James Steller Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 I know such a thing is impossible to determine properly, but I feel like there are some obvious examples. Vaegon and Aerys I, for example, strike me very much as people with some level of autism (assuming that’s still the correct way of saying it, and I’m very sorry if it isn’t). Stannis could possibly be another one; someone else on this forum speculated as much and they made a compelling case for it. Any others? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Castellan Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 I have always considered Stannis as a character who was autistic-like, more as a comparison to explain his intractabilty than saying 'oh this character is meant to be autistic'. Although come to think of it when I look at Cersei I do think 'oh, this character is meant to have a personality disorder'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongRider Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 Podrick Payne could be a possibility, due to his extreme shyness and inability to look people in the eye. Morte 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nevets Posted March 2 Share Posted March 2 Brienne and Sam I think are possibilities. Both have difficulty interacting with others, and Brienne seems awfully literal minded at times. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craving Peaches Posted March 2 Share Posted March 2 13 hours ago, Nevets said: Both have difficulty interacting with others, I don't know, Sam is shy but once he gets to know someone he doesn't have that much difficulty. Also Sam being shy is explainable by the way Randyl treated him. James Steller and Morte 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landis Posted March 2 Share Posted March 2 On 2/29/2024 at 4:42 PM, Castellan said: Although come to think of it when I look at Cersei I do think 'oh, this character is meant to have a personality disorder'. It’s interesting you mention Cersei, because of all the POV characters, I’d argue she’s top of the list. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Castellan Posted March 5 Share Posted March 5 On 3/3/2024 at 8:19 AM, Landis said: It’s interesting you mention Cersei, because of all the POV characters, I’d argue she’s top of the list. I don't think her problems relating to others stems from autism. I think there is a line of personality disorder from Tywin's father to Cersei to Joffrey. I don't mean genetic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landis Posted March 5 Share Posted March 5 11 hours ago, Castellan said: I don't think her problems relating to others stems from autism. I think there is a line of personality disorder from Tywin's father to Cersei to Joffrey. I don't mean genetic. I mean sure, there’s plenty of different mental illnesses that Cersei appears challenged by throughout. Just saying that if we are looking specifically for characters that might be classified as autistic, Cersei behaves in a lot of ways that very much resemble a high-functioning woman with autism. The level of cognitive dissonance she suffers from over her consistent inability to rationalize gender roles under patriarchy is particularly notable — there are a lot of other women in the series who recognize the imbalance and try to change it, but don’t end up with the disorderly internalized mess that Cersei exhibits where gender is concerned. Her relationship with sex is telltale, her scripting and rehashing behaviours, her failure to consider others when executive planning (which is often the thing that results in her plans not working), substance abuse, internalized belief she is more intelligent than others… There’s a lot of overlapping things with PTSD and OCD tbh, but as so many people have commented elsewhere, “boo hoo Cersei, every other woman has it worse and doesn’t display PTSD symptoms, so she’s clearly got something wrong with her specifically,” and then in come the personality disorder declarations. Which again, fine. But categorizing a character as having a personality disorder only really serves the narrative purpose of allowing readers to write off their interiority as “crazy”, and reduce the character to being important to a story for plot reasons alone, i.e., GRRM created Cersei so she could be a thorn in the side of the “actual” characters in the story, not a character with a story of her own. GRRM strikes me as a more intelligent writer than that, and the decision to give Cersei POV chapters flies in the face of the idea that she is supposed to be a shiny one-dimensional plot device who readers shouldn’t be trying to understand and empathize with. So, in defence of spectrum and/or trauma disorders for Cersei: using these as a frame for reading the character is more interesting and generative, because it allows her to act as a cipher that makes the violence of Westerosi culture (in the sense of physical and social violence) visible to the extent it is hyperrealized through her perspectives and behaviours. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Castellan Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 Sorry I can't really join you in this exploration I don't generally see any point in diagnosing characters in literature and in any case I don't have the knowledge to do it. I also managed to get through university before feminism got the academic treatment and dropped out of literature in first year as the particular faculty was completely unengaging. I never had the slightest inclination to study psychology. So after making an attempt to read your post properly I can see you may have some points but also I simply do not have the background to engage. I had family members with personality disorders and Cersei rings a giant gong for me, that is all I can say. I think its all explicable in what GRRM has given us about her childhood. The reaction that people in real life have to the behaviours of people with certain kinds of personality disorders (presuming said people aren't au fait with these conditions) is eventually just a frustrated "She's just CRAZY!" in my experience so perhaps if readers react that way it just shows how well GRRM presents her. BTW, I find this bit from your post puzzling But categorizing a character as having a personality disorder only really serves the narrative purpose of allowing readers to write off their interiority as “crazy”, and reduce the character to being important to a story for plot reasons alone, i.e., GRRM created Cersei so she could be a thorn in the side of the “actual” characters in the story, not a character with a story of her own. Why would readers thinking a character is autistic react differently to said character than if they think (or have been told) that said character has a personality disorder? It just sounds like autism is in fashion and no-one would 'write the character off as 'autistic' ' whereas for some reason they would of course write off a character as 'having a personality disorder'." