"Real life" history, not approved yet
Michael Kurtz was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Before he was a year old, his family emigrated to London. There, Michael attended school when he was old enough. He was a gifted student, but constantly bored and often in trouble. He developed an active imagination at a young age as a way of escaping the tedium of his day-to-day life.
When he was not quite six, his parents were killed in a car accident, and Michael was sent to the Wammy's House orphanage in Winchester. He was angry and sullen, and continued to be insufficiently challenged in his classes. One refuge he found was in reading, and he especially liked mystery and crime novels. Like a lot of kids, Michael felt that he was misunderstood and special in some indefinable way. Unlike most, he retreated into this belief instead of dealing with the real world, constructing an elaborate alternate reality for himself. His was a pastiche of mystery novels and the stories he loved as a small child, in which the hero realizes he has a special destiny.
The orphanage director's son, Daniel, visited the home infrequently. Several of the kids looked up to him, including Michael. Daniel had mental issues of his own, and believed he had a secret identity as a detective--the greatest detective in the world, known only as L. Michael talked Daniel into "confessing" this. It then seemed obvious to him that the secret true purpose of Wammy's was grooming a successor to L. Michael immediately embraced this new purpose, and succeeding L became his ruling ambition.
There was a younger boy, whom Michael already disliked because he got better marks in all their classes, who became, in his mind, his chief rival in his goal. Though the race to someday take over as L was, of course, secret, Michael was sure the other boy had discovered it, too, and was just a determined to be the winner.
For several years, Michael was caught up in his studies, striving to be the top student, but always falling just short. Then, when he was 14, he was adopted. He wasn't enthusiastic about this, to say the least, and ran away almost immediately. Thus began a pattern that would continue for some years, with Michael increasingly disconnected from reality and taking every opportunity to run away to pursue his imagined destiny, and his adoptive parents duly retrieving him each time and taking ever more drastic steps to keep him from being a danger to himself and others. Their attitude only fed into his paranoia. Finally, when Michael was eighteen, they had him forcibly committed to a mental hospital.
When Michael was nineteen, he tried to escape, but he didn't get far. He got to the outside world, but was badly burned when he stole a car and crashed it. At this point, his adoptive parents sent him to Landel's as soon as he was well enough to travel.
Preliminary diagnosis: fanatic type narcissistic personality disorder, grandiose delusions, paranoia
When he was not quite six, his parents were killed in a car accident, and Michael was sent to the Wammy's House orphanage in Winchester. He was angry and sullen, and continued to be insufficiently challenged in his classes. One refuge he found was in reading, and he especially liked mystery and crime novels. Like a lot of kids, Michael felt that he was misunderstood and special in some indefinable way. Unlike most, he retreated into this belief instead of dealing with the real world, constructing an elaborate alternate reality for himself. His was a pastiche of mystery novels and the stories he loved as a small child, in which the hero realizes he has a special destiny.
The orphanage director's son, Daniel, visited the home infrequently. Several of the kids looked up to him, including Michael. Daniel had mental issues of his own, and believed he had a secret identity as a detective--the greatest detective in the world, known only as L. Michael talked Daniel into "confessing" this. It then seemed obvious to him that the secret true purpose of Wammy's was grooming a successor to L. Michael immediately embraced this new purpose, and succeeding L became his ruling ambition.
There was a younger boy, whom Michael already disliked because he got better marks in all their classes, who became, in his mind, his chief rival in his goal. Though the race to someday take over as L was, of course, secret, Michael was sure the other boy had discovered it, too, and was just a determined to be the winner.
For several years, Michael was caught up in his studies, striving to be the top student, but always falling just short. Then, when he was 14, he was adopted. He wasn't enthusiastic about this, to say the least, and ran away almost immediately. Thus began a pattern that would continue for some years, with Michael increasingly disconnected from reality and taking every opportunity to run away to pursue his imagined destiny, and his adoptive parents duly retrieving him each time and taking ever more drastic steps to keep him from being a danger to himself and others. Their attitude only fed into his paranoia. Finally, when Michael was eighteen, they had him forcibly committed to a mental hospital.
When Michael was nineteen, he tried to escape, but he didn't get far. He got to the outside world, but was badly burned when he stole a car and crashed it. At this point, his adoptive parents sent him to Landel's as soon as he was well enough to travel.
Preliminary diagnosis: fanatic type narcissistic personality disorder, grandiose delusions, paranoia