MovieChat Forums > The Duellists (1978) Discussion > Feraud was a scary psycho nutjob

Feraud was a scary psycho nutjob

posted 12 years ago by jeffyoung1
4 replies | jump to latest

Didn't anyone think that French army officer, Feraud, was a complete nutjob? He projected all his angst, anger, insecurities, hate, frustrations, and the kitchen sink upon an innocent man, fellow French army officer, D'Hubert. Who knows why he chose D'Hubert?

It really, really scares me that in life some a$$hole out of nowhere will just decide YOU are going to be his life's enemy and you have no idea why he hates you. Hasn't anyone reading this ever ran into some person who took an immediate disliking to you for no apparent reason? And no, it doesn't have to be race or ethnic-related. Often times it's just something about you (me) that just rubs a psycho person the wrong way.

Feraud was capable of making close friends. The man had some kind of charisma and personality. Notice how he collected a knot of very loyal, French army officers to him as friends, including the tall, almost mute French officer. I never knew a army officer could be successful by being so quiet. By all logic, Feraud and D'Hubert should have been the closest of friends. D'Hubert was a real nice guy if you knew him, but I saw that D'Hubert could be misunderstood as being aloof and overly formal if you met him for the first time. That I understood, was part of his higher social class ettiquette upbringing which was misunderstood by the lower social class Feraud (even though both men were of the same military rank) as being insulting and demeaning and being looked down upon. Still, that is no reason to dislike someone so intensely enough to kill them. Today in 2012, when you encounter a snobby person, you just ignore them.

[–] CremersAlex 12 years ago

[–] HenryCW 11 years ago

Feraud clearly got issues and he vented all his anger and frustrations on a complete stranger at the time. All this talk about honor, personal insult, etc seemed fairly pointless within the larger context of the War – and the duel lasted almost twenty years? Why didn’t he spend his time doing things far more worthwhile – like finding a girlfriend?

[–] BooksArsenal 10 years ago

It really, really scares me that in life some a$$hole out of nowhere will just decide YOU are going to be his life's enemy and you have no idea why he hates you. Hasn't anyone reading this ever ran into some person who took an immediate disliking to you for no apparent reason? And no, it doesn't have to be race or ethnic-related. Often times it's just something about you (me) that just rubs a psycho person the wrong way.

This is a behavior pattern that I believe is indulged in often by Narcissistic Personality-Disordered (NPD) people.

It's a mental illness, and a very nasty one at that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder

Féraud was probably an NPD. I'm surprised he was able to become a general.

[–] stevekaczynski 8 years ago

Some personality disorders are no barrier to success and may even make it more likely - though at some cost to other people. An aggressive and violent individual like Féraud might well have found two decades of the Revolutionary/Napoleonic Wars to be an ideal situation for getting ahead, assuming he did not get killed.