(Mod’s note: the following is the text that was originally beneath the cut, replicated here for posterity with permission. Thanks!)
What do I mean by “autistic dominance”?
The majority of people in our world are allistic (or non-autistic). While the exact numbers of autistic people aren’t known – due to poor diagnostic procedures, stigma, and discrimination in the medical system – it is certain that there are more allistic people than autistic. Therefore, the dominant neurotype (on this axis anyway) in our world is allistic. This is an “allistic-dominant” world.
The opposite, therefore, is an “autistic-dominant” world, wherein most people are on the autistic spectrum. This is what I believe the Pokemon world is: a world where the vast majority of people are autistic.
This really isn’t too far-fetched. There’s no particular reason for the majority of people in our world to have allistic neurotypes. You may say that this is because autism is “a disorder”, and while you may have a technical point there, consider this: a developmental disorder which causes extremely dulled senses. People with this disorder display low levels of interest even in things they claim to love. Furthermore, they express emotion through contorting their faces strangely, and become upset when this is not immediately understood. They enjoy eye contact, despite this being considered threatening behaviour, and cannot stick to a natural routine. This is “allism” as spoken about from the perspective of someone in an autistic-dominant world.
Differences in interpretation
There are two main ways of interpreting fiction: Doylist and Watsonian. The Doylist perspective involves examining the piece of fiction as a piece of fiction; that is to say, examining it from the perspective of the creator or consumer. The Watsonian perspective is examining it from within the piece itself – that is, examining it as an actual universe, or from the perspective of the characters.
Both interpretations are valid. That’s the great thing about fiction – there are so many different ways to interpret it! But most perspectives fall within the bounds of Doylist or Watsonian. And the latter is just as important as the former – it’s just as valid a viewpoint.
This, as you’ll see, is important.
All autistic interpretations made by autistic people are valid, but some have a little extra “oomph” to them. Pokemon is one of these. The creator of Pokemon, Satoshi Taijiri, is autistic himself. He based the series on his childhood love of collecting bugs. Moreover, while I’m focusing on the games, the protagonist of the anime – Ash Ketchum – was intended to be a role model for autistic children specifically, and he’s named after Taijiri in the original Japanese version.
With that in mind, it’s easy to see why the Pokemon world might come off as pretty autistic…
Symptoms & traits of autism
Autism, as a disorder, is defined by a number of symptoms. I’ll use “traits” to refer to these, because using “symptoms” rubs me the wrong way personally.
Anyway, the general list of traits that, taken together, are a strong sign of an autistic spectrum neurotype, are:
- Heightened sensory perception, including a heightened preference for certain sensory inputs, and a heightened detestation of others. (Sensory heaven vs sensory hell.)
- Disordered empathy: either a lack of empathy (as is more common) or hyperempathy (a greatly heightened level of empathy).
- Repetitive, self-stimulating behaviours (“stimming”). These can be physical, audio, oral, or otherwise.
- Difficulty in social situations.
- Difficulty with language processing (up to the point of being totally nonverbal).
- Meltdowns or shutdowns caused by too much sensory stimulation.
- Executive dysfunction, causing difficulty with “basic tasks” – hygiene, cooking, cleaning, work, etc.
- Special interests – a high consuming interest in one or a few things.
- Aversion to eye contact.
Obviously, some of these things wouldn’t be shown in a kids’ game, but we can take a look at most of them. Moreover, most autistic people only show a few of the above traits. Autism is a spectrum, after all.
Difficulty with language processing – the protagonists
The Pokemon protagonists, especially in early games, are limited to saying “yes” or “no”. It’s even made fun of in RSE, with that “where do you come from” question. This isn’t as much of an issue in the later games, when players can select between other responses in certain situations, but it still applies because you only get a couple of options and you don’t say a lot anyway.
Why is this so? Well, the Doylist perspective would say that this is because they’re JRPG protagonists, and one of the hallmarks of JRPG protagonists is that they tend to be silent. This better allows the player to project onto them. The Watsonian perspective would conclude that the protagonists are either very quiet people, or something is preventing them from holding a conversation.
