Accidental Autism in Avatar: Take 2 |Musings|

so today's video is going to be a bit different from the usual as a writing Channel I usually have some form of writing discussion but today we're going to talk a little bit more about the importance of good diverse representation in our writing and we're going to do it by getting really nerdy about Avatar and autism back in 2022 I stumbled across a tumblr post in which the writer explained all the reasons they had cannoned a popular Avatar character as autistic and once I'd seen it I could not unsee it I decided I wanted to rewatch the series and discover if there were any other symptoms I could find that this character displayed and boy we're there so I did what any sane person would do and at the end of 2022 I made a 40-minute video nerding out over what I'd found but I never published that video videos about autism all too often attract a nasty crowd I didn't particularly want to share company with but with the Netflix adaptation making Avatar a popular topic again I thought it could be fun to go back and gush over the Original Series so we're going to give this video a try however due to the sensitive nature of this topic I do have to lay down some pretty firm ground rules and I will be stricter in moderating the comment section on this video so first a reminder that this is a head Cannon and you are still free to have your own head Cannon about this character second autism is a spectrum no not like that like this people aren't really a little or a lot autistic that's not really how it works they're just Autistic or not but how an autistic person expresses their autism and how much support they need is unique to each individual that means that while a lot of what I'll discuss today are pretty common traits of autism for every single trait I discuss there will be autistic people who have seemingly opposite traits third I have left a link to the tumblr post that inspired this video down in the description box I'm adding quite a lot of my own observations to theirs but several of the points made in this video were made first by them and there are other examples they gave that I didn't address in this video so I highly recommend reading their post for a full picture lastly before we introduce this character and anyone attempts to tell me that the writers never would have intended to code them as autistic I know I can explain the likely reasons the writers included nearly every trait that we'll discuss but that doesn't mean this character wasn't still coded as autistic so with that in mind let's finally take a look at this old video of mine and using my version of this autism Wheel by Matt Lowry let's discuss the autistic traits of Zuko interoception deals with abnormalities in an autistic person's ability to sense aspects of their own physical and mental state such as their emotions hunger or pain they may experience too much pain for small injuries but have high pain tolerance for serious ones we know that Zuko despite io's warnings began his search for the Avatar very soon after having had half of his face melted off we see a similar thing after Zuko's ship exploded yet this is how he reacts to being bitten by a measly Turtle duck through his shoe I don't know maybe the turtle is a snapping turtle duck several times iro reminds Zuko to eat and to rest when Zuko does admit he's tired it's clear he's far beyond tired it's a recurring problem for Zuko to forget to take care of himself Zuko also has a lot of difficulty understanding his own feelings learning to separate his emotions from what he thinks he's supposed to feel is part of his character arc when he's pressed about what he's feeling toward whom in the episode the beach he expresses confusion and struggles to respond with those examples I think it's safe to add a few bars to this wedge The Stereotype of the emotionless autistic robot is just that but it can seem true because some autistic folks have low affect whatever they feel inside they may not show it on the outside in the way that neurotypicals expect them to many have pointed out Zuko rarely smiles and only laughs I believe it's twice outside of moments of extreme emotion he doesn't tend to express emotion as noticeably as most other characters nor does he Express as wide of a range of emotion autistic people often have trouble regulating their emotions too which can lead to meltdowns or to shutdowns where they stop speaking or interacting until their emotional state rebalances they're also more prone to anxiety and depression and we see all of these in Zuko the most obvious is Zuko's explosive temper he seems to be in a near constant state of disregulation and has a bit of a meltdown whenever he's had one annoyance too many but zuku also goes into shutdown mode he may seek to be alone in the quiet and dark in other words he seeks sensory deprivation and if someone interrupts he might not speak to them or even acknowledge them at all no eye contact nothing and Zuko's agonizing over making friends his overthinking and lines like I'm never happy show Zuko experiences anxiety and depression like symptoms too autistic people are also known for having atypical empathy which can present