When he’s clearly not paranoid, but clinically depressed.
Because clinically depressed doesn’t rhyme with android.
That doesn’t rhyme.
Plus, he seemed to be both to me.
The defining characteristic of paranoia is fear. Marvin is fearless; he knows he’s not gonna like what comes next so he never panics over it.
It’s a nickname, not a diagnosis.
Just cause I play cards with Psycho Steve doesn’t mean I literally think he’s got a psychopathic mental disorder.
It was Adams’ tribute to Radiohead.
No, really, it’s because the words rhyme. Adams wasn’t a doctor and people make jokes that are psychologically incorrect all the time. Writers confuse schizophrenia with multiple personality, or manic depression with regular depression. The list goes on.
I think that the definition is not cut and dried. Some of the definitions I came across in a quick online search showed the ideas of ‘belief in persecution’ and ‘distrust of others’ showing up for paranoia as often as anything that’s specifically referring to fear or anxiety.
I do think that Marvin thinks the entire universe exists to persecute him, and he doesn’t really seem to trust anybody in any capacity. That pretty much pales compared to his depressive tendencies and so on, but I would call him a sort of paranoid.
In his own words:
I’ve often wondered this myself. Here’s my theory:
Marvin’s character originated in the radio plays waay before the book ever came out. (I know you can get some of these on CD now, but I never have.) Adams has said that Marvin was one of the most popular characters from radio. I’m guessing that his personality changed somewhat between media: a depressed robot would be, IMHO, much funnier to read about than to hear about, while a paranoid robot might be the opposite.
Randy, I’ve listened to both the original radio series more times than I can remember (I recorded each one direct from Radio 4 when they were first broadcast in 1978) - so much so that I can quote embarrassingly large swathes of it. And I regret to say Marvin was always the same - mainly depressed (“The first ten million years were the worst. And the second ten million years, they were the worst too.”) despite the novelty song lyrics I posted above (I bought the 7" single of that when it first came out too…).
Well so much for that then.
Isn’t Marvin not really an android either? I forget how his appearance is described in the books, but I know what I pictured skirted the definition. The movie version does resemble a human.
‘Do you realise that robot can hum like Pink Floyd?’
The lack of that bit between my original radio recordings and the storeboughts always makes me pine for the radio version (which were basically listened to to death sometime in the mid 80s)
Did they cut stuff out? Damn. Somewhere, my dad has all my C120 cassette tapes with the original recordings on them. I must get them and commit them to MP3. They were chrome too, so hopefully won’t have degraded too much. 
IMO some of the cleverest words written in the English dramatic canon:
“Reason notwithstanding, the Universe continued unabated.”
In 2006, I spent a couple of hours drinking with John Lloyd, the producer of the original H2G2, and Douglas Adams’s best friend - but I didn’t fucking realise who he was. Damn it all.
Apologies for minor obsessiveness here, but on reflection I realise I must complete my Marvin quote above:
Well, he’s no Data, but he’s an android in the way C3PO is – generally human-shaped. (Unlike, say, R2D2.)
Paranoia, stictly speaking, includes any unchanging delusion. This might include some forms of depression. marvin seems to only be mildly depressed as an actual mood, but he’s also certain that nothing can ever be any good ever.
Fair enough. You know, C-3PO, being a total coward, might be more of a paranoid android than Marvin.
Yep - the license fees for the music to put on the records would have been prohibitive, so the music (and some great lines like that one) disappeared. They are even missing from my recent reissued MP3 disks.
Like everything to do with Douglas Adams, each release varies from the previous to some degree.
And Marvin was paranoid. He thought that the entire universe was out to make his life miserable. If that is not paranoia, I don’t know what is.
The fact that the entire universe was out to make his life a misery is beside the point.
Si
I think I may have that on tape, the original actually was Shine On. . . later they swapped in something more generic, which sort of killed the gag. Marvin could also ‘hum’ the Beatles Rock and Roll Music.
Don’t try to engage my enthusiasm, because I haven’t got one.
Zoodle wurdle zoodle wurdle.