Richard's Animorphs Forum
Animorphs Section => Animorphs Forum Classic => Topic started by: NickDaGriff on July 25, 2014, 09:50:07 AM
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This is something I posted on the TVTropes WMG page. Bear in mind I'm not the best at analyzing characters, but this seems to fit pretty well to me.
While writing a fanfic, it struck me that I was using the word neurotic to describe Tobias without a full understanding of what that meant. So I looked it up, and found this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurosis#Horney.27s_theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurosis#Horney.27s_theory)) which immediately rang out as matching Tobias' life story to a T. Now get your mind out of the gutter.
He started off with guardians who had no love for him whatsoever. His first impressions of the world were therefore extremely hostile ones. All he had were his dinosaurs to play with, so he invested himself in that little world of predators and prey, learning all he could about them. Any attempts to extract interest or attention from his uncle using his fantasies/interests as a bridge were immediately shot down (like the flashback in #33 with his drawing), causing him to draw further into the world he'd constructed in his head. Presumably the same thing happened with his aunt. This lead to the development of his schizoid tendencies, which I'll get to.
His world view was basically built around his interest in dinosaurs. The predators especially appealed to him, representing in his mind the control over the environment that he lacked, as well as various other positive traits: strength and confidence (T. Rex), family cohesion and cunning (Deinonychus), freedom and grace (Pteranadon), and so on. Predatory nature was his idealized solution to all the problems in the world. He'd developed his idealized self, so naturally, when the opportunity to fully realize it in a physical form arose, you freaking bet he jumped on it without even thinking. He kept pushing his luck with the time limit in the first book, and immediately after getting stuck, he was remarkably calm about it. Realizing that getting trapped might have been a mistake only occurred to him later.
When that regret hit in book 3, it was because of his aunt and uncle. They'd taught him from the cradle that being dependent on someone is the surest way to get hurt. To him, dependency only meant letting a person stomp all over your emotions while not giving a damn whether you were still even alive or not. He'd never killed a living thing before, so naturally he was squeamish about hunting. At the same time, relying on the guy he hero-worshiped (who was one of the last humans left that he could even hope to relate to) to feed and house him was opening the door to a soul-crushing betrayal and heartbreak. Toss in the new hawk instincts he couldn't get a single break from, and you have a recipe for a complete meltdown. Squeamishness proved easier to get over than a decade of neglect, thus kicking off his powerful drive for complete independence. Even staying at a friend's house now meant weakness in his mind. He accepted his fantasy self completely, and began holding himself to the standards of the free, independent predator he'd always idolized. It became a point of pride, and he would act defensively when anyone questioned his decision to live in the woods and risk starvation to the point of eating roadkill. There was no self-esteem underlying that pride, and that made it a vulnerable point for him. On some level, he knew he was acting irrationally, and even started questioning it occasionally (like thinking about how if Marco were the nothlit hawk, he would have no problem letting Rachel pamper him).
Things happened in the war, and he maintained his anxiety-driven compulsive behavior throughout. As he matured, the “solution” to his insecurities and conflicts became further withdrawal. The episode with Taylor certainly didn’t help matters here. After #33, every character commented on Tobias being more quiet and introverted. Taylor had managed to open him up, make him identify with her, and then hurt him like no one ever had before. At this point, he basically saw no choice but to hide himself deeper within his hawk shell. Just seek shelter in his now reinforced schizoid personality disorder.
Now, SPD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizoid_personality_disorder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizoid_personality_disorder)) is typified by a number of traits:
* Emotional coldness, detachment or reduced affect: He certainly comes off this way at times. There are numerous mentions of his piercing, unreadable hawk stare as he just watches the others discuss a topic. He probably says the least in group conversation out of all the animorphs, and when he does talk, it’s in a concise, sometimes blunt speech pattern. Going back to his neurosis, he prefers to keep people at a distance as a sort of defense mechanism (which really makes a bird of prey the most ideal morph for him in that way).
* Limited capacity to express either positive or negative emotions towards others: He certainly never had a problem yelling at people who annoyed him. He does get some sweet moments with Rachel too. Everything else is kind of a middle ground.
* Consistent preference for solitary activities: He spent three years in the woods to avoid all human contact. Yeah. That aside, he did spend most of his down time during the war just getting to know the city and spying on yeerks.
* Very few, if any, close friends or relationships, and a lack of desire for such: Granted, he can’t really go shopping for new friends with a war of secrecy going on, but still. It's mentioned that at first he followed Jake around only because Jake saved him from bullies. In Megamorphs #4, trying to fit him in the group without superpowers to bond over just led to him feeling excluded, and leaving.
* Indifference to either praise or criticism: Maybe not so much here. With his neurosis, his constructed pride lets him take praise in stride, but any criticism regarding his choice to live as a hawk is a very sore spot.
