Arnold Rimmer: Aspie in disguise?

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I decided to have a Red Dwarf Marathon the other week, i had not watched the DVD's in a while so i ran through series 1 to 8. And i found myself watching the Arnold Rimmer character a lot, and i looked at some if his traits and i began to wonder:

Could Rimmer be an Aspie?

Of course, everyone is different on the spectrum of AS, but i noticed Rimmer had a few traits which could have snuck him onto the spectrum possibly.

In the early series, Rimmer had this obsessive desire to become an officer, since he had the second lowest rank on the ship; Second Technician, but he always felt he could do better, he did little else except talk about how he would be an officer.

He also had little hobbies in which he could tell you everything about, oddly, they uncluded a collection of shoe buffers and 20th century telegraph poles. he could tell you anything about it for days and not stop.

The last point seemed to be that he was generally misunderstood by everyone, of course, he had difficulty socialising. With traits like that, he might be hard to chat to, but it seemed there was a nice guy in there who wanted to be accepted for who he was and just not given any grief for his choices in life. I understand Red Dwarf is a comedy, and Rimmers traits were done for comic relief and probably not ment to be taken seriously. But being sentimental here, judging from what i saw, I wonder if Rimmer might have been an Aspie but not diagnosed.

Does anyone see what im saying?

Yes, but he's also meant to be an obnoxious uptight snob. The officer obsession is not aspie, though maybe his other hobbies are.

I don't think Rob Grant and Doug Naylor meant for him to be aspie, but rather so that he is an obnoxious, slimy weasel with dorky tendencies. He is obsessed with bureaucracy and also loves to piss people off. I think it is rare an aspie (in real life, rather than cyberspace) will go to any great length to deliberately piss someone off. He does have obsessive tendencies, but I think it is more to do with him having this sort of mindset that wants to be an officer so much, he sticks to rules and regulations, or at least his interpretation. He's meant to be, I think, an obsessive NT loser with a Napoleon complex.

I think the Cat's a better candidate, because he starts out very self-centred, has unusual behavioural patterns, singularly obsessed with one thing (fashion. It is possible to be an aspie focussed on fashion) and has some trouble with empathy. Hell, Kryten is probably a better aspie than Rimmer. I might've said Lister too (the way he goes with curries) but at least Lister is sociable.

I've been watching Red Dwarf for close to a decade now, so I know what I am talking about. Rimmer, once he had the mind-graft (Holoship) could possibly be called Aspie, but in a different manner....

Next, you'll be calling Rik Mayall's characters Rick (The Young Ones) and Richard Richard (Bottom) aspie.

Hmmmm.....

What about the following?

*Paranoia (Confidence and Paranoia)

*Kryten (especially in Kryten and DNA... "Engage panic circuits, panic circuits engaged....wahaaaaaaaa!! !!", as well as "I'm in happiness mode")

*Perhaps some of the holoship crew? (Holoship)

*Possibly Dr Hildegard Langstrom? (Quarantine)

*The High version of the crew? Probably not aspie, but... (Demons and Angels)

*Duane Dibbley? Or is he just dorky? (Back to Reality and Polymorph 2: Emohawk)

*Bird Man? (Pete)

Ah well, worth a shot. How about Reketrebn from the Last Human novel?

Wow! I had to flick back through that book to remind myself, but pretty damm close there, a few qualities which might be autism

I LOVE Red Dwarf! I totally agree with the belief that Rimmer could be slightly Aspie. In one episode, when he is describing in great detail about a game he played with dice (forgive me for forgetting the name...), Lister says something which stood out as significant for me 'Rimmer, do you have some kind of social defect which means you can't see when you're totally boring people?' Having been told that, he then pauses for a moment, then starts again! This is totally something I would do!

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I have HFA, ADHD, OCD & Tourette syndrome. I love animals, especially my bunnies and hamster. I skate in a roller derby team (but I'll try not to bite )

Yup, that's the one! (forgive me, I recently moved house and have forgotten about 40% of my Red Dwarf knowledge...)

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I have HFA, ADHD, OCD & Tourette syndrome. I love animals, especially my bunnies and hamster. I skate in a roller derby team (but I'll try not to bite )

Reading through the different identified subtypes of aspie, there was one which seemed to fit Rimmer very well.

No. Sorry. He's just a git.

I LOVE Red Dwarf, but sorry. Rimmer is just your run of the mill git/sociopath.

There's one big Aspie type that Rimmer fails- high IQ.