# Is turin turambar autistic?



## Turin_Turambar (Jan 5, 2023)

Many sites on the internet suggest that turin turambar has autism behaviors and may be autistic. It is even stated that it reminds people with asperger's syndrome. What do you think about this issue? Do you think Turin has autism?


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## Elbereth Vala Varda (Jan 5, 2023)

Hm... Good question. It's an interesting idea. I'll do an archive and internet sweep for related info.


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## Starbrow (Jan 5, 2023)

What characteristics of autism do they think Turin displays? As someone who teaches autistic students, I would disagree. 

One of the primary characteristics is difficulty with social interaction and communication. Typically, people with autism have difficulty establishing and maintaining relationships, trouble having conversations, and have difficulty understanding others perspectives. 
Since Turin repeatedly was able to become a leader of 3 very disparate groups - the outlaws at Amon Ruth, the elves at Nargothrond, and the men of Brethil - shows that his social skills were at a very high level. To be a chief counselor in Nargothrond he probably had to have good communication skills. How else could he have convinced the elves to build a bridge over the Narog and openly fight against Morgoth and the orcs. To be a leader of such a a variety of peoples would mean he was able to understand others perspectives very well. The evidence that Turin has well-developed social skills would indicate that he is not autistic.


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## d4rk3lf (Jan 6, 2023)

Starbrow said:


> One of the primary characteristics is difficulty with social interaction and communication. Typically, people with autism have difficulty establishing and maintaining relationships, trouble having conversations, and have difficulty understanding others perspectives.


Then, we are safe to say that Nazguls are the very definition of autism.


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## Amon Rudh (Jan 6, 2023)

I'd expect that Tolkien based many of his characters to some degree on people he encountered in his life. Furthermore, it's certainly possible that he knew someone with ASD, diagnosed or otherwise, and based a character on them.
However, without evidence (such as that which @Starbrow provides above) any assumptions along these lines are mere conjecture without author imput. I am not sure if there's this sort of detail on character development and origin in e.g. the HOME books but it will be interesting to explore this as I read them.


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## Turin_Turambar (Yesterday at 8:09 PM)

Starbrow said:


> What characteristics of autism do they think Turin displays? As someone who teaches autistic students, I would disagree.
> 
> One of the primary characteristics is difficulty with social interaction and communication. Typically, people with autism have difficulty establishing and maintaining relationships, trouble having conversations, and have difficulty understanding others perspectives.
> Since Turin repeatedly was able to become a leader of 3 very disparate groups - the outlaws at Amon Ruth, the elves at Nargothrond, and the men of Brethil - shows that his social skills were at a very high level. To be a chief counselor in Nargothrond he probably had to have good communication skills. How else could he have convinced the elves to build a bridge over the Narog and openly fight against Morgoth and the orcs. To be a leader of such a a variety of peoples would mean he was able to understand others perspectives very well. The evidence that Turin has well-developed social skills would indicate that he is not autistic.


you're right, but people with asperger's syndrome, the mildest form of autism, can do what turin does. Because asperger's syndrome affects the person much less than normal autism. The biggest reason why turin is called asperger's is that people cannot understand what they feel and the feelings of the other person. Turin could not understand that though the dwarf knew the mim was hostile to the elves, the mim was hostile to the beleg and was uncomfortable with the beleg.


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## Amon Rudh (Today at 8:21 AM)

I am only a layman but surely not being able to understand another's viewpoint cannot in isolation evidence that someone is on the autistic spectrum? If this were true, almost everyone at some point in their lives would be considered to have ASD?
I don't understand an apparent constant need to label people for any number of characteristics. Maybe this suggests I have Asperger's? I don't but can you see my point?


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## Matthew Bailey (Today at 10:40 AM)

This is a hard, _*absolute, categorical NO!*

Austim _was not even called “Autism” until 1943, when prior to that the condition was first described as an _Extreme Form of Schizephrenia_ by Dr. Eugen Bleuler in Germany. The 1943 Definition of “‘_Autism’ *AS* Autism,” _and *not* “just a severe form of Schizophrenia, was created by Dr. Leo Kanner in the _*Psychiatric Journal of General Pathology*, _in his article _Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact._

The description of How Autism Became Autism can be found in an Article of the Same Name by Dr. Bonnie Evans in the Journal The History of the Modern Sciences.

The Article describes how what we think of as _Autism_ today _*did not exist*_ as a “thing” in the Sciences of the period of Tolkien’s Life.