* Little interest in having sexual experiences with another person (taking into account age): He felt fairly confused about Rachel while watching her morph eagle. He liked (was fascinated, mesmerized by) seeing her morph a bird of prey, perhaps even in THAT way, but cites her species and morphed gender as a turnoff.
* Taking pleasure in few, if any, activities: He likes flying and the thrill of the hunt. Not much else.
* Indifference to social norms and conventions: He got pretty casual about his new mouse diet fairly quickly, in spite of what the others might have thought. He was self-conscious when Rachel caught him eating roadkill, but that was mostly his neurotic dependence issue, as he didn’t want her worrying about him.
* Preoccupation with fantasy and introspection: This is what set off his whole mindset in the first place. And boy howdy, is he introspective or what.
Growing up with a war to fight gave him one thing, at least. Comrades in arms. He developed friendships as best he was able, through a mutual “I’ve got your back,” type deal. Sadly, it just wasn’t enough to make a stable set of friendships. I feel like this is why he was so quick to dissolve all ties with everyone at the end. There was no more threat to necessitate the relationship, and they clearly didn’t have his back anymore, what with all the girlfriend-killing and such. His friendships were never based on actual love for the people, apart from Rachel.
Rachel was the one who could get past all his barriers and make him feel wanted. With just the right amount of assertiveness and forwardness, she was able to temporarily humble his pride and make him accept what she had to offer. For those brief moments, he was dependent, vulnerable, and not having his heart ripped out and stomped on. It was good for him. Given time, he might have built enough self-esteem for a relationship with someone else, because keeping him with Rachel wouldn’t be very healthy in the long term. Rachel was ultimately an unstable sociopath, and their relationship could turn abusive very easily without a war to redirect her frustration. That assertive forwardness she opened him up with also made him vulnerable to her. If she ever lashed out at him, that could have been devastating.
I’m not saying Rachel/Tobias was a necessarily bad thing, it was one of my favorite parts in the series. For the time it lasted, it was what they both desperately needed. Tobias, for the happiness and Rachel, for the humanity. And man, they had some great moments together.
Now here’s always what bugged me about the ending. I can handle a depressing-as-all-hell Bolivian Army Ending that leaves characters as broken emotional wrecks, but this one just left too many character threads lying open (including his alleged importance as Elfangor’s son, which never comes fully into play, but that’s a separate issue). With Rachel dead, Jake responsible, and Marco insensitively using the whole situation to milk attention from the whole world, suddenly his group of friends is no better than his aunt and uncle. Nothing is ever said about how Tobias handles being cramped into a ship with the person he probably despises more than anything else in the world. Not much room to fly on a small cruiser. No getting away there. He could spend his time perched in some part of the cargo hold or something, watching… What? Imaginary mice? Yeah, no hunting either. Just rationed protein pellets. All he can do is stress and worry about the person he identifies with most.
FOR MONTHS.
He’d be reaching the breaking point by the time The One showed up. If they didn’t find Ax, one way or another, something would snap. God only knows what.
So what are your thoughts? Am I on track, or am I completely misinterpreting the character and projecting too much of myself on him? All I know is, I really identify with this whole mindset, and Tobias's character in general.
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Sounds convincing, however all those treats of personality might be just something else. Do not take me wrong, your analyzation looks very good and well argumented, I just tend to challenge about every information I've given. I'm not saying it isn't possible, but I'm not also saying it is.
In other words, I am saying nothing ;D
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* Emotional coldness, detachment or reduced affect: He certainly comes off this way at times. There are numerous mentions of his piercing, unreadable hawk stare as he just watches the others discuss a topic. He probably says the least in group conversation out of all the animorphs, and when he does talk, it’s in a concise, sometimes blunt speech pattern. Going back to his neurosis, he prefers to keep people at a distance as a sort of defense mechanism (which really makes a bird of prey the most ideal morph for him in that way).
* Limited capacity to express either positive or negative emotions towards others: He certainly never had a problem yelling at people who annoyed him. He does get some sweet moments with Rachel too. Everything else is kind of a middle ground.
* Consistent preference for solitary activities: He spent three years in the woods to avoid all human contact. Yeah. That aside, he did spend most of his down time during the war just getting to know the city and spying on yeerks.
* Very few, if any, close friends or relationships, and a lack of desire for such: Granted, he can’t really go shopping for new friends with a war of secrecy going on, but still. It's mentioned that at first he followed Jake around only because Jake saved him from bullies. In Megamorphs #4, trying to fit him in the group without superpowers to bond over just led to him feeling excluded, and leaving.
* Indifference to either praise or criticism: Maybe not so much here. With his neurosis, his constructed pride lets him take praise in stride, but any criticism regarding his choice to live as a hawk is a very sore spot.
