Why Nintendo’s Mii Characters are Autistic

Point One: Miitopia (from how far I’ve gotten)

In the photo above, I have a bit from Miitopia after you give a Mii the highest quality Jolly Jaunt tickets. The photo is low quality, but you can see that the one on the right is dancing back and forth and the other is clearly flapping his hands. This is a clear example of stimming, and while it is true that allistic people stim sometimes, it is a much more common autistic trait.

I don’t have photos for most of the other ones, but one of the main parts of the game is that you have a party of four Miis, each with different jobs in a similar fashion to DnD, and they have to try and work together to save Miitopia. They can get into fights as well when things go wrong. One possible way for two Miis to get into a fight is that after a major battle, they will all be tense and irritable and get on each other for little things like not being careful enough. To me, this reads as sensory overload from a stressful high-stakes battle.

One of the types of monsters you battle is called a Banshee, and one of their moves is crying to try and make a certain member of your party cry too, making them unable to fight. This either works perfectly or not at all, which is an example of a lack of empathy vs. hyper-empathy, which seems to be flexible with the Miis based on this attack.

At one point in the game, you are sent by the king to retrieve a Calming Fruit, which calms the people eating it. One possible dialogue between two Miis (who I’ll call Red and Elijah, my Miis who had this dialogue) during this trip is Red talking about using the Calming Fruit to remove all fear and negativity and rule the world, with Elijah becoming nervous as the other talks. Elijah can’t tell that Red is joking until he outright says it, at which point Elijah gets mad and tells him to get back on track. Not understanding humor is a common autistic trait.

Point Two: Wii Sports, Wii Music, Wii Party, etc.

It doesn’t really seem like there’s a lot to be taken from a sports game, a game where you either conduct or are part of a band, or a game composed entirely of minigames, right?

Well, yes and no. To start off, we get another example of Miis stimming (kind of) in Wii Sports Resort. When a sport gets intense/exciting, they can be seen bouncing around a ton. They get very disappointed when they lose, slumping down and looking quite sad. This is also seen in Wii Party.

In Wii Music, the multiplayer/co-op part is near impossible. I even did it with the two remotes in the same hand and still couldn’t get a high score. An inability to work together like that could be a sign of autism.

One of the minigames in Wii Party revolves around trying to get a group of Miis in a good picture by getting as many of them smiling as possible. However, they keep looking away and talking to each other, making the minigame very difficult.

A lot of Wii Party and Wii Fit minigames, such as dropping barrels from above and trying to be the last to stop it from falling, falling from one platform to the next with a 50% chance of getting electrocuted, going out into space and launching themselves, asteroids and spaceships at one another, going into haunted houses and trying to ward off ghosts that are trying to kidnap them, having 3 other Miis throw logs at one of them which they have to try and break to avoid getting hit in the head with, crossing a tightrope between two buildings so high you can’t see past the third floor down, walking across a small tilting path over a pit, and trying to ride a pump cart through a mine that’s falling apart to escape a massive boulder, are incredibly dangerous. Miis don’t seem to particularly understand this danger. It has been proven that autistic people aren’t nearly as scared when faced with dangerous situations and, for that reason, are less likely to realize how dangerous a situation is.

Point Three: Tomodachi Life

At first, I wasn’t sure I was going to do this one, in fact I almost scrapped this idea entirely because of this one, because for an everyday life simulator entirely revolving around Miis, it initially seemed like there was a disappointing lack of evidence.

But when I started up my copy of it again, I realized how much I’d missed.

The first and most important point is, once again, examples of self-stimulatory behavior. When they get happy, they can often be seen flapping their arms up and down and bobbing back and forth.

They ask for help to make friends because they don’t know what to do/say in social situations otherwise. They do the same with asking someone out and proposing, relying on you for the specifics and help reading the atmosphere so they know when to talk and what to say/how to act.

When they have a child, they ask you for help very quickly because the baby won’t calm down and they’re already stressed and worn out from the crying.

Just like in Miitopia, Miis in Tomodachi Life can get into fights. Afterwards, they need to cool off before they can try to make up. If the Miis don’t make up, the one who tried to apologize will become really sad. This could be rejection sensitivity/rsd, which can be linked to both ADHD and autism. From here, you can see what was happening in the fight. Sometimes it will just show you them insulting and throwing things at each other, but other times it will show them tugging at a teddy bear, arguing over who it belongs to. This sort of need for their own personal belongings is a somewhat common thing for autistic people.

Miis have very strange dreams, and from viewing these dreams you can obtain items. This is how one of these dreams is described by the Tomodachi Life Wikia:

“A friend of the dreaming Mii tells a secret that seems ridiculous and unbelievable. The Mii is then shocked, bringing their face out of the world and back, only to find out that the friend was just pulling their leg.” Or, alternatively:

“The same thing happens, except the dreaming Mii is not surprised. Instead, they tell their friend that everybody already knows this secret leaving the friend shocked. This time around the dreaming Mii gets to tell their friend that it was a joke.”

Once again, we see Miis being often unable to determine jokes from seriousness, and they seem to be aware of it, as is reflected in their dream. Another dream is described as this by the wikia:

“The dreaming Mii will be seated between three random islanders on either side, the rest of whom are seen wearing curly-locks wigs. They will then turn to a Mii at random and ask about their country/king/economy, and that Mii will respond with something positive or neutral about it. Miis will say ‘darling!’ after their answer. After answering, all of the Miis (except the dreaming Mii) will laugh and say ‘Ha ha ha! Wonderful!’.”

This may be a bit of a stretch, but to me this reads as their perception of being social with neurotypicals. They feel entirely out of place, not able to understand whatever is happening that the people around them understand, seemingly effortlessly. It could be a manifestation of anxiety with trying to interact “normally” when what’s “normal” feels so foreign. However, this dream could also be showing the others trying to mask, mindlessly going along with each other and following one another’s lead, with the dreaming Mii still in the same position. Overall, this dream seems to be a manifestation of struggling to understand social situations.

There is also another dream in which the dreaming Mii is an accessory in a car, which is being driven by two other Miis. Occasionally the driving Mii will stop the car abruptly because they believe they’ve forgotten something or need a question answered. This is showing that the dreaming Mii notices that other Miis tend to have poor memories, which, while it is not a commonly acknowledged autistic trait, is something that a lot of autistic people struggle with.

In total, we have:

3 examples of stimming

6 examples of social/communication skills

2 examples of sensory overload

and 7 other examples of Miis displaying autistic traits.

#Still love it #<3 #Fave!#Long post