Bad Apple!! is the third stage theme of the fourth Touhou Project installment Lotus Land Story, composed by ZUN1). The original song was quite a standout within the game, but it was the remix of that song that became famous. I am linking the English cover of the song made by the brilliant artist Juliet Simmons, acting online under the artist name “JubyPhonic”:
In my opinion, this song is, well, it's extremely good, and I think it deserves a full page analysis for everything I could find in the lyrics. I don't normally analyze lyrics a lot, but this one is special and I hope that I can do it justice and get across how brilliant it is through the analysis. However, I will not be looking at the song from the typical angle. The standard angle to take, on this track, is that the song is about Depression. This is “correct”2), however, I have found that it becomes even more interesting to talk about when analyzed from the angle of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. As far as I understand this, this angle is wrong, but it turns out that NPD and major depression are related in a lot more ways than might be superficially apparent. A lot of NPD symptoms, and a lot of behaviors that NPD causes, are very similar to Depression. Or, in my words, the overlap in terms of mechanics and dynamics in both NPD and Depression, is very large, large enough that it is actually still very useful to look at the song from the NPD angle, even though that will be a very unorthodox and canonically “wrong” angle to take. It should be clearly said that even though I will be presenting things as fact (ie. “this is what this line of the lyrics means”), it is not actually what it was intended to mean.
One other note about this analysis is that I am writing it in prose. When compared to the original song, it might look on the surface that I am skipping entire blocks of text, however in actuality it is just that I am just skipping lines of text that I have already analyzed. The song repeats many of its lines, whereas this analysis will not.
Analysis
Verse 1
One very defining feature of NPD is that people with it often harbor strong resentments, often against a lot of things. There are all kinds of reasons for this. It's a defense mechanism, useful to deflect a variety of problems with the patient's own (nonexistent) ego. Resentment is useful because it can provide a substantial sense of self that is less in need of defense, ie. less fragile. Resentment was transferred onto people with NPD and they exhibit it as a way of projective identification, ie. to be the one resenting someone/something as opposed to being the one who is resented (which is what they are used to). Inside of people with NPD rages the abyss, the utter absence/invisibleness3) of a person or personality, the ultimate level of shame and fear a human person is capable of feeling. Confrontation with it feels like utter annihilation and can happen any second of the day. Any one thing that reminds a person with NPD of their (lack of) humanity will lead to a confrontation with the abyss - be it a poor or even just normal grade, be it another person trying to befriend them, be it another person not trying to befriend them, being wrong about something, not being loved enough, everything can remind a person with NPD of the abyss. Resenting the things that remind a person with NPD of their abyss can be a way to avoid that confrontation, to alleviate the suffering. Even just good things, like other people having good grades, or other people enjoying their time, can remind a person with NPD of how they are lacking these things. Narcissists feel empty inside and can never truly be filled. Every time they become aware of something that is outside of them, they feel challenged. Resentment can help repress the abyss.
The song starts and acknowledges this right away: Ever on and on I continue circling, with nothing but my hate in a carousel of agony
This was probably meant to be about a depressive's person hate of themselves, but it is essentially true for people with NPD as well: Disagreement with oneself. Whether it is expressed through hate (at oneself) or through being ashamed (of oneself) isn't that much different and actually could be said to be fairly equivalent. The resentment that people with NPD express to the outside really is only an expression of resentment towards themselves, and it is agonizing, it doesn't just “destroy” people with NPD, it already has long destroyed them. It's only the confrontation with the abyss that destroys them yet again, causing all the pain all over again - the carousel.
However, whatever caused them confrontation with the abyss this time, a person with NPD will eventually be able to not get constantly, consciously worked up over it all the time anymore: Till slowly I forget and my heart starts vanishing
People with NPD don't really have a heart4), they have an abyss, they have the painful absence of a heart. Being able to distract oneself from the abyss is like burying the heart and making it vanish.