* Little interest in having sexual experiences with another person (taking into account age): He felt fairly confused about Rachel while watching her morph eagle. He liked (was fascinated, mesmerized by) seeing her morph a bird of prey, perhaps even in THAT way, but cites her species and morphed gender as a turnoff.
* Taking pleasure in few, if any, activities: He likes flying and the thrill of the hunt. Not much else.
* Indifference to social norms and conventions: He got pretty casual about his new mouse diet fairly quickly, in spite of what the others might have thought. He was self-conscious when Rachel caught him eating roadkill, but that was mostly his neurotic dependence issue, as he didn’t want her worrying about him.
* Preoccupation with fantasy and introspection: This is what set off his whole mindset in the first place. And boy howdy, is he introspective or what.
Or he's a hawk.
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I don't think Tobias is antisocial enough or apathetic enough to diagnose with Schizoid personality disorder, at least not early- or mid-series. He stayed neutral in arguments, sure, but when an issue of trust or honor arose, he was often the most passionate, just look at his relationship with Ax.
Arguments could be made about his time in seclusion at the end of book 54, but even then, he did maintain contact with Cassie at the time, which is why I think he was still basically fine when Jake asked him to join him.
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Sounds convincing, however all those treats of personality might be just something else. Do not take me wrong, your analyzation looks very good and well argumented, I just tend to challenge about every information I've given. I'm not saying it isn't possible, but I'm not also saying it is.
In other words, I am saying nothing ;D
To be fair, SPD often does go undiagnosed because it can look like a variety of other things on the surface (Asperger's, depression, early stages of schizophrenia, etc.). So who knows?
I don't think Tobias is antisocial enough or apathetic enough to diagnose with Schizoid personality disorder, at least not early- or mid-series. He stayed neutral in arguments, sure, but when an issue of trust or honor arose, he was often the most passionate, just look at his relationship with Ax.
Arguments could be made about his time in seclusion at the end of book 54, but even then, he did maintain contact with Cassie at the time, which is why I think he was still basically fine when Jake asked him to join him.
Well yeah, but that's why I specified tendencies, and noted exceptions. Having SPD doesn't necessarily make him completely apathetic or antisocial. His friendships were always very few, but very solid in nature, which is one of the criteria. We don't really know how his post-war relationship with Cassie worked either. For all we know, she might have stumbled onto his meadow one day by accident, or Toby might have slipped up/confessed to her in conversation. The latter strikes me as most likely, because he was far closer to the Hork-Bajir than Cassie throughout the whole series, and it was Toby, not Cassie that led Jake to his meadow. Cassie might not have even known where he was, and just told Jake that Toby did. And then, the only reason he even considered listening to Jake was because Jake mentioned Ax. So yeah. Few true friends, but on solid foundations. I think it fits.
Or he's a hawk.
This hypothesis does not strike me as immediately plausible. Please present evidence for this wild and fanciful speculation. /sarcasm
Yeah, it could just be that he's got a solitary wild animal trapped in his head for as long as he keeps that body. But I think he was like this even before he went nothlit. I'm gonna go reread MM4 again.
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I don't so much mean that the hawk instincts have taken root in those areas, although they might have, I mean he's a hawk. Except for a few people, humans are attracted to humans, mice to mice, cats to cats, and hawks to hawks. He isn't going to hang around the school to keep talking to the other anis during the day. His piercing gaze is mostly from not being able to make many or maybe any facial expressions. He doesn't get to practice talking with people except basically Ax. He's going to pick up Ax's habits. He can't really do anything other than fly, hunt, and spy on people. And he definitely can't introduce himself to someone new. Although I'd definitely love to watch that conversation.
Most of what you said is about how he lived once he no choice. You don't get to see his reaction to going past the time limit. He had spent the better part of a day already trapped. Either major events hit him really late, or he had already gone through the "Oh S***" phase. Anything after he was trapped can't really be used to say anything since he's forced to be that way.
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*Sighs*
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I don't so much mean that the hawk instincts have taken root in those areas, although they might have, I mean he's a hawk. Except for a few people, humans are attracted to humans, mice to mice, cats to cats, and hawks to hawks. He isn't going to hang around the school to keep talking to the other anis during the day. His piercing gaze is mostly from not being able to make many or maybe any facial expressions. He doesn't get to practice talking with people except basically Ax. He's going to pick up Ax's habits. He can't really do anything other than fly, hunt, and spy on people. And he definitely can't introduce himself to someone new. Although I'd definitely love to watch that conversation.
Most of what you said is about how he lived once he no choice. You don't get to see his reaction to going past the time limit. He had spent the better part of a day already trapped. Either major events hit him really late, or he had already gone through the "Oh S***" phase. Anything after he was trapped can't really be used to say anything since he's forced to be that way.
You're right, those are pretty good points.
