Norman Bates

Norman Bates is the main antagonist of the novel and film Psycho, and the main character of the Psycho media franchise. He is a serial killer with dissociative identity disorder whose alternate personality, "Mother", takes the form of his deceased, abusive mother - whom he himself murdered - and who kills any woman that the "Norman" personality feels attracted to.

What makes him sympathetic[]

• His mother, Norma, was a mean-spirited religious fanatic who treated him with cruelty, constantly nagging and belittling him, forbidding him to have any friends or a life outside of her, and preaching to him that sex was a sin and that all women - except her - were whores and tools of the devil.
• His father, John, died when Norman was five years old, denying the boy a positive parental role model who could have protected him from Norma.
• Norma's abuse prevented him from developing social skills and led to him becoming pathologically dependent on her.
• When Norma took a lover, Norman felt abandoned and became insanely jealous, to the point that he killed them both.
  • He immediately felt so guilty and lonely, however, that he recreated her in his mind as an alternate personality that was as cruel and abusive as the real Norma had been.
• As an adult, he is completely under "Mother"'s control, and he feels sick and guilty over covering up the murders that he is convinced "she" committed.
• He only wants to have normal, loving relationships with the women whom "Mother" murders.
• He eventually ends up being completely subsumed by "Mother", with her personality taking complete, permanent control of his mind.

External Links[]

• Norman Bates on the Villains Wiki