in many ways but in Zuko's case he seems to have high emotional empathy and low cognitive empathy emotional empathy is the ability to sense and be affected by others emotion I would argue that save qara Zuko has the highest capacity for emotional empathy of the gang the episode The Southern Raiders takes several minutes of runtime to depict how distressed Zuko is that qara is upset the reason I say he has the second highest emotional empathy is that others have known about katara's trauma for as much as two and 2third of a season but done nothing about it yet Zuko only has to be on team avatar for a few episodes before he's distressed Enough by Qatar state that he's like nah we need to fix this yesterday cognitive empathy however is understanding why someone is feeling the way they are and being able to predict how someone will respond to certain stimuli such as telling them they look fat in that dress autistic people may have a delay in developing this empathy which is why they might seem rude sometimes again in the southern Raiders Zuko is distressed that qara is upset but it takes several steps to understand why there's also this he clearly know Saka is acting strangely but his responses to both Suki and Saka indicate he he's missing cues that they were planning for aone time he was too focused with what's on his mind hyperfocus is also an autistic trait by the way and here are several other examples of his low cognitive empathy finally studies show that autistic people are more likely to hold true to their moral compass in public and private regardless of the opportunity for personal gain they may have a black and white sense of right and wrong a strong sense of fairness Justice or dare I say honor as other Avatar fans have pointed out Zuko is the only honorable party in all three of his agik kaai Zuko adheres to the rules of the AGN Kai even when no one else does and he can say all he wants that his men don't matter but when push comes to shove he will speak out on their behalf or risk his life for them he's also protective of his own enemies and his nation's enemies even if it means going without food when he's starving risking exposing his identity or risking the stability of the Fire Nation itself self in fact when the writers want to show you just how close suko comes to the dark side they do it by having him break this moral code it's that big a part of his character so yeah I'd say it's safe to give Zuko quite a few bars on this one autistic communication is often unique from alistic communication and surprise Zuko has a ton of autistic speech traits first Zuko tends to take people literally he also tends to take them at their word Zuko has to remind himself that aula lies yet multiple times in the series he believes her anyway he's surprised to learn that she was dishonest but she admits that she's done this to him before Zuko has difficulty with alistic humor he attempts one of ao's jokes but can't set up the punchline and here he either doesn't realize the guards are joking doesn't find typical alistic humor funny or again he's too too hyperfocused on his own agenda for a guy trying to not Stand Out Among the prison guards you'd think he'd at least pretend to laugh at this joke if he knew it was a joke zuku has difficulties with metaphorical language he tries to tell Saka to look for the Silver Lining but instead tells him to take a bite out of the silver sandwich Zuko understands this idiom is for cheering people up but he's confused by the idiom itself Zuko isn't usually deliberately rude but he tends to be much more direct in his speech and even in cases where it's clear he's making an attempt to not be rude he still says things in a way that could be interpreted that way by a lot of people autistic people are known for honesty while The Stereotype that they never lie isn't true it is true that they usually don't like to lie and often they're really bad at it and Zuko is hilariously bad at lying I already mentioned Zuko has moments where he's non-verbal other times he can take a really long time to reply such as here where his slow response makes isula impatient with him Zuko has to practice difficult conversations before having them autistic folks often need this practice to warm up their conversation muscles as it were and to work out any kinks and it's clear from watching Zuko practice this conversation that he definitely needed the practice similarly Zuko talks to himself to work through his own thoughts he knows Ang is conscious here he's using Ang the way Sherlock talks to a skull to work out his theories autistic people can struggle to parse through information and know what's important to share like how Zuko didn't realize the gang should know ozai's plan to wipe out the Earth Kingdom even if he assumed they were going to stop oai before then it's still relevant Intel Zuko falls back on scripted language when he doesn't know what to say the vast majority of people use scripted speech daily hello how are you nice weather we're having autistic people however depend on memorizing scripted speech to pass a so-called normal when the conversation goes off script that's when they struggle they might stutter they might