Character Development: Lalli

[Tjoll]

It is not an instinctive reaction, I agree. Which is why it's so interesting that he does it... he extrapolated that Emil cares about the state of hair from way back when Emil smoothed Lalli's hair down. I think he really was doing what he thought was appropriate in the situation, which is indicative of normal empathy levels

Yes, Lalli thought it to be appropriate--and that's the thing: an empathic reaction would have required a deeper, linked-to-the-situation understanding where Emil's distress is coming from (namely, his troll experience a few minutes ago) AND to understand what's likely to make the person feel better in the situation (=appropriate). To NOT understand this very obvious connection is a sign that Lalli's not really well versed in theory of mind (elaborately theorizing what's going on in other people's heads and basing your own reactions on that--a thing neurotypicals do on an automatic level, whereas people on the autistic spectrum CAN learn it, but it seems to remain a laborous thing to do, see for example descriptions by Tempel Grandin on the matter).
However, lacking that understanding doesn't make him indifferent to Emil's distress. Uta Frith describes this as "instinctive sympathy": perceiving a person to be sad=>do something to cheer them up, regardless whether this is an appropriate thing to do given the situation/the reason they are sad. So yes, Lalli remembered that Emil cares a lot about his hair, but he wrongly assumed fixing it would brighten Emil's mood due to poor theory of mind. 
(and yes, although people on the spectrum have more or less difficulties with perceiving emotional states of others, they CAN decipher at least some or intense ones--also, they seemingly tend to get better with that when growing older and more experienced with how neurotypicals express themselves)

The allowing himself to be manhandled is very much a personality thing too

Granded. However, these things in isolation are not what I base my argumentation upon, I base it upon the fact that Lalli seemingly doesn't get how people "work", and all the other examples of unusual behavior I named just fit in the picture of him not being neurotypical imo.

As far as the stealing food goes, I think that may be a survival tactic. [...] If rationing was ever a thing, Lalli (going through his ravenous teenage years) would have totally gotten used to stealing food. Also remember that when people don't get enough sleep they need more food, and simultaneously have less energy to go through the 'proper' method of obtaining more of it. (In Lalli's case, getting his cousin, asking her to translate (risking the possibility that she might scold him for being greedy and refuse) and then relying on Mikkel to give him maybe one more cookie instead of just taking the initiative, so to speak, with a close to 100% chance of ending up with all of the cookies)

See, the thought processes you just described: it feels to me like Lalli wouldn't have them. He just takes the food because he's hungry. He doesn't think about asking because who holds ownership over the food isn't part of his thought process, nor does he think for a second about how the others may feel about his thievery. Which is either rude and antisocial, or, and I think that's the case, people getting upset by his actions is simply not part of his way of thinking. Same with things like politeness--it doesn't seem to me as if he disregards these things out of deliberate rudeness or as a calculated way to make things easier for him.
Which doesn't mean he couldn't learn to read people better or to be polite, mind you.
 

Tuuri's and Lalli's dynamic reminds me a lot of me with my neurotypical, but extremely introverted, cousin. [...] Our conversations mainly consist of half-finished sentences, interruptions, vague references, and the odd quotation. I suspect that this is also what's going on when Lalli's doing the debriefing..."This is weird, that felt funny...." familiarity doesn't always mean chattiness, sometimes quite the opposite.

Absolutely!
But the question is: if you'd show your cousin the comic and tell him that Emil really cares about his hair and then show your cousin what happened to Emil on the train and THEN ask him why Emil's distressed and what's likely to make him feel better in the situation--would he think tidying up Emil's hair would do the job?

Again, as far as the theory of Lalli's being on the spectrum goes, I can only say that somebody who was inclined to sensory overload and/or had trouble prioritizing details would be an extremely poor scout.

Not everyone on the autistic spectrum has sensory overload issues. Also, sensory overload issues seem to come in many different forms (for example: loud explosions all around aren't a bother, but the feeling of the clothes one wears drive one crazy, or the sound a specific pen makes on paper).
Concerning the eye for details instead of the bigger picture: on the contrary, I'd think being able to notice tiny differences in your environment would HELP you in your scouting and alert you of danger way ahead of your collegues!

It's not just introversion, sleep-deprivation, and cultural differences: it's all three of those put together.

Ooor it could be his personality, which strikes me as a personality of someone who's likely on the spectrum. I guess time (and Minna) will tell!

And WELCOME TO THE FORUM!!! get out now while you still can :p

THANK YOU!!! =] (also thanks for the good advice, but I think it's too late for that already /o\)

[Elrew]

I think I'm leaning towards Lalli being really introverted rather than on the autistic spectrum...

