Ooh, I actually have To the Moon in my Steam library, though I've not gotten a chance to play it yet. I'll be skipping that part of the video until I've a chance to play it, but it's good to know there's good autistic representation in there! If you've played Breath of the Wild, I'd be curious to know what you think about two of the characters in there, particularly Beedle the Salesman (I think Beedle shows up in other Zelda games, but BotW's the only one with him I've had the pleasure of playing) and Kass the Rito Bard. Beedle shows a lot of hyperfixation on his special interest, along with being a bit socially awkward. Kass, while I doubt they intended him as neurodivergent, is quite relatable. He really likes his solitude and may get overstimulated. He also has a strong interest in music (which could also be a form of stimming) and the ancient legends, devoting his life to remembering and passing those along. He's also a bit socially awkward, especially when it comes to intimacy with his family. When you see him near Rito Village, he comments that, while he wants to go home to visit his family, he can't do that yet and asks you to check up on them in his stead... when he's literally within visual range of Rito VIllage.
@@sparklefulpaladin looks like Beedle has been in every major Zelda game since The Wind Waker. Even the DS games. Another character I didn't see as neurodivergent but who knows? I don't think Kass is as much. I didn't catch the part of him avoiding his family. That's interesting there's so many details like that in Botw.
When it comes to games, I remember seeing someone who works with Autistic kids talking about how Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy 7, specifically the Remake, has traits that could hint to him being autistic. I can kinda see it personally, though I can guarantee it was likely unintentional.
@seanathanseastar I was literally just about to bring this up! As a long-time Final Fantasy fan on the spectrum, I'm not really sure how I didn't pick up on this until more recently, but I've discussed it with other fans online, and there's a lot of things about Cloud as a character that make so much sense when viewed through the lense of him being autistic. And yes, while I'm also guessing that it was unintentional on Square Enix's part, I'm pretty sure that's also the case for a lot of ND coded characters made by larger companies, so I usually don't worry too much about that unless the creators specifically say anything about it.
@@seanathanseastar YES!!! Imo Cloud is one of the best autistic coded characters in media and to be honest, I do think with remake it was done more intentionally. In original FF7, Cloud displayed many traits already and remake took it to the next level. I really hope Cloud gets mentioned.
One character from Pokemon Black and White who I'm pretty sure is supposed to be on the spectrum is N. He's hyperfixated on Pokemon themselves and his textbox speed is always set to fast like he's speaking a lot faster than the other characters.
I’m kind of surprised you don’t see Kiyotaka as autistic coded, but that just goes to show how people are different and have different views. When I first played THH I literally remember saying out loud “Is he autistic?” a little ways into the game experiencing his character. I think his FTE’s also back up this coding very well and cemented the headcanon for me. I also agree on Gundham, it’s a pretty popular autistic headcanon in the DR fandom and I definitely see why.
My autistic friend keeps a list of characters she believes to be autistic, most started out as suggestions from family members that said they remind them of her, then she did in depth research to make sure bless her XD Some characters from that list I find very interesting are Cloud from FF7 (the remake, suggested by the person that diagnosed her, who was also autistic), Futaba from Persona 5, Shulk from Xenoblade 1, Akhos from Xenoblade 2, Taion from Xenoblade 3, and Kent from the dating sim Amnesia Memories
Interesting!!! I have played Final Fantasy VII Remake back when it launched, been streaming Rebirth on my Twitch. I suppose I could see Cloud being autistic coded 🤔 I didn't even think about him like that at first. I've never played Xenoblade, Persona, or Amnesia Memories, so tough for me to say there
To the moon is an amazing game. I played it before I knew I was autistic, and related so strongly to River. I feel I should play it again now and experience it again with that context. My ND friends and I have basically decided that most characters in Danganronpa games can be seen as autistic from the right angle. I personally relate a lot to Chiaki in Danganronpa 2. I also really love the AI Somnium Files games (also Spike Chunsoft, but different development team) and feel that many characters within them show very autistic traits, even down to their childhood traits, my favorite rn being Mizuki.
I played a lot of Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon and I got the remake recently and I loved it. I think he's just a guy like me who gets scared easily but will do things if he has to. Also he doesn't talk much so he doesn't get much of a choice in his situations. Things I personally have. But I'm not sure if you're like that. Just my POV
I believe Jäger from Rainbow 6 Siege is implied to have autism in Extraction, and the community originally joked about him having autism due to his profile description. His psychological profile is rather heartwarming. Josh from Watch_Dogs 2 is said to have ASD by his voice actor.