take a really long time to think of their answers or very likely they may try to apply scripted speech where it's inappropriate this is where we get some of Zuko's most hilarious exchanges Zuko doesn't know what to say in these situations so he quickly searches for the script that fits closest even if it doesn't really fit zuku appears to use other people's words and phrases parting speech can be part of echolalia which some autistic people have but it can also be part of mirroring or memorizing scripts I've already mentioned that he repeats things iro says to him but there are also times where he insults iro using words that once you get to know Zuko don't really sound like his own opinions but they sure do sound like aulas autistic people often have difficult making appropriate eye contact whether it's too much or too little at first glance Zuko can and does make eye contact without acting uncomfortable but if you look closer Zuko often prefers to occupy himself look at the ground or even face another Direction entirely when he's conversing with others zuku also misses cues and forgets to participate in Social custom like here where Uncle iro has to remind him to say thank you or here where he can't figure out from cues that Ang wants to sit with Tara now this next point isn't something that Zuko does but about how others perceive him which is in line with autism due in part to their communication differences autistic people especially if they're non-verbal are often infantilized gaslit and thought of a stupid by elistics Zuko is smart yet others belittle him aula often treats her older brother like a child she gives him a childish nickname and she calls him a dum dum Xiao is barely capable of deferring to Authority yet Delights in mocking Zuko Saka calls Zuko stupid to his face although to be fair Zuko did kind of set himself up for this one and later on Ang indicates that the entire gang thinks Zuko is stupid when he says I don't care what everyone else says about you you're pretty smart while I laugh at Zuko's reaction here every time this constantly being underestimated and undervalued will feel painfully familiar to autis people honestly there are probably a lot more examples that I'm forgetting but I think we have enough to go by here by now it should come as no surprise that autistic people often understand and make relationships in different ways from neurotypicals autistic people often mask and no I'm not referring to wearing their n95s or even to this masking is hiding their autistic behaviors and adopting neurotypical ones to fly under the r radar masking can lead to identity issues where they've hidden their own self until they're not sure who they really are a problem Uncle iro clearly thinks Zuko struggles with there are many ways autistic people mask but a common way is through mirroring which is when they identify a specific person they want to emulate and then imitate their dress speech or mannerisms now this requires me to read between the lines a bit but I think Zuko actually does quite a bit of mirroring sees than one Zuko especially seems inconsistent saying one thing while doing another but if Zuko is mirroring someone this actually makes perfect sense what Zuko most wants is Daddy's love so he imitates the only one to get Daddy's unconditional love Daddy himself when Zuko says the safety of his men don't matter he's emulating oai but when he risks his own safety to protect his men that's the real Zuko shining through the Tumblr I read pointed out that Zuko also miror zazula a lot adopting her humor or demonstrating his firebending immediately after her despite not being ready to do so but we also see Zuko mirroring others when Zuko dates may he acts superficial and apathetic when we well know by now that he is passionate idealistic and kind of a romantic but the more he tries to appeal to May for connection the more he emulates her the same way he emulates his dad when he wants Daddy's approval when Zuko later tries to bend the gang he also emulates iro as a way to bond telling io's jokes rather than his own serving tea even though he has been less than enthusiastic about te before and he takes on a similar fatherly role that iro took on for him we also see here where he's imitating IO and aula that he does actively observe others and think about how they would act in his situation especially where he finds his own capabilities lacking autistic people like adhders are more susceptible to rejection sensitivity and and might expect to be rejected before it ever happens when Zuko learns that he wasn't explicitly invited to a war meeting he obsesses over it Assuming he's not welcome even when he's assured he is and he preemptively decides not to go his rejection sensitivity convinces him iro hates him yes he feels guilty for good reason but even those who barely know iro assure Zuko multiple times that iro loves him and is proud and will forgive him autistic people can also have difficulties understanding social hierarchies and Authority the way Zuko bosses his uncle is a prime example of this and so is his speaking out in the war room but what's interesting is that autistic people are often also sticklers for the rules