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Stuart: Yeah.
This character's behaviour is so bizarre, so clearly outside the norm, that Real Life psychologists would be scrambling for the diagnostic manual to try to figure out what to diagnose them with. It's way beyond mere ordinary quirkiness. No reasons are given for the strange behaviour. No specific diagnosis is ever mentioned in the story. In fact, any resemblance to any real disorder is likely accidental; the character's symptoms are exactly those symptoms the writer wants them to have. It is a case of Ambiguous Disorder.
The disordered behaviour will almost always be Played for Laughs. This technique is generally used to avoid writing yet another Patient of the Week about some specific disorder and to focus in on the laugh-producing elements without having to deal with the serious issues associated with real disorders.
Compare The Disease That Shall Not Be Named, Soap Opera Disease, Victorian Novel Disease, and G-Rated Mental Illness.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- Osaka from Azumanga Daioh thinks in ways so completely different from other people that it's easy to think she might be mentally disabled in some way. She's dreamy and inattentive, prone to weird misunderstandings, has poor motor control, and occasionally seems to suffer from actual hallucinations. But although she seems mentally slow, she gets only slightly below average grades at a regular school and manages to socialize more-or-less normally. She even has some Genius Ditz tendencies: she's prone to penetrating insights that escape all the other characters, she's surprisingly well-versed in some obscure topics like marine biology, and her odd way of looking at the world makes her extremely good at certain kinds of riddles. The joke here — which can easily escape Western viewers — is that Osaka's spacey, laid-back personality makes her a humorous inversion of the stereotypical brash, loudmouthed, Hot Blooded Idiot From Osaka.
- Apachai Hopachai of Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple acts childlike to a degree that goes way beyond the usual Man Child level.
- Inspector Lunge from Monster. Absent staring, hand-tics, Spock Speak, socially clumsy, isolated, compulsively obsessive. It's especially weird that nobody ever mentions any possible diagnosis, considering the manga's protagonist is a doctor and several characters who are psychologists, though mostly of the forensic variety, also feature prominently.
- Bakuman。: Eiji Niizuma has extremely odd sitting patterns, demonstrates some trouble with social conventions and nonverbal clues, and has an obsessive interest and talent in a particular subject. Ice Queen Aiko Iwase also qualifies.
- Edward from Cowboy Bebop is ludicrously intelligent but shows absolutely no ability (or inclination) to socialize in a remotely normal fashion for even brief periods. She almost always skips, cartwheels or dances instead of walking, and she sings improvised songs about whatever she's doing, often as a substitute for normal conversation. Her closest friend is a hyperintelligent, non-talking dog.
- White from Tekkon Kinkreet: there's definitely something mentally different about him, but it's impossible to distinctly tell what. He's exceedingly childish for his age, refusing to bathe unless prompted and unable to tie his own shoes at age ten. Yet at the same time White has a... ''vivid'' imagination and occasionally a strange, almost cosmic insight.
- Detective Conan:
- Hattori Heiji's really thick about other people's feelings, bad at picking up social cues, and extremely awkward a lot of the time. He can't lie without stuttering and giggling like an idiot, and he latches onto ideas or interests and does not let them go. For example, when he first became friends with Conan, he talked about Shinichi SO incessantly that his childhood friend believes him to have a girlfriend in Tokyo with the last name Kudo. He's also extremely adept at remembering little details and noticing anything out of the ordinary, no matter how minor.
- The protagonist, Shinichi Kudo/Conan: In the first episode, he does not know when to stop rambling on about Holmes and Conan Doyle and talks to Ran about it the entire time they are at the roller coaster. Even whenever he dates her and starts off wanting to tell her his feelings, instead he ends up gabbing about Holmes again. He is not very social and it is implied that many of his teachers and classmates believed him to be arrogant and self-absorbed. Also, he seems to be quite blunt and unaware of social tact.
- Considering how quirky most of the characters in Eyeshield 21 are, the fact that both Shin and Tetsuma are both considered a little "off" by both the other characters and standards of the series says something:
- Shin speaks in monotone with textbook level formality, has an encyclopedic knowledge of everything related to physical fitness (he maintains a VERY strict nutrition plan and seems to be very well-read on human anatomy), and absolute devotion to improving himself as a football player. At the same time, he speaks his mind in the most direct way possible (both positively and negatively), has no interpersonal skills or awareness of social norms (he doesn't see anything wrong with walking around shirtless), and is completely oblivious about anything that's not football or school related (when his teammate Sakuraba grows a beard, gets a crew-cut, and starts training harder, the only thing Shin notices is that Sakuraba's muscle tone has improved). Nonetheless, he's very respectful and always means well, so the few friends he has seem to take his many idiosyncrasies in stride.
- Tetsuma is very literal-minded, even more oblivious to social norms then Shin (as well as being an expert on his position), and can't seem to function normally without his best friend to tell him what to do. When he does speak (which he'll only do if someone specifically tells him to speak), it's very robotic and formal. Most likely because of his difficulty in interacting with people, he dearly treasures his friendship with Kid, who accepts him regardless.
- Lain in her initial appearances within Serial Experiments Lain, she shows impairment in the use of nonverbal behaviors, has developed few peer relationships and the ties with two of her friends are very weak, does not show enthusiasm to seek enjoyment or socialization with others, and lacks social or emotional reciprocity. She also rarely speaks, and cannot converse well or start/hold a prolonged conversation. Finally, she becomes unusually enthralled by computer/technological objects and their construction as the series goes on. Never mind the loss of sense of time and space, vivid hallucinations(?), moments of amnesia, hearing voices... All possibly justified from being an Artificial Human. Or the Anthropomorphic Personification of the Internet. Or something.
- Jirarudan/Lawrence III from Pokémon 2000: He's an art collector of a ridiculously high magnitude who seems to have learned social skills entirely by rote, has a narrow and fixed attention span, wears a long coat with an undershirt to tropical islands in the middle of summer, has almost no change in facial expression or vocal intonation despite living by his passions, seems to have difficulty recognizing cues from others, and takes everything, including the legend and Misty screaming at him, only by the words presented without considering tone or alternate meaning.
- Nozomu "Mr. Despair" Itoshiki of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei. Focuses on one topic for an incredible amount of time; depressive and paranoid to a nearly delusional degree (although it's Played for Laughs); is a self-proclaimed master of not looking people in the eye.
- Yuuki Rieko of 14Juicy displays a limited emotional range and seems to have no interest in, or aptitude for, anything but soccer.
- Sawako from Kimi ni Todoke. At the age of fifteen she's never made a single friend, and frequently misinterprets social cues with hilarious results. She doesn't seem to find this at all weird. Though this is mostly explained by her frightening appearance causing people to avoid her and her resulting social inexperience.