There is always a moment in time where a person with NPD will become aware of what is going on, and the scale of their problem. Well, not always, some people with NPD live and die and never realize, but a lot of them do and they realize they are looking at a problem that is even bigger than the absence of a heart: Their inability to get one. And suddenly I see that I can't break free
People with NPD don't enjoy doing what they do, they aren't cartoonishly evil. Inside of them is a personality, there is a person that wants to be kind and loving, but it literally cannot be as kind as it wants to be. A person with NPD is looking at the very real possibility of never being able to improve, an abyss that is almost even greater than the original abyss.
Verse 2
In the next verse the song explores the development of NPD, ie. how NPD forms in the developing brain and what it is like as a child and teen. Especially at younger ages, resentment is not quite as pronounced. There, the expression of their disagreement with themselves will look more typical to that of depression, it's pain. At this young age, people with NPD do not have any idea what is going on and they haven't had too many problems yet because of their condition.
They are Slipping through the cracks of a dark eternity, With nothing but my pain and the paralyzing agony, and this pain and agony will end up defining them, it will tell me who I am, who I was, with an added emphasis on it not just being about who they are, but that this is a development so fundamental to a person with NPD such that it is also who they have ever been, even if that is or is not historically accurate.
Uncertainty enveloping my mind is another way of defining the abyss. Shame, pain and agony are all emotional responses to the abyss, but the abyss itself is purely just emptiness, uncertainty. Or, well, it's a heart that has been buried specifically to survive an environment that didn't allow them to have one. Doing this, there will eventually be a point of no return, a point beyond which they can't break free.
Refrain
An unfortunate reality for people with NPD is that their reality is entirely defined through their abyss. All that exists for them is the abyss and, maybe, their way of navigating it. To them, friends, family, partners, physical objects or even an objective reality aren't so much a reality as they are concepts warped into surrounding of their abyss. This is pretty similar to depression wherein a deep sense of suffering can define their realities. It's a very disconcerting perspective to have on reality and feels very wrong and confusing: Maybe it's a dream; maybe nothing else is real. The problem with these realities is that they are so warped and wrong that the results they produce are meaningless to any human that doesn't have the condition. The way their feelings work, the ways they manage to navigate their abyss are useless for anyone who doesn't have such an abyss. A person with depression or NPD could tell a person without those conditions about their situation, but “healthy” people will not be able to draw anything useful from their retellings5):
But it wouldn't mean a thing if I told you how I feel
When a person with NPD wasn't just confronted with the abyss, but also doesn't have anything to help them repress it, they are in a special state - a special sense of nihilism that is left over after the annihilation is completed. It's apathy, a disconnection from reality and about as close as a person with NPD can get to release (from their suffering). This apathy means not caring, not caring about emotions, feelings, things, humans, physical possessions, no feelings of happiness, not looking forward to anything, not wanting anything, not having a reason to live - which sounds bad, but it also means not having a reason to suffer. This state of apathy is obviously still suffering in its own way, healthy people are defined by the things they care about, the things they want to do and the humans they look forward to spending time with, but such things never end well for a person with NPD. Apathy, while not a pleasant way to live, is the closest a person with NPD can get to not suffering as much and people with NPD often end up desiring this special state: So I'm tired of all the pain, all the misery inside, And I wish that I could live feeling nothing but the night.
So, there is a reason why people with an abyss have a problem that is almost even bigger than the abyss itself. The thing is, people with NPD know how to behave correctly. In fact, due to the absence of their own personality, all they can do is observing others and then picking and choosing what they think is the correct behavior (ie. copying it from others). They know what people around them would do or, at least, what people around them would think is the correct thing to do. A lack of rational insight is not the core of the narcissists problem. Unfortunately for people with NPD, they can spend decades of their life trying to find the right solution, trying to find out how navigate their situation and they will often take in advice from others, to try this conflict resolution strategy, to do that emotions management skill, do this school program, say these nice things to a person, give more attention, care, etc. etc.; but ultimately none of it helps. Not really, anyway.
