A Harry Potter "Aspie" epiphany

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I'm a newly realized adult aspie, and started reading Harry Potter just a few years ago, after seeing the first film. I've read up on the phenomenon, of course, particularly the effects on young readers who suffer from "feeling different from their peers", like Harry before he finds he's a wizard especially, and discovers he's not alone. Discovering I was an aspie was just like that.

Now being aspie, having the characteristic of difficulty characterising my emotions, some realizations can take a while to "hit me" after some trigger event.

A sudden identification with Harry just happened to me; at 63 I've identified more with Albus Dumbledore, and only vaguely with Harry (intense feeling-wise that is). Today, however, I was having a smoke in the garage, and had a sudden epiphany relating my feelings of "difference" to Harry's experience, dropped my smoke on the floor, half-swooned against the door and exclaimed out loud "Way to go Jo!! !" [Jo Rowling]; good thing my daughter and grandkids were out taking dad to work; they might have wondered what was going on! HP keeps on blowing my mind, with the many depths this marvelous modern mythology keeps revealing.

It was the sudden feeling of ID that so many young children with "differences" have had, it hit me like the proverbial "ton of bricks", and it made me feel like I suddenly understood what they really felt like, for the first time.

p.s. I had done a search for "Potter" posts on wrongplanet before posting; I was only half-surprised to find so many Potter topics here!

Potter follows an OLD formula, that attracts a LOT of people.

If you want to see an aspie in HP, there IS one! HERMOINE!! !! ! Think about it! She was NOT expected/encouraged to learn ANY of this, is an outsider, seems arogant(ESPECIALLY in the first scenes of the first film), reads LOTS of books, seems to know EVERYTHING, etc.....

As for social reaction? People seem to like her only because she is attractive and smart. Otherwise, they make fun of her.

I would say it's Luna who shows AS traits instead. Hermione wouldn't be called be me anybody else than a typical nerd. Or maybe rather I shouldn't have said "typical" but "stereotypical" - after all, all the characters from HP are based on some stereotypes and miss Granger isn't an exception here. She knows how to deal with people, doesn't have social problems - she's only very authoritative, belonging to those people who deeply believe that it's they who always know the best and have the best solutions.

The film American Beauty just irresistibly sprang to mind. Couldn't help laughing.
Totally get epiphanies about books though, especially childrens ones. I've realised that virtually all of the 50 odd childrens books i own are about feeling different, isolated, etc. The Lost Prince, The Secret Garden, A little Princess, Charlotte Sometimes, I am David, The Borrowers, The Tripods trilogy, The Changes, Freaky Friday, From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs Basil-Frankweiler, Toms Midnight Garden, A Dog so Small, A Wizard of Earthsea, and Redcap Runs Away. etc etc And yesterday realised Peter Pan might qualify too,( tho not cos like the book but because of recent film version by Hogan, which is wonderful!).
I am so grateful that there were these books.
Re: Harry Potter; i liked the first book in the series. And yes could ID with Harry there, but later books get more trudging.
Dumbledore IS something special. ( esp. played by Richard Harris, and Gambon isn't too bad either!) Yep.

Cryptonomicon.

Good book. One of the main characters is an Aspie.

I'm not just guessing, here. He's a textbook case, sensory issues and all. You can't miss it.

Stephenson gets pretty bawdy at times, though.

Excuse me: he stays bawdy.

Eliza is a slut.

Neal Stephenson is a dirty, old man who writes interesting erotica.

If you want to be so generous as to refer to it as erotica.

And sometimes he can be a tedious, pedantic, annoying prat, which makes me want to slap him.

Overall, he's a damned good writer.

If you read Quicksilver, skip the second part of the book. The plot consists entirely of Jack behaving like a moron.

Well, he is a moron.

I think HP is meant for all teenagers, since everyone feels different from the world around them at a certain age. It's not just us. I guess if I had to say someone seems Aspie-like to me though, it would be Snape.

Who, Hermione? I never got the impression that she was supposed to be all that attractive in the books.

Personally I think Luna is the most obvious example of an aspie in the Harry Potter universe.

Maybe not in the books, but in the movie you got the definite feeling there was something there. It was like they both really liked her, but didn't want to let on. And didn't ron end up marrying her? And aw heck. I remembered her as being more attractive, but still she is nice, etc...

But whatever. I only saw the first three movies, and read the very last book. I like the plot, the characters, and even rowlings style, but I never got SO involved in the book that I felt I had to read every one NOW. And I like the way that some things were revealed. I wasn't looking for clues that she was beautiful. Of course, I didn't see any that she was ugly or overly plain either, and the movies and last chapter basically speak against THAT.

Luna is totally AS.

Ron does indeed end up marrying her, but that doesn't have to meen she's really attractive or anything. I'm sure there are plain women who end up married in the world.

I just think it sounds weird when Hermione gets described as attractive or pretty without a special reason, because I never got that impression about her, even if she were played by a pretty girl in the movies.


Except for that, well, I've never thought about wether anyone in HP is AS or not.

Right. I look more like Hermione as described in the books than the actress who plays her.

I see 2 aspies in the Harry Potter books.

The good aspie: Luna
The evil aspie: Voldemort

Voldemort isn't aspie. He's the very definition of a sociopath. That's very different.

I identified with Harry's need to fight, to show he isn't a pushover, because he's been a pushover for so long, at the Dursleys'... he felt ugly and wierd and bad, and then something happened, he realized he was something, he was part of a group that had a name and that was why he was different from most people, and then he was happy. I identified with his meltdowns that resulted from people misunderstanding him, thinking that his physical safety was more important than his emotional health, and I identified with how he identified with Sirius because of that.


Neville also shows some Aspie traits... Cornelius Fudge does too... Madam Pomfrey... Hagrid... Professor Trelawney... Professor McGonagall... Colin Creevey... Arthur Weasley!! !!... I see it in everyone in the world, actually.


Neville-- horrible social anxiety, very clumsy and forgetful of things not related to his obsession (herbology)
Hagrid-- obsessed with dangerous creatures, doesn't know or care or something about the danger, just their good points. Thinks Harry & friends like his obsession, but they only listen to him going on about them and go to his classes because they like him, not the subject
Trelawney-- obvious. Stays in her room most of the time, dresses wierd, totally misinterprets people thinking they're having a vision or something, lives in a fantasy world (inner eye world?), obsessed with divination
Professor McGonagall-- never married, did the same thing for many many years, doesn't socialize really or really ahve friends... well, she has very good friends like Dumbledore, but not chatty socializing friends, and she is very serious, strict and into transfiguration, inflexible and too sensible for her own good sometimes
Oliver Wood-- obsessed with quidditch, will do anything at all to get the cup (anything, literally!)
Colin-- obsessed with Harry and will do ANYTHING to have anything to do with his obsession...
Arthur Weasley--obsessed with Muggles and anything to do with them, a few other quirks as well
Percy Weasley-- obvious. He is more of an Aspie than Hermione! I think he has social anxiety and Post Humiliation Stress Disorder too.

Great, now HARRY POTTER is an Aspie!?! Who's next, Hamburglar?!