Here is some anime people i think think may be autistic in a anime soto todoroki izuku Midori probably spelled them wrong but from my hero academia i have autism to btw
Not really a big Overwatch fan myself, but what you may have overlooked about Symmetra's autism, is that it's more represented in the official webcomic that also tells about her backstory. Aside from that, i do also feel autism is not as much represented in video games like movies and TV shows that really stick out in some form or another with any interesting characters. Being my most fanatic passion and hobby next to all that. It doesn't have to be strongly pointed out or emphasized, but some form of confirmation would do well enough. I've only seen some niche educational games about it and i rather wanna see something in any other genre where autistic characters can be just as independent and awesome as anyone else. The only one game i can think of, but only in form of a blackbox audiolog, is [PROTOTYPE 2]. It is a little gruesome to hear of what's happening, but once you find it, it plays the audiolog of a soldier having a autistic boy being mistaken for a Blacklight virus monster (which is a thing that happens in the game), the mother besides him tries to tell this to the soldier and accidentily unalives him. So yeah, it can be done better...
Oh interesting - I didn't know she had a comic tied to her character. But I do agree that games need better autistic representation - I almost never see it, it feels like 🤔
I think Ghost from Call of Duty MWII and MWIII (2022 and 2023 versions, maybe not as much the 2009 version) is autistic. He always wears a skull mask and goes by the name “Ghost”. At the beginning of MWII (2022), we see him struggle with social interaction, but slowly grows to become best friends with Soap. When he presumably meets Soap, he seems bothered by Soap giving him a brotherly light punch. He only talks to people when he’s giving orders. Another time, he meets Alejandro, and interrupts Soap when Soap was going to introduce him by a name other than Ghost, which was likely a joke and/or sarcasm. Another scene where he is very quiet, he looks slightly upset at a character for commenting on his mask. He makes dad jokes, and he refers to himself as cold.
I consider Larry Koopa to be autsitic coded. 1:48 of course people came in with Luigi, unbased, lol, I don't see any neurodivergence in Luigi either. I don't understand this one or why Luigi is such a popular one for people to theorize as autistic. (I mean... I wouldn't be against it... I just don't particularly see it but of course, it's possible I just need to deeper dive into Luigi as I did Larry) I see Larry from the same series as autistic. To summarize Larry's autistic traits: Larry has fixations, lack of awareness of what's socially appropriate or social boundaries/not understanding when and when not to say things/missing social cues, trauma dumping in general, info dumping fixations, taking things literally, stuff like yelling not working on him and only traumatizing him as he has such a large amount of trouble focusing on things he lacks interest in while going above and beyond with things he does have interest in, trouble regulating emotions (making him appear "short tempered") and on top of that, Larry Koopa is confirmed to be a "supertaster"/has higher sensitivity to taste than the average person does AND statistically, more autistic people than neurotypicals are supertasters. I got all this from Larry's characterization in the canon RPGs and canon compliant Mario & Sonic as well as the canon SMB3 Instruction Booklet quote (Japanese version, the US version censored his traumatic reaction/fear regarding Bowser's yelling).
I like ghosts 👻. Hmm. Anyway another character I think is supposed to be autistic is Abed in Community. It's a running gag that no one knows for sure, but a lot of characters suspect it. It's never brought up to him and mostly ignored. There's an episode, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, where the characters are introduced in a style like Lord of the Rings where his description is Abed the undiagnosable. Hope you can look into the show and his character if you haven't before.
@@noahthe0tter that would be cool. I never got the joke that he could be autistic when I first watched the show. To me he just seemed like a super nerdy guy that loved movies and other pop culture stuff just like me and many others. It wasn't till the first mention of the running gag that I started wondering about it and looking into what exactly is autism. I bet it sparked an interest in many other people and hopefully made people want to learn more about it so they can be more respectful and understanding.
What are YOUR thoughts on autistic gaming characters? And what videos do YOU wanna see in the future? Lemme know in the comments below 👇
Ooh, I actually have To the Moon in my Steam library, though I've not gotten a chance to play it yet. I'll be skipping that part of the video until I've a chance to play it, but it's good to know there's good autistic representation in there!
If you've played Breath of the Wild, I'd be curious to know what you think about two of the characters in there, particularly Beedle the Salesman (I think Beedle shows up in other Zelda games, but BotW's the only one with him I've had the pleasure of playing) and Kass the Rito Bard. Beedle shows a lot of hyperfixation on his special interest, along with being a bit socially awkward. Kass, while I doubt they intended him as neurodivergent, is quite relatable. He really likes his solitude and may get overstimulated. He also has a strong interest in music (which could also be a form of stimming) and the ancient legends, devoting his life to remembering and passing those along. He's also a bit socially awkward, especially when it comes to intimacy with his family. When you see him near Rito Village, he comments that, while he wants to go home to visit his family, he can't do that yet and asks you to check up on them in his stead... when he's literally within visual range of Rito VIllage.