once they know what the rules are and why they have value not only are they more likely to follow the rules themselves but they may try to make sure everyone else does too after learning that disregarding the social hierarchy can literally get you burned Zuko becomes a stickler for that hierarchy if his authority is challenged he aggressively attempts to put that person in their place but autistic people also have difficulty with social nuance and what Zuko fails to understand is that as an exiled Prince the rules of the social hierarchy May no longer apply the way he expects them to and when it comes to friendships autistic people may struggle to make friends or may otherwise form unexpected friendships never at any point in Avatar Dum have we been told Zuko had any childhood friends what we do see is him hanging out with his mom when his mom isn't around he hangs out with uncle AO when Uncle iro isn't around Zuko clings to his baby sister and her friends which is a tad odd for a 16-year-old boy who spent years being independent has been severely mistreated by said baby sister who's previously protested against spending time with her and who doesn't seem to think of her friends as his but my favorite example of Zuko's relationship differences is that he doesn't seem to know he and Ang are even friends until Ang says it outright in the last 6 minutes of the finale Zuko's response is to look away then look back and say yeah we are friends as though he just realized just as autistic people can have trouble gauging social hierarchies they can also have difficulty determining when someone is an acquaintance versus a friend sometimes you might have to directly State the nature of a relationship for an autistic person to fully understand so yeah it's safe to say Zuko has some relationship differences executive functioning involves our ability to plan carry out focus on and finish tasks autism is not the only disorder that affects executive functioning but there are some common ways that it does and yep Zuko's got him probably the most obvious example of Zuko's executive function functioning capabilities is his autistic hyperfocus he has a onrack mind and for years can think only of capturing the Avatar the tumblr post also points out this moment when Toff is really excited to hang out with Zuko and he's just frustrated because she's distracting him from what he's focused on but zuku also struggles with impatience and sometimes puts himself at risk because of it such as entering Fire Nation territory while he's in Exile attending War meetings while he's too young learning advanced firebending forms before he's ready trying to get struck by lightning one Hallmark of autism is struggling with change anyone who's seen the show knows Zuko gets upset even with minor changes the Tumblr blog I read also pointed out Zuko literally gets ill from a big change in his life and needs days to recover how autistic of him another Hallmark of autism is a need for order and routine this one isn't as obvious with Zuko but there are hints that he's very tight for a teenager he's also really strict with Ang's training schedule I ordinarily wouldn't have brought this up as discipline and routine are encouraged in martial arts except all the gang are martial artists yet none seem to care about routine as much not even Saka the schedule guy so Zuko strictness with routine does seem out of the ordinary now for this next part I want you to look at this picture and read the letter then look at this one and read the color if you said H and red that's pretty neurotypical autistic people however are much more likely to see s and blue that's because autistic people have what's called a local processing bias instead of a global one which is basically a fancy way of saying they tend to look at details rather than the whole picture this helps them to be great at pattern recognition which may be why Zuko thinks Ang is a master of evasion when he can't sense a pattern in Ang's movements or in how he knows how to cheat the pattern to open this door before the solstice and autistic people may also notice details others don't or make connections that others don't find important such as when Zuko knows to look for Ang near the river when he learns qara stole a waterbending scroll something no one else thought of but the thing about a local processing bias is that it makes it harder to recognize faces you need Global processing for that Zuko sometimes doesn't recognize people he's met before such as Suki but I'm prepared to give him a pass there since Saka didn't recognize her either without her makeup and he'd been playing tonsil hockey with her but the Tumblr pointed out two interesting things first when Zuko challenges aula he notices something feels off about her but can't figure out what autistic people often struggle to read facial expressions in body language Zuko being unable to pinpoint what's off about his own sister despite clear changes in her appearance and Body Language checks the second example is that Zuko has an inaccurate view even of his own look looks hi it's 2024 rayin here again after I first made this video I have since noticed another aspect of Zuko's character that