Let us follow the Watsonian line – because of course, this “autistic-dominant” interpretation is going to require that. What could make the protagonists only able to speak a few words at most? The most obvious answer is that they have some sort of disorder preventing them from doing so. Perhaps they are deaf, and so find speech hard. Maybe they’re mute.
Or perhaps, they’re autistic. A lot of autistic people are “non-verbal” – they cannot speak. Sometimes this is a lifelong thing, and sometimes the person may have non-verbal periods but be able to speak otherwise. Some autistic people can say certain small, common words, but can’t speak otherwise. Some force themselves to speak, which has a negative impact on their mental health.
It’s entirely possible that the Pokemon protagonists are only partly verbal. They may be able to say yes or no – they may be able to communicate choice – but no more. We know they can order from shops, but how do we know they aren’t writing what they want?
This becomes a greater point when we look at Red, the only protagonist to appear as an NPC. Red never talks. Ever. He communicates solely through punctuation – mostly ellipses, but in the PWT he might throw in a ! or an ?. The Doylist perspective says that this is a joke about him being a silent protagonist. The Watsonian perspective would ask what in-universe reason there is for Red never speaking.
The obvious answer? He can’t. At all. Red is totally non-verbal – and we can presume this applies to Leaf, too.
A special interest is different from a normal interest in something. A special interest is consuming. Things that autistic people have special interests in can be considered to be parts of our personality, and not insignificant ones either. We use them to relate to people, to comfort ourselves, to fill our time. Frequently, a special interest can overtake more obvious concerns like homework. This may sound unhealthy, but it’s actually pretty normal for us.
So – do a large number of people in the Pokemon world have special interests? Do a large number of people in the Pokemon world have interests that are so consuming that they become part of the person themselves?
Yes. Pokemon types. Why do so many people in the Pokemon world use only one kind of Pokemon, even when logic dictates that the best strategy is to use a variety? Because they have a special interest in those types, and focus on them to the exclusion of others.
This isn’t actually that implausible. Quite a few interests in our world are flocked to by autistic people en masse, simply because something about them is especially appealing to us. Pokemon itself is one of these, come to think of it. You’ve surely heard the stereotypes of autistic people loving trains, or maths, or Minecraft, right? That’s a stereotype, but it has an origin.
Maybe Pokemon types are just the same. And there’s so many of them that if all Pokemon types held this kind of draw, then together, almost everyone in the population would focus on one type to this degree.
But there are other potential special interests that we see in Pokemon. Quite a few, actually:
- Copycat likes mimicking. A lot. Now this could be a form of echolalia, but it’s plausible that it’s a special interest.
- Bill and computers. Sure, maybe he’s a geek, but a lot of autistic people are geeks.
- We all like to laugh at Eusine’s fixation on Suicune, but what if the legends of the legendary beasts – especially Suicune – were his special interest? That would nicely explain his devotion.
- The professors could all have special interests in their particular fields of study. Do you realise how heavily the “eccentric professor” stereotype is based on autistic people? And all of these professors have their eccentricities. (Looking at you, Birch.)
- Steven Stone likes rocks. A lot. He never shuts up about them, which is weird for someone who doesn’t even really specialise in Rock-types.
- Perhaps Zinnia was so well-suited to be a Lorekeeper because she had a special interest in Hoenn’s legends.
- Cynthia and mythology! This is another fairly obvious one. She’s the most important person in the region, but she runs around chasing down stories.
- On a similar note, Cyrus and space. Cyrus in particular comes across as intense but emotionless, which is another stereotype.
- N and maths. People have picked up on N potentially being autistic before, largely because of his obsessive attitude, his fast speech, and the maths thing. I think it’s pretty plausible!
- Colress and the pursuit of SCIENCE! is another potential special interest. It would explain why he dropped Team Plasma after he got what he needed.