You can tell me what to say; you can tell me where to go, But I doubt that I would care, and my heart would never know addresses this and makes it very clear that to the conscious person, there is a hungry abyss to run away from, where such advice typically given by other people is absolutely untenable and unrealistic (and because of the abyss they don't really have the appreciation for it either). And even worse, given that the abyss has full control over everything in them, there is no way the heart and personality hidden underneath could ever be actually reached in a meaningful way, not with advice like this. A person with NPD could be given a literal script for a conflict with another person, act it out step by step to the absolute letter and, while it would help them navigate their conflict with the other person, it could never actually solve them a conflict. Either way, no matter what they do, it will make it worse, either for the people around them, or for themselves inside. Trying to do nothing about their abyss (ie. being apathetic) is the only way to help them preserve themselves, but at the same time doing anything to preserve the apathy will make it worse and lead to the final, terminal destruction of them: If I make another move there'll be no more turning back, Because everything will change and it all will fade to black.
Verse 4
Will tomorrow ever come? Will I make it through the night? Will there ever be a place for the broken in the light?
The light, here, is the opposite of the night. Night constitutes apathy, and light constitutes the actual caring. For people with NPD, however, caring means a confrontation with the abyss. They don't really belong into the light, they don't really have a place. They can find a physical space in the light, but not actually a place, ie. a physical space that is theirs and where it is right for them to be. Now, one thing to watch out for in people with NPD is that they have lost almost all connection to their feelings. They don't feel feelings in the way normal people do, as their feelings are all defined by their relationship to their abyss6). These people will not have a normal understanding of their feelings and will be extremely confused and unable to tell what is real. Essentially, much like how other people and objects aren't really a reality to people with NPD, their own emotions aren't a reality either. Or, at the very least, they are extremely warped. This is expressed when the lyrics ask Am I hurting? Am I sad? Should I stay, or should I go?, I've forgotten how to tell. Did I ever even know?. The answer to the last question is “No”, but to a person with NPD it will feel like they did, at some point in their life. Or maybe they actually did but it's just so bad that they genuinely cannot know anymore, in the same way that a person with depression would not be able to know based on how paradigm-shifting their condition is. The one thing they can tell, though, is that if they stay there will be trouble - and if they go there will be double7).
Going back to being told what to say and what to do, people with NPD will try absolutely anything, but they will never be able to get even close to understanding other humans. Rationally, maybe, they can process them as numbers and social constructs, but not as meatballs with emotions8):
All the people that I see I will never understand
If I find a way to change, if I step into the light
Then I'll never be the same and it all will fade to white
The black-white duality of this song will give first-time analysts a lot of headache because it doesn't fit in. This is intended and strenghtens the meaning of the realization of its true meaning. At first it looks like white should be the opposite of black, ie. it should be great, it should be healing and recovery, but it's actually not. The truth is that with NPD, destruction of some kind is inevitable. Suicide is one way to go and will end in blackness, but recovery9) from NPD will mean that they become someone who they are not. The abyss defines the person with NPD. A person with NPD is not a “nice” person, they are only a person that can do nice things10). Changing away from this means changing away from what the person really is. It is considered “better” (therefore white), but it's still not real. You can die, or you can completely lose yourself but there is a slither of hope.
This fake white-black contrast is where the song comes together, it leads to the solution to the riddle that this song presents. It's about the non-difference between things. In the same way that both white and black are bad options despite seeming like white is different, this non-difference comes to define the situation of a person with NPD as well: Things are shit right now, there are two paths to go down, both are shit, and they both lead to a result that is shit, but one of them has a positive color :)
This is also reflected in the jarring contrast between the depressive nature of the lyrics and upbeat tone of the music: It really is a non-contrast. It does not matter. If to the uninvolved it looks like there is a contrast, they do not understand the song well enough. The song is upbeat in the same way that the losing of oneself is “positive” - it's not. The color white is different from black, and the tone of the song is different from what it says in the lyrics, but neither are “positive”. The jarring contrast between white and black was intentional, both being bad was intentional, and so was the jarring contrast between the lyrics and the melody intentional. It's the way in which the song reaches out of itself by providing that same non-contrast not just in the lyrics, but by baking the non-contrast into the entire song as a whole. Art. Literally just art.
