Obsessing over one aspect instead of the whole

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Warning - Wall of text ahead.

Short version - I've recently come to the realization that when it comes to the works of fiction I enjoy, I only focus on one or two characters and I don't care about the aspects of the plot that don't concern those characters. I will avoid watching a movie or TV show in its entirety and just watch certain scenes with my favorite characters in them, sometimes over and over again. I'm wondering if other people on the spectrum do the same thing.

I remember reading in a book about Asperger's Syndrome (could've been one by Tony Attwood) that people with AS often obsess over one aspect of something but not the whole thing. The book gave the example that someone with AS might obsess over certain camera parts but have no interest in photography itself. I'm wondering if the same "parts instead of the whole" mentality could apply to someone who obsesses over fiction (books, movies, television, games, comics, etc) rather than physical objects.

Long version - I have recently come to the realization that, when I obsess over a work of fiction, I will only focus on one or two specific characters from it to the exclusion of everything else about the story. I am often unable to sit through entire movies or watch a television show (or, in the case of one of my recent obsessions, to read a comic) from start to finish and I will only watch the scenes that prominently feature my favorite characters, typically when they have a lot of dialogue. I used to think that the reason for this was that I was simply too restless or impatient to sit through the whole thing and needed to teach myself to sit still and relax in order to enjoy the show. But it recently dawned on me that the reason I do this has nothing to do with restlessness - I just do it because I simply don't care about the parts of the story without my favorite character in it. I find those parts to be tedious and boring.

The thing that led to this self-discovery was the movie Dark Shadows. In the weeks leading up to the release of the trailer, I went crazy over the movie because there was so little information regarding the character I was most interested in, Barnabas. But after I watched the trailer, which prominently featured that character and gave me a good idea of what his personality is going to be like, I stopped obsessing over the movie, even to the point of not caring about going to see it in the theater. When I discussed this with my mom, she told me it was because I only cared about Barnabas and didn't care about the movie itself. Now that the trailer showed me his personality, there was no reason to rush to the theater to watch the entire movie. I had never thought of that before, but it made a lot of sense.

Later, when I was watching the American remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, I found that I was bored to the point of nearly falling asleep during the parts without my favorite character, Lisbeth, in them. About halfway through the movie I started skipping the scenes that didn't have her in them. Then, when I took a break, I remembered the conversation that my mom and I had had earlier. I realized that the mindset I had towards Dark Shadows of only caring about a single character to the exclusion of all else applies to every work of fiction I have ever enjoyed.

I love your short version/long version approach! It's like closed captions for the attention span impaired! And yes, I have done that, usually with tv shows. My best example is Star Trek Voyager. If it didn't have The Doctor or 7 of 9, I wasn't very interested. Looking back I've done this off and on with a lot of things... Interesting.

Yes. Mostly with games. I will build my character to be the purest and most powerful example of my chosen trait, often to the point of detriment in other useful skills.

Indeed with games yes, the character I built in the avatar, has become an obcession that stretches to all character creating games, such as soul calibour 4 Skyrim (traits such as Kajit race, more emphisis on magic etc) , ModNation Racers and even use my characters name as a replacement name for many games.

Yes, I do this with films and series and books,...quiet often. I'll just search for those parts I like with the characters or themes I'm interested in and skip the rest and/or watch those parts over and over again.

Not everybody, but I'd expect that some people (including NTs) would do such a thing. I mean, why not? You have the technological means now to do such things easily. The perfect time to meddle with media the way you like it.
Maybe I'm wrong and focusing on just one aspect (no matter how workable that is) is something unique to certain minds.

Is fixating on parts of objects, which is an ASD symptom. You're just showing the adult version of it.

All I have to say about this is

Death Note

WHY KILL L?

I do astrophotography but I don't care about astronomy as much as most would think. I'm more interested in the telescopes and cameras themselves.

I'm enthralled with vintage TV sets, but I can't be bothered with most of the shows that are on TV these days.

I only enjoy the novels if there is a character with I can fall in love Same with movies and TV series. If there is no interesting character to fall in love with, an amazing science fiction or fantasy world can work on me too.

Everyone knows I'm a great EATB fan. And I go as far as being into Will Sergeant's guitar style, but unlike other fans, I seem to not pay attention to whether there's a lack of Will on tracks; Which is part of why I'm able to like Ian solo while others aren't, I concentrate on Ian. I also need to want to listen to the drums/bass in order to hear them, even though I know Pete De Freitas was a great drummer.

Absolutely I do this too! I can only concentrate on Santana on Glee. I often watch her scenes over and over so I can memorize her witty lines. Otherwise the show is pretty crap. I find it much easier to remember what happens to my favorite character as well. Is this an Aspie thing? I don't think it is.

Yes, I have very NT friends that do that too. All of us have our favourite characters, if you get more or less obsessed with them it depends of each personality.

I don't remember all the alien stuff on Dr. Who, I'm pretty much Doctor (especially Tennant) centric. Other people do memorize species' names, etc.

I started reading Lost Souls? by Poppy Z. Brite, and desperately just wanted to skip in order to read just the Nothing storyline. Anyway, I've left the book for now.

Well, it's a relief that NTs do this too. So now I know that obsessing over just one character in a particular work of fiction isn't just an autistic thing - it's a human thing.



A couple of summers ago, I obsessed over Doctor Who. I only cared about David Tennant's Doctor and pretty much nothing else. I watched a few episodes with other Doctors, but Tennant was my favorite. The season with Rose Tyler in it was my favorite, because he was at his silliest/happiest then. After that he got kinda mopey.



Reminds me of how I am when I read the webcomic (online comic) Homestuck. I only care about the Trolls (especially Tavros and Gamzee) and nothing else.