This does not mean that ‘_Autism’ *Itself *‘Did not Exist’. _We just *didn’t CALL it that!*





> As quoted from Dr. Evans’ Article:
> 
> The concept of autism was coined in 1911 by the German psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler to describe a symptom of the most severe cases of schizophrenia, a concept he had also created. According to Bleuler, autistic thinking was characterized by infantile wishes to avoid unsatisfying realities and replace them with fantasies and hallucinations. ‘Autism’ defined the subject’s symbolic ‘inner life’ and was not readily accessible to observers (Bleuler, 1950[1911]: 63). Psychologists, psychoanalysts and psychiatrists in Britain used the word autism with this meaning throughout the 1920s and up until to the 1950s (e.g. Piaget, 1923). However, in the 1960s, many British child psychologists challenged the contentions about infantile thought assumed by Bleuler and created new methods to validate child psychology as a science, in particular epidemiological studies. ‘Autism’ was then completely reformulated as a new descriptive category to serve the needs of this new model of child development.* From the mid-1960s onwards, child psychologists used the word ‘autism’ to describe the <exact opposite> of what it had meant up until that time. *Whereas ‘autism’ in the 1950s referred to excessive hallucinations and fantasy in infants, ‘autism’ in the 1970s referred to a complete lack of an unconscious symbolic life. For example, Michael Rutter, a leading child-psychiatric researcher from the UK’s Maudsley Hospital who conducted the first-ever genetic study of autism, claimed in 1972 that ‘the autistic child has a deficiency of fantasy rather than an excess’ (Rutter, 1972: 327). The meaning of the word autism was then radically reformulated from a description of someone who fantasized excessively to one who did not fantasize at all.
> [emphasis added for clarity]



Tolkien would _*not even know WHAT “Autism” IS*_ in terms of what we think of it today, _*nor *_would he have been able to discover what it was, given that the _*Modern Definition of Autism*_ _*was not known *_outside of a population of about 300 people, GLOBALLY, prior to Tolkien’s Death.

It was the late-1970s and 1980s where “Autism” was first recognized as being something *VERY DIFFERENT from ALL *prior Psychiatric Pathologies, _*especially*_ those of what was then called “Mental Retardation,” or other Cognitive Defects that tend to afflict people with _Microcephaly; Apraxia, Aphasia, or Agnosia; Neclect; Schizophrenia; Dementia; _or the purely physical Cognitive Defects such as Vascular and Gliovascular White-Matter damage or decay, damage or decay of to Grey-Matter (this and White-Matter damage/decay are most common in Strokes, but not limited to them); and other genetic abnormalities, such as Downs Syndrome (I guess I left out things like Lewy Body Dementia, or some others like Epileptic Cognitive, or Intelligence defects/deficits such as Dyslexia and ALexia being the most common.

_*AND…*_

The Catholic Church prior to the Mid/late-20th Century still had MANY who refused to accept that these Cognitive or Intellectual Impairments were _*“REAL,”*_ claiming instead that they were due to either “Choices” or “Sins” made by those so afflicted. That and/or _Demonic Possession_*.*

Tolkien being the “Good little Catholic” that he was would NOT have challenged anything _outside his expertise_, which is technically true of the vast majority of those in Academia, the Sciences explicitly so.

Túrin Turambar has no Cognitive nor Intellectual defects save for Pride.

He and his father Húrin are the Middle-earth equivalents of Job (This isn’t to say they ARE “Job” in an allegorical sense — Tolkien don’t play that), as people who are beset by hardships as their _Doom_ or _*Fate*_. Yet who never “abandon Faith” in what they are doing (Túrin has some close episodes, but he returns to his Life renewed right-up to the Final Tragedy during the Slaying of Glaurung. He then “takes-his-Life.”

This scene is something that Tolkien _*MIGHT*_ have intended to address the issue of Suicide in the Catholic Church, where Túrin‘s conversation with Gurthang is such that he is asking Gurthang to take his life, who responses with a “Yes.”

Meaning Túrin _*did not *_“Commit Suicide,” *BUT* that he instead was “Killed” by his sword, who had a “Mind” of its own.

So….

Túrin not only _*isn’t Autistic*_, but he _*CANNOT BE *_“Autistic,” by the rules of Eä and Arda.

MB


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## Matthew Bailey (Today at 11:00 AM)

Turin_Turambar said:


> you're right, but people with asperger's syndrome, the mildest form of autism, can do what turin does. Because asperger's syndrome affects the person much less than normal autism. The biggest reason why turin is called asperger's is that people cannot understand what they feel and the feelings of the other person. Turin could not understand that though the dwarf knew the mim was hostile to the elves, the mim was hostile to the beleg and was uncomfortable with the beleg.



