History Main / TheRainman

Oh, and savant skills aren't always associated with autism to begin with. The person "Rain Man" was based on, a savant named Kim Peek, was not autistic.[[note]]Rather, he had [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FG_syndrome FG syndrome]], an X-linked genetic disorder that causes serious physical and mental abnormalities in the affected.[[/note]]

See also ScienceRelatedMemeticDisorder, for a truly exaggerated take on the subject; AbsentMindedProfessor and TVGenius, for somewhat milder takes; CrazyAwesome, for utter insanity as opposed to a simple mental disorder; GeniusDitz when the disability is just plain stupidity, and NeurodiversityIsSupernatural for if the character's "gift" is a superpower. Can overlap with UsefulNotes/HighFunctioningAutism.

If a kidnapping situation comes up, expect these skills to be used.

'''Professor Duncan''': Yeah, ''subjects''! Not ''RainMan''!

** "$pringfield (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling)" -- Homer gets a job as a blackjack dealer at Mr. Burns' casino, and two men resembling Charlie and Raymond Babbit from ''RainMan'' are at the blackjack table. Homer is impressed by Raymond's card-counting abilities ... until "Raymond" hears a roulette wheel spinning and starts mimicking the opening spiel of ''Series/WheelOfFortune''; Homer tries to restrain "Raymond", who begins to panic and beat the palm of his hand against his head... after which Homer begins to do the same!

* Creator/ChristianFrates, is able to make videos and tons of voice work as well as a photographic memory with near perfect recall. For example, the first time he saw WesternAnimation/Shrek2 was at May 21st, 2004 at the Hanover Mall with his father.

* ''Literature/TheMillenniumTrilogy'': Lisbeth Salander is a combination of TheRainman, DarkActionGirl, and a healthy serving of BrokenBird. She's incredibly withdrawn and doesn't get on well with others (to the point where she was legally declared mentally incompetent), but she has a PhotographicMemory and extraordinary talents for hacking and working with machinery and can dig up practically ''any'' information about someone given enough time. In the books she is speculated as being an Asperger, but she doesn't really fit the definition given the calculated ruthlessness, flexible independence, and lack of anal-retentive compulsions. The author himself, in talks with his editor, stated that he saw her more as a borderline sociopath with incredibly bad upbringing circumstances, which would fit better, or how he envisioned that a modern-day Literature/PippiLongstocking [[TruthInTelevision might turn out after growing up (as a mentally disabled orphan) in the Swedish bureaucratic system]].

** In his review of the game, [[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee]] pointed out how common this trope is in horror, and suspects Alma of ''F.E.A.R.'' and Cheryl of ''Silent Hill'' of being examples as well.

* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbASOcqc1Ss Daniel Tammet]], who unlike most savants "learned enough social skills to function in society" and (most intriguing for scientists) can actually describe his mental state. In the linked documentary ("The Boy With The Incredible Brain" in the UK and [[CulturalTranslation "Brain Man"]] in the US), he recites pi to 500 places and even meets the real Rainman and counts cards in Vegas. spoiler: He gets a ''[[UpToEleven triple Black Jack]]'' when he splits what would've been three 7s. Incredibly, he claims that when doing complex arithmetic all he's doing is describing the "landscapes" created by his synesthesia.

* Neurologist Oliver Sacks met autistic twins who would later become the inspiration for the Rainman character. Instead of just being good at counting, however, they could, as they described, ''see'' primes. The toothpick scene in Rainman was actually taken from a similar incident in real life, but with matches. After seing the matches fall, the twins instantly count to 111, then say 37 three times, which Sacks noted is a prime number, and that 3 * 37 = 111. Sacks recorded another incident where he would communicate with the twins by using primes, as part of a game they developed between the two. Unfortunately, they were both "treated" to operate without each other to fufill a role in society, which Sacks noted took away everything unique and special about them. Sacks's entire documentation of the twins can be found in the book ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_for_a_Hat The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat]]''.
** Sacks himself suffers from prosopagnosia (face blindness), and as of 2010 lost vision in his right eye, which may help him relate to his patients.

* In one of his books, paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould describes a young man named Jesse who's a Savant: He would be considered intellectual disabled in nearly every area of development, except that he has incredible instictive skill with day-date calculation. Give him any date in the future or past, and he can instantly tell you what day of the week it was/will be. At the end, Gould reveals that Jesse is [[spoiler: [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming his own son]]]].

