Update: Ambiguous Disorder has been renamed to Diagnosed by the Audience and has been retooled into an Audience Reaction for when the audience diagnoses a character with a disorder (i.e., it was redefined to fit some of the misuse), as opposed to a disorder being specified by either the work or Diagnosis of God. The decision was made by this TRS thread
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- Examples (both on-page and off-page) that fit the retooled the definition need to be moved to a YMMV subpage under the new name
- Examples where the narrative or characters think a character has a disorder (i.e. in-universe ambiguity) may be placed in this sandbox: Sandbox.Ambiguous Disorder
- Anything else that doesn't fit needs to be removed
Edited by Tabs on Oct 4th 2022 at 2:19:02 AM
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Some dubious examples from the main page:
- Every Batman villain, as well as Batman himself in some interpretations. If anything The Joker could probably be diagnosed with "Being the Joker".
- Spinister from The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye. Some describe him as "autistic child meets violent psychopath". Despite this, he's also an ace surgeon who can defuse bombs. He's not a complete fail at socializing either; he just seems to get distracted easily.
Spinister: The fire's giving me funny looks, Krok. I think I'm gonna shoot it.
- John Egbert in Homestuck fanfic Brainbent is the only person in St. Lobaf whose disorder is unclear, though fans speculate that he has schizophrenia.
- Frozen: Princess Anna is a very hyperactive young lady who is very friendly, impulsive, outgoing, and very eager to find romance. This same girl was locked away in her parents' castle with little to no interaction with anyone for over a decade.
- 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 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 , her adoptive parents died, and people she hired to help with her inheritance used her money and left her on the street. She has no trust in people until Nevras comes along.
Also, if a character has an Ambiguous Disorder and then has their disorder confirmed, should the example be removed?
Short-Term Projects herald
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Those can be cut, including anything that is explicitly stated.
she/her
Yeah, if the work states what disorder the character has, then it's not ambiguous anymore.
(she/her)
One thing that always bothered me about Ambiguous Disorder is that its used a lot for characters who have slight personality flaws, bad social skills or have one trait of a certain disorder. A lot of people/characters have these traits without them having an actual disorder. Not sure how we draw the line but that's probably nature of the beast when it comes to all these Ambiguous X tropes.
Edited by MacronNotes on May 5th 2020 at 10:40:34 AM
Macron's notes
Very Spooky
Adding on to that, another problem with how this trope is often used is that a character having a lot of odd traits and being weird overall doesn’t mean they’re supposed to have a disorder. Many characters listed as this trope are just supposed to be seen as weird and/or crazy, not as having an actual mental disorder.
What sort of context makes for a good example? Is it enough that the characters find them off putting or should there be some sort of in-universe acknowledgement that there are likely undiagnosed issues?
EDIT: Are these examples suitable?
- Characters.Fleabag: Jake is odd, but it's never clear exactly about what his deal is beyond being creepy as fuck. Fleabag wonders if he'll turn out to be a killer.
- Film.Set It Up: Something is up with "Creepy Tim", who gleefully keeps plants in his room knowing they'll die, clearly doesn't understand social cues, and says some Cloud Cuckoo Lander things, but it's never clarified.
Edited by Synchronicity on May 5th 2020 at 10:02:54 AM
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
Another thing to keep in mind is that these characters may just be CloudCuckoolander types.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
I'm Sad Frogerson.
I thought I'd bring up the Bojack Horseman examples, because there's one entry I think needs to be cut:
- Pretty much every character from BoJack Horseman:
- The titular character shows signs of chronic depression and is a confirmed alcoholic. He's also a bit of an Attention Whore and prone to impulsive and self-destructive behavior.
BoJack, inner thoughts as he wakes up: Stupid piece of shit. You're a stupid piece of shit... but at least I know I'm a stupid piece of shit which makes me better than all the other stupid pieces of shit who don't know they're stupid pieces of shit.- Diane can be a bit of a nervous wreck in certain situations and obsesses over gaining approval and finishing her next big projects. She's also referred to herself as 'miserable' and BoJack attempted to say that they weren't so different, to which she gave a You Keep Telling Yourself That response.
- Sarah Lynn is basically BoJack if he were a (more successful) human female about two decades younger. She's an Addled Addict, Attention Whore, and her mood shifts rapidly. In addition, the first time we meet her, she's shown to not exactly care for her own well-being... as she'd just stabbed herself with a rusty bayonet in the middle of a hardware store over a breakup... then sealed the wound with duct tape...
