Norman Bates

Norman Bates is a fictional character created by Robert Bloch in his 1959 novel Psycho and famously portrayed by Anthony Perkins in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film adaptation. Loosely inspired by real-life serial killer Ed Gein, Bates is a soft-spoken, socially isolated proprietor of the remote Bates Motel who suffers from dissociative identity disorder stemming from severe childhood abuse by his domineering mother, Norma. After murdering his mother and her lover, he preserves her corpse and adopts her personality—known as "Mother"—to repress his guilt, using this alternate persona to commit violent acts against perceived threats to their bond, making him one of cinema’s most iconic and psychologically complex villains.