* ''Film/RainMan'' is, naturally, the TropeNamer.

* Brian from ''WebAnimation/TheAutisticWorldOfTheAutist'' happens to be one. He has an eidetic memory and had 100% in all his maths exams.

** Which nobody ever did: November 3rd, 1957 was a Sunday, according to both Linux' cal(1) function and TheOtherWiki.

-> ''"...Amy pulls her weight by having the power to heal [the player], create cones of silence and telekinetically blast things aside. Obviously. I'd be rather put out if she didn't. In horror circles, small, mute, autistic girls are second in power only to [[Franchise/FridayThe13th Jason Voorhees]] listening to people fucking."''

** "$pringfield (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling)" -- Homer gets a job as a blackjack dealer at Mr. Burns' casino, and two men resembling Charlie and Raymond Babbit from ''RainMan'' are at the blackjack table. Homer is impressed by Raymond's card-counting abilities ... until "Raymond" hears a roulette wheel spinning and starts mimicking the opening spiel of ''WheelOfFortune''; Homer tries to restrain "Raymond", who begins to panic and beat the palm of his hand against his head... after which Homer begins to do the same!

** "Stark Raving Dad" -- Homer is mistakenly(?) sent to a mental institution, where he meets a man who can figure out complicated mathematical problems in his mind (although the question Homer asks is "what is 5 plus 4").

* Marty Balin, a founding member of the rock group Music/JeffersonAirplane (later Jefferson Starship and still later, just Starship), has a mild form of autism and led the group through its first two successful incarnations, first as a psychadelic rock group (backing fellow member Grace Slick on songs like "Somebody to Love") and later as more of an easy-listening group (singing lead on "Miracles" and "Count on Me") before taking on a successful solo career (recall 1981's "Hearts"); he also married and had two children.

* Many geniuses are minor inversions of this trope - having a high IQ tends to make it difficult to relate to regular people, and being a genius in a specific field often makes one ignore other aspects of their life. It's not uncommon for a great researcher, artist, or inventor to be inept at pretty much everything else they do, without it being a mental disorder.
* The Danish company 'Specialisterne' - and its American counterpart Aspiritech - has made a business out of hiring high-functioning 'Aspies' and taking advantage of their attention to detail and ability to instantly recognize any inconsistencies in a larger system - for software-testing purposes. Turns out that particular skill-set makes it a lot easier to hunt down bugs and glitches.
** People with Asperger's Syndrome do not necessarily possess a 'magic skill' but they tend to actually enjoy actions other may consider dull what in conjunction with their flattened affect allows them to maintain high level of concentration for an extended periods of time and makes them less prone to frustration (unless with OCD and working in chaotic environment). This trait is not 'special,' just less common among neurotypical people.
* Stephen Wiltshire, a diagnosed autistic who didn't even speak until the age of nine, but has incredible memory and artistic abilities. He can draw any target from memory after one look at it - including, once, a complete London cityscape after a single 15-minute helicopter ride.

** [[Literature/TheStand M.O.O.N., that spells]] "Magic People With Mental Conditions"... The sort that ward off [[BigBad evil]] [[CosmicHorrorStory interdimensional]] [[TheAntichrist apocalyptic]] [[EvilOverlord overlords]]. They also tend to be [[TooDumbToFool secretly wise]] characters who have KarmicProtection against the villain.

* We might as well nickname this trope "Stephen King's Magic People With Mental Conditions."

** The autistic kid in ''The Regulators'' is a telepath.
** The intellectual disabled "Duddits" from ''Dreamcatcher'' has a [[PsychicLink telepathic connection to his friends]] and is [[spoiler:able to help fend off the alien invasion. In the movie he was "off" because he actually was an alien]]... apparently.

* ''A Wizard Alone'', the sixth book in the YoungWizards series, centered around an autistic character who was portrayed as locked up in his own head on account of being autistic (which is a very inaccurate portrayal of what it is like), but was taking advantage of this writers' error to lock up the BigBad in there with him. A little off in that being autistic didn't seem to give him a lot, otherwise, and was basically treated as something awful that'd been sicced on him by the Forces of Entropy and a metaphor for people closing themselves off because of a trauma such as grief. [[spoiler: In the end he pushes it off on [[strike:Satan is everywhere]] the Lone Power and becomes a normal wizard, apart from his special ability to be two places at once, which is caused by being a conduit for holy power. Which is unrelated to the autism, incidentally, or at least not ''said'' to be related.]] Something like that.