BoJack (in response to Sarah Lynn telling him she'll just find somewhere else to party): Well, you should... not... do that.Sarah Lynn: Oh, I know. I know, but I can, so I will. I'm at a place in my life right now where I don't have to "grow as a person" or "rise to any occasion," so I can just keep surrounding myself with sycophants and enablers until I die tragically young.- BoJack's mother, Beatrice has symptoms of three personality disorders, mixing equals parts entitlement and desire for attention.
Now the entry I have issues with is Diane's. Now, I think this entry was written earlier in the show's run, but I think it should be cut. The final season of the show confirmed that Diane is suffering from clinical depression and she ends up going on medication to help cope with her issues. And we do see the antidepressants do make a difference, so there's no ambiguity about whether or not she has mental health issues.
The other characters listed, I could take or leave. I don't think Bojack is explicitly mentioned as having depression, but the implications are very heavy throughout the show. I think Sarah Lynn can stay, but I could go either way with Beatrice.
Any thoughts?
Showtime!
How do we handle characters who are ambiguous in media but have a diagnosis confirmed by Word of God? Characters like Steris, Renarin, and Entrapta aren't described as autistic due to the diagnosis not existing in their setting, is that ambiguous enough?
Absolute destiny... apeachalypse?
Veteran Editor IV
For Bojack, agreed with cutting Diane as the disorder is confirmed and keeping other examples.
I have no real idea, but I feel like examples of creators outside of a work confirming that a character has a disorder should probably be a separate trope called Word Of Disorder (similar to Word of Gay). I'll start a TLP draft in a bit.
Edited by Piterpicher on May 17th 2020 at 12:39:13 PM
Currently mostly inactive. An incremental game I tested: https://galaxy.click/play/176 (Gods of Incremental)
Can I get an answer to these entries? I'd like to know if it's sufficient that someone else thinks they're odd rather than describing the traits outright.
Logic Girl
Characters.Horrid Henry lists about 90% of the characters as having Ambiguous Disorders, usually to do with their shticks such as Henry's horridness and Polly's prissiness. I suspect it's the same troper who added them all as they have a Verbal Tic around the phrases "has a story to it" and "more to it than meets the eye".
For every low there is a high.
Very Spooky
Considering many of the characters seem to have a defining character trait, I doubt that most of, if not all of those are invalid and just looking too deep into typical character traits.
Edited by jandn2014 on May 21st 2020 at 7:00:49 AM
back lol
🏳️🌈🎃
The description itself also needs a revamp, IMO, for the Wall of Text. I'm up for doing any rewrites— I'm, well, knowledgeable kinda sorta a master of social work and understand it needs to focus on the trope instead of talking about real life diagnostic criteria.
Covered in Star Wars Cleanup, Deadpool, and Web Video sand. I'm not coarse and rough, but I get everywhere.
Logic Girl
On Strawman Has a Point it says that Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes is "heavily implied" to have a learning disability, but I don't see any evidence of that.
For every low there is a high.
Very Spooky
Calvin doesn’t seem to have any sort of specific disorder- I’ve always assumed he’s just intended to be Wise Beyond Their Years with the “bad social skills” trait.
Angry babby
I think Calvin does have some ADHD/Asperger's traits but I don't know how overt it is. I might just recognize it more since I also have some of those traits and I am autistic.
Also going back to Bojack: the examples on the works page are much more extensive and need to be trimmed down. They go down the entire DSM-V criteria for Sarah Lynn, and list characters (the Gentle Farms family, Hank Hippopopolous) who appeared in a single episode, with no real justification other than "they show no empathy, therefore they must be a sociopath!" (The Hank example is especially irritating since his behavior is depicted as a totally lucid exploitation of his own power and fame, based off real-life instances of such behavior, rather than any mental issue.)
- Ambiguous Disorder: It's Dysfunction Junction time ladies and gentlemen!
- Narcissism:
- BoJack has textbook compensatory narcissism with a deep rooted entitlement and high need of appreciation coming from an inferiority complex, with his actions being attempts to live up to who he thinks he should be for others and falling short of it. He also has Borderline Personality Disorder due to his disgust and craving of affection from even people he despises — like Mr. Peanutbutter — or knows are just trying to use him — like Angela and Ana. He's been also often interpreted as having clinical depression due to his lack of motivation and positive emotions as well as his self-defeating behavior and occasional suicidal ideation.
