Is AJ mentally unstable? Like a legit Sociopath?
Don't get me wrong, I love AJ. I want to make it clear that i'm not an AJ hater. He's a adorable Clem protector and he loves Clem. That's all I need from someone. He's cool. But the kid is just a little ethically and morally twisted in the head. He just is. Something happened at the ranch that ruined him because what he displays is not in Clem's nature. Not being mean. He just really is clinically, like medically a bit NUTTY.
Instance #1 - Randomly Stealing Tenn's Toys
Now out of all the ones i'm going to mention, this one is the most minor offense because kids do this in real life. But it is just a bit of a insight into the irrational and quick tempered mind of AJ. We just got into this school, we are GUESTS and this kid is out here punking poor Tenn. Tenn woulda snuffed him if he wasn't carrying heat. AJ lucky. He damn Lucky lol.
Instance 2 - His imaginary "ticks" that everyone buys
I'm not sure who bought the whole "I elbow people in the nuts and bite viciously anyone who taps my shoulder" thing but I sure as hell didn't. We gotta keep in mind that sociopaths are born master manipulators. Look at charles manson for example. He'd do the most outlandish shit but he'd flip it to make you feel like you did wrong for judging him. AJ is smart as it is. If it is true, he has one rare, rare special disease. But I think he's got a plan in his head to do these things.
Instance 3 - Wanting Dibs on Abel
This part was probably the creepiest. After all that he has gone through with executing Marlon. He still has that uncurvable lust for pain and human blood. He literally argues with Clem wanting dibs to kill a man at 6 years old. Like calm down there. You aren't grown and killing people is never easy nor should it ever be fun. My Clem tried teaching him these things but at this point I think he might actually be a clinical sociopath and of course in this world their is no medicine to treat it. Kinda scary.
Instance 4 - He Tupac'd Marlon
Of course the most well noted of them all. And keep in mind what I said about sociopaths being master manipulators. Notice how AJ says "But I did like you said' to flip it all on you. He still demonstrates his lust for blood well after his atonement.
Instance 5- Kicking the wall, yelling at Louis.
When he was in the room kicking the wall, he wouldn't listen to Clem or anyone. He was in this angry zone and he had the look in his eyes. He also snapped when Louis told them they had to leave.
So do you think he's mentally unstable? Like clinically a hazard at this point? Or do you think he's just trying to do the right things and he's too young to differentiate right from wrong and is burdouned with too much responsibility?
Comments
Nooooooo! No! no!
IT'S OVERRRRRR!
By this logic, every kid is a sociopath.
Don't you people know how kids work?
AJ is a psycho and i think the end choice would be to put him down, or something like that.
Every kid puts a .38 special round through an unarmed man's head and then want's dibs to do it again just 2 weeks later? lol.
If they grow up in a zombie apocalypse, then yes. Don't you know that people are shaped by their surroundings?
You can't tell if a child is a psycho.
Uhh... it's hard to tell what's going on with AJ.
He doesn't know how to live in a community because he doesn't know a world before monsters. We don't know how a kid would grow up in such an environment.
To him the main goal is to survive, no matter what, to kill anything that's "bad" or what he believes is a monster.
He clearly still doesn't understand when to kill someone, if it's right or wrong (Shown by his dialogue about Lee).
He doesn't seem to understand why killing Marlon was bad, he only knows it was bad because Clem told him so.
AJ doesn't seem to value human life that much, to him killing a human being is just like killing walkers.
It's pretty complicated with him, I just hope Clem gets to explain things more thoroughly to him.
An exchange between him and Clem always worried me:
" But what if we played rock, paper, scissors ?"
" AJ, I said no "
" You won't always be able to tell me no "
This to me feels like he doesn't care all that much about Clem's teachings and just wants to do his own thing
I feel like he's on a dark road and he needs to be pulled back from it.
Honestly, it is very sad to me that you haven't considered the fact that he was born within the apocalypse, so there is no point in considering him a sociopath or clinically ill (definitely not that). Understand this. It's the basic prinicple to grasping why AJ is different. I feel sorry for Telltale that not enough people have picked up on this, or that the auren't taking it into its full account. Perhaps they shouldn't have been so subtle and just have Clem outright say 'he was born in the world of walkers, obviously he's gonna act a little different'
honestly I am very perplexed at why you haven't discussed this. Yeah, you're speculating and whatnot but still.