- Amuro Ray of the original Mobile Suit Gundam is capable of social interaction, but absolutely hates it. He's paranoid, prone to focusing on himself, and in his Establishing Character Moment, is shown sitting in his room in his underwear, not having eaten in a day, looking at a computer chip through a microscope and studiously ignoring the evacuation siren blaring outside. His friend Frau specifically states that this isn't uncommon behaviour, and that his neighbour was supposed to come in and tell him if the siren was going off. Needless to say, there are some debates in the fandom as to just what, if anything, he might have.
- Kira Yamato of Gundam SEED shares many of Amuro's personality traits; the main difference is that he tries to be social (despite sucking at it) while Amuro deliberately avoids other people at all times.
- Zeta Gundam's Kamille Biden is what you get when you take a very Amuro-esque personality (love of machinery, poor social skills, mild paranoia) and combine it with some serious daddy issues. Big Bad Paptimus Scirocco shares many of these personality traits, and compensates for them with his Psychic Powers.
- Shu Ouma from Guilty Crown is an Extreme Doormat with No Social Skills who admits to himself that his mind might be out of step with everyone else's, and has only made "friends" by going along with what other people say. When he makes a carelessly cold remark about someone else and is reprimanded for it, he can only think about his own feelings that were hurt, rather than feeling bad about what he said. He also has trouble with making eye contact with other people.
- Eru Chitanda of Hyouka gets easily distracted and has an outright obsession with mysteries, and isn't able to stop thinking about them until she solves them. It's also implied she may have some sensory integration issues and seems to have much sharper senses than other people.
- In Fruits Basket:
- Ren has some sort of intense codependency focused on her husband — so much so that years after his death, she remains intensely hostile to the point of extreme emotional abusiveness toward any female character she saw as a rival for his affection, including her own daughter. This seems reflect insecurity over class issues in their relationship — Ren was a lowly maid before the head of the household fell in love with her — but her behavior is so extreme that it's hard to believe she wasn't a bit unhinged even before; at one point, her response to feeling as if her "mind is very clear" is to take a knife and threaten her own child with it, to get back an empty box. The most we're told is that she's "a little sick, mentally and physically", but no specifics are given.
- Akito shows similar behavior. Intense co-dependency towards the other Zodiacs (to the point of having a complete breakdown at the thought of any of them leaving) just the tip of the iceberg. Akito has also been known to physically and mentally assault anyone who threatens what she considers to be the happy little world the Zodiac all live in. She has no friends outside of the Zodiac, and even those relationships are awkward and strained. While more than a little of this is likely the result of Akito's abuse at the hands of Ren, it's also hinted that Akito inherited some sort of mental instability from Ren and/or Akira.
- Generally Played for Laughs, but the extremely strange behavior of most of the cast of Axis Powers Hetalia coupled with the fact that they've lived through countless years of wars, diseases, and other difficult times makes one wonder. Plenty of fan works, both serious and humorous, run with the idea of the nations getting therapy for the many emotional and psychological issues they show signs of having.
- Erza Scarlet from Fairy Tail is extremely socially awkward and serious, and holds other people to such high standards that she tends to drive them away. Much of this can be explained by her traumatic childhood and the fact that she hasn't been very well socialized with other people.
- Ellis in El Cazador de la Bruja is somewhere between this and a Cloudcuckoolander. Possibly explained by her being an Artificial Human.
- Yu Narukami in Persona 4: The Animation. His general lack of expressions, his near-constant monotone, his Cloudcuckoolander way of speaking, and his often brutal honesty suggest something on the autism spectrum. Of course, it doesn't stop him from being a total badass and a hit with the ladies.
- In Sakurasou No Pet Na Kanojo, despite Mashiro's autistic behavior, it's never really stated that she has a specific mental disorder. This does not, however, prevent the deuterocanon of Mashiro being autistic among the Western viewers, as her behaviour is close to textbook-accurate autism.
- The character Satsuki Yatouji from X1999 is a computer genius and one of the world's most dangerous hackers. In her personal life she mostly avoids contacts with other people (and is frequently annoyed by it) and spends most of her time connected to the supercomputer Beast. She is also extremely rational and seems to have problems with understanding human emotions.
- Super-detectives L and Near from Death Note have several odd tics and habits and a near genius intellect that highly suggest some manner of disorder, though nothing's ever spelled out in the series.
Comic Books
- Marv from Sin City is often considered stupid and insane, an opinion that he shares. He did poorly in school, has No Social Skills, gets "confused" a lot, and often has violent blackouts, although he has mentioned fighting in a war and suffering from symptoms indicative of severe PTSD. In his first story, he mentions that he has always been good at puzzles, implying that he's capable of solving complex mysteries. He was certainly intelligent enough to go up against a powerful crime family. He also cares a lot about his friends and family, is friendly towards complete strangers, and is something of an awkward gentleman with women. On the other hand, he often displays bizarre emotional responses, most prominently a near-sociopathic Lack of Empathy — there have been multiple instances of him remaining genuinely perfectly calm during moments of intense chaotic violence, and he's capable of cool, calculated cruelty and a complete lack of queasiness or discomfort while casually torturing people to death (not that his victims didn't deserve it).
- Calvin from Calvin And Hobbes: Highly intelligent for his age but performs poorly in school, prefers associating with his (possibly) Imaginary Friend to socializing with real people, tends to retreat into an unusually rich fantasy life, has many strange Cloudcuckoolander quirks, can be a stickler for his own personal schedules and standards of behavior, and doesn't understand why people act the way they do.
- At the beginning of The Stupiders we are told that everyone has at least one problem or quirk, but what exactly those problems are is left up to the reader to discern.
- Every Batman villain, as well as Batman himself in some interpretations. If anything The Joker could probably be diagnosed with "Being The Joker".
- Brian of Knights Of The Dinner Table. He has a job that involves running an online service from his home (which he is said to not clean) and painting model figurines. He has a savant-like memory of obscure roleplaying game rules, yet sometimes forgets his own phone number. He is stated to become very uncomfortable when any social group exceeds four to six people, especially when it happens away from the context of a shared interest. He rarely speaks unless dealing with gaming, and has a face and body language that is usually unreadable. And finally, some things that would annoy other people seem to have no effect on him at all, while something that others would take in stride can send him into a sudden and brutal fury, typically involving flipping over the gaming table in rage.
- In Runaways, Nico is shown to have issues dealing with stress, loss, and rejection. In the first story arc, she mentions having "this thing with stress and eating". Later, after Karolina leaves to marry Xavin, Nico sits in her bedroom, with a pile of her clothes scattered around her. She later notes that she has a tendency to throw herself at "the nearest warm body" when she's upset or confused (kissing Chase after a near-death experience, even though he's dating Gert, reacting to Gert's death by sleeping with Viktor, etc). Of course, all of the characters act in different ways to cope with the stress of crimefighting, but Nico is the only one who feels her behavior is unacceptable.