falls in line with his executive functioning in a really uncanny and fascinating way as we learn more about autism and particularly about autistic teens and adults who weren't diagnosed until later in life we're starting to observe a phenomenon that often happens when these late diagnosed people start the process of unmasking effectively what happens is that when when they learn of their autism and especially when they stop masking they find that for a while suddenly and inexplicably they can't do things that they used to be good at now there are a number of theories but no concrete explanation yet for why this happens but it is interesting to note that Zuko displays what can be interpreted as late diagnosed autistic skill regression just think of what happens to him once he's joined team Avatar and can be more openly himself when he doesn't have to pretend to be the perfect Prince when he doesn't have to mask quite as much as he used to Zuko stops being able to fire Bend and has to go on a field trip with Ang to relearn to bend fire something he's been doing most of his life now I know the writers just wanted an excuse to give some cool World building to have Zuko and Ang have a team building exercise and for Zuko to have a healthier relationship with his bending but it is fascinating that even nearing 20 years after this show first aired the portrayal of Zuko can still fit in with aspects of autism many of us are only coming to understand now anyhow back to 2022 me one more aspect of executive functioning Zuko May struggle with is one of his iconic features his hair now as a writer I understand Zuko's hair is meant to be symbolic of his internal journey toward freeing his burdens but just as with Dungeons and Dragons that's the outof character reasoning there still has to be an inch character explanation for why Zuko's hair is so this hair is an issue for many autistic people they may have sensitive scalps making brushing or styling very painful they may simply not care or know much about fashion and will style their hair for Comfort they may also struggle to have the energy for a proper hair care routine Zuko's hair is untidy ragged and hangs awkwardly in his eyes we know the Gang has access to Combs and hair trimming tools yet Zuko doesn't even get a trim when he's back in the Fire Nation where there's more need for him to be presentable and he likely has servants doing his hair for him I mean if you think about it it seems likely his servants would have recommended a trim which would suggest Zuko declined do I really need to point out that even the blind girl who doesn't care about looks and regularly covers herself in dirt still manages to get a comb through her hair to look somewhat tidier than Zuko I arrest my case autistic people tend to have intense special interests and gain expertise above and beyond what would be expected for their age for this reason children diagnosed with Asperger syndrome though we don't use that term anymore were sometimes called little professors this Tumblr blog suggests Zuko has a special interest in swords but I'm actually going to push back on that a little he could have a special interest in swords I just don't think there's enough to conclude that he only talks about swords briefly and only when someone else brings them up first while he's well trained with them the fact that Tye and even May are highly trained despite being non-benders suggests ordinary marshall training is expected of nobility which would make perfect sense if the Fire Nation has any cultural memory of The Darkest Day in Fire Nation history but I would still say Zuko has an obvious special interest capturing the Avatar he has a compelling reason for this but he's obsessed to the point everything he does is somehow connected he gets so so good at hunting the Avatar he comes closer to capturing Ang more often than Xiao who has far more resources and Manpower when Ang goes missing in the finale despite the fact that everyone else there has spent more time with Ang and in theory should know his habits better everyone turns to Zuko qara calls him an expert at tracking Ang so it's to the point where Zuko doesn't really know how to socialize outside of capturing the Avatar seriously special interests are an important part of how autistic people interact with the world and bond with other people and what do we have here if not Zuko trying to bond by bringing up his special interest the jury is still out on swords but I think that we can safely say Zuko has special interests stems are so varied that many autistic people think they don't have one because they don't flap their hands or Rock back and forth which are the two kinds of autistic stems that usually get discussed but self-stimulation as a way to help regulate emotion or excess energy can take many forms it's also something most people do not just autistic people biting your nails when you're anxious bouncing a knee clicking a pen whistling or singing playing with your hair these are all stems the difference between a neurotypical and an autistic person in this regard is that an autistic person is likely to depend on stems more and they're more likely to have less socially normalized