Now, I'm not a psychologist, or any sort of expert on this. But, from the research I've done, SPD seems to be caused by external factors, such as social deprivation/rejection, negligent guardians, etc. So while I think he was basically set on this course from early childhood, the lifestyle he was forced into as a secretive hawk-child soldier would still contribute. When all he can do is observe people from up in the air, that's just going to reinforce certain attitudes and behaviors.
Additionally, he was never actually forced into the specific path he took. He didn't actually have to hunt for food or live out in the woods, that was just him being unable to reconcile the differences between his fantasy of a predator and the reality of it at first, causing him to temporarily succumb to the hawk instincts. After 3, he could have stayed with the others and interacted with them more. That much was a choice.
I know he can't make facial expressions, and so did the other anis, but the way they described him felt to me like they perceived him as a little cold. That's why I included it in there. He may not actually be cold and apathetic, but he can come off that way, and it's more than just his facial expressions. There are still other ways to communicate emotion. People sometimes think of me that way, based solely on the fact that I don't talk as much as others. I'm kinda laconic IRL.
As for his reaction to becoming nothlit, I did say it hit him late. He was oddly calm about it in the end of book 1 (which was only a couple of hours, probably directly after he'd gotten out of the pool, so maybe he was in shock from the battle and the realization), seemed mostly okay with it in book 2, then got bludgeoned with reality pretty hard in book 3. See, to me, Tobias' whole character is fascinating because it represents a deconstruction of the furry/therian mindset. "If I could just turn into an animal and run away into the woods, all my problems would disappear!" Marco even called him out on it once or twice in the first couple books. That's part of the reason I identify so well with him, because I went through that in high school alongside a lot of depression (basically what inspired most of my writing and interests). It's interesting, considering that that was a thing not a lot of people were very aware of in the '90s. Kudos to Applegate for creating deep, realistic characters that generate this much discussion.
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I find it much more likely to simply say that Tobias is a kid on the autism spectrum who went through a truly horrible life from start to finish and in response developed highly idiosyncratic and probably harmful coping mechanisms. It makes more sense, and his descriptions of his childhood match this description just as much, if not more.
I also disagree that some of these things are really applicable to him. Indifference to praise? He clearly appreciates praise from Jake and hearing that his contributions are appreciated by the group. Indifference to social conventions? If that were the case, he wouldn't have nearly so many insecurities as he clearly does. I wouldn't say that he doesn't take pleasure in many activities, either. His memories from when he was being tortured demonstrate that he enjoyed a range of things, not just flying, and particularly the few positive relationships he was available to develop throughout his life. And if nothing else, I think he enjoys throwing barbs at Marco. (But not only that--heck, this is a guy who watches soap operas with Ax on a daily basis.)
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I find it much more likely to simply say that Tobias is a kid on the autism spectrum who went through a truly horrible life from start to finish and in response developed highly idiosyncratic and probably harmful coping mechanisms. It makes more sense, and his descriptions of his childhood match this description just as much, if not more.
I also disagree that some of these things are really applicable to him. Indifference to praise? He clearly appreciates praise from Jake and hearing that his contributions are appreciated by the group. Indifference to social conventions? If that were the case, he wouldn't have nearly so many insecurities as he clearly does. I wouldn't say that he doesn't take pleasure in many activities, either. His memories from when he was being tortured demonstrate that he enjoyed a range of things, not just flying, and particularly the few positive relationships he was available to develop throughout his life. And if nothing else, I think he enjoys throwing barbs at Marco. (But not only that--heck, this is a guy who watches soap operas with Ax on a daily basis.)
Again, I'm not saying that my hypothesis is necessarily the be-all-end-all, and it's not 100% applicable. That's why I specifically used the word tendencies. That said, Autism spectrum and SPD do have a lot in common on the surface. Both can be diagnosed off quite a few of the exact same symptoms and behaviors (I know this from personal experience). It may even be a bit of both. The reason I think SPD is more likely here is because Autism spectrum is generally more detrimental to social skills, which Tobias does possess to a good extent. Besides, the potentially harmful coping mechanisms you mention are exactly what I'm talking about here. Based on the research I've done, SPD comes about largely from environmental factors. It is a coping mechanism for him.
* I said he takes praise in stride. That doesn't necessarily mean he's indifferent, but he leans slightly toward it. His reaction to criticism shows that this point isn't fully applicable anyway.
* Indifference to social conventions is a large part of his character. Social conventions are the unwritten "rules," or the "norm," of ordinary human behavior. After #3, a lot of his more human behaviors go out the window, and he pretty much gives up on his humanity after #33, at least until Loren shows up. There are a variety of reasons behind it, but this one is applicable.
* Consider that the torture machine was specifically digging through every happy memory it could find and bringing it to the forefront. That kind of biases the information we're given. Moreover, the specific memories were less about activities he enjoyed, and almost all just moments of simple, basic pleasure where nothing bad was happening to him (he had a very sad life :(). True, he does seem to like the occasional verbal sparring with Marco, and the soaps are a great thing for him and Ax. So those are two more things. Still, I feel like his range of interests is generally very narrow and focused (as it would be if he were on the Autism spectrum as well).