So, about the handshaking. As RTR said, handshakes are probably not a thing people do anymore in Finland due to the risk of spreading the Rash. Also, it tends to be only strangers who shake hands and in a close community like Keuruu, it must be a rare thing for someone to do if handshakes still exist.
Another possibility is that Lalli does know what a handshake is but refuses to do it. I've noticed in school that some people delight in making introverts uncomfortable. There was a phase where people kept asking me for high-fives and fist bumps and it got to the stage where I just ignore it unless I know that they're not trying to mock me. That could be what Lalli's doing?

Also, Emil's hair. I agree that it's a pretty strange thing to do in that situation however, he's probably never had to calm someone down like that because everyone he's worked with until now is a professional. But stroking a child's hair is a common way to calm them down so he's probably just struggling for what to do and comes up with a bit of a rubbish solution. I think you should also keep in mind that Lalli's only known Emil for a few hours, doesn't speak the same language as him and will only have a vague idea of his personality. If that were me, I'd just flounder and decide he'd be fine in a few minutes. I feel uncomfortable trying to comfort my friends and I'm not on the spectrum. It's possible that he does have a deep emotional empathy but his personality is distancing him from a response.

As other people have said, if you stick introversion, sleep deprivation and confusion together, you don't have someone that will think entirely rationally but I'm not sure that can explain Lalli's cookie stealing... Maybe we should also remember that the comic is meant to be entertaining and Lalli's frequently used as comic relief so he's bound to behave a bit strangely sometimes, like how Tuuri was mean to the kids and got stroppy at Mikkel but I'd say she's generally very cheerful and friendly.
But I totally agree that this is just speculation and could all be wrong if/when we get answers.

[starfallz]

I do think the hair thing was a bit of comic relief. Also, after Lalli had the disturbing experience of being cleansed and shuffled around in a weird place with people speaking a language he couldn't understand (first time out of a place people spoke Finnish), Emil socially groomed him by patting down his hair. So, Emil has a disorienting and scary experience... and Lalli socially grooms him.

[Tjoll]

I do think the hair thing was a bit of comic relief.

But wouldn't it be REALLY elegant story-telling if what we read as comic relief were just secondarily comic relief and primarily things the characters would actually do in a given situation? =]

Also, after Lalli had the disturbing experience of being cleansed and shuffled around in a weird place with people speaking a language he couldn't understand (first time out of a place people spoke Finnish), Emil socially groomed him by patting down his hair. So, Emil has a disorienting and scary experience... and Lalli socially grooms him.

I'm aware it's no far stretch for Lalli to come to the conclusion that grooming Emil would be a great idea--that doesn't invalidate my Lalli-lacks-in-the-theory-of-mind-department argumentation, though.
[Keep in mind that a)Emil didn't necessarily groom Lalli in order to make him feel better and b)even if he did: the situation back then would have made it an actually plausible thing to do, like "oh no, what have they done to you, jostling poor you around like that" *tidies hair up* "there you go, no harm done, everything back to normal" -- whereas "oh no, you almost died and look kinda horrified" *tidies hair up* "there, don't you feel better already?" doesn't make THAT much sense, empathy-wise.
Emil couldn't have judged the magnitude of scaryness of the cleansing-process for someone like Lalli since he barely knew him back then, whereas most non-jerk neurotypical people wouldn't assume that someone they barely know is helped by smushing their hair after they had just been in an objectively life-threatening situation and lie before them WEARING THAT FACIAL EXPRESSION Emil wore.]
Transferring the grooming behavior observed in a whole different situation [where it can be considered acceptable and fairly promising behavior] to THIS [post-life-threatening] situation [where the same action is not promising* and comes accross as gross insensitivity] is just what someone on the spectrum would be likely to do given no-one told them that this isn't an acceptable thing to do.
Actually, these "it is okay to do XY in situation A, but not okay to do the exactly same thing in situation B" rules are a great and ongoing source of massive frustration for people on the spectrum, or so I have read from self-reports of people being on the spectrum]

*Not promising when confronted with a stranger. I don't deny that something humorous can be the right course of action in order to actually make some people feel better after a life-threatening situation that very visibly got to them a lot, but a)doesn't seem to me as if Lalli was trying to do something funny and b)to know that somebody would likely be made feel better by doing something silly like smushing their hair after an life-threatening event that clearly got to them requires lots of familarity with a person.
[Have I mentioned that exceptions to rules have the potential to frustrate people on the spectrum a *tad* more than neurotypicals?]

Anyway, of course anyone can read into the characters what they want, but I, personally, am more than ready to read Lalli as being on the spectrum until proven otherwise because I agree with the opinion of somebody I sadly can't identify on short notice but posted somwhere in this very thread: it'd be nice if Lalli were autistic because autistic people don't get that much representation in media. Also, it's nice to learn about different ways of thinking by means of a well-told story. Introvert? Been there, done that. Autistic? Not so much, so... more interesting because of more new things to be learned.
It's not at all a far stretch to read him as such (up to this point), hence I'll just carry on--just as you'll carry on to read im as being "just" introvert, and both is just fine. :]

[Antillanka]

Anyway, of course anyone can read into the characters what they want, but I, personally, am more than ready to read Lalli as being on the spectrum until proven otherwise because I agree with the opinion of somebody I sadly can't identify on short notice but posted somwhere in this very thread: it'd be nice if Lalli were autistic because autistic people don't get that much representation in media. Also, it's nice to learn about different ways of thinking by means of a well-told story. Introvert? Been there, done that. Autistic? Not so much, so... more interesting because of more new things to be learned.
It's not at all a far stretch to read him as such (up to this point), hence I'll just carry on--just as you'll carry on to read im as being "just" introvert, and both is just fine. :]

It would be really interesting if Lalli actually was in the spectrum, and now we've seen how he interacts with his own cousin (pg 330) and how he avoids close contact (Onni knows he doesn't like being hugged, so he holds his shoulders instead) it gets more and more plausible in my head-cannon. And it would be difficult, as a relative/parent/friend, to understand what's going on with someone like Lalli in rural Saaima in Y90. I mean, how easy could it be to have a clear diagnosis when there's barely any living psychologists around? Is psychology even a thing in Y90? And given all the times I've asked myself "What the hell is wrong with Lalli?"... yeah. If he was autistic, I'd congratulate Minna for accepting the dare that's writing a character with autism.

[Isabelle]

Side-stepping the behavioural discussion a bit... I hope here is the appropriate place to say how impressed I am by Lalli map-reading skill.
P219 he studies the map *once*. Presumably memorizing it, as he refuses to take it with him afterwards. Then p227 we see him reciting blocked off or "weird" roads from memory. (That, in itself, impresses the hell out of me. It stand to reason than scouts would have extremely good visual/topographic memory, but I'm not sure reconnaissance in foreign places can be compared to patrolling around the base one has lived on for years.)  Anyway, the thing that impresses me the most (and kind of bugs me a bit) is not the memorizing, it's the map-reading itself.

"Do you even know where we are?
— I know where we are.
— Where?
— In a weird, scary foreign country."
Tuuri implies that Lalli has not made his understanding of their position clear (and his answer to that is one of my favorite lines of the whole comic, because it rings so true and so deadpan at the same time), and Sigrun comment a few panels previously, about lines being roads, seems to implies that all scouts are not versed in map-reading (unless she's joking, but I don't think so). But the way Lalli reports what he saw clearly demonstrates that he actually knows were the cat-tank is situated and identifies the roads to their targets using only (mostly?) the terrain he saw. Now, the kind of map I guestimate (from p219) the crew uses are probably 1/50 000 or /25 000 military-type maps, which show the differences in height and the terrain pretty well... if you learn how to read them. From my experience, it's an acquired skill (very useful to hikers, geographs, and military) that does take a bit of practice. And seeing Lalli doing it so competently, while I love it, kind of clashes with the "minimal education" idea I had of him previously. Unless Finns scouts are better-educated than norwegian scouts in that specific area? Or maybe Sigrun was just being snide ?

[KMK]

Side-stepping the behavioural discussion a bit... I hope here is the appropriate place to say how impressed I am by Lalli map-reading skill.
P219 he studies the map *once*. Presumably memorizing it, as he refuses to take it with him afterwards. Then p227 we see him reciting blocked off or "weird" roads from memory. (That, in itself, impresses the hell out of me. It stand to reason than scouts would have extremely good visual/topographic memory, but I'm not sure reconnaissance in foreign places can be compared to patrolling around the base one has lived on for years.)  Anyway, the thing that impresses me the most (and kind of bugs me a bit) is not the memorizing, it's the map-reading itself.

