaps and runs away and some strange ending happens where these
aren’t Patrick’s real parents. The important thing however is Patrick gets away
with all his bullying towards SpongeBob free of any consequence or
repercussions.
My next
example is another episode I remember from when I was younger, Valentine’s Day.
Patrick thinks SpongeBob hasn’t got him a present despite the fact that he gave
SpongeBob a broken up rock and the gift is on its way Patrick goes insane and
threaten innocent civilians and nearly destroys an amusement park. He threaten
random people because he can’t get what he wants. Guess what, at the end he gets
his gift and faces no consequences.
There’s
one more example that I want to talk about, it’s an episode called Karate Star.
As the title suggests Patrick learns karate and becomes an expert as he can
karate chop through anything. Naturally he nearly destroys the town but this is
not the worst part. He walks over the pram with an infant inside and if he had
not been stopped by SpongeBob would have murdered a baby. HE NEARLY MURDERED A
BABY! Later on he apparently feels guilty and it’s supposed to be redeemable. I’ll
repeat, we’re supposed to accept his redemption AFTER HE NEARLY MURDERED A
BABY!
Those are
three big examples and believe me there are many more. I know what you’re thinking
(Yes I can read minds) you’re thinking that Patrick is just stupid and doesn’t
realise what he’s doing. I’d argue that this shows he has no concept of right
and wrong and simply does what he pleases out of selfish desires but the
argument that he’s really that stupid is just as valid … if it wasn’t for one
more episode called the card. In this episode Patrick has a valuable trading
card SpongeBob wants. At one point Patrick walks into goo lagoon with the card
and SpongeBob lifts up Patrick too keep the card undamaged. Afterwards
SpongeBob asks why Patrick walked into the lagoon. Patricks reply says it all,
he says SpongeBob you can’t always expect my usual brand of stupidity, I like
to mix it up, keep ye on yer toes. He’s fully aware of how stupid he acts, it’s
all a ruse.
I think
this proof is blatant of Patrick’s intentions, he causes destruction and misery
because he wants to. His stupidity has been a façade all along to allow him to
get away with his malicious acts. I don’t think there’s any doubt he’s a
sociopath. Of course some of you are thinking that I’m taking this kids cartoon
too seriously. It’s not like you need to put effort in during a Kids Cartoon
right? Wrong, kid’s television can really influence a child, after all children
watching SpongeBob can often be at an age where they are innocent and easily
influenced. A good morale with characters they can relate to is important as
cartoons can be a good way to teach children important lessons in a fun and
colourful way. Having a character act selfishly is fine as long as it is
portrayed as wrong and they face consequences for what they’re done.
You’ll
often hear people say something along the lines of “it’s just a kids show, you
don’t really need to try”. Patrick was a loveably stupid character at first but
whether it was intentional or not he became a sociopath and he’s now a very
evil man … Star. Is this what we should be showing our kinds, the attempted
murder of a Baby, I’ll let you make up your own mind on that.
