Mental Disorders/Disabilites in the Characters?

[Amaranthine]

Hi, I was going to post this in the "Pterano" topic, but then I thought of the behaviors of how the characters in the series acted and what not.

Now I just wonder, do you think there are any characters in these series with a mental disorder or anything like that? And I don't mean anything too serious, but I've just been thinking about it.

I think Pterano has some mental disorder (besides the obvious narcissism :) he seemed to have some kind of deluded, pathological lying thing going on. Just for proof, he tells these stories to his nieces and nephews about how "great" he is and even goes on to say how the flyers are the best of the best of all dinosaur species. But, it's not like he's playing a joke on anyone, he actually BELIEVES in his own lies. And he goes to these extremes of destructive behavior to get what he wants or make a statement, (like kidnapping Ducky), I mean seriously, kidnapping a kid is pretty low, even for an egotisical liar... <_<

Not to say Pterano is all bad, of course he isn't, that's one of the reasons why he's such a well liked character in our fanbase. He has a charismatic personality that makes people automatically feel "charmed" by him and he has his moments of softness when the kids are in danger. He seems to want to do the right thing, but he's conflicted with his ego and his good intentions.

[Sonicdash]

I guess one cannot leave out stuff like that... and you are right about Pterano...


apart from that... can we say there is something odd about Ozzie From LBT 2 only wanting to eat eggs and nothing else... even while falling off a cliff:

"Whatever you do, do NOT LOSE that egg"?  

[LBTDiclonius]

can we say there is something odd about Ozzie From LBT 2 only wanting to eat eggs and nothing else... even while falling off a cliff:

"Whatever you do, do NOT LOSE that egg"?  

I think Ozzy's mental.   Not to mention he sang a song about one thing. Eggs! But I love him. He's so funny.

Also, Dil seemed to have an eyesight problem. So Ichy was basically her pair of glasses.

[Amaranthine]

^Well Dil's is more of a physical disability, what I was asking is if anyone saw the psychological and mental aspects of these characters to be a bit...unsettling or something like that.

[LBTDiclonius]

^Well Dil's is more of a physical disability, what I was asking is if anyone saw the psychological and mental aspects of these characters to be a bit...unsettling or something like that.

Ohhhhh...sorry about that. I misunderstood you there. I understand now. As for any other disabitlity's in characters ahhh...I got nothing. <_<

[jansenov]

Ducky seems to be afraid of heights in certain situations. For example, in the 2nd movie when the gang is running from the lava Ducky asks Spike to carry her over the log to the other side because she's scared. In the 6th movie Ducky is afraid of crossing over the log in which the gang hid from a Sharptooth, even though the log was large enough for the Sharptooth to walk over it (I don't know the actual species of the Sharptooth).
But at other times she's not afraid of heights, for example when she and Petrie throw "cocoa nuts" at the Sharptooth (T. rex?) from the top of a palm tree in the 2nd movie, or when she jumped over the tall rock columns protruding from the bottom of a wide canyon to the other side in the 6th movie.

Maybe Ducky can manage her phobia when she's not under stress? She was in a cheerful mood and laughed when throwing fruit at the Sharptooth (at least until the predator turned around), and crossing the rock columns was just a part of the journey to Saurus Rock, which went peacefully until the gang encountered the orange Sharptooth later on.

[Allicloud]

Being a psychology student, here I go!

Petrie- originally acrophobic, later is just Nephophobic (Fear of clouds) and possibly anemophobic (Fear of heavy winds) , though he appears to be able to get over it at times.

Ducky- Mildly Acrophobic, Type B Personality (Patient, relaxed, easy)

Cera- Astraphobic (Fear of thunder and lightning), possibly, but this seems to just be a regular fear rather than a phobia. Also may have a definite Type A Personality (Aggressive, impatient, competitive), and anger management problems.

Spike- Mute, colourblind (Both could be psychological), and alot of people tend to think he may be slightly autistic too. He may also have synesthesia, which is the ability to match odd stimuli with sensations, like "Hearing colours" and "Tasting sounds", or in Spike's case "Hearing the music of the treestars"

Pterano- Megalomania, no question.