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TBH I don't really know much about these diagnoses, or even if I would consider them legitimate per se. (Seriously, if you look at the DSM you can diagnose pretty much anyone with a kind of personality disorder. They aren't easily testable.)
I'm on the autism spectrum myself, and have known plenty of other people who are, and Tobias reads to me as that. I think there are oftentimes some misconceptions about what problems in social skills look like in people on the autism spectrum. It does not necessarily mean that a person is constantly making obvious faux pas. Besides, we don't really even see Tobias in many normal social situations, and when we do he isn't particularly skilled at them at all. (Though, of course, that is attributed in-text to him forgetting how to act like a human.) It's also interesting that he develops the closest relationships with people who are pretty odd and non-conforming themselves--Ax is obviously so, but Rachel is also pretty out-of-the-box in her assertiveness and general Rachel-ness.
From what I recall of his memories while being tortured, a lot of the positive memories included positive sensory experiences (both as a hawk and human), which is consistent with being on the spectrum. They also included memories of being with his friends and the few people who were positive towards him in his pre-Animorphs life. To me, that just doesn't reflect the kind of social disengagement you're suggesting. When he did disengage almost completely from other people, it was because he couldn't stand to live with his grief in any kind of normal way, and used the hawk as a shield just as he had been doing for most of the series. He doesn't do that for lack of feeling, but because he feels too much.
I think his coping mechanisms are rooted in both his experiences and his natural tendencies towards using escapism. He did tell us that as a kid he played with dinosaurs, developing an impressive body of knowledge about them, as a means of escape. He also apparently was into art. When he became an Animorph he was able to escape assuming another life as a hawk. But even then, I wonder if he knew some things about birds before becoming one. He does seem to know an awful lot, including about thermals, difference species, etc., that wouldn't necessarily be gleamed merely from being a hawk.
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Holy...
Holy crap. I just...
Come on, guys. He was just a kid from a broken home, who wasn't very sure of himself and kind of a dreamer/arty type, and thus picked on at school. It's all well and good to theorize and interpret, but there's zero basis in the books to back up Tobias being autistic. That's grasping. Socially, he's pretty much completely adept, aside from having trouble with bullies and making a few comments about the mall creeping him out.
Major, major overstating.
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Okay, but that's your interpretation, too.
There is such a thing as the Broader Autism Phenotype, and IMO Tobias is at the very least that.
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'Cause, what, he wasn't popular? The whole "spectrum" phenomenon is pretty inconclusive anyway, but without getting into all that, it's a pretty arbitrary notion to label Tobias as a part of it due to being quiet. There's absolutely jack in the books to say he didn't function socially, and his interaction with the rest of the kids is at the very least normal.
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I don't label Tobias as spectrummy just because he's quiet. There's much more to it than that, as I think I have explained.
And if you don't think that the spectrum is valid as a concept, or that people on the spectrum can't "function socially" at all (in ways you define), then there's not a whole lot I can say.
I also do recall the books saying A LOT about his unusual affect and gestures, on occasion leading to social awkwardness on the rare occasion he interacted with someone outside of the Animorphs, such as when he was in DeGroot's office. Of course, his social presentation has the in-universe explanation of his living a hawk, but I don't see why it's not valid to speculate that there might be another reason, too. I'm not saying he wasn't influenced by his experiences, or that you have to agree with me.
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DeGroot was a pretty special case, wouldn't you say? Not exactly regular human interaction, when it's dealing with the topic of his dead mother and a strong suspicion the guy might have an alien slug in his head.
It's just...where in the books does it even say he's "socially awkward" as such, in terms of not knowing how to interact with people, the basics? It pretty much just says he's from a really rough background and doesn't have a lot of friends. Not that he can't make friends, as it's pretty established in the books he develops stronger bonds with probably more
of the various Animorphs (and associated allies and such) than, hell, probably Marco and Rachel.
And yeah, the facial gestures and such were part of the nothlit status, it says as much. He's basically just rusty at being in human form, in those mid-later books.
This is all reading way too much into it.
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Kay, I wasn't saying that Autism spectrum people can't function socially, or that they're conversational trainwrecks waiting to happen. I've actually been diagnosed as such, and I can still function in social situations. Heck, I think every best friend I've ever had in school was probably somewhere on the spectrum, ranging from very high-functioning to... Not as high-functioning. :P Personally, I think if any animorph is on the spectrum, it's Ax, but that's a topic for a future thread. :XD:
It's just...where in the books does it even say he's "socially awkward" as such, in terms of not knowing how to interact with people, the basics? It pretty much just says he's from a really rough background and doesn't have a lot of friends. Not that he can't make friends, as it's pretty established in the books he develops stronger bonds with probably more
of the various Animorphs (and associated allies and such) than, hell, probably Marco and Rachel.