- His mother, Beatrice, has a more complex case of narcissism with a pot full of different shades of the spectrum: "amorous" (clingy attitude and territorial attitude even to those she dislikes just because they're hers), "elitist" (haughty, believes appearance and status to be everything, derides everything short of her image of perfection), "compensatory" (behavior largely out of insecurity, compensation) and even "fanatic" (she just can't let go of grudges, keeps any emotional actions as proof of her own beliefs) fit her to some degree.
- While nice about it, Mr. Peanutbutter fits the description of the shy, covert/compensatory narcissist: he wants people to be happy and often goes out of his way to make it so, but rather than finding out what would make them happy, he forgoes that in favor of his idea of what he assumes would make them happy. He also attempts to be the "cool guy" so that people will feel comfortable around him and not leave him, something which has happened in the past and has created in him a complex. Not that he would come out and say it; better try passive-aggressive remarks in the form of concerned thoughts. There's also how much he wants things exactly as he envisions in spite of his carefree attitude, which he masks with "niceness" hoping that will make things go his way. His grandiose sense of projects without a backbone or purpose in addition to insecurities about Diane, also make him rather needy with his expressions of love being Grand Romantic Gestures.
- Secretariat was just as much as a Crowd Pleaser as Mr. Peanutbutter and just as miserable as BoJack. He would often bask on the public's adoration while secretly falling apart because of how little he saw of himself in his audience's expectations. Fame, glory and love meaning everything for him, he was eternally fearful of falling into obscurity to the point of selling out his brother to the army as a replacement during The Vietnam War. Tripping into disgrace once he was found out betting in his own races, he was banned from racing, the only thing that made him feel alive and allowed to forget his problems, and as such he finally committed suicide. Forget BoJack, Secretariat is the embodiment of compensatory narcissism as well as a chilling reminder of what can happen when such disorder is allowed to run rampant.
- Sarah Lynn is an example of the "unprincipled"/"amorous" type: willing to exploit others for her own gratification, feels little to no remorse over it and always uses her sexuality and devil-may-care attitude as an excuse to get away with horrid actions.
- BoJack has textbook compensatory narcissism
- Generalized Anxiety:
- Pinky Penguin is a fidgety mess whose paranoia and bad luck have led him to be secluded in his office and resort to desperate measures to achieve a hit with BoJack's book. Such is his need that he constantly uses for it, even at times when the most sensible thing would be to sit back and reflect on life. He's constantly nervous and fearful of what might happen and often tries to find a safe bet.
- Princess Carolyn has most likely Dependent Personality Disorder: attachment to toxic people despite her independence due to a desire of love, becoming nosy in every aspect of others' lives to the point of taking over, fear of Dying Alone and desire for a family.
- Judah has a strict adherence to routine, lampshades his lack of humor, always well-organized, highly effective, can take words as literal as possible, stoic to a T, highly empathic and doesn't let any detail escape his grasp. As such, he might be on the autism spectrum.
- Anti-Social Personality Disorder:
- Hank Hippopopalous is a high-functioning case: at first glance, he can appear as a grandfather-type of celebrity, which he often exploits as a way to gaslight people into believing his hype to cover his disgusting actions toward his secretaries. He also has a distinct Lack of Empathy, rampant promiscuity and an uncanny ability to lie without a hitch, even rewriting his internal reality even if it doesn't suit him. Should anyone attempt to call attention to his actions, he'll retain his affable behavior adding a tinge of menace that at no point is questioned.
- Margo Martindale is a borderline example. She meets some of the criteria to qualify, except she's far too calculating and cautious to count. Her hysterical fits and desire for cheap thrills, even with how she intentionally screws up every mission she has just for the sake of seeing violence erupt, does see her tip-toe through the edges.
- The patriarch of Gentle Farms is superficially charming, has a good sense of acceptable behavior and has no qualms over his farm's business (butchering chickens) despite being a chicken himself. He's also groomed his kid to follow his every command and carry on the family business. Finally, he's way too eager to shoot trespassers, even letting out an Evil Laugh while searching them with his shotgun.
- The kid in the Gentle Farms has no conscience and has learned from a young age how to handle a shotgun and kill his own species (in a complicated carnivore situation) with the help of his father, seeing nothing wrong with such dissonance. Still a budding one, since he can occasionally be troubled when confronted about it.
- Joseph Sugarman is a borderline example. He has a genial vibe to him and is the living embodiment of the Standard '50s Father; that is, a complete evisceration of the trope: his deep belief in old-fashioned values has made him devoid of any sort of empathy for his family, describing emotions as "woman's feelings" and happy that he may suppress his. This is not going into how easily he shown to be willing to harm his family and abuse them emotionally and physically if he deemed necessary or to keep them safe (e.g. Honey's lobotomy, conditioning Beatrice to occupy a woman's place in society and destroying her psyche in any way he could.)
