Was Robin King someone who cared nothing for fame or profit?
Of course not. On the contrary, he had an attention-driven personality, a common flaw among many people with antisocial personality disorders. Many of their antisocial acts were meant to draw extraordinary attention to themselves. Other people's attention was an addictive drug to them. Joker's entire character had been created based on this logic.
They craved an audience, a sense of existence, and the feedback provided by society and humanity as a whole. Beyond positive feedback such as cheers and applause, stimulating reactions like screams and fear were even better.
Robin King had been fully capable of dissecting small animals without letting Thomas and Martha discover it. He had countless ways to destroy all the evidence before they returned, but he would not do so.
Because the physiological structures of small animals were not nearly appealing enough to him. What truly fascinated him was the instant of fear and screaming when Thomas and Martha discovered the animal corpses. That gave Robin King a peculiar sense of fulfillment through existence.
They were born liking to watch their own kind display stimulating emotions such as fear. Some studies believed this might be because they retained certain primitive hormones. Warning signals from their kind facing dangerous beasts—such as the scent of fear and screams—stimulated their adrenaline and made them feel excited.
In primitive society, this had been necessary for confronting enemies. But once it was retained, it could easily become a source of psychological pleasure for these antisocial people.
If modern society lacked sufficiently powerful external enemies to make people afraid, allowing them to gain the thrill of excitement through signals of collective fear, then they would play the role of that powerful enemy themselves and obtain enough pleasure that way.
That was