#and that isnt even touching the whole demonization of low empathy ppl too like. i feel like im poking around a minefield

[thenamesblurrito]

Any chance for some protagonists with low empathy, but who aren't evil?

every time i try to do research and figure out what empathy actually is and how it manifests i just start an existential spiral of what is empathy? do i even have empathy? how much of it is nature and how much of it is nurture? how do you quantify that? what does a character with low empathy even look like? or high empathy for that matter? do i not understand because i'm bad at comprehending what i'm reading or do i not understand because i simply don't relate to/have empathy myself??

this is an ongoing existential spiral that started over two years ago btw and i still have no satisfactory answer and could not tell you what makes a believable low empathy character, so i'm, uh. still working on it. HOWEVER one of the most important parts of SNAP to me is that choice is what causes evil. there's plenty of neurodivergent folks here, or other struggling, marginalized, abused people, but it is always, always up to them to choose to "be evil". no antagonists are like that because of some inherent trait, in fact the majority of Bludgeon's character arc is just demonstrating how he has chosen over and over to be the person who hurts other people because that's what he wants, not because he can't feel bad or doesn't understand what he's doing or whatever. with low empathy specifically, when i thought of Overlord and Guiltaur's episode i wanted them to have the equivalent of ASPD, to kind of make a point of two people with the same condition in the same situation who both have to choose how they'll treat others. so i suppose sort of yes to your answer, in that Guiltaur is the "good guy" of that episode and explicitly has low empathy?

uhhhh but less officially, just more kind of, gut feeling i guess, i think Hot Rod, Laserbeak, and Brainstorm probably have low empathy, maybe also Nightracer and Wheelie (who is like 9 so this is partially just a small child thing, but it does stay into adulthood). (Shockwave post-Lenses technically counts as low empathy but this is because of corrupted relic changes/trauma and i don't want to lump that in with everyone else). on the flip side i think Deadlock, Tailgate, and Wreck-gar have very high empathy, and perhaps Red Alert. i don't really have any, i guess "diagnosis" arcs or self-discovery of the mental health/neurodivergent sort in SNAP, since i am juggling so many other things, but there's a lot about the mental processes and situations of many characters that is important and noticeable in the text, even if not explicitly stated. so just because nobody looks at the camera and announces to the audience their precise medical diagnosis for the conditions they have doesn't mean i'm not keeping it in mind while writing them