When you're in the apocaclypse, and keeping in mind a Stage Four one, where there are barely any people left and everything is derelict, where even mighty communities have fallen, AJ will OF COURSE see stealing as something that is right no matter what. If you're hunting, you'll take a chocolate bar when you see one. If it is someone else's, NOW it's a new situation and gets a bit more complicated/resides on your morals. But AJ hasn't been in that situation before, (because bad writing, suddenly the most mature character Clem can't even raise a child right and 4 years later the players need to do it themselves xD) he can't distinguish the rules. And if he were to learn them, he'd see them as mere rules. He's basically Sheldon.
No, this is just a survival technique. (But bad writing Telltale strikes again why would a short boi be punching walkers in the dick? they'd bite him easily it doesn't make sense lel)
Okay, this is getting boring. It generally follows the same explanation, I realise my mistake, these all go hand in hand. But I need to finish what I started. AJ sees him as a bad guy, and in a Stage Four apocalypse, it's very likely all AJ has seen of people other than Clem are just bad guys. Raiders. Looters. Whatever ya call em. I would call Abel a bad guy too. (Bad mom Clem strikes again! I'm dissapointed in her)
sigh I don't want to anymore. I have crappy resilience and I hope you can accept that. Even 1 'Awesome' isn't worth it.
This requires more explanation and is more complicated. It's likely that AJ's apocalypse mindset leads him to believe that if people are getting angry toward him then he needs to be angry towards them or at least vent or let out his anger in some way. As someone who studies Sociology, I find this pretty interesting since kicking something as a way of letting out anger isn't something one would do unless they'd seen it before in their lives. They wouldn't think of that. Same for the victory dance. Oh well, bad writing Telltale idk. Have to dig deeper with this one.
Yeah that quote creeped me out. I wouldn't be surprised if he is very easily manipulated by the Delta into killing Clem or the good side. It wouldn't kill someone to punish him either. He should have lost his gun for a while when he killed Marlon to show him his actions have consequences and he shoulda gotten a spanking for mouthing off to Clem like that to show him Clem is still the boss. You gotta assert yourself to him. He's getting a tad out of hand fast.
When you're young, that seems perfectly reasonable to you.
yes.
kill him.
rip
... (sigh) Never mind.
They had just gotten to the school and AJ has never been around kids his age before. AJ is used to scavening with Clem where he would find something and it would be his. He didn't understand the concept of sharing but he listens if you tell him to give the toy back.
AJ has grown up in a world where he is constantly running from reanimated corpses that eat people as well as bandits who might do worse. He almost certainly has some degree of PTSD and his non-imaginary tick is totally understandable considering he has literally always had to have his guard up.
This was very dark of him to do but I reminded myself that Abel scares AJ and has been haunting his nightmares. AJ only knows that you're supposed to kill monsters and in his mind the one way he could get rid of being scared and haunted is to kill this man. I still told him he can't because Abel is dangerous and AJ shouldn't take killing lightly.
Marlon was planning to trade them to raiders and pinned a murder on Clementine in order to kill her. The timing of shooting Marlon from behind was very unfortunate but ultimately AJ didn't kill him out of some sadistic joy, he killed him because he was a bad guy who traded the twins and tried to kill Clementine.
AJ was upset with himself because to some degree he felt guilty and unsure over killing Marlon, and he was also upset when he felt like none of the other kids understood why he did it and thought he was a monster too. He wasn't just throwing a temper tantrum because they might have to leave, he was just frustrated over being demonized for a rash action. And I don't recall him snapping at Louis, he was actually quite accepting over being kicked out and was just sad as opposed to angry. He doesn't even hold it against Louis and still wants to be his friend.
yes.
It's well known that every kids are born in a world surrounded by death and are taught how to survive at really young age but acting like angels.
Aj's mentality due to his upbringing is to kill anyone and anything he perceives to be a monster. And to have no sympathy for said monster. Marlon was a monster in aj's eyes and whether you agree or disagree marlon did things that made him dangerous and a threat and a monster is dangerous and a threat.
Abel shot aj and tried to kill him and clem in the woods. So of course aj would think of abel as dangerous and a threat.
And of course aj would want dibs on abel for what he did. Aj isn't chucky and he's not the joker. Those are mentally unstable people. Aj can feel sympathy, sadness, and remorse. Aj isn't anything like those two characters.
I do have this feeling too. Instances 3 and 4 shows that. Especially number 3. Remember people: for all we know he could be Carver's son. I always suspected he was and after playing the first two episodes I definitely think he is.
