Kabru, too?

June 29, 2024 2:39 PM

An autistic YouTuber looks at neurodivergence in Delicious in Dungeon (SLYT)
posted by ChurchHatesTucker (33 comments total)

You don't need to have seen the show to understand the video. Indeed, it's free of major spoilers so you can watch it even if Delicious in Dungeon is in your Netflix queue.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 2:39 PM on June 29 [1 favorite]

Delicious in Dungeon is a favorite show in taquito household and Laios's off-the-charts but relatable autism is a favorite discussion topic*, looking forward to watching TFV

* probably second only to Senshi Fanservice honestly
posted by taquito sunrise at 5:14 PM on June 29 [9 favorites]

And for a lighter take, we have a Delicious in Dungeon AMV for (fittingly) Eat It.
posted by NoxAeternum at 6:15 PM on June 29 [7 favorites]

I've also seen discussions that his sister's probably also autistic, and how people treat her differently from him is true to life as well.
posted by Spike Glee at 7:05 AM on June 30

Or, alternatively, Laois is just a big-hearted kid who just found a D&D Monster Manual and thinks that monsters are so cool! People with different personalities aren't necessarily "neurodivergent." They're just different people.
posted by SPrintF at 7:29 AM on June 30

I think it's totally fair to claim Laios for autism, and profoundly ungenerous to claim him as neurotypical but just interested in monsters. In the end, we are all on the neurodiversity spectrum. A spectrum is not a continuum between two binaries ("neurotypical" and "neurodivergent"). You can't paint a rainbow with only red and purple. I agree that it's really powerful to see a character who struggles with personal connection and has focused interests, but who perseveres through challenges and works to grow and thrive, with support from the found family he's collected. I hadn't really understood the depth of Shuro's betrayal here, because it's largely played for laughs, so I really appreciate this video explaining things to me.

It makes me understand that I was Shuro to some kids I knew in high school. I was near the bottom of the food chain, and I was far too willing to take it out on kids who were even lower than me, to tell them that they were not my friends. I wish I had the chance to do that over.
posted by rikschell at 8:32 AM on June 30 [6 favorites]

People with different personalities aren't necessarily "neurodivergent." They're just different people.

I haven't seen the show, but characters being autistic-coded is a real thing, and it's just as silly to insist that queer-coded characters are straight and must not be claimed for the queers because their queerness isn't in the text. He's a character, not a real person.

Exhibit A is the Big Bang Theory's Sheldon, who at no point is diagnosed, and the show writers have insisted that they didn't mean to make him autistic. But, come on. The character is obviously meant to be a depiction of autism and deserves to be critiqued as such.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:03 AM on June 30 [1 favorite]

also, and I expect it wasn't intended this way, but I think it's important to point out that having different personalities and being different people is not in fact incompatible with being autistic as well. Characters (and indeed people) can have disparate personalities and be autistic at the same time. the whole point of representation in media is to have characters who are fully realized personalities- that's not evidence against them being autistic!
posted by BungaDunga at 9:11 AM on June 30 [8 favorites]

it's not just the monster special interest that makes Laios relatable as autistic. there's the inability to pick up on hints that leads to the Shuro betrayal. the bit where Laios logics his way through figuring out which of his friends is a doppelganger (and nails it 100%, a great scene). the part where you find out he never fit in as a child and was subsequently miserable.

idk when autistic people like the creator of TFV tell you "Laios is some of the best autism representation I've ever seen and I'm jazzed about it" you could read the room like neurotypical people are supposed to be good at & not come in like you're defending him against some terrible accusation when we say "This dude is like us!", just thinking out loud here
posted by taquito sunrise at 12:38 PM on June 30 [12 favorites]

also a lot of big-hearted kids who IRL find D&D monster manuals and think "monsters are just so cool!" are also autistic, there is no part of that description that is incompatible with autism and a bunch that is extra compatible with autism
posted by taquito sunrise at 12:47 PM on June 30 [5 favorites]

>Or, alternatively, Laois is just a big-hearted kid who just found a D&D Monster Manual and thinks that monsters are so cool! People with different personalities aren't necessarily "neurodivergent." They're just different people.

neurotypical once again proves incapable of reading room if room consists of non-neurotypical people. this is probably the atypical people's fault, somehow.
posted by a power-tie-wearing she-capitalist at 12:59 PM on June 30 [5 favorites]

Okay, I think the deserved pile-on is complete, let's go back to talking about HOW FREAKING AWESOME Laios and Falin are (Kabru I have my suspicions of, personally, he's a little too keen on being the new master of the dungeon. Laios just wants to hang out with monsters and eat as many of them as possible.)
posted by rikschell at 1:07 PM on June 30

An interesting side note about Falin: I originally thought she was blind, since in the early scenes she's depicted with her eyes apparently closed. The author has explained, however, that she used to squint as a child and as her eyes improve, she's losing the habit.
posted by SPrintF at 3:22 PM on June 30 [3 favorites]

My point above was, I guess, to call attention to a common tendency to apply labels to people. "Oh, SPrintF, likes anime, he must be a nerd!" I have a concern that armchair neurology has become the new astrology. "He's likes monsters! Total Pisces, amirite?"

