Talk:List of autistic fictional characters

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Will this page last? cornince 1441 6 February 2005 CST

I think it is much more likely to last if the list only included people who were identified in the piece of work or by the author as being autistic. If someone was added to the list because it is the personal opinion of a Wikipedian that the person exhibited autistic traits, but was not identified as autistic in the piece of work or was not identified as autistic by any of the work's creators, then it would constitute POV and original research, which might get this page in trouble. Q0 14:45, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Anonymous user adds, June 13 2005:

It will now I edited it into 'known' and 'suspected'.

I really think the external link to fictional characters needs to be removed. The page is calling Lisa Simpson and Alex Keaton spectrumy -- this is very pop-y, and very misleading, particularly if the author is not going to list the traits he/she sees represented in each individual.

VfD results

This article was nominated for deletion. The result was keep. For details, please see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/List of fictional characters on the autistic spectrum. -- BD2412 ^talk 05:10, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad

I removed the following content from this list:

The character of Stevie, in Joseph Conrad's novel, The Secret Agent is a classic example of an autist from fiction, showing how autism existed in the popular imagination long before Kanner named it. Stevie, though literate, is unable to work, as his absence of 'theory of mind' makes hime easily led, he is disorientated by noise and crowds (sensory overload), interprets figurative language literally, becoming highly distressed. His chief occupation is drawing circles with a pair of compasses (repetitive, stereotyped behaviour). His brother-in-law, Verloc, the secret agent of the title, exploits Stevie's vulnerability by asking him to plant a bomb, which explodes prematurely in Greenwich Park and kills him.

Clearly, Joseph did not describe the character as autistic, and I can't find any indication that there has been academic speculation of his autism. I'd be happy to have it back if some references can be provided. Pburka 20:59, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

Robert Goren

Hi! I was very surpriced as Rober Goren from Law and Order, Criminal Intent, was missing from that list. I have worked years with both autistic and asperger-kids and my own 8 year old has mild asperger symptoms. One of the finest and real accurate picture of asperger that I have seen made in fictionally is Robert Goren.

≈≈≈≈ 12.8.2013≈≈≈≈K.Laine≈≈≈≈≈

Addition?

Nora Reid from the TV show The wilds. Played by Helena Howard. She's described as being in the "high-functioning end of the spectrum" in the pilot's script. 83.39.243.170 (talk) 23:14, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

revisiting notability

as the list is getting quite hefty (330 entries, wowzers!) with no signs of slowing down, in the archives you'll find previous discussions that landed at a notability requirement of "if the character appears in something that has a Wikipedia page, they're notable enough to be included". at the moment there are a decent amount of entries that do not fit this criterion. there are also a lot of characters that do fit this criterion but aren't on the list yet, and adding all of them would make the list pretty ridiculously long. so I reckon a re-discussion of this topic may be interesting in the name of future-proofing the page. some thoughts

• books: individual books fairly often don't have their own page (more often than movies and series at least). for some recent additions, the author also doesn't have a page. I didn't want to just remove them because a lot of these are written by autistic authors. on the other hand, there are literally hundreds of books with autistic characters, and especially the last 5 years there's been an increase in ones written by autistic authors. is the "only include if the book has a page" still a good criterion?
• movies: not really any thoughts here. there are a couple of movies with characters so minor that I don't know if they're worth including (like a movie where a character has like 3 minutes of screentime and no impact on the plot) but that number is marginal. I think it's safe to remove the current entries that don't fit the criteria?
• series: I'm specifically thinking about "one-time" characters: characters that appear in one episode of series like The X-Files, Bones, NCIS, and the likes. I've got about 50 extra of these on file (and god knows how many more in my "to-do" folder). they all technically meet the notability criterion because all these series are major enough to get their own page. I don't think they're all "notable" in the general sense (some of these characters are so little-known that I've never seen anyone talk about them, and I had to scrape through subtitle files to find them), but they're not all not notable either (a lot of the older ones are of this type, which kind of makes them inherently more notable because there just aren't many autistic characters from the 60s and 70s, and "the autistic kid" from House, Scorpion, and Criminal Minds are all fairly well-known and oft-searched).
• foreign languages: there's been a bit of an influx of people adding non-anglophone media that don't have an English page but do have a page on their language wiki. I don't know if this is just a temporary blip or if this also warrants discussion. again, the current number is small but the possible number is large. is it worth making versions of this page on the non-English wikis?

WP:LISTCRITERIA says "Selection criteria [...] should be unambiguous, objective, and supported by reliable sources. Avoid original or arbitrary criteria that would synthesize a list that is not plainly verifiable in reliable sources." This list is kind of unique, there are no other sources that are anything like this that we can turn to in order to establish inclusion criteria, so any notability-based criterion we come up with is inherently kind of arbitrary (and doesn't necessarily reflect notability. for example, On the Edge of Gone is way more notable than The Winter Journey in terms of autistic representation, but the latter has a WP page and the former doesn't). But we do need one to keep this page from just spiraling out of control, and having formal inclusion criteria might make it easier for other editors to know when to not add a character. (Additional thought: is there a maximum length for this type of list?)

(I say often that you could add a lot of entries based on the current inclusion criteria. I know it's a bit silly to say that without just...adding the entries, but I wasn't sure if that would have been reasonable. I've been neck-deep in autistic characters research for too long I fear I'm a bit out of touch with what normal people expect of this type of list.)

What are your thoughts on the current inclusion criteria regarding notability? Is it worth having this discussion now, or is it more a "we'll discuss it when the page actually becomes too unwieldy" type of situation? TheZoodles (talk) 10:39, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Hmm. I think having formal inclusion criteria would be a GOOD idea, and we SHOULD have a discussion now considering the list is getting hefty. Here's an example of one that's used for List of fictional non-binary characters:

Inclusion criteria

Characters can be added to their list if either the work they appear in is notable (per WP:GNG), the character themselves is notable, or if the character's gender has been covered by multiple reliable sources. If none of these criteria apply, a character should be excluded from the list.

• Determining whether a character is non-binary: Characters are considered non-binary when either a reliable source identifies them as such, or it is confirmed explicitly by the character's creator(s). Do not include characters that belong to a genderless species or class of beings, for example, robots.
• Determining whether a character is eligible: A character is eligible for this list if the character or work they appear in is notable, specifically if the character is a main or recurring character. This is meant to keep the list meaningful and useful.

Here's a draft one I came up with for this page:

Inclusion criteria

Characters can be added to their list if either the work they appear in is notable (per WP:GNG), the character themselves is notable, or if the character's presence on the autism spectrum has been covered by multiple reliable sources. If none of these criteria apply, a character should be excluded from the list.

• Determining whether a character is autistic: Characters are considered autistic, or on the autism spectrum, when either a reliable source identifies them as such, or it is confirmed explicitly by the character's creator(s).
• Determining whether a character is eligible: A character is eligible for this list if the character or work they appear in is notable, specifically if the character is a main or recurring character. This is meant to keep the list meaningful, useful, and avoid speculation on character traits.

Let me know what you think of my draft inclusion criteria. Historyday01 (talk) 17:24, 24 July 2024 (UTC)