Latest / The Autistic Mile / The Ideal-ist: Episode 10 (Kieran)
Transcript
- Shane: Hello everyone, welcome to the Autistic Mile. My name is Shane Gaffney, and this is episode 10 of The Ideal-ist. And today, I have a very special treat in mind for those of you who have stuck with us since the very beginning, because in my introductory video, I mentioned that I would eventually be talking about a character who I believe actually does have autism, despite not canonically being confirmed as such. And today I will be talking about that character. by the name of Kieran from Pokemon: Scarlet and Violet, specifically the two DLC campaigns. And from my perspective at least, I would say Kieran is very much the poster child of what someone with autism looks like in that when you first meet him, Kieran is a very shy and timid kid. He has trouble speaking up when he wants to, he's often afraid of social interaction and hides behind his sister when he meets new people, and overall he has trouble really opening up about what he feels and thinks to others. At least until he feels reasonably comfortable around them. I definitely remember back from kindergarten that I was so afraid of interacting with new people that I would often try to hide myself away behind objects and such, just try not to draw attention to myself. And I imagine the other kids were probably very confused about that. Despite being brought up in a small town in the middle of the country that is very tightly knit, where all the various community members know each other by name, Kieran doesn't have any friends in that well for one, it's hard for him to really reach out to people, even if he desperately wants to. And two, when he does, he's rather socially awkward and and self-deprecating deprecating to some degree. As you can imagine, this elicits a lot of sympathy from the player during the early stage of the first DLC campaign. As the story goes on, Kieran gets more comfortable with the player and starts opening up more about his passions and his various interests. He seems to be very into anime and kaiju, and particularly his main interest, which is deeply explored in the story, is that he deeply idolizes a Pokemon from his home region by the name of Ogerpon, Pond, who at first the village suspects of being evil and destructive. But Kieran always admires it because of its strength and independence, its ability to really stand up for itself and assert its will, despite battling against three different equally powerful Pokemon. The clear implication being that he himself wishes that he was like that, but he doesn't believe he's capable of that. And unfortunately, things take a turn for the worse when Kieran's grandparents effectively let the cat out of the bag, that they know that Ogerpon Pond was actually innocent all along. And despite sharing this information with Kieran's sister, Carmine and the player character, they do effectively hide this information behind Kieran's back. Which ends up being a very big mistake because Kieran ends up hiding away and overhearing the whole conversation anyway, and that ends up completely destroying his trust in everyone who was once a close bond of his. And he doesn't even let on right away that he knows, or confront those he feel wronged him immediately. Instead, he pretends to not know, and sort of just test the player by seeing if they'll tell him the truth when he asks about what they were talking about. And unfortunately, as player, you are forced to lie to him in that there are no dialogue options where you can tell him the truth. The story cannot effectively function with you telling him the truth as it's constructed. And to the surprise of no one, this makes Kieran feel even more like an outcast than he already is. And at first it manifests as passive-aggresive aggressive accusatory remarks, or as underlying frustration. But this sense of anger and rejection really bubbles up within him, and eventually it reaches a point where it just explodes out all at once. And yet, every single time that he challenges the player to a Pokemon battle, he ends up losing, no matter how hard he tries, or how passionately he builds up his team. And that only generates a further obsession with trying to beat the player and trying to validate to them and more realistically to himself that he isn't worthless. And all the while, as his behavior becomes increasingly erratic and unstable, those around him more or less shrug off his behavior. and repeatedly fail to comfort him or see any of the red flags. The worst offender, by far, definitely being his sister Carmine. And Carmine is the kind of older sister I would not wish onto my worst enemies. There are a lot of things I could say about her, not a lot of which I feel very safe saying on this program, so I will not. But she is domineering, controlling, needlessly rude, and very much a drill sergeant, if that makes any sense. From my perspective, she seems to have the mother of all inferiority complexes, and takes out that inferiority on anyone and everyone, who she perceives as being lesser than her. But regardless of the reasons, she particularly points her vitriol towards Kieran, always teasing him, always trying to put him down or make him seem insignificant compared to her. And the sad part is, she never ends up really reconciling with her bad behavior or making any improvements whatsoever. Even after Kieran goes off the deep end and effectively loses his mind, taking over their whole school with an iron fist, she completely reverts back to her old personality as soon as the danger has passed, and she feels that she can get away with picking on him again. And that's sad, but an important truth to carry with you is that some people don't change. Sometimes it's because they can't because their circumstances have forbid them the tools to really make that leap. But other times, and more often, it's because they simply don't want to. Because changing requires effort, and that's more than they're willing to extend for someone else. What's strange to me is that Kieran seems to get as much disdain from the creators of Pokemon itself, as he does from the other characters. Within this whole DLC storyline, it resolves by effectively him taking all the blame for everything that happened and treating it as if it was all his fault, which we all know by my description isn't really true. And what's more, in the Pokemon anime regarding Scarlet and Violet, his sister gets an entire episode about her whereas Kieran is just sort of relegated to a 4 second cameo