Death after death after death.

Reasearch

I've been looking at the games and films that do have autistic characters within them, though my film list keeps building, I have managed to watch the walkthroughs and play some of the games that have the autistic characters in, as well as discover another character within the autistic specrum when playing through borderlands 2...YAY! Anyway, I had discovered that apart from two characters, all of the characters end up DEAD. (Three if the main character from Mass Effect 2 choses to save David)

Weird....

Even though the sight of an Autistic Character as only appeared since 2005, why have most of them died? The normal reason for Character Death is that the character no longer have a purpose and would serve more as a emotional effect to another character if they are thought dead. But surely an austitic character could stay alive.

This is the character research section done for the dissi:

Characters from Films

Film	Character	Year	Level of Spectrum	Role
Rain Man	Raymond ‘Ray’ Babbitt	1988	High Spectrum	Pivotal
The Boy who could fly	Eric Gibb	1986	High Spectrum (mute)	Pivotal
The Black Balloon	Charlie Mollison	2008	High Spectrum with ADHD	Player/Pivotal
Change of Habit	Amanda	1969	Middle/High	Pivotal
Backstreet Dreams	Shane Costello	1990	Classic Autism	Pivotal
Miracle Run	Phillip and Stephen Thomas	2004	High Spectrum	Player/Pivotal
Family Pictures	Randall Eberlin	1993	Not mentioned
House of Cards	Sally Matthews	1993	Low/Middle (Pattern changes, mute)	Pivotal
Cries from the Heart	Michael Barth	1994	Classic Autism. (Mute)	Pivotal
David’s Mother	David Goodson	1994	Not mentioned	Pivotal
The Innocent	Gregory White	1994	N/A	Pivotal
Silent Fall	Tim Warden	1994	Not mentioned	Player/Pivotal
Under the Piano	Rosetta Basilio	1996	High	Pivotal
Mercury Rising	Simon Lynch	1998	High	Pivotal
Nightworld: Lost Souls	Meaghan Robinson	1998	N/A	Pivotal
Molly	Molly Mckay	1999	High/Low (Pattern changes)	Player/Pivotal
Bless the Child	Cody O’Connor	2000	N/A	Pivotal
Les Diables	Chloe	2002	Low/Middle	Player/Pivotal
Midwinter Night’s Dream	Jovana	2004	N/A	Pivotal
Marathon	Cho-won	2005	N/A	Pivotal
Mozart and the whale	Donald Morton & Isabelle Sorenson	2005	Asperger	Player/Pivotal
Breaking & Entering	Bea	2006	N/A	Pivotal
Snow Cake	Linda Freeman	2006	N/A	Pivotal
Ben X	Ben	2007	Asperger	Player/Pivotal
Imagination	Anna Woodruff	2007	Asperger	Player/Pivotal
P.S. I love you	Daniel Connelly	2007	ASD	Player
Chocolate	Zen	2008	N/A	Player
Dark Floors	Sarah	2008	N/A	Pivotal
Adam	Adam Raki	2009	Asperger	Player/Pivotal
Mary and Max	Max Horovitz	2009	Asperger	Player/Pivotal
Burning Bright	Tom Taylor	2010	N/A	Pivotal
Dear John	Alan Wheddon	2010	High	Pivotal

Characters from Games

Games	Character	Year	Level of Spectrum	Role
Indigo Prophecy/ Fahrenheit.	Jade (The Indigo Child)	2005	Autistic. No level mentioned. Though is mute.	Pivotal
Amy	Amy	2012	Not mentioned in game, though is mute.	Pivotal
Jericho	Cpl Simone Cole	2007	Mild Autism.	Player
Mass Effect 2/3	David Archer	2010/11	Autistic savant in mathematics.	Pivotal
Prototype 2	Unknown (Blackbox Recording)	2012	Autistic from recording.	N/A
Silent Hill: Downpour	Ariadne Johnson	2012	‘Severe Autism’ Middle/High	Pivotal (side-mission)
Borderland 1/2	Patricia Tannis	2012	Asperger’s. Mentioned in side mission text.	Pivotal (story/ side missions)

Section II: What is a Character?

A character can be known as many things but all characters that are created, whether it was a bee, a flower or an imaginative monster, any character within books, films and games, are people.

When it comes to characters, they need to be close to how a human being would be (humanoid characters), as the audience who are watching, playing or reading about this character would get to know this character inside and out, their aims, their intentions, their thought. (Orson Scott Card, 2010) By time they finish the story, the audience should know that character better than anyone else that they know.