Film
Fanfic
- The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic Jericho has a case of this which is not played for laughs, but rather for drama. The narrator Jercho has one of these. While his behavior is often kooky and generally silly (like monologing his life aloud), at times he gets downright evil (being mentally unable to comprehend how beating a girl into unconsciousness was wrong). Word Of God states Jericho has a real condition, but the author refuses to admit what it is. As such, there's a lot of guessing by the fans as to what condition he really has..
- John Egbert in Homestuck fanfic Brainbent is the only person in St. Lobaf whose disorder is unclear, though fans speculate that he has schizophrenia.
- Sai in Second Bloom is not very social, very good at art, loves bright colors, has a lisp and is a little slow, but since this is the shinobi world, they don't identify it.
- Otacon's portrayal in Stray maintains the Ambiguously Disordered traits he has in canon, but adds a few new symptoms - he's not great with metaphors and figurative language and it's mentioned at one point that he can find facial expressions hard to read.
- In the Sherlock fanfic Baker School Blitz, while everyone at Baker Boarding House has some sort of mental disorder or disability, since it's a special school for the disabled, no one explicitly comments on the nature of Sherlock's disorder, nor that of his brother, Mycroft.
Literature
- Ignatius J. Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces. He's a hoarder, a massive conspiracy theorist, and an extreme luddite and creature of habit.
- Toto in the Gone series.
- Lisbeth Salander of The Millennium Trilogy. She exhibits several oddities, including Photographic Memory, extremely selective interests (mathematics and computer hacking), and very few changes in expression or vocal tone. The author said he envisioned her as somebody who has turned into "somewhat of a sociopath" from incredibly traumatic experiences, or how a modern-day Pippi Longstocking might turn out after growing up as an mentally odd orphan handled by the somewhat infamous Swedish bureaucratic system.
- It's implied that he may be OCD or have mild autism, but no clear diagnosis for Matt is ever given in Peter Pays Tribute. He carries a bottle of Febreeze with him to public restaurants for fun, apparently.
- Mr Darcy of ''Pride and Prejudice': He shows a general awkwardness in social situations, tends to become withdrawn when uncomfortable and behaves very differently when inside of his 'comfort zone' i.e. Pemberley. He seemingly has few friends, but is extremely close to those he does have, and shows some difficulty communicating both verbally- in his extremely awkward dance with Elizabeth when she basically has to explain what they can talk about, and non verbally- to everyone else, it's pretty clear that Elizabeth dislikes him. He's utterly oblivious to every non-verbal cue she gives him, and has to be flat out told. He also shows an inability/unwillingness to lie.
- In the book Changeling by Delia Sherman, it's strongly implied that Changeling has been diagnosed with something, but it's never stated what.
- Colin from An Abundance Of Katherines — his social skills are a mess. His only real friend in high school actually needs to tell him when his conversation topics are boring. They become friends after he thinks it is funny to refer to his eye as a "pupillary sphincter." His friend, who was home-schooled up until that point, remarks something along the lines of, "I've only been in public school for 2 days, and I know that your sphincter is not something you talk about."
- In Peter F. Hamilton's The Dreaming Void, implants giving people their own built-in "heads-up display" are ubiquitous, but only Troblum is described as having or needing a "protocol behaviour program" to prompt him through ordinary social situations. He's got an obsessive interest in a thousand-years-past war (that just so happens to be the subject of the two previous books set in that universe) and is explicitly stated to have no real ties to anyone in the Commonwealth.
- Sherlock Holmes as portrayed by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Later depictions of the character can differ, but the original stories make it fairly clear that it's not just that Holmes is incredibly smart — his brain works in a different way from most people. He's got a hefty dose of social awkwardness and assorted weird behavioral quirks to go along with the extreme intelligence and perspicacity, as well.
- The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Nighttime: the main character is clearly non-neurotypical, and readers almost invariably assume he's autistic, but no diagnosis is stated in the book — and in fact the author has said he didn't intentionally base the character's behaviour on any specific disorder.
- Daymar the wizard from the Dragaera books is truly brilliant, but also extremely Literal-Minded, and oblivious to social cues unless they're explicitly spelled out — and after they are explicitly spelled out, he never shows even a trace of embarrassment about how awkward his own behavior was.
- Charlie in The Perks Of Being A Wallflower is a more serious example of this. He was held back for being "emotionally damaged", but the disorder is never named. He seems to have trouble in social situations and seems to be very sheltered from normal life.
- Bella from Twilight. By her own admission, she has trouble connecting with people in general. Apparently her only friend in Phoenix was her mother, who she still forgets to write to when in Forks. She becomes extremely obsessed with things like becoming a vampire, while making no plans for things like college or a career. She becomes so unhealthily obsessed with Edward that when he leaves her, she first is catatonic and then makes no effort to move on with her life, instead choosing to spend her college money on motorcycles and nearly killing herself cliff diving. She gives very little thought to the consequences of her actions, and tends to not understand why people react the way they do. A lot of her traits (her lack of desire to have an adult life, her general Lack of Empathy, her repeated lack of regard for her father's house rules, etc) hit all of Dr. Hare's checklist points for sociopathy.
- The narrator of Oh, the Humanity!: A Gentle Guide to Social Interaction for the Feeble Young Introvert has a pretty spectacular one, mixed with generous doses of denial and Know-Nothing Know-It-All. Traits include an obsession with germs, total disinterest in other people's lives ("I meant to call you to tell you you have so much to live for...I'm sorry, I've just been doing so much gardening lately"), a grasp on human interaction that can at best be called fumble-fingered, an inability to focus or prioritise (at one point delaying a pub crawl for two hours because he forgot to give his parakeet its ear medication, and didn't like to wake it up), and massive, hubristic pride in the social skills he does not in fact possess. It's unclear how much of this emerged from his Hilariously Abusive Childhood.
- A side story in The Dresden Files, told from Murphy's point of view, makes Harry Dresden an in-universe example of this: From most Muggles' viewpoint, Dresden, a self-declared wizard, has a tendency to poke around crime scenes, looking or asking for things like toenail clippings or hair straws, mumbling to himself and never looking people in the eyes. In addition to this is his at time dubious personal hygiene, Man Child personality, near-pathological need to snark at and gainsay authority figures, and Nerves of Steel that makes it unnerving when he seldom shows outwards reactions to things normal people would lose their wits over. The end result is that it makes him seem, at best, a high-functioning but very eccentric autistic. By reading most of the books (which are from Harry's point of view), most of these behaviour patterns are explained logically, but that doesn't make him seem any less weird to the muggles he must uphold The Masquerade to.
- Gracie Milne, a minor character in Tipping The Velvet, is a bit like this. She doesn't really have any identifiable symptoms, but she's definitely more than a little odd, acts rather young for her age, and she may have sensory processing differences considering her fixation with colors.