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craving Peaches Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 I think people might be mistaking characters being shy/stubborn/selfish with them being autistic. You can be all of those things without being autistic. I asked a psychiatrist I know (one of my parents ) and they said that they didn't think any of the characters were autistic, with the possible exception of Stannis. They said that Cersei wasn't mentally ill, just amoral. James Steller and Jaenara Belarys 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Steller Posted March 6 Author Share Posted March 6 4 hours ago, Craving Peaches said: I think people might be mistaking characters being shy/stubborn/selfish with them being autistic. You can be all of those things without being autistic. I asked a psychiatrist I know (one of my parents ) and they said that they didn't think any of the characters were autistic, with the possible exception of Stannis. They said that Cersei wasn't mentally ill, just amoral. Not even Vaegon? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craving Peaches Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 16 minutes ago, James Steller said: Not even Vaegon? Is he in the main series books? Parent has not read Fire and Blood. James Steller 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Grey Wolf Strikes Back Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 11 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said: Is he in the main series books? Parent has not read Fire and Blood. Not unless he's invented the elixir of life. Craving Peaches, Jaenara Belarys and James Steller 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Sidious Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 On 2/29/2024 at 2:22 PM, James Steller said: I know such a thing is impossible to determine properly, but I feel like there are some obvious examples. Vaegon and Aerys I, for example, strike me very much as people with some level of autism (assuming that’s still the correct way of saying it, and I’m very sorry if it isn’t). Stannis could possibly be another one; someone else on this forum speculated as much and they made a compelling case for it. Any others? Autism is a complication George didn’t make into a plot device. Yes, a couple of past Targaryens, the Tully sisters and Arya, ran off the sanity track. But autism? Sweetrobin may be suffering from it. Sansa is slow but not autistic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Castellan Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 6 hours ago, Darth Sidious said: Sweetrobin may be suffering from it. poor old sweetrobin hasn't had any tiny chance of normal development! no need for an autism diagnoses. 11 hours ago, Craving Peaches said: I think people might be mistaking characters being shy/stubborn/selfish with them being autistic. You can be all of those things without being autistic. I asked a psychiatrist I know (one of my parents ) and they said that they didn't think any of the characters were autistic, with the possible exception of Stannis. They said that Cersei wasn't mentally ill, just amoral. I agree re Pod and others. And I think Stannis is the only one where I think the author might have modelled him partly with a condition in mind. I seem to be landing the role of arguing that Cersei has a personality disorder when my initial reasoning was just that I didn't see her as autistic, and that, if anything, I'd say she had a personality disorder. I do see a chain from Tytos to Joffrey of troubled persons. Tywin's weird smileless personality develops in reaction to Tytos constant need to appease and please etc. PS I don't know that I buy 'just amoral'. I was thinking that labelling people as 'just amoral' probably allows psychiatrists to avoid having some very unpleasant people in their office! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craving Peaches Posted March 7 Share Posted March 7 (edited) 7 hours ago, Castellan said: PS I don't know that I buy 'just amoral'. I was thinking that labelling people as 'just amoral' probably allows psychiatrists to avoid having some very unpleasant people in their office! Well they also said she had 'psychopathic traits' but that is not an official term. When I asked if they thought Cersei had any condition, the answer was no. Apparently she is too violent to be a narcissist, but not violent enough to have antisocial personality disorder. Unlike in the US, I don't think 'psychopath' is an official 'thing' in the UK, but I could be wrong. Edited March 7 by Craving Peaches Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Castellan Posted March 7 Share Posted March 7 22 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said: Well they also said she had 'psychopathic traits' but that is not an official term. When I asked if they thought Cersei had any condition, the answer was no. Apparently she is too violent to be a narcissist, but not violent enough to have antisocial personality disorder. Unlike in the US, I don't think 'psychopath' is an official 'thing' in the UK, but I could be wrong. I guess its a pointless discussion in a way as GRRM hopefully doesn't write straight from a whatever-it-is-that-establishes-diagnostic-guidelines. I suppose 'some behaviours like those with a personality disorder but she doesn't really fit the bill' describes her, anyway. Craving Peaches 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Here's Looking At You, Kid Posted March 8 Share Posted March 8 On 2/29/2024 at 2:22 PM, James Steller said: I know such a thing is impossible to determine properly, but I feel like there are some obvious examples. Vaegon and Aerys I, for example, strike me very much as people with some level of autism (assuming that’s still the correct way of saying it, and I’m very sorry if it isn’t). Stannis could possibly be another one; someone else on this forum speculated as much and they made a compelling case for it. Any others? Asperger probably. For Robert Arryn that is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Sidious Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 On 3/6/2024 at 6:24 PM, Castellan said: poor old sweetrobin hasn't had any tiny chance of normal development! no need for an autism diagnoses. I agree re Pod and others. And I think Stannis is the only one where I think the author might have modelled him partly with a condition in mind. I seem to be landing the role of arguing that Cersei has a personality disorder when my initial reasoning was just that I didn't see her as autistic, and that, if anything, I'd say she had a personality disorder. I do see a chain from Tytos to Joffrey of troubled persons. Tywin's weird smileless personality develops in reaction to Tytos constant need to appease and please etc. PS I don't know that I buy 'just amoral'. I was thinking that labelling people as 'just amoral' probably allows psychiatrists to avoid having some very unpleasant people in their office! From nurture or congenital? The boy is not right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Castellan Posted March 21 Share Posted March 21 3 hours ago, Darth Sidious said: From nurture or congenital? The boy is not right. I meant Lysa's fine style of nurturing him has doomed him. Kind of impossible to factor that out. But I suppose he has at least one congenital thing - his fits. Could be others in the mix. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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