Even the YouTuber in the post stumbles over terminology. Perhaps we should exercise caution when "diagnosing" people, including fictional characters.
posted by SPrintF at 3:35 PM on June 30

so, you do realize that autistic people can be pretty good at recognizing each other, even when they don't realize it? this is not a process of labeling; this is "oh, this person thinks and acts in ways that I recognize."

This sort of recognition is extremely powerful, and autistic people like this video essayist extending this to well-drawn characters is in fact a good thing, because neurotypical people absolutely will recognize shitty characters like TBBT's Sheldon Cooper as autistic no matter how much their creators beat their chests about not labeling him.
posted by BungaDunga at 4:17 PM on June 30

"this character reacts to the world like many autistic people do and has the sort of strengths and weaknesses that many autistic people do" is close to a complete definition of what it means for a character to "be" autistic, considering that characters aren't real in the first place. And nobody is better situated than autistic people to recognize this in a character
posted by BungaDunga at 4:31 PM on June 30 [2 favorites]

in other words if autistic people are telling you that a character is good autistic representation, they are not labeling the character, they are recognizing the character. autism isn't a fixed personality trait like some people think astrological signs are, and it's not a subculture or cultural position like "nerd" is. an autistic person recognizing someone else as autistic is neither denying the whole reality of the person nor stereotyping them
posted by BungaDunga at 4:40 PM on June 30 [2 favorites]

My point above was, I guess, to call attention to a common tendency to apply labels to people. "Oh, SPrintF, likes anime, he must be a nerd!" I have a concern that armchair neurology has become the new astrology. "He's likes monsters! Total Pisces, amirite?"

well you see Laois has this incredible attribute called "being a fictional character" that means that when people interpret him as having a particular identity they don't run the risk of offending or harming a real person -

Even the YouTuber in the post stumbles over terminology. Perhaps we should exercise caution when "diagnosing" people, including fictional characters.

- oh, nevermind, you want to be like that, I see.
posted by a power-tie-wearing she-capitalist at 4:45 PM on June 30

I'm in a period where I find most TV totally unpalatable, but I love this show so much; first thing in years that actually had me thinking about the release schedule for new episodes. Laios' and Senshi's earnest weirdness is central to that. I think Superdude makes a pretty good case here, although I think there are a lot of other things that could be going on with Kabru.

As someone who is not autistic but definitely has a Non-Conforming Brain (got fired over it a couple of months ago), I sure wish we could drop "neurotypical" and the derogatory connotation it's acquired. The whole history of disability and intersectionality is right there; in politics, we're living the absurdity of flattening complexity onto a linear scale every day. Brains are wildly complex, and even people with theoretically adjacent brains can have a hard time really understanding each other (as discussed in TFV).
posted by McBearclaw at 5:01 PM on June 30

anyway unless you're extending the same doubt about labeling to stereotyped characters like TBBT's Sheldon (which would be frankly absurd; nobody in their right mind thinks Sheldon is meant to be neurotypical), you're just privileging what neurotypical society thinks autism looks like, and pre-empting any characters that actually are good representation from being recognized as such.

there are lots of ways to be autistic. refusing to "label" any characters as autistic who aren't Rain Man or Sheldon Cooper makes things just a little bit worse for autistic people because it shrinks the box of societal understandings of what autism looks like
posted by BungaDunga at 5:06 PM on June 30 [1 favorite]

the derogatory connotation it's acquired

I don't think most neurotypical people even know the word. my browser dictionary doesn't even have it, it's got the little wiggly red lines. if you're got a Non-Conforming Brain then you're more than welcome to discard the "neurotypical" label if you want; there are lots of ways to be non-neurotypical without being autistic.
posted by BungaDunga at 5:10 PM on June 30

Neurotypical people don't have to know the word for it to have a derogatory connotation in discussions I see online (here, Reddit, company affinity group Slack, what have you). Anyway, I'm not trying to say that I'm offended that people might look down on me for being neurotypical; I'm saying that the whole idea of a typical neurology is suspect. Some people can, through biology and upbringing, conform to expectations in some situations, and not others.
posted by McBearclaw at 5:31 PM on June 30

tell you what, I'll stop occasionally using neurotypical in a derogatory way when y'all stop behaving in derogative ways
posted by a power-tie-wearing she-capitalist at 5:32 PM on June 30 [1 favorite]

Thanks for illustrating my point so beautifully, aptwsc.
posted by McBearclaw at 5:42 PM on June 30

oh, no trouble at all, especially when mine's being so expertly demonstrated as well.
posted by a power-tie-wearing she-capitalist at 5:50 PM on June 30

I'm not trying to say that I'm offended that people might look down on me for being neurotypical

That's not why.

Anyhoo, I'm currently reading a collection of short stories by Ryoko Koi (the DinD manga author) and was struck by one called "Perfect Communication." It depicts someone who has difficulty with ordinary conversation and compares it to trying to play a Rhythm Game (like Guitar Hero) and being overwhelmed.