- Bianca seems to end up following the same line as the professors, as does Cheren to an extent.
- Tierno and dancing. Shauna and puzzles. Trevor and the Pokedex.
You see where I’m going with this, right? These could be really intense interests and hobbies, but taken with the other signs, they’re pretty like special interests.
Making eye contact with someone in the Pokemon world is tantamount to a challenge. It is considered an instant beginner for a battle. This is odd. In an allistic-dominant world, eye contact is seen as a part of normal social interaction. Why would it be considered an instant challenge?
Autistic people don’t like eye contact (generally speaking). I personally find eye contact stressful and unnerving. For many others, having to look into peoples’ eyes is outright painful or terrifying. If Pokemon is an autistic-dominant world, then suddenly, the eye contact = challenge thing makes a lot of sense.
In a society where eye contact is seen as threatening, then purposely making it is a threat. If we translate that to the relatively friendly construct of Pokemon battles, then a moment of eye contact means “I want to have a Pokemon battle with you”. This is perhaps further compounded by how trainers often approach each other in order to begin a fight. By entering another’s space and making eye contact, you can pretty effectively psyche out even an allistic person. To an autistic person, the meaning is even clearer.
Autistic people like routine. Actually, we really kind of need it to function. Suddenly changing plans is terrible and disorientating. We fall naturally into patterns, and it’s scary to not have them!
So, do people in the Pokemon world like routine? Does it make them tick?
Well, routine is basically doing the same thing over and over again, even when it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. This is how things work, and we don’t deviate from it, because that’s weird and bad and why would you do that?!
Paying the winner of Pokemon battles. Everyone does it, even the villainous team members. Even the villainous team leaders! You can go to an alternate dimension ruled over by a banished god to fight a cult leader bend on omnicide, and he will still pay you for beating him. Why? Because the people of the Pokemon world can’t imagine doing anything else.
Why only have a particular small amount of Pokemon, when more is better? Ugh, it’s just be weird to go and get another, this team makes sense.
Same type all the time? It works, guys. I like this type, it’s good to use. I’m used to it. (See, this theory provides two explanations for the single-type trainers who are fucking everywhere!)
You get the deal, right? What seems like irrational in-universe behaviour is only irrational if you assume that the person doing the behaviours is neurotypical. Once you consider the possibility that they’re autistic, suddenly it makes a lot more sense.
A meltdown is a burst of uncontrollable reaction to being sensory overstimulated or overstressed. It can manifest as shouting, screaming, crying, self-harming, or as physical violence, as well as other ways. A shutdown is similar, expect that the sufferer literally “shuts down” and stops responding to the world. Both are horrible, horrible experiences that unfortunately autistic people just have to live with.
Do any Pokemon characters ever have meltdowns or shutdowns? Well, yes, yes they do. The first example that comes to mind is Ghetsis at the end of Black2/White2 – he screams and shouts at the player and N, and the Shadow Triad later state that he’s incoherent. Then there’s Cyrus at the end of Platinum, who sort of just snaps. Bianca is in hysterics when her Munna is stolen, the shock of which could well push her into a meltdown.
Shutdowns show up as well. N goes totally silent when Ghetsis starts berating him at the end of Black/White. Barry just breaks when he fails to save the lake Pokemon. Both cases are interesting because usually, N and Barry do not shut the fuck up.
This is the kind of thing that you wouldn’t usually see in kids’ series, simply because it could be distressing for the kids. And I understand that completely. It’d upset kids on or off the spectrum to see such a strong emotional reaction. I’d like to see more of it, properly handled, but I understand why you don’t.
Executive dysfunction & autistic burnout
Executive dysfunction can be a symptom of many disorders, one of which is autism. Executive dysfunction can be best summed up as “stars, can’t do it”. You want to do something, you need to do this thing, you in theory can do this thing – but you can’t. It’s like you run into a wall every time you try. It is utterly obnoxious to deal with.