Well, look at how he acted in school. He was picked on, and just didn't know how to handle it. He was an easy target, and didn't know what was causing it. He just kept to himself and never made friends, hoping people would leave him alone. At least, until Jake showed up with a random act of compassion and Tobias started following him around for protection. In fact, thinking about it, Tobias never initiated a single one of his friendships. Jake came in and saved him from bullies, and Tobias latched onto that, later meeting the other Anis through Jake. In his relationship with Rachel, she was always the forward one, aggressively keeping their relationship from dying out when Tobias would have been content to simply let things fade away through inaction. His bond with Ax and the Hork-Bajir came about mostly due to the fact that they lived out in the same neck of the woods, and he saw them on a regular basis.
Again, Autism and SPD don't mean you can't make friends. It usually just means that you're going to have generally fewer, but stronger, bonds with other people. Tobias didn't have many friends, but the relationships he formed tended to be extremely solid.
This is all reading way too much into it.
But where would the fun be in not reading too much into it? :D I dunno, ever since I got into writing, picking apart stories in great detail has become a big hobby of mine.
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The school thing's a jump. Not every kid that's getting bullied, especially at that age in a middle-school context where kids become cruel status-obsessed freaks, has a social disorder. It's probably way more justified to make an argument for someone like David having Asperger's or whatever, if you buy into the spectrum notion, than Tobias. Really not sure where you're getting the whole "one-sided" thing in the Tobias/Rachel relationship either, in the early books he's coming out from his little setup in the woods to visit her every other night.
He also, probably moreso than anyone other than Cassie, has a total understanding and grasp of all the social dynamics between all the other Animorphs, "getting" the other kids and able to sort of temper flaring arguments and such. Again, the guy's clearly more social than Marco or Rachel are.
I'm not getting the "number of friends" thing, either. All we hear of Rachel are Cassie and Melissa, pre-invasion, and Marco basically just Jake. Seems an "interpreting things the way you want to hear them" approach with this, like a lot of this sort of analysis is, rather than going by what's on the page.
You could just as easily make some assertion that Tobias's troubles are some sort of "only-child complex", or born out of growing up in a sh*tty situation with a drunken-trash uncle and nobody really giving a damn. Probably much more able to be substantiated, too. Truth is, though, the bullying thing is pretty moot. How many 7th/8th graders have a hard time with bullies? Plenty of them. Maybe not to the extent of "having their head shoved down a toilet", but that seems an exaggerated thing to happen anyway, not the sort of thing that bullies are going to be able to get away with without intervention often in real life. Come on, the guy was described as a chubby/out-of-shape guy with shaggy hair who tended to daydream a lot. When I was 13, guys in my class would have bullied him too, until everyone grew up a bit a couple of years later and he started to have an easier time with school/life in general. Kids come out of their shell 90% of the time, after those horror years of the early teens, zippo to say Tobias wouldn't have fit that mold.
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No, not every kid that gets bullied has a social disorder. However, plenty can develop one, especially if they're coming from backgrounds as crummy as Tobias's. I don't buy into the autism spectrum applying here either, as he shows a good amount of social competence, and I think his issues are 90% environmentally caused. What I meant was that there are certain ways to avoid bullying, simply in the manner you project yourself. Tobias didn't project himself at all, hoping he wouldn't be noticed, instead unfortunately leading the more sadistic classmates to see him as a weak, easy target.
David is a straight-up sociopath, not the least bit spectrummy. That's been analyzed to hell and back about half a million times, so I'm not going to get into it. Basically, the primary difference is that a person with Autism has difficulty grasping how to recognize and deal with the emotions of others and social interaction, a sociopath doesn't feel emotion (with some exceptions) and sees others as just objects, and a schizoid just wants to keep a distance between themselves and others and interact on their own terms. Naturally, like many other psychological conditions, these all have their own sliding scales of severity, they're not just stereotypical cookie-cutter molds.
As for the "one-sided" thing, I mostly meant later in the series, especially around #23 and after. Whenever they go on a date, it's always Rachel who set it up. When Tobias was starving out in the woods, he turned to roadkill rather than just stopping by and asking for something. Whenever he needed any kind of help, she practically had to twist his arm wing to get him to accept it. He still reciprocated emotionally and understood her like no one else. Like in #33, when he said,"Be Rachel," to tell her to show Taylor mercy. Coming from any other animorph, those words would have just meant,"Tear her damn cyborg head off." But no, he saw the struggle she was going through that no one else did (not even Cassie, her best friend and the supposed people-person of the group). He loves her, he gets her, but he's just a natural loner by preference, and didn't do as much to actively move the relationship forward as much as she did. If she hadn't taken up pretty much all the initiative, it would have just evaporated before Tobias even realized it was going. That's what I was saying.
