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longNstrong
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07 Aug 2009, 9:34 am

Hi ya'll, just had a thought: Cassandra was likely autistic! Yes, I know the character is fictional, but the fact remains that her thought process was not understandable to others. The fact that she was "correct" was overshadowed by the fact that no one believed her. And her 'gifts' were tied up with the fact that she didn't 'properly' return affection to Apollo!

This line of thinking came up because I have been involved in forecasting events and while I wouldn't claim to always be right, I am very familiar with not being taken seriously, even after events have given strong support to my earlier views, especially those most outlandish. This is mostly an example of a savant trait: I arrive at conclusions in unconventional ways, so I am mis-trusted. That my views are unconventional means that others are often not in a good position to judge them AND that there is a high chance of their being notably better than conventional forecasts (as well as being worse than conventional forecasts).



ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo
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07 Aug 2009, 9:38 am

lol, I had that feeling too, something was different about Cassandra and Apollo was the one who many would consider to be "normal". I know where you are coming from because I have thought that myself.



Douglas_MacNeill
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07 Aug 2009, 10:38 am

An intriguing possibility for a fanfic based on Apollo's encounter with Cassandra.

On the other hand, maybe Apollo himself might be the mythic prototype for
autism/Asperger's, with his inability to woo and win a she, his absorption in
the work and wold of the mind, and so on.



Magneto
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07 Aug 2009, 2:22 pm

Apollo? You mean, the Greek god of Poetry, Prophecy, and the Sun? Brother of Artemis, son of Zeus and Leto?

Hmmm. I've heard suggestions that Hades might have been, though. And I've had sneaking suspicions about Athena...



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07 Aug 2009, 4:20 pm

Hm-m. I have to reject this idea. I don't even like the speculations about famous deceased people, from Jefferson to Einstein, or well-known people still alive, such as Bill Gates. Speculating about fictional people whose descriptions are limited and varied, and clouded by translation, seems pointless.

There are so many deities from so many religions, one or another is bound to have AS/ASD traits.



zena4
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07 Aug 2009, 5:42 pm

... Shiva gossiping about Cassandra :roll:

(I'm kidding)



longNstrong
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07 Aug 2009, 8:08 pm

Ha, ha! Ya'll are funny. No, this isn't another thread claiming Mozart, Einstein, and Wittgenstein were on the spectrum. Rather, this was my somewhat funny attempt at pointing to Cassandra as being as composite in mythology drawn with substantial autistic traits.

And come on, some of you savants out there must occaisionally feel like Cassandras, right?



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07 Aug 2009, 9:35 pm

I'm not savant--I think that's rare even in autistics--but I know what you mean. When they don't believe what you can do because you seem "ret*d", or when they insist you can do something because you seem "intelligent", it's so frustrating! You should know your own abilities--but when they're so inconsistent, people seem to believe they can't possibly be the way they are. "You should be able to plan your own meals! You just passed that physics class!" Yeah, and what the heck does physics have to do with spaghetti? (You may be Aspie if you immediately answered "thermodynamics" or "string theory"....)


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Magneto
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09 Aug 2009, 12:56 pm

More like black holes (that one should be obvious) :lol: