Hold on! Let me put on my smart-ass glasses.
Mostwanted and I have already discussed the topic sociopath/psychopath.
Here,
here.
My words, in brief, there is no established distinction between a psychopath and a sociopath. Some people say sociopaths are more prone to aggression and psychopaths are lack empathy and are more calculating, others say the opposite. In medical psychiatry there is only antisocial personality disorder, psychopathy and sociopathy are synonyms. In general, sociopath is just a popularised term used in different contexts.
In criminal psychiatry, antisocial personality disorder and psychopath are sometimes separated. A person with APD has a much higher risk of suicide than a psychopath who essentially should not have feelings of remorse and guilt. Simply put, a person with APD could be Bella and a psychopath is a typical recidivist criminal or a serial killer who also does not suffer from other disorders that can provoke a suicide attempt. Vanessa doesn't fit the description of psychopaths because they are very impulsive and aggressive.
I believe that Bella may have APD (or sociopathy, whatever). At first I was leaning more towards Vanessa being a sociopath and I'm still admitting that possibility, but then I read the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the US personality disorders manual) and now I'm pretty sure she has narcissistic personality disorder.
Yes, she shares some traits common to sociopaths/psychopaths. But her predominant personality trait is narcissism.
"People with antisocial and narcissistic personality disorders are tough-minded, exploitative, manipulative, egocentric, and deceptive. Vanessa has all these traits. However, narcissistic personality disorder does not always include impulsivity and aggressive. Vanessa is actually pretty bad at hiding her negative emotions, but she can control herself. When Nika makes verbal attacks towards her, she shows this angry face
and then tries to cover her dissatisfied reaction behind a fake smile. She would be much more hot-tempered if she had APD. She also doesn't have any history of bad behavior in childhood or criminal behavior in adulthood, at least we don't know anything about it. Otherwise her childhood would be more like the one Leia and William had. Vanessa with APD is basically Leia minus her affection for her brother. Finally, people with APD do not crave admiration and envy and do not reflect it on others as passionately as Vanessa does.
She is obsessed with self-praise and self-love to the point where she more-likely sees it as the purpose of her life. It's the difference between being a narcissist and having a narcissistic disorder. We all know she's a narcissist, but it's one thing to have a tendency toward it, and another to have it as a major trait that interferes your daily life."
Here is my more detailed post about that. Open the description of narcissistic personality disorder under the spoiler, it's basically a detailed description of Vanessa.
I agree about Vanessa being more dangerous than Bella. Hell, I even think that Vanessa might be more dangerous than Leia. And Vanessa is definitely the most intelligent of them, while Bella is far behind of both. But I don't think that more dangerous = worse person. I think so far Bella has shown herself to be much more awful than Vanessa. But from what we know about Vanessa she may be worse.
Damn straight!
I care.