Sierra- Psychopathy. Just a straight up psychopath. And a severe case of Type A personality.

[Cancerian Tiger]

Nice descriptions there, Allicloud .  

I'd think Spike's case of synesthesia is specifically color-sound synesthesia and possibly color-taste synesthesia.  There are different kinds of synesthesia out there.  I've shown signs of being a mirror-touch synesthete for as long as I can remember :blink:.

In addition to what has been said about Cera, I also believe she's a very mild Aspie .  I see some of my (and other Aspies') characteristics in her.  They are:

*Does not take well to change.
*Likes to be alone often, or so it seems.
*Does not like strangers very much.  This could be either change and/or being forced to socialize with an unfamiliar person.
*Mood changes unpredictably.  It's said an Aspie's Limbic System is impaired, causing them to not be able to tell when their mood shifts until it's already happened.
*Doesn't care too much for physical contact, but if it's from somebody she already knows, she doesn't seem to mind too much.
*Lastly, she seems to at times have difficulty understanding others' emotions and takes things the wrong way.  For example, in the TV series episode about the shiny canyon stones, Tria nicely asks what happened to one of her shiny stones and Cera automatically takes it as an accusation against her and gets snarky with Tria.

That's what I've noticed about her, and if she in fact is an Aspie, her case would be very mild, perhaps as mild on the spectrum as possible.

[Malte279]

I'm not so sure if Cera is really to be considered even a mild form of Aspergers. For once it is important to differentiate her attitutes in the first movie (based heavily on her racist upbringing) from a psychological disability.
Does she really like to be alone? I think there are not too many scenes in LBT in which she is alone on her own accord. It more often seems to be the result either of her making a decision but everyone else choosing (literally) another way (e.g. LBT 4) in which case she usually quickly gives in after some time of stubbornness for the sake of face keeping or else she might end up lonely as a result from danger or from being shunned rather than avoiding others deliberately (e.g. TV episode "The brave little longneck girl). I think there are relatively few scenes in which she is on her own simply because she wants to without a concrete reason for it.
I'm also not certain to what degree her mood changes can be assigned to the autistic spectrum. After many of those seem to be part of her snappy attitude (I don't know if snappiness in general is a likely feauture for aspies?).
She may not care much about physical contact from someone she doesn't know, but quite honestly how many people are there who are eager for physical contact from a total stranger? Other than a handshake at the introduction or the like (for which we don't have an equivalent among the dinosaurs) I do not think there are many examples of physical contact with anyone we don't know at all that most of us would be particularly eager about. That does not really qualify as a distinct mark for Aspergers though.
As for understanding the emotions of others (and even the ability to interpret and question the own emotions) we have some significant examples in which she does acts in a way to show that emotions are not a totally mysterious field for her. Her care about Ducky in LBT 8 (while her advise not to let go of her anger was stupid of course but it does not change the fact that she unlike everyone else noticed that something was bothering Ducky), in LBT 6 she pointed out that she didn't mean to make Littlefoot mad, in LBT 9 we have her self-reflection about her attitude towards Mo.
A rough shell soft core kind of attitude seems to be one of the most continuous features of her character, but is this a likely trait for an Aspie?

With Ducky's acrophobia it is really kind of odd. She didn't hesitate to jumb the canyon in LBT 2 (nearly falling in the process) which might be good enough a reason for her to express fear when later on she has to cross a log over another canyon (where Spike comes in to carry her). In LBT 6 it is really strange though she is the one to go ahead and jumb across the very thin rocky pillars while later on she is pretty much panicked about having to cross the log over the same canyon (when crossing the log would seem a lot less dangerious than hopping over the pillars). When in LBT 7 she is abducted by the flyers she is screaming of course, but there is no indication whatsoever of her suffering from acrophobia on that occassion in which she got up higher than ever before. Just seconds after landing she is pointing out Sierra that he was not a good flyer (and he mentions being annoyed by her continuous talking during the flight) none of this suggests that she was overly afraid during the flight (she surely wasn't on the flight home on Pterano's back and didn't seem to be bothered about the height when carried by a flyer in LBT 5 either). It is too long since I have seen some of the later episodes (is there anything remarkeable about her attitude when there was a log to be crossed in LBT XII?). In the earlier movies it almost seemed more like a fear of high "bridges" than a fear of heights.