It goes even deeper, actually, because really the song mentions four, not just two scales: night and light, and black and white. But they are really all the same. It's for this reason that the song is very explicit in its use of these four words, the night is not the same as black, and the light is not the same as the white - but the scales are an illusion. These might look like two 2-dimensional scales, but it's all a singular 1-dimensional scale with different colors. Some of which could be described as “better” than others in some way, it's not like people with NPD or even depression always feel the exact same way. There are differences, but these differences will be meaningless to anyone who doesn't understand the relationship that a person suffering from depression or NPD has to themselves.
Verse 5
Confrontation with the abyss does not actually help, it does not lead to learning experiences. The abyss is a cruel suffering, because it does not teach anything, it does not say anything. The pain from touching a hot stove is useful and was, for the longest time, the ultimate survival mechanism that humans had. You can learn something from the pain you feel after getting consequences for your actions, but the abyss is different. There is nothing to gain here, and confronting the abyss doesn't help you heal or improve. It is pointless suffering. A headache tells you to find a calm and dark spot to rest, the pain from a finger you pinched in the door makes you more careful around doors - the abyss does neither. People with NPD are constantly fighting themselves so they don't do things they know would hurt them. Be it lashing out at someone who they resent, breaking up friendships or partnerships, quitting a job and so many more, their abyss constantly pushes them to do these things to avoid confrontation with the abyss. But anything they can do will make it worse, it will only accelerate the confrontation with the abyss, and the confrontation with the abyss will ultimately annihilitate them. Being humans at their core, they will put obscene amounts of effort into maintaining a normal, human living space around them, they attempt - within their ability - to find friends, to find things to be enthusiastic about, to care and to want things, but this facade is constantly on the verge of annihilation, and so is their entire existence. One mistake will wreck it all, and 99% of things that they do are a mistake: If I make another move, if I take another step, Then it all would fall apart. There'd be nothing of me left
The next part of the song comes back to the meaning of light and white. If I'm crying in the wind, if I'm crying in the night, Will there ever be a way? Will my heart return to white? - People with NPD are notoriously bad at experiencing and then expressing their true emotions. They can experience sadness and they can cry, but it too is warped through the abyss. The question the song asks, here, is about whether surfacing the the buried heart and personality would help them. The night is meant to be apathy, but if you cry then you actually feel something. If a person with NPD can cry, ie. genuinely feel something, during the state of apathy, then they're not really in apathy at all. But, this too, wouldn't make them genuinely better, they wouldn't be cured - odds are that all that would happen is that everything would turn to white.
The final few lines of the song lay out just how all-encompassing the abyss is. The abyss is absolute, it defines the entirety of the experience lived by a person with NPD. Even closest friends, loved ones - nobody is safe. Again, people with NPD can have genuine connections, but all of them are seriously affected by the abyss and a person with NPD cannot tell from their own feelings whether they genuinely love a person. They can only observe their own behavior and make an educated guess. But either way, seeing another person as a real human being with real human emotions is extremely difficult when the pull of the abyss drowns out all of those feelings. People with NPD will have a hard time actually getting to know another person in a true, real way and, for most people, they actually never will: Can you tell me who you are? Can you tell me where I am?, I've forgotten how too see; I've forgotten if I can
The last line of the song speaks beautifully for itself, and I would like to just put it out there on its own:
If I opened up my eyes there'd be no more going back
'Cause I'd throw it all away and it all would fade to black
2)
As much as an interpretation of a work of art can be “correct”.
3)
People with NPD don't really have no personality, they just cannot access it.
4)
As said earlier, they do. They have a heart, they have a personality, it's just completely locked up.
5)
Or say anything useful to them, for that matter.
6)
Which isn't entirely true. Not only do people with NPD have a personality, it also isn't entirely dormant. People with NPD are capable of forming bonds that are not defined through their abyss, bonds that are defined by genuine appreciation and admiration for another person. Their behavior towards them can, still, be strongly affected by the abyss, however.
8)
Partly because they themselves don't really have an understanding of what an emotion is; again, because of how much the abyss warps their perception of everything.
9)
Clinically, there is no way to “recover” from NPD, symptoms can only be reduced to something manageable and, hopefully, liveworthy.
10)
And again, there is a real personality in a person with NPD, and people with NPD can absolutely be nice people and do things that are heartfelt and loving. It depends on the level of severity of the condition, the level of awareness and the amount of healing they have done.