When Love Flips To Hate: Analysis Through The Lens Of Splitting

Psychological splitting is a defense mechanism where people, situations, or even themselves are seen as all-good or all-bad, with little middle ground. In film and TV, this black‑and‑white lens can turbocharge love into hatred, showing how fragile idealized attachment can be when reality breaks through.

Content note: This article discusses fictional portrayals of obsession, emotional abuse, and violence, but avoids graphic detail. It offers psychological analysis, not diagnosis, and is not a substitute for therapy. Borderline Personality Disorder (StatPearls) The concept of splitting in the history of psychoanalysis

Love That Turns Into Hate On Screen

Some of the most unforgettable characters in film and TV begin with devotion. According to Ncbi, this analysis holds true.

Annie Wilkes cradles her favorite author like a godsend. Alex Forrest believes she has found a soulmate. Max Cady sees himself as a righteous avenger. Love Quinn dreams of the perfect family. Chuck McGill clings to an ideal of moral order.

Then, something cracks.

Affection flips into contempt, protection into punishment, closeness into control. The same person who was the center of their universe becomes the enemy who must be hurt, rejected, or destroyed.

Underneath these reversals lies a powerful psychological pattern: splitting.

What Is Splitting?

In psychology, splitting is a defense mechanism in which a person struggles to hold together mixed feelings or complex realities. Instead of, “You’re mostly kind but sometimes disappointing,” the mind slides into:

• “You’re perfect. You can do no wrong.” (idealization)
• “You’re terrible. You were always this bad.” (devaluation)

This all‑good / all‑bad thinking shows up when someone has trouble tolerating ambivalence: the truth that people we love can hurt us, and people who hurt us can still matter.

Splitting can:

• Reduce overwhelming emotional conflict: it’s easier to pick a side than to sit with confusion.
• Protect a fragile sense of self: “If I’m all-good and you’re all-bad, I don’t have to look at my own flaws.”
• Create a feeling of control: clear villains and heroes feel safer than messy nuance.

All of us split a little sometimes: calling someone “a total monster” or “literally perfect,” ignoring everything in between. In fictional portrayals, this everyday pattern is dialed up until it’s dangerous.

Splitting In Obsessive Or Intense Love

Splitting becomes especially dramatic in intense romance, obsession, and attachment. When someone’s identity is shaky, they may cling to another person as the missing piece that finally makes them whole.

If that person is idealized as the one good thing in a frightening world, any perceived rejection or betrayal can feel catastrophic. To protect themselves from unbearable loss, the mind may flip the script:

• “You’re my savior” becomes “You’re my destroyer.”
• “I’d die for you” turns into “I’ll make you pay.”

Let’s walk through how this plays out in Annie Wilkes, Alex Forrest, and Max Cady, and then extend the lens to Love Quinn and Chuck McGill.

Annie Wilkes: From Devoted Fan To Punishing Jailer

In Misery, Annie Wilkes begins as the ultimate idealizer. Author Paul Sheldon is not just a writer she likes; he is her reason for living. She calls herself his “number one fan,” turning him into an almost sacred figure.

Key splitting moments:

• Idealization: When Annie first rescues Paul, she is tender, nurturing, almost maternal. He is helpless and she seems angelic. In her mind, Paul is the pure source of the stories that soothe her lonely life.
• Shattering the ideal: Annie discovers that Paul has killed off her beloved character, Misery. Reality violates her internal script: the man she worshipped has committed an unforgivable narrative “betrayal.”
• Devaluation and cruelty: The flip is sudden. Her tone turns cold; she rages, withdraws kindness, and ultimately inflicts calculated violence. Paul is no longer a flawed human; he becomes the villain corrupting her fantasy world.

Psychologically, Annie’s splitting protects a fragile self. Admitting, “I love this writer but I hate his choice, and I feel abandoned by it,” would involve grief and vulnerability. Splitting lets her leap straight to certainty: “He is bad; I must punish him.”

Alex Forrest: Soulmate Fantasy Meets Terror Of Abandonment

In Fatal Attraction, Alex Forrest is often reduced to “the crazy other woman,” but through the lens of splitting, we can see a painful pattern.

• Idealized connection: After a brief affair, Alex treats the experience as deeply meaningful, almost fated. She amplifies a weekend into a profound bond, painting Dan as the one who finally sees her.
• Abandonment trigger: When Dan tries to end things and return to his family, it collides with her terror of being discarded. The gap between her ideal (“We’re meant to be”) and reality (“It was an affair”) is intolerable.
• From longing to vengeance: Rather than holding ambivalence—“He mattered to me, but he is choosing someone else”—Alex’s inner world flips. Dan becomes the heartless betrayer. Her behavior escalates from pleading to stalking, from demands for recognition to revenge.