stems not too many of Zuko's behaviors ought automatically present his stems to me but he does fidget he tosses and turns at night he Paces he fire bends to work off heightened emotions but a less normalized stem he has is talking to himself yes this can be a stim and it's actually a pretty common one for verbal autistic people that's all that came to mind but let me know if you noticed any stem Zuko has that I missed our exteroception is the ability to sense aspects of the world around us light touch smell autistic people often have hypo and Hyper sensitivities in these areas it's not uncommon for autistic people to refuse to eat certain tastes or textures to need the tags torn out of their clothes or to only be able to wear certain Fabrics we don't get much insight into Zuko's eating or clothing habits Heck if I know if he's having his Royal robe specially made of a different fabric but we do see him seeking dark and quiet he also appears to have a pretty good ear hearing small sounds from all the way across a ship being woken up several times throughout the series by small sounds that most people never would have noticed and apart from that Zuko also doesn't appear to like being touched sometimes this is understandable this is annoying and this is something he has reason to be sensitive about but Zuko doesn't appear to enjoy hugs either he'll put up with and even appreciate hugs to a degree from some people but even with those people he seems awkward uncomfortable and late to respond when qara orders him to join a group hug he's not pleased so we don't have a lot to go by but there is enough evidence to at least give him a couple bars the final wedge deals with sensing the body's position a sense of balance movement motor skills Etc autistic people may be clumsy and they're also more likely to be hypermobile Zuko clearly has a lot of flexibility what is unclear is whether this comes naturally to him or whether he developed it like all the other Benders in the show something we do know however is that Zuko is Clumsy apart from Saka Zuko seems to be the most frequent but of the physical comedy jokes from a writer's perspective Zuko is a likely Target for physical comedy he's the main antagonist for the first season he's overly serious he's awkward and all those things make it hilarious when he face plants in ways that wouldn't be nearly as funny if say qara did but again this comes down to outof character versus inch character reasons when this many jokes are made at Zuko's expense the conclusion viewers are forced to come to is that he's clumsy but this isn't just me reading too deeply into a couple of jokes we're specifically shown that Zuko was a clumsy child it isn't just that he isn't as prodigious at bending as isula despite having had a full Year's head start on her when it comes to his training but it's that he trips over his own feet doing basic moves twice at the beginning of the series we also have Uncle iro telling Zuko that he hasn't mastered his Basics as a martial artist myself you're always training in the basics you never fully move past them but the way iro words this makes it seem like Zuko despite all of his years of training and despite his incredible display of skill still struggles with firebending so my next Point does have to be taken with a grain of salt because my source is oai but it may hint that Zuko effectively had a developmental delay as many people on the autism spectrum can in the comic the search oai admits they didn't think Zuko even was a bender when he was born while ozai's reasoning for this seems a little thin aula didn't have the same problem it was only at Zuko's mother's urging for oai to wait and see if Zuko would later develop firebending that oai didn't cast Zuko out of the palace as a baby whatever the developmental milestones for bending are it seems Zuko might not have been hitting them but there you have it the last wedge in our autism wheel now there is no single autistic trait that won't also be found in the general population so if you have considered yourself neurotypical all this time and find yourself identifying with one or two of these you're probably still neurotypical what makes a person autistic is not one or two traits but a difference in the brain that results in them having a whole collection of autistic traits but Rin you say half the things you mentioned were just the writers trying to depict an awkward teen with PTSD not autism and to that I say I completely agree but in so doing they accidentally stepped into an area of a ven diagram that contained autism as well autism has a lot of overlap with complex PTSD even before we get into how common it is for autistic people to also have PTSD but there are ways to tell complex PTSD and autism apart this article offers a couple examples both complex PTSD and autism may cause a reduced interest in socializing in the case of complex PTSD it will be because they are afraid and don't trust people whereas the autistic person just doesn't find socialization as appealing though I would personally argue that there are plenty of autistic people who love to socialize they just might not know how to do it on neurotypical terms and they