- A lot of mentally ill people in classical literature, especially from the 19th century and earlier, tends to be this; psychiatry was a very young field back then (and, until a certain point in history, didn't exist at all), and so there was no manual to turn to if you wanted to give your character odd quirks.
- Diary Of A Wimpy Kid:
- Fregley. He has no friends and is blissfully unaware that his bizarre behavior disgusts others. He's a more negative portrayal, with his social deviations shown as weird and repulsive. Of course, this could be a case of Unreliable Narrator, since Greg Heffley (the narrator) is just a kid and probably doesn't know much about any disorders that Fregley might have. His repulsiveness in Greg's eyes could just be due to a lack of understanding.
- A case could also be made for Rowley, whose naďveté and childishness could be interpreted as a disorder.
- Harry Potter:
- Luna Lovegood could have some kind of personality disorder, probably because of her upbringing under her eccentric father, combined with witnessing her mother's death and being socially isolated for her outlandish ideas. However, she's a very wise girl with a strong sense of empathy and understanding of people, especially Harry.
- The books heavily imply that pre-Voldemort Tom Riddle was a sociopath, but it's never directly stated what precisely is wrong with him. He sees absolutely no value in forming relationships with others unless there is some benefit in it for him, he is completely incapable of feeling love to any capacity, he enjoys working alone and refuses to confide in any of his "friends", he is disturbingly good at understanding how to manipulate people into doing what he wants, and can kill anyone, from babies to his own remaining family, without any hint of remorse. Word Of God also states that being conceived under a love potion left him completely unable to experience or understand love.
- Harry himself also shows symptoms of PTSD during book five.
- Jeremy Clockson in Thief of Time, who has No Social Skills and becomes agitated to the point of violence when confronted with inaccurate timekeeping. He also has medicine, so presumably he has been diagnosed with something, but we never learn what (and this being Discworld, where No Sense of Humor is Nichtlachen-Keinwortz Syndrome, it's unlikely the diagnosis was anything a Roundworld psychologist would recognise).
- Fifty Shades of Grey:
- Anastasia Steele is extremely thin, has a poor self-esteem and body-image and never wants to eat. This brings a whole new meaning to her nickname, "Ana".
- Christian Grey, who by his own admission is "fifty shades of fucked up". He dislikes interacting with others, save for a small circle of people he's close to. He seems to have difficulty with communications, often getting angry with Ana for not knowing something she couldn't know unless he told her. He has extreme issues with impulsive behavior, immediately responding to a joke e-mail Ana sent by driving to her house, tying her to the bed, and forcing himself on her, without giving her a chance to explain the situation. He also seems unable to rationally think about previous situations (for example, he continues to hate blondes because a blonde police officer took him away from his dead mother's body, even though sixteen or so years have passed and he should be able to think about it differently). Oh, and he enjoys taking submissives who look like his "crack whore" mother (his own nickname for her), because he enjoys pretending he's beating her. He blames this behavior all on childhood trauma even though said trauma ended when he was four and, by his own admittance, he doesn't remember much of it.
- Handled fairly realistically in the works of H. P. Lovecraft. Several of his stories involve characters going insane but never clearly diagnosing them. Part of this can, however, be attributed to the fact that psychology was still a relatively new field when he was writing (at the time electroshock therapy and labotomization were still considered acceptable proceedures for dealing with extremely ill patients). It can also be justified by the fact that some of his characters may be suffering from mental conditions that even modern psychology wouldn't be able to clearly place (any "official" diagnosis being an approximation), especially given that most of his "insane" characters became such as a result of seeing horrors beyond their comprehension.
- It's often speculated that Scarlett O'Hara from Gone With The Wind is a sociopath or a psychopath. An actual psychiatrist, Dr. Hervey Cleckley, argued that Scarlett was a fictional example of a partial psychopath in his 1941 book The Mask of Sanity: "Her incapacity for a true commitment in love is apparently unmodifiable; her egocentricity is basic. She seems to be without means of understanding the strong emotions in those about her or of having adequate awareness of what makes them act when they act in accordance with principles they value. Unlike the complete psychopath, she successfully pursues ends that lead to her material well-being and she avoids putting herself in positions of obvious folly and shame. In her, however, we sense an inward hollowness and a serious lack of insight."
- Wiress from The Hunger Games acts a lot like a person with severe autism, but she might just be deeply traumatized - or just generally odd. A case could also be made for "mad" Annie Cresta.
- Bradley Chalkers from There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom clearly has some kind of behavioral/conduct disorder — he bullies people, performs poorly in class, has almost no friends, displays odd behaviors like cutting paper into tiny pieces — but it's never specified.
- In Hush, Hush, Nora generally cannot/will not remember traumatic events that happened to her (such as Jules trying to kill her, or someone drugging and chasing her). She is obsessed with her boyfriend and whether or not he's cheating on her, and is incredibly concerned about him leaving her even before he shows any indication that he'd do so.
Live-Action TV
- Coronation Street: has Roy Cropper who is simply seen as odd by his neighbours with his bizarre lectures on really trivial subjects, fascination with details, and that little bag he carries everywhere.
- CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: Gil Grissom. His level of social understanding fluctuates between episodes, along with his attention to trivial details and love of bugs.
- Law & Order: Criminal Intent: Detective Robert Goren; it's suggested he simply never learned proper social skills growing up because his entire family suffered from one mental illness or another. Goren is what happens when the genetic dice are loaded to roll Snake-Eyes and come up Lucky 7 anyway.
- The Big Bang Theory: Most everyone has some significant hang-ups.
- Sheldon is socially challenged, has fairly monotonous speech, and exhibits heavily ritualized behaviornote So much so that his roommate actually kept takeout boxes in the trunk of his car to forestall the inevitable flipout when Sheldon discovered that the Chinese joint he thought his dinner was coming from had gone out of business (some two years before he ends up actually getting the news). He even has hypersensitive hearing; the others refer to it as "Vulcan hearing" and are usually cursing it due to his overhearing things they wish he didn't. He also shows a disturbing lack of empathy, obsessive behavior, and an unusual number of phobias.
- Leonard rather noticeably struggles with keeping eye contact in a conversation and fidgets with his fingers constantly. Besides Raj (who is unable to speak in front of a girl) he is the one with the most trouble actually trying to communicate in an unfamiliar social environment. Unusual for this trope, these things are downplayed as the series progressed, factoring a lot of his issues into his low self-esteem at the beginning and showing a great deal of personal growth.
- Raj was shown to be almost biologically unable to to speak in front of a woman without some sort of anti-anxiety medication or alcohol to calm his nerves. This ended up actually being, well, diagnosed in the second season by Leonard's mother as selective mutism.
- Sheldon's Distaff Counterpart Amy Farrah Fowler shows many of the same symptoms, but later given a twist that makes her further removed from being a female Sheldon. Some of her oddity stems from the show playing her demi-sexuality for laughs.
- Before Amy was introduced, fans saw Leonard's mom as a "female Sheldon". She's cold, detached (to the point she's only ever had sex to procreate and Leonard was forced to build a hugging machine that his dad borrowed) has no problem with treating her son as a test subject and embarrassing him (despite, ironically, studying and understanding human behavior is her job, which also makes this a case of The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes), and several weird Sheldon-esque traits such as demanding her coffee be made a certain impossibly specific way and announcing "I have to urinate" every time she gets up to go to the bathroom. From dialogue, it's clear her mother deliberately held her back from socializing with other children when she was growing up.
- Community:
- Abed. He is incredibly fascinated with films and television and is a bit obsessed with projecting their tropes onto real life. He also has a strange, somewhat sterile demeanor, doesn't seem to know (or even when corrected, care about) how to go about certain social situations, and is face-blind.
- Lampshaded in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons when he is referred to as "Abed The Undiagnosable".
- In one deleted scene, a drunk Abed was speaking only in a neverending string of self-describing movie quotes, but randomly grunted "high-functioning" in the middle of his rant.
- One of his lines in the Regional Holiday Music Christmas rap song Jehovah's Secret Witness
 is "On the spectrum? None of your business."
- Abed's "mental issues" have been present since his introductory scene in the pilot, where he rattles off everything he knows about Britta from their one conversation including that she has a brother who "works with children with a disorder I might want to look up".
- He also becomes highly distressed whenever anyone tries to tamper with his life as he's familiar with it (such as messing with the engine of his Dreamatorium or moving clocks an hour back). Whenever he's about to have a breakdown he lets out a high-pitched whine.
- While not being exactly there at all, Taxi's Jim Ignatowski often forgets about people, he lived for five years in a condemned building and he once pestered Alex to the point of harassment for not watching E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. He's also an Hero Worshipper of Louie, who ostensibly treats him like crap.
- Matthew Gray Gubler claims that he plays Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds as autistic, something that's never been confirmed. The only time that the possibility did get a mention in the show is when a villain described Reid as having autistic leanings, but this was part of an extremely inaccurate Breaking Speech delivered to this entire team. (Reid's issues may, however, stem more from his difficult childhood and equally difficult job.)
- Spinelli on General Hospital. Nicknames everyone, Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness...but when Dr. Matt Hunter suggests undergoing tests for autism, he refuses, saying "I am me".
- Reginald Barclay from Star Trek: The Next Generation shows severe social anxiety, along with an obsessive streak and a compulsive tendency to retreat into fantasy.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
- Anya — at first viewers are led to believe her complete lack of social skills is a result of having been a demon for centuries, but eventually it's revealed that she acted exactly the same before she became a demon.
- Andrew also shows a fair degree of social ineptness, sometimes flat affect, and a fascination with certain topics that leads him to recite in detail at times.
- Spike managed to improve his social skills over the course of a century, but he has a mixed bag of vaguely bipolar, obsessive, borderline and schizoidal tendencies which come and go with the story. Whenever he's bored, he'll do something ridiculously suicidal just for the hell of it, he stalked Buffy for over a year, and once had a full-blown psychotic episode.
- Michael Scott of The Office — No Social Skills, near-total inability to understand metaphors, sarcasm or hyperbole, savant-like skills in regards to sales, very strong indications that he has never had any friends, and overall behavior that no normal person would believe was acceptable. This pops up in a lot Steve Carell roles.
- Cal Lightman of Lie to Me. Quite socially uncomfortable, with a very fixated interest on lies and facial expressions as well as psychology. He destroyed his own marriage because he couldn't switch off.
- In Hannibal protagonist Will Graham claims to be on the autistic spectrum. He exhibits several characteristic commonly associated with Aspergers but Bryan Fuller commented in an interview that,"[With Asperger's] you can't read social cues. [Will] has an empathy disorder where he reads too much and it overwhelms him".
- Fringe
- Dr. Walter Bishop started like this, but this is jossed in a Cerebus Retcon where Walter got William Bell to perform brain surgery on him to stop him becoming evil like Walternate. All indications are he was already an eccentric genius before the elective brain surgery, though.
- Astrid is highly intelligent, gravitates toward Spock Speak but makes realistic exceptions to it, and doesn't look at anyone when she talks. In her A Day in the Limelight episode, we learn that she is fully aware that she isn't "normal" and feels incredibly sad and frustrated that she couldn't relate to her father the way she wanted to.
- Bernard Black of Black Books. Very socially awkward and uncomfortable with changes in an extremely repetitive routine. Also has an extreme Lack of Empathy, enjoys the suffering of others, and honestly doesn't seem to understand that having his book shop sell books and make money is a good thing (he's infuriated when Manny sells his entire stock, because it would mean a minute long phone call to his supplier). Also The Alcoholic, which probably exacerbates things. When Manny leaves, he is so unable to take care of himself that it nearly kills him.
- NCIS: Lab Rat Abby Sciuto. She is very good at what she does and shows a childlike sense of joy while working, she will often give long-winded and highly technical speeches when explaining something, she is extremely attached to and protective of those she cares about, and she becomes almost unable to function both professionally and personally if she has to dress in anything other than her typical goth style or can't listen to her music while working.
- Chloe O'Brien of 24. It's not mentioned as any sort of possible mental illness in the show; other characters just vaguely refer to her as having an odd personality. She is often blunt to the point of rudeness, easily irritated, especially when she is in the middle of something, and is generally dismissive of other people. She is, however, not without empathy. She usually isn't aware she's engaging in behavior most would find odd or annoying until she notices the way people are looking at her. It's just that most of the time, she doesn't care.
- RO from Sea Patrol has a very black and white view of the world, and when asked if this was true he responded "I'm not racist." Then there's his believing Bomber fancied him after she gave him a peck on the cheek, and him not wanting to take credit for saving her life because she told him not to go near her.
- Renfield Turnbull from Due South is just odd, even compared with Bunny Ears Mountie extraordinaire Benton Fraser. Some fans have wondered how someone with his apparent emotional volatility and clumsiness ever made it into law enforcement.
- In Raw Philip displays poor social skills, is incredibly awkward at making small talk, likes to keep orderly lists and cooking is his big obsession.
- Leon from Tucker is obsessed with Mexican wrestling and sea creatures (even sponsoring an octopus) and has a strange collection of human hair.
- Brick Heck on The Middle. He has the Verbal Tic of, at least once each episode, repeating what he just said in a whisper while looking downward. He's in a special social skills class at his school. He is obsessive about reading almost continually, to the point that he's delighted to get a toy robot for his birthday... because the instructions are in different languages, and he hopes to learn Japanese that way.
- Saga Norén of Bron Broen has No Social Skills to an extreme degree, is shockingly lacking in apparent empathy and compassion, and has an extremely rule-bound attitude to life. The actor and creators have said that she probably is somewhere on the autistic spectrum, but that they deliberately didn't state it explicitly or work from a list of recognized symptoms because they wanted to write her as they wished without misleading or offending people.
- Jerry, Elaine and George of Seinfeld. Complete Lack of Empathy, constant selfishness, unthinking cruelty, continual rejection of any maturity or adult responsibility, and meticulous adherence to a (often fabricated) social code not because they care about others but because it is expected of them. Surprisingly, Kramer is rarely presented as anything other than a regular person who just has a lot of quirks and a wild imagination, while the other three are basically sociopaths Played for Laughs.
- In a flash forward on Roseanne we see Jackie take an adult DJ to a psychologist. He expresses little emotion, has a monotone speech pattern, and is fixated on how Becky has changed.
- Person of Interest: In "Masquerade," Finch seems to have a panic attack while taking the dog out for a walk, but it's not confirmed what exactly caused this. Seeing how this happened after Root kidnapped him, it's entirely possible that the trauma of the ordeal may have affected Finch substantially.
- Christopher Moltisanti in The Sopranos, who has emotional outbursts, fits of alternating aggression and depression, and serious attention deficit difficulties. He self-medicates through drug abuse. His various undiagnosed mental problems are brought up by other characters on multiple occasions.
- Occurs in-universe in an episode of 30 Rock, when Pete and the writers become concerned that Jenna might be a sociopath, when she passes this supposed test. At the end of the episode, she shows that she's capable of empathy and it's concluded that she's not a sociopath.
- Timothy Spall, who plays Lord Emsworh in Blandings, said of the character, "Nowadays he'd be diagnosed with some kind of condition."
- Power Rangers RPM: Dr. K has absolutely No Social Skills, while Gem and Gemma have the mentality of five-year-olds and an inordinate fondness for explosives, yet all three are technical geniuses. Fans tend to blame their issues on the fact that they were denied normal childhoods: a government think tank abducted them and nurtured their scientific gifts at the expense of everything else.
- Power Rangers SPD, Bridge is a Cloudcuckoolander who has a tendency to ramble and make odd, if usually accurate, statements.
- Supernatural: The angel Castiel has a lot of vaguely related traits: literal mindedness, limited interpersonal skills, No Sense of Humor, and schizoidal tendencies which he attributes to not having spent much time on Earth, even though none of the other angels (including a number who have spent less time on earth) have any of his problems. Before the civil war, he seems to have been fairly well-liked and to have had a good relationship with his angelic siblings, so his quirkiness probably hasn't caused him any real problems.
- Game of Thrones: Viserys exhibits a range of bipolar-like tendencies, among other things. First, there's all his mood swings which range from intense calmness to manic twitchiness. There's also his uncontrollable rages, bouts of depression, and extreme self-delusion. His sister Daenerys says that the worst of it only started after they were forced to sell their deceased mother's crown to survive, but considering he's the son of "Mad King" Aerys Targaryen and there's an in-universe saying that the Gods flip a coin when a Targaryen is born as to whether they'll be normal or insane this makes sense, and centuries of incest probably haven't helped.
- Daenerys herself shows hints of not being all there. She shows no emotion while watching her brother be killed via molten gold to the head, and later unflinchingly ties the woman who killed her son to Khal Drogo's funeral pyre. From there on, she's shown as being extremely focused on her goals, occasionally to the point of foolishness (for example, badgering merchants for ships, without considering that she has no way to pay for them). While she certainly shows more empathy for those in her care than Viserys did, she also is shown to be capable of violently dealing with anyone who tries to hinder her in her goals, without showing any signs of being bothered. Despite this she's shown to be capable of empathy, even putting her own goals in jeopardy for the sake of freeing slaves on several occasions.
Tabletop Games
Video Games
- Oracle Of Tao: Ambrosia has a Sugar and Ice Personality, coupled with dramatic Tsundere moments, and occasionally has rather dramatic depressive episodes. You'd probably say she's bipolar, except her down periods are more flat, like a schizoid. She also has serious fears that she doesn't exist, and that she's hallucinating the entire game events. Add a few Axe Crazy episodes, and you get a very strange picture. It's clear what the cause is though, her real parents had to give her away because she was note God's kid, her adoptive parents died, and people she hired to help with her inheritance used her money and left her on the street. She has basically no trust in people until Nevras comes along.
- The Tales Series has quite a few examples.
- Tales Of Symphonia has Raine Sage: a cold and calculating, but incredibly intelligent young woman who normally acts like an aloof mentor who always has to be right... and who devolves into a child-like state the moment she discovers a temple ruin, an ancient weapon or anything to do with the civilisations of past eras. She's also shown to have difficulty relating to the other party members, especially in the anime where her Ice Queen elements are really played up. It's mostly treated as comedic, as her similarly-bright sibling Genis is just plain embarrassed by her enthusiasm (at one point, she even descends into maniacal laughter over the insides of an old temple). Her mother left her and Genis at a ruin that transported them to the world of Sylvarant when they were very young, terrified at the possibility that they would grow up as lab rats or labourers like most half-elves. Raine's obsession with ruins developed from a wish to be reunited with her family.
- In a sidequest, you can learn that her mother also fits the bill. It's not clear what's the matter with her but she has very clearly gone insane from the pain of being forced to abandon her children, as she spends all of her time talking to a doll that she believes is Raine.
- In Tales Of The Abyss, most of the characters show some kind of dysfunction, but only one of them has the dysfunction as the cause of their backstory, instead of the result: Jade Curtiss. He's bizarre when you first meet him - highly intelligent and mixing traits of Stepford Smiler and Stepford Snarker into one darkly humorous mask of unreadability. You later learn that as a child, he never showed any outward emotion besides a confidence in his skill and intelligence that extended into arrogance, that he liked to kill even weak and harmless monsters, and that he's 'never understood what it means to die'. This attitude led to him killing his teacher with a spell he couldn't control when he was twelve, and spending the next decade or so trying to bring her back, creating clone after clone, until he nearly died as a result and his best friend had to convince him to stop. He also shows some social awkwardness (in one skit, he joins Anise in tickling Guy as if he either doesn't understand or doesn't care that what's cute from a fourteen year old girl is weird from a thirty-five year old man) and obliviousness to his own emotions (in the Disc One Final Dungeon, Anise points out to him that he must like and respect the other party members, and Jade seems genuinely surprised to realize that she's right).
- From the same game, Guy Cecil freaks out every time a woman makes physical contact with him as a result of post-traumatic stress from having his sister and all of the maids in his household sacrifice themselves to protect him; causing him to be buried under a mountain of female corpses for days.