Here, splitting turns hurt and fear into righteous rage. Dan is no longer a complicated person making bad choices; he becomes the embodiment of cruelty. That black‑and‑white frame fuels the terrifying escalation the film portrays.

Max Cady: Moral Splitting And The Righteous Avenger

Max Cady in Cape Fear illustrates moral black‑and‑white thinking.

• Grievance as identity: After years in prison, Cady fixates on his lawyer, Sam Bowden, for failing to defend him as he believes he should have. This grievance becomes the organizing principle of his life.
• I’m righteous / you’re evil: Cady recasts himself as a kind of avenging angel. In his worldview, he is the victim of a rotten system; Bowden and the institutions around him are purely corrupt. There is no room for Bowden’s mixed motives or gray areas.
• Obsession and punishment: Because Bowden is all bad in Cady’s mind, any cruelty toward him and his family feels justified. Cady’s obsession is sustained by splitting: if Bowden were seen as flawed but human, the revenge mission would crumble.

This is splitting fused with self-righteousness. Rather than grappling with his own crimes, Cady can preserve a sense of goodness by pushing all the “badness” onto Bowden and the legal system.

Love Quinn: Romantic Idealization, Trauma, And Entitlement

In You, Love Quinn is more modern and relatable in some ways, which can make her splitting unsettling.

• Fairytale self-story: Love embraces a narrative of being a fiercely loyal partner and protector. She falls quickly and intensely, framing relationships as destiny and herself as the one who will love “better” than anyone before.
• Idealization of the beloved: Joe becomes, in her mind, the answer to her loneliness and trauma. She clings to a fantasy of two damaged people healing each other through unconditional devotion.
• Betrayal and flip: When Joe fails to match this fantasy—or when others threaten the bond she’s constructed—her devotion can morph into lethal anger. People she once embraced are suddenly obstacles or enemies.

Love’s splitting is intertwined with trauma and entitlement: “After everything I’ve survived, I deserve a perfect love story.” When reality doesn’t cooperate, instead of grieving, she may attack the parts of the world that don’t fit the script.

Chuck McGill: Everyday Splitting In A Prestige Drama

Chuck McGill from Better Call Saul offers a quieter example. There are no jump scares here, but the psychological mechanism is similar.

• Idealized self-image: Chuck sees himself as the guardian of legal ethics and professional excellence. He casts the law as sacred and himself as its steward.
• Devaluation of Jimmy: Jimmy, his younger brother, is seen through a distorting lens. Yes, Jimmy breaks rules, but Chuck’s perception goes further: Jimmy is inherently untrustworthy, almost constitutionally corrupt.
• Resistance to nuance: Even when Jimmy tries to do right, Chuck cannot fully integrate those moments. To admit that Jimmy has strengths and loyalty would mean admitting that his own worldview is incomplete.

Chuck’s splitting is not about physical violence; it’s about relational harm. By viewing Jimmy as fundamentally bad, Chuck justifies emotional cruelty and career sabotage. Both love and resentment are real—but splitting forces him to choose one side.

Comparing These Splitting Styles

Here’s a look at how splitting shows up differently across these characters:

This variety shows how the same underlying defense—splitting—can animate horror, thriller, romance, and prestige drama alike.

Real-Life Parallels (Without Pathologizing)

Most of us will never imprison an author or stalk an ex. But gentler versions of splitting are common:

• In relationships: After a fight, thinking, “My partner is awful; I don’t know why I’m with them,” and then swinging back to, “They’re perfect; I overreacted,” without holding both truths.
• In fandom: Treating creators or characters as flawless saviors—until a disliked plot choice leads to, “They’ve always been terrible; they’ve ruined everything.”
• Online discourse: Turning public figures into pure idols or pure villains, with no room for growth, context, or complexity.

Recognizing this doesn’t mean diagnosing ourselves or others. It simply highlights that our minds sometimes reach for simple stories when emotions run high.

Media Representation And Responsibility

Stories like Misery, Fatal Attraction, Cape Fear, You, and Better Call Saul dramatize real psychological mechanisms, often for tension and shock.

A few helpful reminders:

• These characters are exaggerated for storytelling. They’re not templates for everyone who struggles with intense emotions, trauma, or mental health challenges.
• Splitting appears in many contexts and is not tied to a single diagnosis. This article focuses on themes, not labels.
• Fiction can both clarify and distort. It can highlight how painful black‑and‑white relating can be, but it can also reinforce stigma if we assume “intense feelings = dangerous person.”

As viewers, we can hold two truths: enjoy the drama and stay curious and compassionate about real people.

Further Reading & Authoritative Sources

Authoritative Sources

• Annie Wilkes Character Analysis in Misery — Close literary analysis of Annie Wilkes as an obsessive, controlling abuser whose affection for Paul flips into sadistic violence, useful for comparing her psychology to Alex Forrest and Max Cady and to splitting-style all-good/all-bad dynamics.