may need a lot of time to recover while Zuko can have difficulty trusting others that's Justified given he's the prince of the baddies all but alone in enemy territory outside of that context as already discussed zuku actually seems to trust too easily and from all the other autistic communication issues we discussed it seems several of Zuko's social issues are autistic in nature the article also says that complex PTSD and autism both cause difficulty in Sharing emotion but with PTSD it's again because of trust issues whereas with autism it's due to difficulties understanding and communicating emotion and both of those are true for Zuko he starts off very closed from trauma and over the course of the series he gets more and more comfortable opening up yet even when he is more comfortable opening up he still has autism like difficulty expressing what he's feeling Zuko has trauma yes but he's still autistic coded it's 2024 railin again back with some more points so I mentioned at the beginning of this video that I could look at almost every trait we disced today and explain it away any autistic coding the writers may or may not have included would have been purely accidental but characters have also been accidentally coded as autistic since before autism was even a word sometimes this happens because the writer is using tropes they don't realize have autistic Roots sometimes it's because they're basing their character off a real person they don't realize is Autistic or sometimes it's because they don't realize they themselves are autistic and they're simply writing a character they relate to which may just be what happened with Zuko it turns out that headwriter Aaron ehas and his now ex-wife Elizabeth Welch ehas who also wrote for Avatar have an autistic son that ehas is spoken about at conventions now I want to make it clear I don't know any of these people and I certainly cannot diagnose them especially not over the internet but given the genetic nature of autism it is reason to speculate that at the time that these two wrote for Avatar one or both of them whether they knew it at the time or not may have had personal experience with autism either because of potentially being autistic themselves or because of having a close autistic relative these two are sometimes credited for being the most responsible for how Zuko turned out as a character as they were the writers for the most Zuko Centric episodes in the series including the storm Zuko alone the crossroads of death Destiny the Western Air Temple the southern Raiders and more besides but regardless of whether the writers intended for Zuko to be Autistic or not at some point their intentions kind of don't matter anymore I mean if I were to write a character that was massively queer coded it wouldn't really matter how much I explained well straight people can like Lady Gaga too or oh he just really likes rainbow that's all or no he just goes to the beach to Ole the hot guys in their tiny swimsuits because he's studying male anatomy for his art class at some point my explanations stopped mattering people are still going to understand my character as queer whether I want them to or not and the more I push against that interpretation the more I'm likely to upset some of my audience autistic people aren't reading zuku as autistic because they're grasping at one or two flimsy inconsequential traits and blowing them out of proportion when you have a character with this many autistic traits on display is it any Wonder people are pointing out that this does in fact look walk and quack like a turtle duck but why Zuko specifically can't autistic people be satisfied with canonical autistic representation like Dr Shawn Murphy Sam Gardner San or Yu the problem with most canonical autism representation is that those characters are usually written and performed by neurotypicals too often without consultation from or the involvement of autistic people worse sometimes these Productions get their research from organizations like Autism Speaks which is commonly regarded as a hate Group by the autistic Community now I might still enjoy some of these autistic characters but no matter how well intentioned the writers and performers are are these characters are often problematically stereotyped cliched and continue to spread sometimes very harmful misconceptions about autism while we thankfully are starting to get great canonical autistic characters who are written and performed by autistic people for a long time accidental autistic representation has often been the superior form of representation because the writers were more concerned about writing a good empathetic character not a walking dsm5 manual discussing autistic head cannons also benefits the autistic Community when your typical people listen in on these conversations it then broaden society's understanding of what autism can look like particularly in the case of Po characters like Zuko or AED since autism is so often portrayed in the media as a condition for cisgendered white boys but gushing over autistic head cannons also allows autistic people to find Community to understand themselves better and and maybe to even accept and value parts of themselves