is Arnold Rimmer from Red dwarf an aspie

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I think Arnold Rimmer, who is my favorite character from Red Dwarf might be have some slight Aspie traits and behaviors, does any of you think he has Aspergers?

I personally think he doesn't... or rather, in my view, I do not find him very relatable.

Rimmer doesn't have anything he seems to excel in, or obsess about... I don't count his fascination for tyrants and dictators as an autistic special interest/obsession.

And his inability to get along with his peers has more to do with his personality, rather than being socially clueless. He's shown that he's capable of manipulating others to suit his own purposes, and I think he'd require understanding of social structures to do that. He's also very concerned with social hierarchy, which, in my experience, many autistics aren't.

However, while I would agree with Rimmer's shipmates that he's a 'smeghead', I think he's a hilarious character and I've even felt sorry for him in a couple of episodes. But that's just what I think.

Edit: Sorry, I don't know how I ended up quoting myself in this post.

Last edited by CyclopsSummers on 01 May 2010, 11:22 am, edited 1 time in total.

No

Anyway, even if he did display AS traits, he wouldn't be an Aspie because he's a hologram and can't have a human condition

Just seeing the name Arnold Rimmer and thinking about his personality made me laugh, so thanks!

Given some of the speculative diagnoses I've seen, I'm a bit surprised I haven't seen anyone make the Rimmer-Aspergers connection before. I can see some traits. His Wiki entry says he's an authority on 20th century telegraph poles, for instance.

Then again, seeing as the character is basically meant to be a prat, perhaps it's not all that surprising not many aspies want to claim him as one of us.

Perhaps, as CyclopsSummers says, Rimmer is more interested in social status than is typical for an aspie.

But in the show the character was a human before he died and was 'brought back to life' as a hologram. So perhaps the question should be "do you think Rimmer was an aspie before he died?"

But on the other hand, the show takes place in the future, so shouldn't the question be "Will Arnold Rimmer be an aspie when he is born?"?
But on the other other hand, he's a fictional character, so he will never be born, which would make the question "What the smeg am I talking about?".

No.

As others have said, he didn't play the part. My take is that Rimmer was the stereotypical "looser" who would never amount to anything. Parents were morons who always put him down. Grew up with profound sense of inadequacy and a craving urge to compensate for it...making him unbearable to everyone else around him. Feels persecuted by life because no matter how hard he tried, his efforts to catapult to the level of society he sought to attain were always disasterous, and frankly, I always thought the "H" on his head was a bit of a joke in that after death, he walks around with this label on him that could just be a giant "L" for "loser." After all, he was responsible for everyone on the ship dying.

of course he did amount to many things....

I don't know, but I definitely relate to him in some ways, more than I do with any of the other characters (except for Kryten and his "Canadian" accent ).

Just seeing Rimmer's name made me laugh and consider another Red Dwarf marathon viewing.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4TLto-nKfU[/youtube]

That thing always made me laugh!! !

Maybe to the OP's question. He's obsessed with routine, rules, telegraph poles, those engines in Red Dwarf (he tries to show everyone a slide show about them too!) and he... well he's got no friends...

Of course I am not saying this is what ALL people with AS are like but there is one VERY close to home who reminds me of him... *looks at self...*

Demonique raises an interesting question... the hologram Arnold Rimmer is supposed to be programmed completely with the human Arnold Rimmer's personality, responding in situations exactly how the original Arnold Rimmer would have. I think Holly or whoever was in charge of that hologram technology, would include Asperger's syndrome - if Rimmer had AS - in the hologram's programming. IIRC, all of the Red Dwarf's crew's personalities were stored in case of the event of a premature death.

While I don't think Rimmer has AS, I think a hologram crew member based on someone with AS would have 'artificial AS'.

Simple answer: NO

I like that rimmer song btw, I was watching that episode yesterday.

he with dave caused all the events that made series possible
he created a whole civilization
he was one of the foreward brothers
he became Ace Rimmer

Dead thread I know but I searched for this on Google and this thread came up as the first result....

If not an aspie, he definitely possesed some autistic-like traits. He has an intense interest in telegraph poles and also used to bore the others with his photo collection. He was also obsessed with hammond organ music.
He also would talk about things the others were not interested in - they would even make it known they were not interested yet would carry on.
He struggled a lot in social situations - he was known to have no friends and only ever spoke of being in one realtionship (even in childhood he was like this).
He was also obsessed with following rules and would always put Lister on report for breaking rules, no matter how minor or petty.

There may be others, and it still is pretty debatable as to whether he could be considered autistic, but he definitely possessed traits.

No, he's got OCD