- Vance Waggoner has made a career out of making this disorder seem marketable as a rinse-and-repeat ploy: he's a rude, violent asshole with a willingness to harm anyone who crosses him in any way (including his own family) and a complete lack of shame about the things he does other than how they've damaged his job offers. A repeat offender, he's made enemies out of many people and refused to even comprehend he did something illegal, let alone wrong. Still, his infamy makes him seem like a "bad boy" in the eyes of Hollywoo who often bails him out to cast him...up until the inevitable happens and Vance screws up again.
- Borderline Personality Disorder
- Sarah Lynn fits almost all of the diagnostic criteria for this disorder:
(1): Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment: Her first appearance as an adult features her acting out following a breakup with boyfriend Andrew Garfield, downing pills and stabbing herself with a rusty bayonet in the middle of a home improvement store. Andrew claims that he wanted to do it in a public space so she wouldn't make a scene, to which she replies "You think I won't make a SCENE?" In a later episode, she's shown visiting Andrew in the hospital, implying a case of splitting.
(2) A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation: Although frequent idealization has died out, her relationship with BoJack is extremely volatile. One minute, she goes back to seeing him as the surrogate father he acted as in her youth; the next, they're yelling at each other... then fucking.
(3) Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self image or sense of self: In the season three episode, 'That's Too Much, Man!' she has some small moments that imply this, such as doodling pictures of herself and wondering through them if it's time to get another boob job, plus some graphic ones. However, the real identity disturbance comes when she wins an Oscar while she's on a month-long bender with BoJack and comes to the realization that she doesn't like anything about herself, offering a shaky, horrified speech about it all.
(4) Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating): Where to start about the drugs! It's almost like she's immune to their negative effects up until her death via overdose. She gets so high during Herb's funeral, she completely forgets that Bradley was her costar, in spite of him having tagged along for the entire scavenger hunt Herb put together for the cast at the end of his life. She forgot to publish his manuscript because she was so high while he was requesting she do so. She's also of the Anything That Moves attitude regarding sex. At one point, it's revealed she's sobered up (although she claims it's just so she can have a post-sobriety high which are apparently awesome)... and, while she's informing BoJack, she's driving while painting her nails.
(5) Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior: Again, in her first adult appearance, she stabs herself with a rusty bayonet and tells Andrew she'd bleed for him. It's unknown if this is a 'regular' type of occurrence, but it was certainly both a suicidal threat and self-mutilating behavior. To go off of this, she seems perfectly content with the fact that she'll "surround [herself] with sycophants and enablers until [she] dies tragically young," which winds up being a self-fulfilling prophecy, as of 3x11. In addition, although it's purely hypothetical, due to the heavily implied abuse she suffered at the hands of her bear stepdad (described a little more below), what she suggests Penny is doing in response to BoJack could have been projecting what she did with some Gallows Humor: looking up ways to kill herself.
(6) Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood: Oh man, does her mood flip like a switch! One minute, she's celebrating an Oscar win just to be directly followed by a What Have I Become? crisis. On the drive to the hospital following the rusty bayonet incident, she thinks it's all quite amusing and is no longer experiencing the terror she was only minutes before.
(7) Chronic feelings of emptiness: Although there are no incredibly stick-out moments with this – no moments with direct evidence – diving right back into her previous mood, before a horribly anxious one, right after she wins an Oscar is indicative of this. In addition, she repeatedly states that she's bored during her bender with BoJack. It can be picked up on by the viewers that, essentially, the only thing that would make her feel fulfilled would be becoming an architect, a childhood dream shot down by her mother. She expresses genuine knowledge of it in spite of having never gone to college and her final words are "I wanna be an architect."
(8) Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger: See: rusty bayonet. You may also refer to her reaction to Joelle using her Country Matters in retaliation to Sarah Lynn's own You Are Fat joke. She also expresses extreme resentment towards BoJack when he doesn't let her do various things while in his home, at one point giving him a The Reason You Suck speech which is, in truth, justified.
Cont. The 9th involves paranoia and dissociation, of which we haven't seen her express.
Other: Other common traits she has with most Borderline sufferers is trauma, sexual abuse via her bear stepdad heavily implied. She was forced to deal with the pressure and manipulation her mother put her through, pressure and manipulation that crushed her architectural dreams. Her unexplained Disappeared Dad explains why she looked up to BoJack as a surrogate father when she was a child and idealized him to the extreme. Even when she was roughly 23 (in 2007), she looked to him as her only friend... just to be used by him, but that's a totally separate matter. Finally, she also developed shades of an Electra Complex.