- Pascal in Tales Of Graces seems to have rather strange obsessions and does not understand exactly how socially awkward she can be at times. Her immature behavior makes many players surprised to discover she's 22 years old (although the visual design for her character doesn't help).
- It seems possible in Tales Of Vesperia that Raven could have some type of Split Personality. His alter ego Schwann is drastically different from his Raven persona - the first upstanding, militaristic, well-mannered and honourable, and the second friendly, goofy, flirtatious and casual. They also refer to each other as different people when they talk about each other, as in Schwann's boss fight when Schwann says Raven isn't here.
- Heavy Rain has Norman Jayden. He's shown to be socially awkward and has difficulty carrying on normal conversations, though these could be argued as symptoms of his abuse of Triptocaine and the ARI.
- Otacon from Metal Gear — socially awkward, rather Literal-Minded, obsessive, tends to retreat into fantasy, extremely emotional. This may all be explained by his traumatic childhood (which involved being sexually abused by his stepmother, which caused his father to attempt to kill his stepsister and commit suicide when he found out), however.
- There's explicitly something wrong with the title character of American Mcgees Alice, but the PTSD from her family's deaths doesn't explain the hallucinations, delusions, or episodes of mania and catatonia so severe she was institutionalized. When asked later on, American McGee confirmed that this game was a "natural extension" of the Alice series going under the assumption that the previous stories weren't either fantasies or real events, but hallucinations she honestly thought were real.
- Touhou:
- Marisa Kirisame actively shuns human interaction (to the point of willingly living in a youkai infested forest), has multiple obsessions that she seems to abandon as often as she acquires them, has no sense of personal property, is a severe hoarder, and is belligerent and trigger-happy even by Gensoukyou standards. It is repeatedly noted that she is much more like a youkai than a human, which would put her into Blue and Orange Morality if she weren't determined to retain her humanity.
- Flandre Scarlet clearly has something wrong with her, though how much of that is the result of being a youkai and how much due to being locked in the mansion basement for nearly 500 years with little to no social interactions is a good question. Either way she has the mentality of a child and has no real concept of restraint, and has No Social Skills to the max.
- Alice Margatroid suffers from nightmares for unknown reasons, holds conversations with her dolls, and manages to creep out everyone even in a society composed largely of monsters and supernatural beasties.
- Yukari Yakumo is just plain weird even compared to everyone else in Gensoukyou, with only her friend Yuyuko (who gets a pass for weirdness by being dead) having any idea how to deal with her. It's widely speculated she's an Eldritch Abomination that uses a humanoid guise to interact with others, which would certainly explain a lot.
- The Walking Dead: Omid is exceptionally chipper despite living on the road through a several months old Zombie Apocalypse and can only think of how his cat is going to hate him when it's pointed out how long he's been away from home. He's also childishly excited to see the train you've come in on and is a Motor Mouth in general.
- The incarnation of Sweet Tooth in Twisted Metal: Black is noted as having insomnia and an "unidentifed mental illness" in his psych profile. Wether he is a psychopath or just an incredibly twisted individual, he's a professional serial killer, and he loves his job.
- Both Bianca and N from Pokemon Black And White.
- Anders of Dragon Age II is all but outright stated to have bipolar disorder (in addition to the Demonic Possession) - his character bio mentions manic and depressive phases - and Merrill's certainly a bit...odd...in a different sort of way: trouble understanding figurative language, No Social Skills, Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!, and borderline Hikikomori behavior. (Though, really, your whole party is in need of therapy.)
Visual Novels
- In Umineko: When They Cry, Maria is nine years old but behaves far younger, has bizarre reactions (or lack of same) to events around her, and she never seems to be able to avoid hitting her mother's Berserk Button when she really should know better. There's also her Verbal Tic (which unlike most examples actually tends to annoy other people) and lack of focus towards anything except for her hobby of studying black magic.
- Almost every mage in the Nasuverse who isn't a psychopath could qualify for this at some level. Socially distant, obsessed with their own singular interests (their magic fields, their Origins and the Akashic Records in this case), frequently have special repeated tics or actions associated with activating magecraft.
- Although Yamaku Academy caters only to students with physical disabilities, Katawa Shoujo still has several examples:
- Kenji is obsessed with delusional conspiracy theories to a degree that would probably have psychologists scrutinizing him for schizophrenic tendencies in Real Life, although unlike all the other disabilities in the game this is purely Played for Laughs.
- Rin's behavior is just plain weird in a way that's hard to pin down: she definitely does not think like most people, and her behavior and comments can be socially inappropriate, not in the manner of someone who doesn't understand normal social interaction but more as if she simply doesn't care. In any case, having no arms may not be her biggest problem. Later in her route it's shown that Rin actually is aware to some extent of how odd she comes across to people, and the difficulties she has with expressing her thoughts, whether through words or through her art, are quite frustrating to her.
- Misha is an inverted variant. She has no obvious disabilities, so many players are left wondering why exactly she's at Yamaku. She's a bit quirky (energetic, laughs a lot, has some volume control issues), but not to the point that she'd be considered seriously mentally unstable, and Yamaku is not supposed to cater to mental disabilities in any case. Certain scenes imply that she came to Yamaku for other reasons: namely, she wants to be a sign language instructor and Yamaku is one of the only schools that has sign language courses. It's later revealed that Misha's bubbly hyperactive self is a facade to hide her crippling and near-suicidal depression as a result of homophobic bullying.
- In the Ace Attorney series, the various assistants (Maya, Ema, and Trucy, in particular) show some very bizarre behaviors. They come to unusual conclusions when Phoenix or Apollo make various observations, are highly specialized in certain fields for being relatively young (channeling, forensics, and magic, respectively), and often are fine with doing things like stealing small objects, pushing alarm buttons, or trying to goad Phoenix or Apollo into doing such things. The fact that they all went through extremely traumatic events hints that at least some of this may be caused by them taking on Stepford Smiler personas, but it's not clear how much is a cover and how much is them just being strange.
Webcomics
- Homestuck:
- Mituna has an ambiguous brain injury from over using his psionics that leaves him with strange tics, a tendency to become incomprehensible and have dramatic and sudden mood swings. He also lacks coordination and has to wear a helmet to avoid injuring himself.
- Jake, who was raised in almost complete isolation on a deserted island by his grandmother, has such poor social skills and is so oblivious to the feelings of others, including a tendency to ramble on about his issues without regard for the feelings of the person he's talking to, that it almost seems like a disorder. It's also implied that his Alternate Universe self Grandpa Harley was similarly odd.
- Dina Saruyama of Dumbing Of Age is this trope combined with Shrug of God that she's not been diagnosed with anything as of the time of the comic, since it's clear that something is off about her. She's obsessed with paleontology but doesn't really seem to understand other humans.