Only Asperger’s Syndrome didn’t “exist” as a “thing” outside of a very small population of people until the 1960s, and then it ceased to exist independently of Autism in 2013.

And Catholicism of Tolkien’s day was still hyper-critical and skeptical of Psychiatry and Psychology, given that this negated much of the then existing concepts of _Free Will_. Things like Autism remove the _Intensionality_ _*AND* Intentionality_ from a person’s actions, meaning they are not made “by _Free Will_,” but via some sort of “Coercion” even if from the body itself (the brain is a part of the Body).

The terms “Asperger’s Syndrome” and “Autism” were first Defined and Diagnosed in 1994 and 1943, respectively.

Given Tolkien was disparaging of Psychology and Psychiatry due to the influence of the Church, and _*especially that of his day: The Vatican I, pre-Vatican II form of Catholicism*_, that wasn’t just ‘dismissive’ of things like Psychology, Psychiatry, and “Autism,” but _*ENORMOUSLY HOSTILE*_ to such things. That Hostility toned down a LOT after WWII.

OH!

_*AND*_ Asperger’s Syndrome‘s Discovery occurred _*INSIDE THE NAZI 3rd Reich, by a Doctor Collaborating with the Nazis*_, and thus it’s inclusion in the Diagnostics for Psychiatric Disorders was controversial as a result. Kanner was an Austrian Jew (as opposed to the Austrian-Germanic Hans Asperger) who made his discoveries in America.

Both were things Tolkien would have been _*unable *_to “discover” _*at all*_ until pretty late in the 1950s, given the lower priorities of certain things in the Post-War Europe.

Applying these to Tolkien’s works is rather like applying Nuclear Physics to the Talmud, Torah, Bible, or Qu’ran. The Religious certainly insist they are applicable, but the reality is the opposite: Sciences tend to falsify the Mythological Contents of Religions claiming that Content to be “Literal History.” And even though Middle-earth exists outside of that category, it is still trying to use the wrong metric for measuring something.

Claiming Túrin is ‘_Autistic_’ is rather like trying to use a Tire-Pressure gauge to measure the Temperature of a Roast being cooked.

MB


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## Matthew Bailey (Today at 11:07 AM)

Starbrow said:


> What characteristics of autism do they think Turin displays? As someone who teaches autistic students, I would disagree.
> 
> One of the primary characteristics is difficulty with social interaction and communication. Typically, people with autism have difficulty establishing and maintaining relationships, trouble having conversations, and have difficulty understanding others perspectives.
> Since Turin repeatedly was able to become a leader of 3 very disparate groups - the outlaws at Amon Ruth, the elves at Nargothrond, and the men of Brethil - shows that his social skills were at a very high level. To be a chief counselor in Nargothrond he probably had to have good communication skills. How else could he have convinced the elves to build a bridge over the Narog and openly fight against Morgoth and the orcs. To be a leader of such a a variety of peoples would mean he was able to understand others perspectives very well. The evidence that Turin has well-developed social skills would indicate that he is not autistic.



While your experience is an excellent source for making a determination regarding Autism, it isn’t likely such a “thing” would even exist in Middle-earth during the Periods Tolkien dealt with due to reasons I address in other posts.

Namely that the concept as we use it now didn’t exist, and in Tolkien’s day the number of people who even knew the word “Austim” could all easily fit into a modestly sized house without it being too crowded.

So he would not even had a concept to use as a model at the time, especially given that what was called _Autism_ in the 1910s to 1960s (First described in 1911, but not “Defined” _*AS ‘Autism’*_ until 1943) was _*the exact opposite*_ of what is called “_autism_” today.

And… The Catholic Church at the time was enormously Hostile to Psychiatry and Psychology due to their associations with Atheisms, Communism, and other things the Church has typically been “negative” about.

So how Tolkien could have included a concept he couldn’t have known about, and that if he did know about it would have been hostile towards….

That’s a bit of a stretch to think “exists.”

MB


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## Child of Varda (Today at 5:58 PM)

Matthew Bailey said:


> The Catholic Church prior to the Mid/late-20th Century still had MANY who refused to accept that these Cognitive or Intellectual Impairments were _*“REAL,”*_ claiming instead that they were due to either “Choices” or “Sins” made by those so afflicted. That and/or _Demonic Possession_*.*


I have actually read a Catholic catechism from earlier than that (late Nineteenth Century, I think) that acknowledged the possibility of people being mentally unstable, which effects their guilt. It is true that modern psychology hadn't progressed as much then, but I don't see how that necessarily makes Túrin unable to exhibit symptoms of autism just because Tolkien couldn't name it.


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