Character Development

Character development is, as William Archer says, ‘…not change, but rather unveiling, disclosure.” He compares it to the development of film. A drama ought to bring out character as the ‘photographer’s chemicals ‘bring out’ the forms latent in negative.” (Sheldon 2004)

When it comes to creating at character, that character would have to be designed to have a specific purpose within the story, whether what the writer wants them to represent, it is how they are written and created that makes them as an aspect of character. Each aspect of the character is used to help form the story that the character will undertake or future decisions that they would make, creating character growth and development during the story.

Physical: Visually, this character would be designed to be the character that would fit the role, applying some stereotyping when it comes to creating the character and how it reflects their personality.

Sociological: This reflects on the character’s past, her upbringing and her environment, both local and cultural. When a character has a past, a backstory, her actions have more perspective, adding interest to the character.

Psychological: Character’s that have to explain themselves all of the time are boring and can be unrealistic. Some of the best characters are the ones that are not sure what they are doing or who are not aware of the events occurring. Especially when the audience knows the truth but the character doesn’t, it builds the relationship up between the viewer and character.

Due to these aspects, the character will develop through the film or game, this progression is known as Character Growth. Character Growth is one of the important things when it comes to making a connection between the viewer and the character as the audience needs to know where they are at within the story. As Sheldon (2004) mentions: If the character begins triumphant we’ll have to tear him down. If he starts in the gutter, it will be a lot easier to enjoy the road he takes to the throne.’With the character growth and development, a character can be casted as two different types. The Player Character or the Pivotal Character, the Player Character would be the main character of a story, film or game that would have the most complex and focused character development within the story while the Pivotal Character would create a reason for the story to exist, a plot point. A Pivotal Character could also be the Player Character trying to search for something but it would mainly be the villain’s plots or a damsel in trouble that the Player Character would have to stop or save. ‘A good pivotal character must have something very vital at stake’.  (Sheldon 2004)

An example of Character Growth is Gollum from the Lord of the Rings series.

"Gollum is entirely based on the notion of addiction. The way that the ring pervades him, makes him craving, lustful, depletes him physically, psychologically and mentally.” Andy Serkis, Voice of Gollum

 Due to Gollum’s character design, his character development is shown thought-out the series from when he first got the ring, for when the corruption has started, until the moments when his appearance has changed and the split personality due to the ring, due to his addiction.  (Lachno. 2012) Although Gollum is considered one of the main characters, due to the fact that he is needed to lead Frollo and Sam to Mordor, this makes him a Pivotal Character as the story cannot continue without Gollum showing Frollo the way.

Stereotypes

In most character creation, writers would be lazy and use the same defaults for a character instead of creating their own, not taking account of the character’s unique qualities all individuals have. (Sheldon 2004)  This happens within the characters and real people as the moment when someone new comes along, they are based from the way they speak, act or dress and not given a chance to show their colours. (Orson Scott Card, 2010).

Section III: Previous Characters Development in Autistic Characters

For one of the character’s development is from ‘Adam’, 2004. The very idea came to the director, Mr.Mayer, when he had heard a radio interview about Asperger’s while driving. Due to already having interest in developmental psychology, the director was emotionally involved by what was said on the radio and began to work on the film. (Amdur, 2009) It was made to show that his Asperger was more as a lens to his live rather than the entire film being about his disability.

For ‘The Black Balloon’ in 2008, the story and inspiration of the story was from the writer-director of the film, Elissa Down. She had used her own experiences growing up with two autistic brothers for the script, as one of her brothers suffer with ADHD as well, similar to one of the characters. (Hall, 2008)

One of the most known films for Autism is Rain Man, which hit the screens in 1988. When the story was written by screenwriters, Barry Morrow and Ron Bass, the story had been passed from director to director until Barry Levinson had accepted to work on the film. They had looked into the insight of brothers, Kevin and Peter, who had aided the performance for Dustin Hoffman, who played Raymond, and Tom Cruise, who played Charile. Kevin explains how the nature of his relationship is with his autistic brother while Peter mentioned every trivial sporting event out in the world. (Papamichael, N.D) 

An interview for the game, ‘Amy’ was made before its release in 2012 about why the creative director had designed to make her autistic. The director mentions that it is connected to the story, as well as the way Amy is designed, such as being mute and possible her psychic powers would be the part of the reason for her autism. (Edge Staff, 2011)

 Animation

New concepts have been created for the two characters.