- In Ha from Cheese In The Trap seems for the most part just selfish, shallow and lazy, but then someone says something to set her off and she shows just how insane she is. This often involves physically attacking the people around her, though sometimes it is just shown in her sudden personality change, and her inability to be reasoned with. It's never played for laughs. Also Professor Baek hinted that Jung had some kind of disorder, but never specified what that was. He certainly has difficulty forming relationships with others, or understand how other people process the world.
- Afkinz from Zoophobia does come across as rather odd. He has super-long hair that he lets his cat live in and sometimes hisses at random people.
Western Animation
- American Dad:
- Steve Smith. Several episodes prove that he's capable of extreme violence, self-abuse, and just plain undiagnosable problems for laughs. Roger even lampshades this with his response to Steve's plan to exact revenge on a bully by dressing up like a girl and seducing him: "Yes, let's keep that plan between you, me, and the string of therapists who won't be able to help you."
- The Ditz Barry, though it was revealed in one episode that he is in fact a complete sociopath whose criminal inhibitions are "retarded" (their words) by powerful anti-psychotics that cause his odd behaviour. Though the real Barry still shines through sometimes ("Let's kill his parents next! Let's kill them all!").
- Cleveland, Jr. from The Cleveland Show. He's a teenager with the mentality of a child, and has a number of disturbing quirks, such as an obsession with cleanliness and order, and random bursts of violence (such as strangling a mannequin head for being "so pretty"). He also believes one of his stuffed animals is alive, to the point of hiring a nanny for it.
- It seems to be hinted that Ed from Ed Edd N Eddy has some kind of a disability.
- Draggle from the original My Little Pony series shows signs of many disorders, and by default of her family life, Stockholm Syndrome. Also, her voice in "The End of Flutter Valley" indicates, erm, slowness due to Flanderization messing with her intelligence.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- Pinkie Pie is a really eccentric Cloudcuckoolander who seems to inhabit normal reality only part-time and is almost pathologically cheerful and silly... except that when a misunderstanding makes her believe her friends are excluding her, she immediately snaps into a state of paranoia and depression so severe that she becomes delusional and starts hallucinating.
- The official portrayal of Derpy Hooves showed her as ignorant to the scale of dangers and also simple in how she treats things, giving the impression that she's a bit... off.
- Fluttershy has crippling social anxiety of some form, to the point that in her first meeting with Twilight she could barely say her name, and is very much Not Good With Ponies, much preferring her animals friends (who adore her). "Hurricane Fluttershy" shows that she was bullied extensively as a filly, though whether that was a result of or caused her shyness is unknown.
- Twilight Sparkle appears to be Super OCD personified. She seems so dependent on ordered schedules that deviating from them often causes her own Sanity Slippages. She also has devoted such a huge amount of time to reading and studying that she can determine if a book is useful to a current situation just by glancing at the cover, and was so bad at socializing that her mentor basically had to order her to go out and make friends (and she never appears to make any more outside of her close circle).
- With Cheese from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, you can't really pin down what's wrong with him. He clearly was imagined by a special needs child (this is made painfully obvious when he's introduced), but what exactly that special need was is left ambiguous. Most likely it's just an amalgam of general "mentally challenged" stereotypes.
- King of the Hill: Dale is an awkward, paranoid Cloudcuckoolander whose conspiracy theories border on outright delusional — and yet despite his constant suspicion of everyone and everything, he's completely oblivious to actual conspiracies that are obvious to absolutely everyone else, such as his wife's affair with John Redcorn.
- Phineas And Ferb:
- Baljeet is dependent on routines and clear direction, unsocial, observant but somewhat oblivious and emotionally stunted, able to focus for long periods on repetitive behaviors.
- The main boys themselves may include one. Phineas is unaware of Isabella's advancement towards him, Ferb rarely speaks (not at all in some episodes), and both are incredibly savvy in machines.
- Candace too. She's extremely obsessive over busting her brothers, and will do crazy things to do so. "Monster from the ID" also proves that her head is quite messed up.
- Ed the otter from Brandy & Mr. Whiskers has something. He has awkward speech patterns, uses big words, he's also a bit on the stoic side for the most part and is also physically clumsy when it comes to sports.
- Nonny from Bubble Guppies is a smaller example. He rarely ever smiles, has a bored, monotone voice, and is quite awkward compared to the other guppies.
- Lilo in Lilo & Stitch has a bad case of All of the Other Reindeer, but unlike many examples of that trope, she really is a genuinely strange little person who weirds out her "friends" with a strange mix of eccentricities, behavioral issues, social inappropriateness, and unusual interests. She may have the behavioral and social issues though because of her parents sudden death in a car accident, as well as the stress of possibly being split up from her older sister by social services.
- Daffy Duck in The Looney Tunes Show (carried over somewhat from older cartoons in which he was clearly insane, but not debilitatingly so). Bugs Bunny guesses that he's "a sociopath, "a narcissist" and "probably a psychopath". (He also sometimes seems to be unable to tell fantasy apart from reality — just see the music video for "The Wizard.")
- Ralph Wiggum from The Simpsons. He acts much younger than his age, has weird mood swings, is quite the Cloudcuckoolander, doesn't seem able to tell fantasy apart from reality, and it's implied that he hears voices. It's also stated numerous times that he's on meds and Chief Wiggum, his father, mentions that Ralph goes to a "special school" as well as Springfield Elementary. In Ralph's case it's not a question of whether he has a disorder so much as which one(s).
- Tom Kenny identified the title character of Sponge Bob Square Pants as "vaguely autistic", and points out that despite his odd behavior he is functional, is very passionate about his interests and good at his job, and speculates that this may be why a lot of real life autistic kids seem especially drawn to the character.
- It's heavily implied that Azula from Avatar The Last Airbender has something akin to sociopathy, since she lacks empathy, is a consummate liar to the point that Toph, the Living Lie Detector, can't tell when she's lying, and is manipulative as all get out. And yet despite her Magnificent Bastardry, when forced into social situations she proves to be cringe-inducingly inept when it comes to actually interacting with people as opposed to manipulating them. Slightly complicated by how Word Of God is that this was mainly the result of her father's influence (and he himself qualifies) but even as a child her mother wondered just what was wrong with her. And then at the end of the series her absolutely epic mental breakdown, which includes hallucinating said Missing Mom, gets her put into the loony bin.
- Adventure Time has quite a bit of it due to being set in a Dysfunction Junction. Jake has a very short attention span and often blurts things out without thinking as well as tendency to do things without thinking about consequences or the impact on others, both physical and emotional. Marceline is overly flirtatious with others, displays mild sociopathic tendencies, and seems to have trouble understanding other people's emotions. Lemongrab constantly shouts for no reason, flies off the handle at any problem, and borders on mentally challenged at times. Surprisingly averted with Ice King, who definitely has some form of dementia, a fact that is portrayed in a disturbingly realistic way.
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