where he says nothing. And that I felt was extremely disrespectful to him as a character, and what he sort of represents for people like me. But all that trivia aside, Playing through this storyline and seeing Kieran in action was kinda like jumping in a time machine and looking back at how my life was in those formative years. Just like Kieran, I really had no one on my side to really make me feel wanted or appreciated. And as a result, I had, as I mentioned in previous episodes, a lot of built up resentment that I just had no clue how to deal with. And ironically, just like Kieran. my way of overcoming that was by realizing that at least as I like to think of it, your efforts don't necessarily mean anything. If you pour your heart and soul into something and it still goes wrong, it's not because you are defective, or because you somehow were not good enough to get the results you wanted. It's simply because life is just not fair. And there's no shame in not sizing up if it's not your fault that things didn't turn out that way. The way I see it, you can't take responsibility for the causality of the entire world. It's very easy to fall into that trap, but ultimately it's only gonna drive you insane, because you'll be trying to counteract for everything, and there's always going to be something that's out of your control, or that you're not aware of until it's too late. And regarding Kieran's family life, I actually did have a sibling who was like Carmine in a way. Not nearly as bad, mind you, but me and him are very much like oil and water in that he is the complete opposite of me in every way. I vividly remember being very jealous of him throughout primary school because I myself tried so hard to make friends and really form a social circle, and yet it never ended up working out for me, and yet it seemed also effortless for him because he just has different talents than me. His specialties lie elsewhere. Regarding his behavior, he was also similar in that he would often tease and troll us, for lack of a better word, on a daily basis. And though back then I was too sort of blinded by my own angst to really try to look at things from his perspective 'cause from my mind I couldn't imagine any possible reason why someone would behave like this. But looking back I think that maybe that was his way of trying to feel like he had some sort of control over his life. in the face of well, grueling expectations or the fact the world can be kind of indifferent towards us. But regardless, for the longest time I made a vow to myself that I would never forgive him for the things he did, but I as you can imagine, that vow is one I didn't end up upholding in the end, because one day several years back, I don't know the reason for why, so I won't make any guesses on that front, but he changed. He changed for the better. And at the time I saw it as something of a temporary good streak, but he really learned how to mellow out and exercise healthy restraint. Really channeling his energy and chaotic urges into something more productive and beneficial. And I would say that I am deeply proud of him for that. We're still very different, he and I, and that much hasn't changed, but now I can actually see him as family. And I'm very glad that he decided to take those steps to become the person he is now. Like I said, some people don't ever reach that point. Sometimes they just would rather cling on to their pride than even try to fight against their instincts. And in those situations It's not on you to try and make things right between the two of you. you shouldn't try to carry the blame because someone else won't do the right thing. And it's good to have hope in people, but also don't let it destroy you. Don't keep trying to rationalize why someone is the way they are. Or keep holding out your hand for them, even when they've repeatedly shown they have no interest in accepting it. But back to Kieran, he actually shows many of the symptoms that are associated with autism. For one, he often displays scenes of stimming where he messes with his hair, or where he taps his foot, or even times where he rubs his arm nervously. All that may seem normal when I put into words like that, but it's easy to see when you see in motion, how it distinctively looks autistic. What's more, he displays another possible symptom of autism, which is amplified emotions. Given what I've said about his story, I doubt I even need to go into explanation there. He definitely feels things more intensely than a normal person would, and that in turn is very hard to control. When everything is dialed up too high, it's very hard to just bring everything back down again. He displays a deep passion and fixation when he sets his mind to something, be it Ogerpon Pond or his later goal of becoming a better Pokemon trainer. So much so that in his case, because of his Insecurity-fueled fueled need to prove himself, it delves into pursuing that goal so hard that he neglects to eat or sleep. And thankfully that is something that he also improves upon after he manages to mellow out. There's even one scene where he visibly experiences what I assume to be an anxiety attack when he loses to you in the championship at Blueberry Academy, and when that happens after all that preparation and all that time just building himself up, trying desperately to win at something. ANYTHING. And still losing, It's more than he can cope with in that instant, said and you can sort of see the world around him getting blurry and him falling to his knees as a result of that. It isn't explicitly said to be an anxiety attack, but that's how I perceive it as someone with social anxiety myself. He's definitely someone who could have very easily taken a more healthy route to getting where he eventually got, if only there were people there for him to really show him that he had worth. That he was not inadequate. But sadly that is realistic to life. Sometimes the only person who can really give you that validation is yourself. As hard as that can be. I for one would definitely never want to be in that situation where that was my only choice. Still, Kieran is a character that touched me very deep inside, and as a result, he was the main draw for me from this game. The crown jewel of a game that otherwise people would say is very glitch-ridden ridden and messy. And yeah, it was at first. But yeah, that's about all I have to say about Kieran. If you have any of your own thoughts, feel free to voice them in the comments. Like and subscribe, and I will see you next time. Thank you.