We take fictional characters (in a comic book or movie or whatever) and diagnose neurological disabilities to them...
As an example: Agent Smith... of the Matrix (the first film is the only good one)...
Agent Smith has everything in his office very clean, he is paranoid about how dirty and smelly human beings are... he's afraid of disease... and he's always fixing his suit in the middle of a battle...
Agent Smith is the poster boy for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder... look at how he's even perfectly arranging chairs in the first movie...
Let's try to extend this game shall we? Bart Simpson was diagnosed with Attention Deficit years ago... but does Calvin have Asperger's? Does everyone in South Park have Tourette's?
What about video games? Is Gordon Freeman autistic? Is everybody in Morrowind hyperlexic?
Joined: 23 Jun 2004 Age: 1954 Gender: Male Posts: 109 Location: Melbourne, Australia
14 Apr 2005, 4:35 am
I'd like to bring to people's attention a book which has inspired two films called 'The Flight Of The Phoenix'. The main character in the book, a young aircraft engineer appears to have many of the signs of Asperger's Syndrome. He is quiet, keeps to himself and is quite obsessive. I am reading the book at the moment and it is excellent, however the definitive version of the film is the excellent 1965 film starring Jimmy Stewart not the recent failed remake.
aha, Flight of the Phoenix was on tv here not long ago (the older version), on a saturday afternoon, so I ended up watching it - it's extremely long, maybe 3 hours with ads, but yeah, that was definitely an aspie character! Not a bad movie!
Joined: 30 Apr 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 86 Location: Between NYC and Boston
02 May 2005, 8:38 pm
Hello. I'm new here, but I wanted to say something.
The characters in "Winnie the Pooh" have been said for years to represent different mental disorders. Rabbit is OCD; Eyore is depression; Owl is an aspie; Pooh is down's syndrome. I can't remember the rest though.
Calvin of "Calvin and Hobbes" is an aspie? Hmm, that makes sense. Only he never seemed to have an obessive interest. But it would explain a lot about his character.
Joined: 13 Jun 2005 Age: 36 Gender: Female Posts: 2,433
17 Jun 2005, 2:25 pm
Hmm...that's pretty interesting. Strange_wraith, I'll try to find some more info on that and get back to you guys.
I think Calvin might be an aspie. Several people have told me that I don't have a solid grip on reality (or even a grip at all!) and this also seems to fit Calvin...maybe his obsessive interest is trying to get back at Suzie (did I spell that right?) all the time...or maybe finding new ways to get into trouble with Ms. Wormwood...
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Joined: 31 Jul 2004 Gender: Male Posts: 619 Location: Bottom of Lake Hylia... Darn Iron Boots!
17 Jun 2005, 9:09 pm
Everything in Sauron's army has inferiority complexes, letting themselves be bossed around by a stupid eye on a stick and a ring...
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to save all that we love,
if we give all we got,
we will make it through,
Here we are, like a star,
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Joined: 5 May 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 1,506 Location: Through the plexiglass
18 Jun 2005, 8:50 am
Linus from ocean's eleven seems to be either ultra-geek or possible AS given his depsoition. It might just be hollywood's presentation of a geek, but some AS shows through.
Joined: 4 Mar 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 1,278 Location: Rochester Minnesota
21 Jun 2005, 9:33 am
Regarding Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes,
Calvin seems to have a couple obsessive interests. Those include space and dinosaurs (remember the comic where the family is visiting a museum and reminding him not to bite the other patrons).
_________________ Louis J Bouchard
Rochester Minnesota
"Only when all those who surround you are different, do you truly belong."
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Fred Tate Little Man Tate
My favorite "mentally ill" character is Detective Goren (Vincent D'Onofrio, aka Private Pyle in FMJ) from Law and Order: Criminal Intent. I have no idea what his issue is, the show hints around that his mother is schizophrenic, but he comes across as just odd... I'd almost say AS, but he doesn’t seem to have one overarching interest, but knows everything about everything (so maybe just high IQ), and is also very confident in social situations (although he dose "fake" un-confidence and many AS traits, but as a ploy to trap criminals...). He almost like a psychopath in the way he can emulate all sorts of "human emotions" convincingly...
What about the Smurfs? I'm surprised no one's mentioned them yet.
To me, the aspie character was Brainy smurf. He would go on and on, pontificating about something and not notice how bored the others were getting and he annoyed everyone by trying to force his way on everything.
Vanity smurf, that's a given, Narcistic PD. Clumsy smurf? Dispraxia. Jokey smurf was definately ADHD. Greedy smurf, had an eating disorder.
And Harmony smurf, from the awful way he'd play his trumpet, deaf apparently.