[EggStealerGirl]

So far, I think that both Spike and Sierra have mental disorders.

Perhaps Spike has some sort of autism that I have?

I also think that Sierra has psychopathy. His actions and verbal responses are proof of that.

Now that I'm on the subject, two of my LBT OCs have mental disorders;

Byron, my LBT villain, has psychopathy as well.

And Zeek, an OC that I have yet to introduce, has kleptomania.

Kleptomania is a disorder in which a person constantly steals things in order to get some sort of pleasure out of it.

Not to worry, though; he usually steals things such as rocks, and practical stuff like that. Stuff that really isn't worth too much value.

[Saft]

I strongly disagree with labelling fictional characters with mental disorders.   The example of Cera to have Asperger's and her apparent traits is strongly contested.   Anyone in real life can have those traits but does not mean that they have asperger's.  There are other formats of aspergers that Cera does not have.

[Petrie.]

A long long time ago on the GOF before we even moved to this board, I remember someone distinctly asking if Spike was mentally retarded / mentally chanllenged?  Spike clearly isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, so I tended to agree with his assessment.

[Pangaea]

It's implied (especially in the TV episode “Through The Eyes of a Spiketail”) that Spike is no less intelligent than the rest of the gang; he just chooses not to talk. I wonder if it's also possible that he's verbally impaired in some way, and he actually can't communicate verbally most of the time, or he can, but it's very difficult for him. On the only two occasions in the series when Spike did speak, he was under rather heavy emotional duress (his sister about to be eaten, and him drowning, respectively), and that “motivated” him to form words. No idea if there's an actual disability that works that way, or if that reasoning even makes sense (It's been a long time since I've done any reading on autism and other disabilities, so I'm pretty rusty in that area).

[DarkHououmon]

It's implied (especially in the TV episode “Through The Eyes of a Spiketail”) that Spike is no less intelligent than the rest of the gang; he just chooses not to talk. I wonder if it's also possible that he's verbally impaired in some way, and he actually can't communicate verbally most of the time, or he can, but it's very difficult for him. On the only two occasions in the series when Spike did speak, he was under rather heavy emotional duress (his sister about to be eaten, and him drowning, respectively), and that “motivated” him to form words. No idea if there's an actual disability that works that way, or if that reasoning even makes sense (It's been a long time since I've done any reading on autism and other disabilities, so I'm pretty rusty in that area).

That does sound at least somewhat like one communication disability called aphasia, though it's caused by brain damage. If Spike has it, then the brain damage would have to have resulted from either an unseen injury or his staying inside the shell too long may have caused some kind of brain damage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphasia

[Salvatore Blackheart]

Shorty is  antisocial and agresive.

[Daddytops2009]

Thanks Allicloud!

I have autism too by the way.

[Cancerian Tiger]

I thought this was merely meant as an opinion/discussion thread, not a diagnosis thread.  I don't see this as labeling, but instead discussing possible mental "differences" that only add to our pals' personalities an uniqueness and nothing more, but that's just my opinion .

As for Cera having AS, I still stand by my opinion on it.  No two Aspies are exactly alike, and not all of them share the same level of severity of symptoms.  I see Cera as having an even milder case than mine, and mine's mild enough that I easily blend in with the neurotypical population.  I am capable of and perform the everyday things NTs do, only I'm not really an NT .

[Rocky]

I have aspbergur's syndrom myself.

[guidolover]

ummm,I dont think that any of the dinos are mentally disabled but my parents think that Spike is disabled......he could be but its not likely.I just think that hes rather slow and perhaps dosnt care much for learning how to talk plus I think Pterano is just a bit confused.He may be like he is because hes lonely or hasnt got much experience with others.Well I dont know much about dissabilities so...bye everyone  

[Bruton the Iguanodon]

I haven't seen 2 in w while...but didn't the sharptooth throw Ducky and Petrie out of the tree when they threw nits at it and they fell to the ground and a tear fell out of Ducky's eye...? That's how I remember it, but then it quickly cut away

I'm like Cera in that I don't take well to changes.