Talk:List of autistic fictional characters

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)

If you have a reliable source for this, then it should be added. Otherwise, no. Historyday01 (talk) 13:45, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

pilot's script page 4 http://tvwriting.co.uk/tv_scripts/2020/Drama/The_Wilds_1x01_-_Pilot.pdf 83.39.238.184 (talk) 14:18, 28 August 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)

Like It's short, to the point, and addresses both of my concerns. Additionally, borrowing from the fictional non-binary characters list criteria is a good choice because autism and LGBTQ+-ness have quite a bit in common: they're marginalized, immutable identities that are increasingly being portrayed positively in media and fans of said media like to speculate about. I feel that in light of that, if these criteria are good enough for the list of fictional non-binary characters, they're good enough for this list. Bowler the Carmine | talk 19:27, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Oh, I totally agree. I just had to tweak it a little bit. I am actually planning on proposing inclusion criteria for MANY LGBTQ+ pages this year... some of which like this page have way too many entries and can be a bit hard to manage. Historyday01 (talk) 20:52, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Apologies for the belated reply. Thank for you taking the time to consider this topic.

I find it difficult to conceptualize how to concretely apply these criteria and what this means for the length of the list, so I am unsure how to evaluate them.

As an example, is the following a correct application of the criteria? This recent addition: What the World Doesn't See by Mel Darbon. It has been reviewed by Just Imagine and was nominated for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize. These are not sufficient to fit the book notability criteria (at least 2 non-trivial sources or won a major book prize), so this book is not notable enough to be added. TheZoodles (talk) 18:01, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Hmm. I would say you are right that the book isn't notable enough to be added. Also, the sources cited in that edit are not very good (one is the book and the other is goodreads) Historyday01 (talk) 16:15, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback. I just picked an entry that I wasn't quite sure how to apply the notability rules to see how it'd work, but you're absolutely right that the quality of the sources are also an issue here. TheZoodles (talk) 10:54, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

After another couple of nights of sleeping on it, I think I quite Like this draft.

I think it'd be good to include some of the wording of the current "note to editors" in the first criterion, given that it's been fairly efficient at stopping the addition of speculation (and then it's more consistent with the lede). Something like Characters are considered autistic, or on the autism spectrum, when they are explicitly identified as such by either their creator(s) or the work they appear in. But that's just a minor nitpick on wording, I agree with the overall spirit of the draft. TheZoodles (talk) 16:59, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm fine with that changing of the text so as to avoid speculation. Historyday01 (talk) 16:14, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Update: I notified four relevant WikiProjects about this discussion in hopes of getting some more views here.Historyday01 (talk) 13:43, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

some additional sources about Mario (1984)

The source currently attached to the entry is not particularly reliable (AllMovie), so I tried to find more reliable sources, specifically from around the time the movie came out.

1. The National Film Board of Canada describes him as "un enfant bizarre, égaré, qui vit «ailleurs», dans un monde absolu" (a bizarre, lost child, living "elsewhere" in an absolute world)[1][2]. As I understand it, these descriptions are sourced from official sources like the creators of the movie, they're not just summaries/blurbs written by Some Guy.
2. Director Jean Beaudin says "ce pourrait être un enfant autistique" (it could be an autistic child) La presse, 1984-08-23, Collections de BAnQ
3. Beauding also says "enfant qui fiche certaines caractéristiques de l’enfant autistique. En est-il un? Je ne sais pas. Je ne suis pas scientifique. Je n'ai pas voulu approfondir ça" (child with certain characteristics of the autistic child. Is he one? I don't know. I'm not a scientist. I didn't want to go into this further.) Le droit, 1985-02-16, Collections de BAnQ.
4. Actor Xavier Norman Petermann does refer to the character as "autistique" and "autiste" Le nouvelliste, 1985-02-02, Collections de BAnQ.
5. "Pour présenter son rôle, le réalisateur Jean Beaudin lui a parlé d’un enfant affecté par l'autisme, un étrange phénomène où se mêle l’imaginaire, la rêverie, le repli sur soi." La tribune, 1985-01-05, Collections de BAnQ.
6. Actor Francis Reddy, who plays Mario's older brother Simon, refers to Mario as autistic in some kind of retrospective featurette decades after the movie came out, so I'm not sure how much that can be trusted in terms of inferring whether the character was originally autistic.
7. I saw someone say that Mario's autism is mentioned in the movie itself but after watching it, I didn't hear anything of that sorts.
8. Of course there are many reviews, both at the time the movie was released and at later times, that describe the character as autistic. This means nothing because reviewers will call any vaguely developmentally disabled autistic.

The sources are conflicting and ambiguous, like the character is not not autistic but is there enough support to justify his inclusion? Je ne sais pas. I've added the source from point 4 to the entry as well, but I'm unsure how to further proceed with this character. TheZoodles (talk) 09:51, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 21 November 2024

List of autistic fictional characters → List of autistic characters – WP:CONCISE if we still had a list of autistic people it would make sence to have "characters" in the name to make sure people don't mix them up. But that list has been deleted years ago and "characters" already imply's that they are fictional it makes sense to make this shorter. Anthony2106 (talk) 07:36, 21 November 2024 (UTC)