It's a separate work, so doesn't inform Laios et al., but it's clear that the author thinks about these things.

The collection is called "Terrarium in Drawer," but as far as I can tell there's only a fan translation.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:08 PM on June 30 [5 favorites]

Something the video got close to but didn't actually say: Shuro found the same traits attractive in Falin, and Laios probably understands or at least subconsciously feel how similar Falin is to himself, so when Shuro got close to her, Laios thought "hey, if he gets along with her then he probably can be my friend too!" and misreads the whole situation. It adds an extra emotional depth to him in that climatic scene.
posted by numaner at 7:25 AM on July 1 [4 favorites]

I definitely think, as an autistic person, that sometimes people do tend to apply labels of identity to other people's behaviors, and that that can lead to issues when done to real living people. Identity is often constituted as immutable, whereas behaviors are seen as something someone can change. Labels are also often seen as prescriptive boxes instead of descriptive tools. That really doesn't respect people's agency, when in fact often people can speak to their own identity, they don't need it assigned.

Indeed assigning identity to others is often used as a way for folks to place someone below them in some social hierarchy. And I could understand why someone, having decided that is harmful in one context, can see is as a problem in other contexts.

That said I think marginalized people finding characters that implicitly represent them is important and valuable.

Marginalized people are of course stereotyped, and a stereotype is a restriction not just on the ways that others see one group, but also the ways members of that group see themselves; so a character that can represent something of ourselves and open up possibilities is actually empowering real people, as well as expanding people's imaginations in understanding beyond their limited stereotypes. While it's nice to see characters explicitly identified as x and y at times, I don't think that should be a requirement for representation. Indeed I'd argue ambiguity holds space for people to understand that all identities are more of a spectrum than sets of mutually exclusive boxes, that people, like characters, can be messy.
posted by Chrysopoeia at 6:45 PM on July 1 [3 favorites]

Indeed I'd argue ambiguity holds space for people to understand that all identities are more of a spectrum than sets of mutually exclusive boxes, that people, like characters, can be messy.

Thank you for saying this. This is something I struggle with as a writer. I see people objecting to characters being "autistic-coded but not explicitly stated as autistic" .

But we live in a world where many people are not aware they're autistic, and I write about people like that, from their perspective.

I'm fumbling in my attempt to articulate this, but while I value stories with explicitly autistic characters, that identity has a weight that warps the meaning of the story. My characters' autism is central to their experience, but peripheral to the plot, if that makes sense.
posted by Zumbador at 10:11 PM on July 1 [4 favorites]

Laois as autistic is basically canon imo. Probably Falin too. Of course the author wouldn't say that because she's interested in worldbuilding, and the characters wouldn't think of themselves that way. But there's plenty of straightforward evidence that we should read him that way.

But I think Kabru as autistic is an interesting read, because Kabru is a foil to Laois (and eventually a deuteragonist), they are explicitly opposites.

Like Laois is the head of the party because he knows the most about the dungeon and its monsters, that's why people (besides his sister) are willing to follow him. But (as Kabru points out) he's not interested in people, in the abstract, he can't follow their motivations or read them and that's why he and Falin keep getting taken advantage of before the story starts.

Kabru's specialty is that he's really good at reading people, and he knows exactly how to act to get them to like him... he's always studying other people, he can figure them out in a short period of time... he's the exact opposite of Laois.

So I don't think it makes sense to read Kabru as autistic, but there is something going on with him for sure... on tumblr the general read is that he has PTSD and his need to compulsively get people to like him and to be in charge of other people is a trauma response.

He is similar to Laois in that he has traits that could make him a bad party leader, but his party likes and trusts him because he's a good person, and they understand that about him.
posted by subdee at 8:27 AM on July 2 [3 favorites]

Kabru's specialty is that he's really good at reading people, and he knows exactly how to act to get them to like him... he's always studying other people, he can figure them out in a short period of time... he's the exact opposite of Laois.

Superdude's point is that (nearly) describes himself. And if you swap "monsters" for "people", it describes Laios. The idea that they're two sides of the same coin has a certain appeal.

Of course, there are no correct answers here. You could read Kabru a mirror to Senshi: someone who had dungeon related trauma but managed it very differently.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:54 AM on July 2 [3 favorites]

I decided that Kabru was probably autistic as well, right after we got the episode where he's doing his info dump of his observations/deductions about everyone. To me, he clearly reads as an autistic person with a special interest in humans and human behavior.

The protagonist of the book I've been writing since November is autistic in a very similar way. Nowhere in the story do I say she is autistic, because it's written in first person, and she doesn't know.

The idea that we can't claim characters as autistic unless they're explicitly stated to be so is ridiculous. That would mean that no character whose story takes place before 1911[1] (more realistically 1980, since that's when it became its own diagnosis) could be said to be autistic. But we've always been here.

[1] Or whose story is set in a fantasy world
posted by Tabitha Someday at 3:16 PM on July 2 [5 favorites]

Here's the short story I mentioned above, Perfect Communication. Ryoko Kui included it in a collection published 2013, the year before she began work on DinD.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:27 AM on July 3 [4 favorites]