@@sparklefulpaladin looks like Beedle has been in every major Zelda game since The Wind Waker. Even the DS games. Another character I didn't see as neurodivergent but who knows? I don't think Kass is as much. I didn't catch the part of him avoiding his family. That's interesting there's so many details like that in Botw.
When it comes to games, I remember seeing someone who works with Autistic kids talking about how Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy 7, specifically the Remake, has traits that could hint to him being autistic. I can kinda see it personally, though I can guarantee it was likely unintentional.
@seanathanseastar I was literally just about to bring this up! As a long-time Final Fantasy fan on the spectrum, I'm not really sure how I didn't pick up on this until more recently, but I've discussed it with other fans online, and there's a lot of things about Cloud as a character that make so much sense when viewed through the lense of him being autistic. And yes, while I'm also guessing that it was unintentional on Square Enix's part, I'm pretty sure that's also the case for a lot of ND coded characters made by larger companies, so I usually don't worry too much about that unless the creators specifically say anything about it.
@@seanathanseastar YES!!! Imo Cloud is one of the best autistic coded characters in media and to be honest, I do think with remake it was done more intentionally. In original FF7, Cloud displayed many traits already and remake took it to the next level. I really hope Cloud gets mentioned.
An underrated game that gets compared to Danganronpa a lot is "Your turn to die"
There's a character named Gin Ibushi who's canonically Autistic!!
Interesting! I have never heard of this game! Is it on Steam?
@@noahthe0tter it is!!
It's still unfinished, I heard that the last part will be released someday but idk when
@@yen2201 interesting! I'll give that one a look then. Thank you so much!
Yeah when I found out I was so happy because he was proteade so well
One character from Pokemon Black and White who I'm pretty sure is supposed to be on the spectrum is N. He's hyperfixated on Pokemon themselves and his textbox speed is always set to fast like he's speaking a lot faster than the other characters.
Really? Interesting. I never grew up with Pokemon, so that's cool to find out
It's not just always set to "Fast." If you change the text speed to "Fast," his text is printed out *even faster*
Oh, absolutely!
B&W is one of my favorite Pokemon games, I love N so much!
I’m kind of surprised you don’t see Kiyotaka as autistic coded, but that just goes to show how people are different and have different views. When I first played THH I literally remember saying out loud “Is he autistic?” a little ways into the game experiencing his character. I think his FTE’s also back up this coding very well and cemented the headcanon for me.
I also agree on Gundham, it’s a pretty popular autistic headcanon in the DR fandom and I definitely see why.
My autistic friend keeps a list of characters she believes to be autistic, most started out as suggestions from family members that said they remind them of her, then she did in depth research to make sure bless her XD
Some characters from that list I find very interesting are Cloud from FF7 (the remake, suggested by the person that diagnosed her, who was also autistic), Futaba from Persona 5, Shulk from Xenoblade 1, Akhos from Xenoblade 2, Taion from Xenoblade 3, and Kent from the dating sim Amnesia Memories
Interesting!!! I have played Final Fantasy VII Remake back when it launched, been streaming Rebirth on my Twitch. I suppose I could see Cloud being autistic coded 🤔 I didn't even think about him like that at first. I've never played Xenoblade, Persona, or Amnesia Memories, so tough for me to say there
To the moon is an amazing game. I played it before I knew I was autistic, and related so strongly to River. I feel I should play it again now and experience it again with that context.
My ND friends and I have basically decided that most characters in Danganronpa games can be seen as autistic from the right angle. I personally relate a lot to Chiaki in Danganronpa 2. I also really love the AI Somnium Files games (also Spike Chunsoft, but different development team) and feel that many characters within them show very autistic traits, even down to their childhood traits, my favorite rn being Mizuki.
I played a lot of Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon and I got the remake recently and I loved it. I think he's just a guy like me who gets scared easily but will do things if he has to. Also he doesn't talk much so he doesn't get much of a choice in his situations. Things I personally have. But I'm not sure if you're like that. Just my POV
One TV character I forgot to bring up, also to keep you from having to watch the show, was Paris in Gilmore Girls
Hahaha 🤣 yeah I've never seen Gilmore Girls! But it sounds like I shouldn't huh?
