Episodes
First Season:
Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon’s childhood reads like a primer for early narcissistic development. His strict mother, absentee-father, and banishment to French boarding school with snobby rich boys who bullied him, laid a narcissistic seedbed in his psyche.
Wait…that’s not the whole story. There’s a mystery to be solved here. Read the memoirs from his mistresses, valets, and aides-de-camp. You see a different man: meet Napoleon the tender husband, silly uncle, and loyal friend; his chivalry beside his selfishness and you cannot decide if you love him or hate him.
From the backwater island of his birth to the Devil-shat island of his death, these episodes share the stories that leave no doubt as to Napoleon’s narcissistic pathology interspersed with stories that negate it. We see him at his most humane and most tyrannical.
Foreshadowing
Sons identify with their fathers to learn how to be a man. What happens to identity when you are ashamed of your dad?
Carlo Bonaparte
He was despised at school so he created an alternate reality where his classmate's mockery turned into envy.
Boarding School
Children who become narcissists have in common a cold, distant parent, often the mother, who frustrates them early in life.
Letizia Bonaparte
Paoli was Napoleon's 'fantasy father' because Carlo was such a disappointment. Paoli would come to condemn Napoleon and endanger his family. What happens to the personality when a dream is shattered and your idol despises you?
Pasqual Paoli
If you ever hear someone say this - run.
As a child, Napoleon knew the humiliation of having one's country invaded and conquered. As Emperor of France he did the same thing to little countries all over Europe. Find out about 'identification with the aggressor.'
Corsica