The others all have numerous social venues open to them (though Cassie's vague in this department, but I'm saving her issues for a future thread), but Tobias is the only animorph specified in text to not have had any friends before this all went down. The implication is pretty clear there. I don't doubt he had playmates when he was younger. One of the flashbacks in #33 was on a trampoline, and his uncle didn't strike me as the type to go out and buy one for a kid he didn't even want to take care of. Socializing is far easier when you're a preschooler/elementary student. Keep in mind that very little is generally said of their lives outside the missions, and general school interactions are implied to have taken place.
90% isn't a guarantee, and even then, that only applies to normal kids. In fact, he shatters the mold with the sheer amount of bad stuff happening to him. By the end of the series, he's an emotional wreck and shunning nearly every bit of human contact. Apart from Rachel, he basically had very little hope for coming out of his shell from the start.
Also, Tobias wasn't chubby. ',:-o He was actually described as scrawny, if I remember.
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* Emotional coldness, detachment or reduced affect: He certainly comes off this way at times. There are numerous mentions of his piercing, unreadable hawk stare as he just watches the others discuss a topic. He probably says the least in group conversation out of all the animorphs, and when he does talk, it’s in a concise, sometimes blunt speech pattern. Going back to his neurosis, he prefers to keep people at a distance as a sort of defense mechanism (which really makes a bird of prey the most ideal morph for him in that way).
Not sure about the overall message of your post, but I completely disagree with this interpretation.
His expressions are unreadable not because he's an unemotional character, but because he's a hawk. They can't express human emotions.
I've actually found Tobias, generally, to be an extremely emotional character, possibly the MOST emotional character, and they use the cold expressionless nature of the hawk to create interesting contradictions with his true nature.
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Snakie hits it on the head.
There's zippo there to say Tobias is cold, or detached, or unempathetic/unable to relate. Distanced? Sure. He is distanced, he's an 8th grade boy living apart from what few friends he has, in the friggin' woods fearing for his life 24/7.
When he's with the group, though? He's in on the conversations, he participates, he's not shy or "apart" from the group as a whole. The facial-expressions thing is grasping, as yeah, he's a hawk 99% of the time, and in the later books where he's able to human-morph again he's just so rusty at inhabiting the body his muscle memory's all off. I think they even describe that getting better as the books go on, he normalizes a little as he gets used to it again?
And definitely on-point about him being one of the more emotional characters in the group. KA/Michael go out of their way to describe the kid as "sweet" and "a dreamer" and write plenty of passages about him being empathetic toward people (I think there's a few big parts of the Megamorphs books like that, from memory). I mean, again, Marco's far more self-centric and "inward" than Tobias is. He's not really described as having that many friends other than Jake in the early books, guess that lumps him in a "spectrum" position too? There's certainly more to go on there than with Tobias.
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To clarify, I was basing that part of my diagnosis there off of how I read the others perceiving him. I'm not saying lack of muscle memory gives him a personality disorder. I'm saying that he doesn't project himself in a way that betrays a lot of emotion most of the time. Even a hawk could still be fairly expressive, especially one with thoughtspeak capabilities. That's what reduced (or blunted/restricted), affect means. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blunted_affect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blunted_affect) The definition does allow for outbursts of strong emotional expression as well, which I did mention earlier. He has emotion, he's not a sociopath. He just doesn't express it very well, and there's more to it than his rusty human skills.
I agree, making the hawk a full-time part of him does make for some beautiful contradictions with his inner nature, but it's an internal struggle. You'll notice you don't hear much of it in other characters' stories, apart from just a brief mention of, "He's been quieter since [event] happened," or, "He seems to be adjusting well to being a hawk." He consciously makes an effort to not let his issues affect the others, unlike pretty much everyone else in the group but Rachel. As a result (much like with Rachel), the group doesn't really see the full effect of how much it's affecting him. They ended up just seeing Tobias as the sad loner and Rachel as the deranged violence junkie, and not much further than that.
I looked over the first five books again. Certain details and bits of characterization from the first book don't seem to hold up with the canon, so I'm not sure whether we definitely count anything from that or not (KAA was kind of experimenting and unsure in the beginning). After he becomes a hawk, though, he barely talks with the group unless they address him directly, he's relaying or confirming mission information, or whispering with Rachel.
I think you might be slightly misinformed on Autism spectrum, based on the way you throw the term around. Marco almost certainly has some sort of issue contributing to his narcissism, as does Cassie, but it's definitely not Autism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism_spectrum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism_spectrum) He's certainly no introvert either, with the way he hits on pretty much every girl he sees. Maybe it's slight sociopathic tendencies, but I'm not sure. Ax is really the only animorph that strikes me as the least bit Autistic, but that would be holding an Andalite's psychology up against human norms, and we only have a tiny sample of Andalites to compare it to so who even knows.