* One of TheBabySittersClub's clients was an Autistic girl who couldn't talk unless she was asked to name a date or if singing was part of the music she heard (she was a piano savant). At one point her sitter discovers that a neighborhood boy was charging other children to see the freaky savant girl.

* [[TheMillenniumTrilogy Lisbeth Salander]] is a combination of TheRainman, DarkActionGirl, and a healthy serving of BrokenBird. She's incredibly withdrawn and doesn't get on well with others (to the point where she was legally declared mentally incompetent), but she has a PhotographicMemory and extraordinary talents for hacking and working with machinery and can dig up practically ''any'' information about someone given enough time. In the books she is speculated as being an Asperger, but she doesn't really fit the definition given the calculated ruthlessness, flexible independence, and lack of anal-retentive compulsions. The author himself, in talks with his editor, stated that he saw her more as a borderline sociopath with incredibly bad upbringing circumstances, which would fit better, or how he envisioned that a modern-day Literature/PippiLongstocking [[TruthInTelevision might turn out after growing up (as a mentally disabled orphan) in the Swedish bureaucratic system]].

* [[TheMillenniumTrilogy Lisbeth Salander]] is a combination of TheRainman, {{badass}} DarkActionGirl, and a healthy serving of BrokenBird. She's incredibly withdrawn and doesn't get on well with others (to the point where she was legally declared mentally incompetent), but she has a PhotographicMemory and extraordinary talents for hacking and working with machinery and can dig up practically ''any'' information about someone given enough time. In the books she is speculated as being an Asperger, but she doesn't really fit the definition given the calculated ruthlessness, flexible independence, and lack of anal-retentive compulsions. The author himself, in talks with his editor, stated that he saw her more as a borderline sociopath with incredibly bad upbringing circumstances, which would fit better, or how he envisioned that a modern-day Literature/PippiLongstocking [[TruthInTelevision might turn out after growing up (as a mentally disabled orphan) in the Swedish bureaucratic system]].

See also ScienceRelatedMemeticDisorder, for a truly exaggerated take on the subject; CrazyAwesome, for utter insanity as opposed to a simple mental disorder; GeniusDitz when the disability is just plain stupidity, and NeurodiversityIsSupernatural for if the character's "gift" is a superpower. Can overlap with UsefulNotes/HighFunctioningAutism.

Oh, and savant skills aren't always associated with autism to begin with. The person "Rain Man" was based on, a savant named Kim Peek, was not autistic.

* ''FlashForward2009'' used the 'prattling savant' variety of this trope with Gabriel.

* In Creator/StephenKing's ''Rose Red'', Annie Wheaton is too autistic to really speak to anyone, but she is also [[PsychicPowers telekinetic and telepathic]]. See also Literature, above.

* Genetic scientist Anton of ''[[Literature/EndersGame Ender's Shadow]]'' says he was inspired by Rainman-like savants, who showed him the human brain could be far smarter than it typically was. But that intelligence always comes with a cost: in the case of the children he genetically enhances ''in utero'', it's a [[CastFromLifespan drastically reduced lifespan]].

[[folder:Film]]

[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]

-->"I'm thinking about kittens... guh... kittens covered with spikes! That makes me angry! YEEAAAARRRRGH! My name is Michael J. Caboose and '''I hate babies.'''"
* Brian from WebAnimation/TheAutisticWorldOfTheAutist happens to be one. He has an eidetic memory and had 100% in all his maths exams.

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* Noah in Webcomic/ElGoonishShive has an number of Aspergers-like traits, including having ''absolutely no idea'' how social conversations are supposed to work. Knowing the series, however, it's more likely he'll turn out to be an alien or other-worldly being who just doesn't get human culture.
** [[spoiler: It's very heavily hinted (his connection to Damien, how he sees Grace, the fact he was seen when talking about a sixth experimental chimera (OK, in shadow, but his hair is far to unique to miss) that he has at least some connection to Grace and the other Chimera prior to being adopted by Raven.]]
* Jiro Sasaki from "RubysWorld". Somewhat subverted in that he was a literal example in his youth, but his autistic brain has been complemented by the SuperSoldier process to which he was subjected. His body and brain are augmented by nanotech, so his talents can be applied to pretty much anything... except understanding other human beings.