- Sarah Lynn fits almost all of the diagnostic criteria for this disorder:
- Narcissism:
Edited by mightymewtron on Jul 3rd 2020 at 7:53:52 AM
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
Angry babby
Also on Characters.The Loud House Luan Loud, not sure if this counts because I haven't seen the episode:
- Ambiguous Disorder:
- Some scenes, and especially the episode "April Fools Rules", show that her obsession with pranks can become very extreme, to the point that you may wonder if it's not a psychosis.
That’s super vague.
Angry babby
Deleted it, any feedback on the Bojack examples? I know the Sarah Lynn example in particular does not need to be that long and I'm very hesitant on diagnosing characters who appear for maybe five minutes total. Also potholing real-life disorders to other tropes feels...eh to me?
Edited by mightymewtron on Jul 10th 2020 at 12:59:30 PM
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
(she/her)
Well I plan on watching Bojack soon so no idea how to rewrite it. Bu I think it should be trimmed down and not bulleted like that especially for someone who is barely on the show.
Sorry for switching the topic but is this bolded part of the description on Ambiguous Disorder actually correct? It rubs me the wrong way for some reason.
Basically, as a rule of thumb: If your behavior doesn't significantly and negatively impact your quality of life, well-being and desired relationship with others, you don't have a mental disorder.
Macron's notes
I truly hate these long drawn-out Bojack examples. I really want to just delete the whole thing, but...
Maybe we should TRS to see if the character's 'offness' should be acknowledged by the work in some way, because then you get into armchair diagnosis "this Genki Girl has ADHD" territory.
I think it's there to discourage shallow self-diagnoses like "oh, I like to color coordinate my closet, I'm so OCD!" but it also kinda does imply that mentally ill people have to suffer in some way.
The description as a whole gets wall of texty as mentioned, maybe cut that part out:
Edited by Synchronicity on Jul 10th 2020 at 12:11:05 PM
Angry babby
I think most cases of this trope should list multiple symptoms, not just "they're clean so they have OCD" but "they're clean and they have this specific ritual to ward off their anxieties about cleanliness." Maybe a minimum of three symptoms, or maybe even the same minimum diagnostic criteria of the disorder in question (ie: 5 out of 9 symptoms for BPD). The "must affect the individual negatively" part in the description is a contentious point; as an autistic person I know there's heavy debate about whether autism can be considered a "negative" disorder, and given a lot of examples on that page are about possible cases of autism, that might be a bit of an issue.
I'm very interested in BoJack so I can definitely cut down some of these examples to be less clinical and more concise. Personally I'd cut Hank, the Gentle Farms chickens, and Vance altogether because they don't have enough screen time to make these judgments and I'd argue that attributing their behavior to a disorder rather than a conscious behavioral choice misses the point of including them in the narrative.
Edit: I cut down the Sarah Lynn BPD example to just a paragraph rather than going down the entire DSM-V, but I might need help figuring out whether the others fit. I don't really like that the section is organized by disorder rather than character; I feel like that encourages people to shoehorn examples of other characters that fit the disorder, rather than finding disorders that fit the characters.
Edited by mightymewtron on Jul 10th 2020 at 3:14:31 PM
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
Angry babby
Snatched this Dear Evan Hansen example from the new wick check (thank you, ccorb!)
- Ambiguous Disorder: While it's never referred to by name, Evan shows a lot of the signs and symptoms of social anxiety disorder.
- The 2019 tour takes Evan’s Motor Mouth and inability to make eye contact with others Up To Eleven, giving him the appearance of being on the autism spectrum.
- Aside from his obvious social anxiety, Evan has certain behaviors indicative of autism established by Ben Platt's performance — repetitive stimming and hand flapping, for instance — and in the script, like Evan's unusual special interest in trees.
The entry really doesn't make it clear enough, but Evan has suicidal tendencies and takes medication, but the medication isn't given a name or anything. Does that count as ambiguous enough?
The autism stuff is just armchair diagnosis misuse (though I personally agree with the interpretation but that's neither here nor there).
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
Update: Ambiguous Disorder has been renamed to Diagnosed by the Audience and has been retooled into an Audience Reaction for when the audience diagnoses a character with a disorder (i.e., it was redefined to fit some of the misuse), as opposed to a disorder being specified by either the work or Diagnosis of God. The decision was made by this TRS thread
.
Edited by Tabs on Oct 4th 2022 at 2:19:02 AM