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heh, at first I thought the thread title was a typo for 'horny'.
I figured him being a dino nerd was just useful in Megamorphs #2.
He seems to have issues coming from a broken home and being stuck as a hawk rather than having mental illness per se.
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Wow, that's very interesting. :o I don't think I'd lable Tobias as "Horney" though.
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Wow, that's very interesting. :o I don't think I'd lable Tobias as "Horney" though.
Horneyan, technically speaking. Just a play on words just to get your attention.
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Wow, that's very interesting. :o I don't think I'd lable Tobias as "Horney" though.
Horneyan, technically speaking. Just a play on words just to get your attention.
oh, it got my attention
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Reading over all of this stuff again is pretty interesting. Really disagree about the whole "Tobias doesn't talk to people unless he's addressed directly" thing, within the group itself. He's a little aloof soon after being trapped, but even that doesn't last long. He participates, he converses, he contributes.
I'd like to make a point about empathy, too, which is a huge part of the whole concept of the disorder. You couldn't even remotely say Tobias can't empathize with people, that he doesn't grasp other people's concerns or is totally inward. That's just not the case.
The "not projecting himself" thing really seems to be grasping, too. It's an enormous jump from "introverted" (which even that I'd dispute of Tobias, outside of the first couple of books) to autistic or Asperger's-suffering. If a doctor diagnosed someone based on the same stuff as you're doing of Tobias, they'd be borderline opening themselves to malpractice lawsuits, you have to be really careful with this stuff.
The guy's fiercely loyal to his social group, has a pretty overt sense of humor, and is pretty much basically checking up on everyone else constantly to see how they're doing. Ax primarily, but you see it a lot with the rest, too. I just don't see any of this notion that Tobias has trouble functioning, doesn't understand social mores, or lives life turned inward without an ability to grasp other people's feelings or situations. It's just not there.
Throwing around these terms so loosely is a dangerous road to walk, you simply don't want to overemphasize the existence of things like this. That's how you get a generation brought up on Ritalin and the subsequent aftereffects, and a mass medical-wide apology for getting it wrong. Might be good for business initially, but does a major disservice to the community as a whole. Quiet & unassuming does not a socially-inept person make.
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Again, I don't think he has Aspergers or autism, that's nowhere near what I was getting at. And looking back on this thread, there's a lot of stuff I don't quite agree with anymore (I kinda misinterpreted a couple of the criteria for SPD, and my view on Rachel has changed since I wrote the original post). I'll stand by my position that his upbringing caused him problems and gave him more introverted tendencies (tendencies is a very deliberately used word that people seemed to miss a lot in this thread) than he otherwise would have had, but yeah.
I'm definitely not throwing around words lightly. I do think he has difficulties relating to people who aren't Rachel, but nothing that medication would fix. Often times, these kinds of things just need the individual to figure out a way past their shortcomings, on their own or with help. And that, he did. He became a hawk, and retreated into himself for a while. Then he found his role in the group and was content with it. Then Taylor tortured him, forcing him to use the hawk brain as a shield from the outside world until Rachel was able to help him mostly overcome his PTSD. Then Rachel died, and he went straight back into his hawk shell and disappeared from the world. The original post was me trying to pick apart his psyche so I could figure out what makes him tick, then put him back together in my writing. Figure out what he needs to bond with someone again, and make it happen.
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Right. I'd almost agree with some form of PTSD, seems a little overstated but yeah, his upbringing would have definitely imprinted somewhat on the personality displayed in the early books. But balancing that out, he does bond with the entire group pretty frickin' quickly, and comes out of his shell to be a contributing member in a pretty vocal sense. He's not marginalized or "other", the hawk body (and subsequent obvious lifestyle changes) aside.
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Wow, that's very interesting. :o I don't think I'd lable Tobias as "Horney" though.
Horneyan, technically speaking. Just a play on words just to get your attention.
What are "Horney" and "Horneyan" puns for?
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Tobias never struck me as being sex crazed.
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Wow, that's very interesting. :o I don't think I'd lable Tobias as "Horney" though.
Horneyan, technically speaking. Just a play on words just to get your attention.
What are "Horney" and "Horneyan" puns for?
Horneyan is a real word.
Also, The general rule is no double posting, so if you could just stick to that. Thanks.
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Wow, that's very interesting. :o I don't think I'd lable Tobias as "Horney" though.
Horneyan, technically speaking. Just a play on words just to get your attention.
What are "Horney" and "Horneyan" puns for?
Horneyan is a real word.
Also, The general rule is no double posting, so if you could just stick to that. Thanks.
Where did I post duplicate posts about my question about the punniness of the words "Horney" and "Horneyan"? (I don't see a dulicate post).
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Tobias never struck me as being sex crazed.
Read the wikipedia article I linked in the original post.