It's hard to write children as it is. But they've anted up by writing one that's in circumstances that can't be compared to our daily lives, therefore can't be branded by the same rules we use on ourselves. That said, I believe they've done a great job with AJ up to this point because surprisingly, nearly everything you listed can be chalked up to him literally being a kid, because damn near everything there is literally what kids do, just on a far bigger scale.
Some things are chalked up to being a kid and kids can be possessive of things that look appealing to them, even if it's not theirs. And I hate them for it. I don't care if I used to do the same thing, this ain't about me, Mom!
I've been around a lot of kids. My sister has 4. My brother has 2. Those little fucks are smart as hell. At least for me, they'd like to believe they are, but I know all their tricks. I believe AJ's instinctual attacks are real, but even if they weren't, it's not at all psychotic. Kids I know like to do people dirty and act like it was an accident. But in AJ's case, I'm sure it was accidental. If not, then that lil boy had me hella fooled.
It's dark, but understandable when you understand that Abel is the source of AJ's nightmares. When kids have nightmares, they often want what's causing them trouble out of their lives and therefore out of their dreams and it does them better to see it gone rather than be told it's gone. Same thing can be applied to Abel. It has less to do with him having fun killing Abel and moreso making sure those nightmares don't continue to haunt him by taking out the source.
Tupac is alive, living his best life in Malaysia. Keep up bro
. Plus I think a better comparison to say is that he JFK'd that boy.
In all seriousness though, this is less AJ's fault and moreso Clementine's fault. She taught AJ to kill walkers. She didn't at all think to prepare him for conflict against actual people and how complicated that can get. AJ felt like he was justified in the moment because he saw Marlon present the kind of threat that they were trying to rid themselves of.
Literally a temper tantrum. You ever seen a kid apologize, still get put in timeout or punished, and yell shit like "BUT I SAID I'M SORRY!!" while stomping all over the place? That's the daily life version of the shit AJ pulled in that instance. AJ tries to apologize and it confused, sad, and upset as to why they don't accept it right away.
In conclusion, AJ's fine. He's just an apocalypse child. The shit he goes through, the reactions he has are literally that of a child, just one under the cirumstances of an apocalypse.
Just imagine if there was a choice similar to Carol telling Lizzie to look at the flowers.
More like snot nose brat’s if you ask me.
Ikr.
Sociophaty, by its own definition, requires a rejection a stablished societal norms and adoption of Anti-social behaviors. So lets see
1)AJ "stealing toys"
You to take into consideration that the Kid is 5 years Old at most. If you have children, or younger siblings, Im sure you have been in one those situations where the kid sees something and immediatly wants it: Happens with candy, toys, etc. The fact that he obeyed Clem and returned the toy without throwing a tantrum, as most kids that age would do showcase that he is actually well behaved
2)Imaginary "ticks"
This is mostly based on assumption. So I wont spend much time on it
Sufice to say, that he lives in a World where certain situations, namely being caught off guard, are ought to trigger certain reactions. Its a survival mechanism. This may or may not hint to a developing Paranoia, but the KID is too young to tell.
3 & 4)Dibs on "Abel" and Tupac´D Marlon
On this one I partially agree. but not for the reasons you might imagine.
AJ finds violence easy because most of his life is what has kept him alive. he hanst spend enough tiem around people to understand such cocnepts such as a "measured use of force" its impossible -or ighly difficult- for kid to properly contextualize "how much " violence is acceptable, specially in a World like this where it might seem easier simply to kill and get rid of the problem.
Proper guidance and upbringing is necessary for him to properly acquire societal norms. Because the thing is this: You cannot be anti-social is you live without societal norms. Practically all Human interaction he had has been Clem, things are obviously to bork when he faces more complex relantionships: Thats why school is important, people, regardless of you end up using what is taught there.
So, not only AJ is not a sociopath, he CANNOT BE a sociopath
AJ's at that point in his early stages where his brain is like a sponge and misinterprets things. a little too often. I like to think, he's taught things, but doesn't fully understand them so he does what would make sense to him with what he learns. if that makes sense.
like with the whole train station advice scene. with whatever you decide to tell him, applies to both humans & walkers in their world. this we know which he seemed to understand. I don't think the marlon thing was his fault, he was taught, (whatever you told him) and thats it. I noticed in this season, and I don't like it either, when clem doesn't elaborate what she says to this child. she(we) gives him advice and expects him to figure out the rest for himself. just because he remembers the advice, doesn't necessarily means he knows when to apply it. I would've liked it if she broke it down like: "aim for the head if you have a clear shot, and this person is a threat and trying to kill you or me. only then you shoot". but all she says is, "aim for the head" and is shocked?!
