In response to the Fringe and Breaking Bad post, a reader mentioned the character Dr. Maura Isles from the television show "Rizzoli and Isles" as someone to watch out for. In the episode "I'm Your Boogie Man," the (Asperger's? Autism? Sociopath?) sometimes odd acting Isles questions a serial killer's statement that she is not afraid of him because she is just like him:
Rizzoli: You okay? Come on, Maura, talk to me. He's a freak. He gets to everybody. Isles: I didn't -- I did a lot of research into his background; his childhood. Maybe he's not wrong. Rizzoli: What are you talking about? Isles: Maybe I am a little bit like him. Rizzoli: You are nothing like him. Isles: I don't -- I don't know, Jane. I was a weird kid. Rizzoli: Were you killing small animals? Isles: [laughs] No, but I dissected a lot of frogs. Rizzoli: That's different. Isles: I just started to think about things that I never really thought about before. Rizzoli: Here it comes. There are bodies buried in your basement. Isles: I spent a lot of time alone. I was adopted, my father was a professor and my mother she -- she came from a wealthy family and was an only child. I just realized something when I was reading about Hoyt. It just never occurred to be before. There was a lot of benign neglect. It's not that they didn't love me. It's just that I didn't ask for much. I don't think I really knew how, and the less that I would ask for the less time that they have for me. They were just very, very involved in their own lives and into each other. They sent me to boarding school when I was ten. I actually think that I sent away for the brochure myself. [smiles with Jane] They were delighted. I was really lost. Rizzoli: Come here. [takes Maura's hand] No matter what happened to you, you are nothing like that monster, okay? You're a little anti-social maybe, goofy, but that's not the same thing. Isles: [crying] Thank you.
This was interesting, this idea of benign neglect. I think it's easy to write a character like this off as being a relatively harmless Aspie, but do negative environmental factors like this trigger autism or Asperger's? Even if she is Aspie, or even just an introvert, apparently the way she was raised has led her to become an antisocial, relatively unfeeling and unempathetic brand of humanity, which really isn't that different from her foil the serial killer.
Can benign neglect trigger sociopathic behaviors? Maybe. Or probably.
Can benign neglect trigger sociopathic behaviors? Maybe. Or probably.