Thank you for covering To The Moon. It's such a beautiful and underrated game
Gundam is my favorite dangarompa so this explains a lot lol
I believe Jäger from Rainbow 6 Siege is implied to have autism in Extraction, and the community originally joked about him having autism due to his profile description. His psychological profile is rather heartwarming.
Josh from Watch_Dogs 2 is said to have ASD by his voice actor.
Interesting!! I had no idea actually - never played Rainbow 6 or Watchdogs
Here is some anime people i think think may be autistic in a anime soto todoroki izuku Midori probably spelled them wrong but from my hero academia i have autism to btw
Interesting! I'll check em out!
Another great video. Going to try to remember characters.
Thank you friendo!!
Not really a big Overwatch fan myself, but what you may have overlooked about Symmetra's autism, is that it's more represented in the official webcomic that also tells about her backstory.
Aside from that, i do also feel autism is not as much represented in video games like movies and TV shows that really stick out in some form or another with any interesting characters. Being my most fanatic passion and hobby next to all that. It doesn't have to be strongly pointed out or emphasized, but some form of confirmation would do well enough.
I've only seen some niche educational games about it and i rather wanna see something in any other genre where autistic characters can be just as independent and awesome as anyone else.
The only one game i can think of, but only in form of a blackbox audiolog, is [PROTOTYPE 2]. It is a little gruesome to hear of what's happening, but once you find it, it plays the audiolog of a soldier having a autistic boy being mistaken for a Blacklight virus monster (which is a thing that happens in the game), the mother besides him tries to tell this to the soldier and accidentily unalives him.
So yeah, it can be done better...
Oh interesting - I didn't know she had a comic tied to her character. But I do agree that games need better autistic representation - I almost never see it, it feels like 🤔
I think Ghost from Call of Duty MWII and MWIII (2022 and 2023 versions, maybe not as much the 2009 version) is autistic. He always wears a skull mask and goes by the name “Ghost”. At the beginning of MWII (2022), we see him struggle with social interaction, but slowly grows to become best friends with Soap. When he presumably meets Soap, he seems bothered by Soap giving him a brotherly light punch. He only talks to people when he’s giving orders. Another time, he meets Alejandro, and interrupts Soap when Soap was going to introduce him by a name other than Ghost, which was likely a joke and/or sarcasm. Another scene where he is very quiet, he looks slightly upset at a character for commenting on his mask. He makes dad jokes, and he refers to himself as cold.
I consider Larry Koopa to be autsitic coded.
1:48 of course people came in with Luigi, unbased, lol, I don't see any neurodivergence in Luigi either. I don't understand this one or why Luigi is such a popular one for people to theorize as autistic. (I mean... I wouldn't be against it... I just don't particularly see it but of course, it's possible I just need to deeper dive into Luigi as I did Larry) I see Larry from the same series as autistic.
To summarize Larry's autistic traits: Larry has fixations, lack of awareness of what's socially appropriate or social boundaries/not understanding when and when not to say things/missing social cues, trauma dumping in general, info dumping fixations, taking things literally, stuff like yelling not working on him and only traumatizing him as he has such a large amount of trouble focusing on things he lacks interest in while going above and beyond with things he does have interest in, trouble regulating emotions (making him appear "short tempered") and on top of that, Larry Koopa is confirmed to be a "supertaster"/has higher sensitivity to taste than the average person does AND statistically, more autistic people than neurotypicals are supertasters. I got all this from Larry's characterization in the canon RPGs and canon compliant Mario & Sonic as well as the canon SMB3 Instruction Booklet quote (Japanese version, the US version censored his traumatic reaction/fear regarding Bowser's yelling).
I like ghosts 👻. Hmm. Anyway another character I think is supposed to be autistic is Abed in Community. It's a running gag that no one knows for sure, but a lot of characters suspect it. It's never brought up to him and mostly ignored. There's an episode, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, where the characters are introduced in a style like Lord of the Rings where his description is Abed the undiagnosable. Hope you can look into the show and his character if you haven't before.
I haven't....but at this point, with how many times he's been suggested, I should probably do a solo study on him lol
@@noahthe0tter that would be cool. I never got the joke that he could be autistic when I first watched the show. To me he just seemed like a super nerdy guy that loved movies and other pop culture stuff just like me and many others. It wasn't till the first mention of the running gag that I started wondering about it and looking into what exactly is autism. I bet it sparked an interest in many other people and hopefully made people want to learn more about it so they can be more respectful and understanding.
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Glad you liked the video!