Society doesn't it can also be a way for undiagnosed autistic people to discover their autism and later seek diagnosis which is exactly what happened to me I am a high masking audhd meaning I have the double whammy of having both autism and ADHD if you're someone who knows me in real life finding this out about me for the first time um surprise the point is as bad as autism representation can be now it was so much worse before I got diagnosed and due to that my understanding of autism was so ableist I was insulted when it was first suggested I might be autistic and I refused to seek diagnosis despite pervasive and unexplained struggles I was having at University and with employment the only reason I consented to seeking an Autism diagnosis was because a friend of mine showed me a post an autistic person had written about a manga character that I loved I am diagnosed today largely because an autistic person nerded out about L's non-canonical autism this is why discussing the autistic coding of Zuko is not only valid but it might even be really important and shouldn't be policed it allows autistic people to recognize themselves and each other and it expands not only how we think of autism as a society but also what we think of who's allowed to be heroic in our stories so I'm not going to say a lot about the Netflix adaptation I feel much the same way as what appears to be the dominant strain of criticism there's some really terrible dialogue there's some really great fight scenes there are some weird changes the show made and there are some excellent editions that actually managed to do some improvement on the original series but in terms of the discussion of this video I wanted to talk about changes made to Zuko and Saka despite the writing for the show forcing me to wait until episode 6 before I finally understood what it was that the Netflix Zuko's character Arc was supposed to be about when animated Zuko's character trajectory was at least somewhat understood long before we got to his backstory in the storm I've really enjoyed Dallas's performance of Zuko it's probably the highlight of the Netflix series to me but I can't help but notice that this Zuko while on paper may seem to be similar to animated Zuko is in reality an entirely different person and I think the big difference for me is that this Zuko feels much more neurotypical he's much more attuned to other people's emotional states at times his bursts of anger seem motivated not an uncontrolled meltdown due to stress and overstimulation but a deliberate attempt to control someone else's Behavior like when he gets angry at Lieutenant G for gossiping his speaking out in the war room also felt much more deliberate as though he'd known he was crossing a social line but had chosen to insult the general anyway you also cannot convince me that this Zuko has ever been clumsy and you also can't tell me that this Zuko doesn't understand metaphors there's no way he would tell Saka to take a bite out of the silver sandwich and I feel that there's something similar going on with Saka where sasa's ADHD coding from the animated series is not coming through so much in the Netflix adaptation now I know this isn't an intentional slight to neurod Divergent people I know that where Zuko's autism and Saka ADHD aren't canonized in the original work there's every possibility the writers for the Netflix series are unaware of those interpretations of the characters but particularly since the original cartoon was so invested in depicting diversity and inclusion including disability it is still a bit sad to see the Netflix series effectively erasing the coding that was part of what made these characters diverse again I know it's not an intentional dig at the neurode Divergent Community I'm not blaming the writers at least not for this I'm just saying that's rough buddy anyway that's finally it for this video I know in the last video I promised to Thor Ragnarok rewrite and I do have the writing for that mostly done but it is going to take a long time to get all the recording and editing done in the meantime though let me know in the comments who your favorite Avatar character is and why it's Zuko remember to keep any discussion in the comments friendly and just as a final note as I was rewriting a new introduction for this video Rowan Ellis just dropped a video on autistic representation in media and she even has a section on autistic headcat canons which is really great timing so if you want more of this kind of discussion check out the tumblr post that inspired this video and go check out Rowan Ellis's video both are linked in the description box and I will see you next time

Channel: Raelyn Teague Writes

Views: 12,611

Keywords: raelyn teague, noveljutsu, writing tips, writing tips for beginners, autism representation in the media, autistic characters, autistic characters in cartoons, autistic characters in media, avatar the last airbender, avatar the last airbender netflix, autistic coded characters, is zuko autistic, atla netflix, zuko netflix, avatar netflix, writing advice, author tube, authortube

Id: 5h3oVzlZmPA

Length: 44min 25sec (2665 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 08 2024