It is possible, I grant, to force your way past this. But this is not an enjoyable thing to do, and can have really bad effects on your mental and physical health due to the stress and self-loathing that it causes.
And when you’ve pushed yourself for too long, you burn out. You stop being able to put up this façade of being neurotypical, and start to break down kind of badly. This is called “autistic burnout” when it happens to an autistic person, and can strike without warning, but usually after a period of great stress.
So what examples of dysfunction and burnout do we see in Pokemon? One in particular springs to mind: Gym Leader Volkner. The man is on the verge of quitting his passion because he’s so burnt out, and fiddles around with other things in an effort to keep going. This to me seems like someone doing what he can do instead of what he should but can’t do in order to try to stave off the inevitable. Volkner can’t throw himself into leading because executive dysfunction is getting the better of him, and he’s burning out.
We also see Alder, who was pretty burnt-out after the death of his partner. Now, true, this could well be just grief. But there’s nothing saying that grief couldn’t trigger him to become so stressed that he burns out. Grief could make his executive dysfunction a lot worse, and it takes a lot of force to get him to try again – and even then, he can’t put up much of a resistance against N. It’s literally impossible for him to do so.
One sign of autism is “disordered empathy”. This can either be no empathy at all, or too much empathy (hyperempathy). By “no empathy”, it’s generally meant that the person doesn’t share the feelings of others. They can be sympathetic to someone’s plight, or understand that they are sad on a mental level, but they don’t feel the sadness with this person. Hyperempathy is the exact opposite – other people’s emotions affect us so strongly that it’s borderline physically painful or sickening.
When I think of hyperempathy in Pokemon, I immediately think of N. He is clearly extremely distressed by the perceived suffering of Pokemon. In the Memory Link, his followers are extremely concerned about him when they see him talking about how he can’t bear the suffering of Pokemon. No wonder it hit him so hard – it’s like physical and emotional pain to him.
There’s more than a few characters who are said to understand Pokemon and their feelings on a deep level. Norman and Iris come to mind. Perhaps this means that they are hyperempathic.
As for no empathy… Silver. Silver couldn’t understand that he was hurting anyone with his behaviour until Lance very clearly explained it to him. He lacks empathy. Note that this is not a reflection on Silver’s character. He was raised in an environment where no one would ever have explained to him that “others feel bad when you do this”. In a different environment, he would likely have learnt at a young age to value others’ feelings even if he doesn’t understand them.
Zinnia also doesn’t seem to give much of a shit about how her actions are affecting others. Now to be fair on her, she was totally right about everything – plan A to deal with the meteor was sort of a dick move, and her plan B with Rayquaza worked wonderfully well. But it’s pretty clear that Zinnia doesn’t perceive how others feel as well as one might expect of an allistic person.
So, yes, people in the world of Pokemon do display “abnormal” levels of empathy.
I have shown that a very large proportion of the people of the Pokemon world show autistic traits and behaviours, and do so consistently. Therefore, from a Watsonian perspective, a logical response to this is to state that the majority of people in the Pokemon world lie somewhere upon the autistic spectrum, which is the inverse of our world.
Do you disagree with this? Fine; I have nothing against that. Everyone can interpret stories in different ways. What I do have a problem with is the demonization of headcanons. Autistic people, along with all oppressed people, have the right to see themselves as the hero. We all have the right to see ourselves in fictional worlds that we enjoy, even if we are not explicitly there.
This is my headcanon. There is nothing in canon to explicitly disprove it. In fact, there is plenty of evidence for it. From a Watsonian perspective, it makes a great deal of sense – and this is as valid as the Doylist perspective.
A final note: this does not deny the possibility that these characters could have other neurotypes as well as autistic ones. Barry, Bianca and Palmer in particular I feel may have ADHD, and there are many characters who could potentially have PTSD (such as Mewtwo or AZ). Alder or Volkner could be suffering from depression as well as burnout (and it could have contributed to that). Comorbidity is very common, and in a world where nearly everyone is autistic, it may not even technically be comorbid.
