Aspies For Freedom

I'm not sure where to put this so anyone from the admins could help me out?

I'm a definite sci-fi fan and as such I see lots of characters pass by. What's curious enough is that in most sci-fi series, there's always that odd one out lead character - and strangely enough if you look closer you often encounter a lot of AS traits!

Some examples!

Stargate Atlantis: Rodney McKay
Definitely Aspie and strangely enough arrogantly proud of it or at least his heightened sense of intelligence. Often has brilliant solutions to the team's problems. Rumour goes that David Hewlett is as annoying in real life as he is on the show.


Stargate SG-1: Daniel Jackson/Samantha Carter
Both of these two can be considered AS but Daniel has more to that than Sam. Although Sam's the tech wiz and often overloads Jack with technobabble, she's socially much more competent than Daniel.


Firefly / Serenity: Simon Tam
Simon is gifted with high intelligence and is almost textbook. Here's some lines of him that explain some (for more watch the movie or the series):
Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Nothing to fear, Doctor.
Dr. Simon Tam: I'm not afraid.
Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: [mocking Simon's seriousness] Fear's nothing to be ashamed of, Doctor.
Dr. Simon Tam: This isn't fear. This is anger.
Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Well, kinda hard to tell one from t'other, face like yours.
Dr. Simon Tam: Yes, well, I imagine if it were fear, my eyes would be wider.
Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: I'll look for that next time.

Firefly/Serenity: River Tam
Same holds for little sister River but River's suffered from brain damage. I'm not going to spoil that further here, but sufficient to say, when River was young (see first 5 opening minutes of Serenity) she was a definite Aspie, after her brain got damaged she got more than a few 'classical' autistic traits.

Cube/Cube Zero: Kazan/Eric Wynn

For those of you who have seen the Cube trilogy, there's an Aspie in every one of them. Definite focus is on Eric in Cube Zero with an incredible knack for chess but he certainly is Asperger's.

Star Trek: Redge Barclay
There's Aspies in Trek too. I could go and mention every Vulcan on the ship but since they're a different species (just like Data's an android) that technically doesn't count. Redge is a good candidate for the Aspie on Trek.

Thanks for the move, I reckoned it had much more of a 'fun' ratio to it.

Bean from the Ender's Game saga by Orson Scott Card (although this is a book. But I've heard a movie was being planned).

Shinji, Asuka, Rei, and Gendo from Neon Genesis Evangelion.

And Lain from Serial Experiments Lain (hence the avatar).

Hell yea Lain is Aspie! Lain rocks! ^^

River Tam from the movie Serenity

I already put down River above ^^^^^^

Lou Arrendale (The speed of dark by Elizabeth Moon)
also Yasmine, in Louise Marley's The Maquisarde

Several characters from the manga Planetes are aspies or autistic:

Ai Tanabe: One of the main characters. Her background-chapter reveals that she started talking at age 5, and she didn't show any attentions toward people at all when she was that age, not even her parents. She did "talk" with some crows, which made her mother, Yukari Tanabe, depressed. But her father, Koji, had a very interesting monolouge with Ai:

"A-chan, your mom told me...
...that you can talk to crows .
That's amazing. I can only talk to humans.
Your mom talks to humans too.
I know she would really like it...
...if you were to talk to her... when you feel like it.
I'm sorry.
We're being selfish. We, your mother and I, should learn a non-human language...
...so that we could talk to you."

If that isn't an awesome monolouge, I don't know what is...

Roy Bryant AKA Uncle Tree-house: An uncle of one of the main characters, Fee. He only appears in flash-backs, but he has a strong effect on Fee anyway. I won't spoil the story, but becomes a victim of society's fear of those who are different, as well as showing many aspie traits.

Quote: "Your uncle is a weak man.
It's hard for him to talk to people.
It's hard for him to understand them.
And when it gets hard, he runs away.
It's-it's... It's my fault.
I need to change how I am so people [will] like me."

"The Baron": One of the strangest characters. He claims that he is an alien, sent as a punishment to study humans and make as many friends as possible. He has problems with communicating and his conversations often become very awkward. He claims that his species communicate by telepathy but that he lost that ability when he became human. It's never revealed if The Baron is crazy or if he really is an alien, but he's a very interesting character anyway, and appears to be an aspie.

Best manga EVER!

I have this feeling you could be right, After watching an episode of Voyager that is set on Earth where Barclay is obsessed in contacting Voyager, I seemed convinced he may well be an Aspie as he showed a few Aspie traits, If anyone has seen the episode in question, (entitled "Pathfinder"), then you'll know what I'm on about

Anakin Skywalker.

Think about it when you watch Revenge Of The Sith. Throughout the film, he is asking for help from people who are allegedly the wisest and brightest, and is routinely left with no solution. The one person who does offer him help in reality could not care less if he lives or dies.

I'd also say that Redge Barclay from Star Trek is a likely Aspie especially in that one episode of Voyager where he's obsessed with contacting that ship's crew.

i remember reading one of the starwars clone wars books and it revealed what the "personality quirks" of the clone troopers were, it sounded very much like AS to me

I've recently completed reading the book "The first immortal" (See here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345421...e&n=283155)

The character Gary Smith seems to have a few aspie traits, as does his father.

If I might expand this to comic books (since comics and sci-fi are often closely related):

The Hulk.  He has trouble speaking with people, he's subject to uncontrollable rages due to frustration, and all he really wants is to be left alone... sound familiar?  :smile:

Meanwhile, back in the Wonderful World of Science Fiction, let's take a look at Louis Wu, in Larry Niven's "Ringworld" novels.  He's obviously highly intelligent, but equally obviously, that's not much help; he would rather talk to aliens than humans; he seems incapable of lying to a fellow human in order to spare his/her feelings; his mind is odd enough that he doesn't mind the "blind spot" effect of hyperspace (looking at it makes it feel like the blind spot in your eye is expanding to cover your entire field of vision); and he invented the concept of the "sabbatical" - taking off alone in a small hyperdrive ship, staying alone until you absolutely need human company - which can take him months, or even years.

Keeping on Irish Wolf's track, definitely Spiderman/Peter Parker: he's a bit of a nerd, very intelligent, socially clumsy and has big problems in dealing with his own emotions. Moreover, he feels guilty for almost everything all the time.
I love him  :wink:

Martina from Ireland