so as long as he's taught like this, we should expect more tragic scenes like the marlon situation going forward.
depends on if he listens to clem or not. could be warped from being born into the zombie apocalypse or might've inherited carver's crazy.
that girl needs to elaborate!!! does he even know how to speak sarcasm yet?
he reminds me of john doe/joker whos innocent but has no morality to guide them but clem/bruce are the only thing that teaches them morality
Stopped reading with example 1. Have you never been around children before? Children are selfish little assholes. They see something they like, it becomes theirs. It's the law of children lol.
It's like no one has ever heard of feral children.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child
AJ obviously wasn't raised by wolves, but the gist is somewhat similar. His socialization doesn't resemble the old world.
Also the game straight up tells you why AJ is the way he is. In plain language.
If anything, AJ makes perfect sense as a character and his behavior being anything otherwise wouldn't make any. AJ doesn't get to be a normal pre-apocalypse child because he ISN'T one. Plain and simple.
No, every child in daycare must be a clinical psychopath.
"Put him down". lol.
AJ is not a dog.
But she WON'T be always be around him to tell him no, that's objectively fact.
He's talking about his age. Or if Clem is never around.
You guys have never been moody children to your parents before? I really doubt this.
What is context and relativism.
No, he's referring to the fact that he will eventually grow up and Clem won't have control over him anymore.
I thought it was pretty obvious
No, he's just a kid who's never lived in a society before. He was born in the apocalypse. To him, life is all about survival and killing monsters. He doesn't know how the world was like before apocalypse. He has little to no experience with people. That's why he's really aggressive sometimes. I don't think he will end up as a psychopath if he follows Clem's teaching. However, if he's captured by the raiders and brainwashed for a long time, he would most likely become a cold-blooded killer. As a child born in the apocalypse, he has the potential to be misled. To be honest, I think everyone can be misled and brainwashed into a killer. It's just that as a kid born in the apocalypse, he's more prone to it.
I wouldn't call him a straight up sociopath, but... I do have some problems with AJ. To be brutally honest: He makes me a bit uncomfortable and I don't care as much about him as the game wants me to.
Imo, he's kind of unrealistic and excusing everything he does by saying "he's growing up in an apocalyptic world!" doesn't do the trick for me since it's not like we don't know any other children/teenagers that grew up under these circumstances. Ellie and Sam from the Last of Us for example. I really wish they would've made him at least 7 or something like that. He's way too articulate for his age and yes, Clementine is great and all but come on... The only thing she had for him to read was a cooking magazine.
When he started talking about being able to stay awake for 18 days while holding a knife in his hands I was getting really creeped out and almost allowed him to go on patrol so I could lock the door behind him. Yes, I know that sounds horrible lol
I forgot about that moment lol Another for the list. And I do have to agree. The one excuse of him being a kid in a apocolypse is just way overused. You can't use that when Clem has countless times in my story tried teaching him right from wrong. And he was raised behind guarded walls for a good portion of his young childhood with adults not kids. Clem even told him he was a murderer and what he did was wrong yet at the end of the game he still has the lust for blood for killing abel. Meaning he doesn't listen. That exchange with Clem proved he only sees Clem as a superior because she is bigger then him. Scary..... Clem has already told him Marlon wasn't a monster as if it wasn't obvious. He knew then that Marlon wasn't a walker and he knows now for sure. He's playing everyone like a good sociopath does.
Let us not forget that Tenn is like 10. 12 max. S1 (Start of the outbreak) started in like 2003. And S4 takes place in around 2014. Tenn doesn't know shit outside of walkers either and he's one of the most well reasoned loving kids of the franchise history. Clementine wasn't exactly grown when the shit started either. But both seem to have listened to their supervising adults and actually learned and cared.
Some things, morals and ethics are just lacking from a chemical inbalance. I really think AJ has some actual issues. He is extremely violent. Lacks self awareness and is a master manipulator. And when we are at a school with children like Tenn who can't be more then 10-12 years old and Willy who is around 14 and the Outbreak started 11 years ago. That means those kids know nothing other then the dead and murder too. I don't think AJ should be allowed to lean on that crutch forever.
I'm surprised the game hasn't addressed this YET, it's clear he is mentally unstable , no kid says first dibs to torture someone or kill them
Look at the flowers AJ xD