"Do you even know where we are?
— I know where we are.
— Where?
— In a weird, scary foreign country."
Tuuri implies that Lalli has not made his understanding of their position clear (and his answer to that is one of my favorite lines of the whole comic, because it rings so true and so deadpan at the same time), and Sigrun comment a few panels previously, about lines being roads, seems to implies that all scouts are not versed in map-reading (unless she's joking, but I don't think so). But the way Lalli reports what he saw clearly demonstrates that he actually knows were the cat-tank is situated and identifies the roads to their targets using only (mostly?) the terrain he saw. Now, the kind of map I guestimate (from p219) the crew uses are probably 1/50 000 or /25 000 military-type maps, which show the differences in height and the terrain pretty well... if you learn how to read them. From my experience, it's an acquired skill (very useful to hikers, geographs, and military) that does take a bit of practice. And seeing Lalli doing it so competently, while I love it, kind of clashes with the "minimal education" idea I had of him previously. Unless Finns scouts are better-educated than norwegian scouts in that specific area? Or maybe Sigrun was just being snide ?

I am betting that Lalli has photographic memory. I was trained in the Army to read the maps and I was exceptional at orienteering (the art of being giving the coordinates and finding the way to the stake driven in the ground). Even though I was good I would not have been able to go without the map in a new place from just about 10 - 30 minutes of studying it. It takes perfect memory to do what he did.

[JoB]

Now, the kind of map I guestimate (from p219) the crew uses are probably 1/50 000 or /25 000 military-type maps, which show the differences in height and the terrain pretty well

We get to see a glimpse of the map as Tuuri marks up Lallis findings. It looks way more like a city map (streets and buildings) than a topographic one.

[Isabelle]

We get to see a glimpse of the map as Tuuri marks up Lallis findings. It looks way more like a city map (streets and buildings) than a topographic one.

Yes, you're right. It looks different from the one p219, though, which seems a lot less structured and has some vaguely round shapes more evocative of topography than of roads (imho). Maybe they have both ? Actually, what we see p227 seems rather detailed for a city map, it reminds me of cadastral plans... which makes sens considering the aim of salvaging books. But how did this type of document end up in the "safe" world?

I am betting that Lalli has photographic memory. I was trained in the Army to read the maps and I was exceptional at orienteering (the art of being giving the coordinates and finding the way to the stake driven in the ground). Even though I was good I would not have been able to go without the map in a new place from just about 10 - 30 minutes of studying it. It takes perfect memory to do what he did.

Thank you for your input ! Photographic memory definitely makes sense.
Lalli is all about hidden strengths, isn't he?
 

[JoB]

Yes, you're right. It looks different from the one p219, though, which seems a lot less structured and has some vaguely round shapes more evocative of topography than of roads (imho). Maybe they have both ? Actually, what we see p227 seems rather detailed for a city map, it reminds me of cadastral plans... which makes sens considering the aim of salvaging books. But how did this type of document end up in the "safe" world?

They're supposedly working with post-Rash intel, and the obvious source of that would be to siphon from what the Danes collected to prepare their reclamation attempt ten years earlier. Even if they didn't have current maps as they entered Amager, they would quite likely have drawn new ones to collate whatever intel the returning soldiers reported ...

[Isabelle]

They're supposedly working with post-Rash intel, and the obvious source of that would be to siphon from what the Danes collected to prepare their reclamation attempt ten years earlier. Even if they didn't have current maps as they entered Amager, they would quite likely have drawn new ones to collate whatever intel the returning soldiers reported ...

Yeees... but. Mikkel's comment http://sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=230 "We're the first humans venturing this far since the dawn of time" implies that the soldiers didn't actually get this far.

(We're digressing from Lalli here. Is there a topic on intel sources we could move this discussion to?)

[JoB]

Mikkel's comment http://sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=230 "We're the first humans venturing this far since the dawn of time" implies that the soldiers didn't actually get this far.

He's replying to Tuuri, who specifically asked about the reclamation attempt, i.e., the terrain they actually controlled. There's actual proof that special operations did go beyond that.

(We're digressing from Lalli here. Is there a topic on intel sources we could move this discussion to?)

... not that I remember offhand ...

[KicknRun]

I did a little archive crawl

Here you go.

https://ssssforum.com/index.php?topic=174.0 -Military from the New World

https://ssssforum.com/index.php?topic=230.0 -Salvage from the Silent World

https://ssssforum.com/index.php?topic=82.0 -Tiny Details Detection

https://ssssforum.com/index.php?topic=441.0 -Use of Swords in Y90 (people just started talking about any kind of weaponry)

[Isabelle]

I did a little archive crawl

Oh, thank you !
*happily settles to read*

[Róisín]

This chapter certainly has had a lot of character development for Lalli. New people, new experiences, new/old things to be afraid of, and his responses to them. And in his last scene with Emil, the first tentative shoulderbump overture of friendship? We get more insight into his nature, and how he fits into his world.  Very interested to see where this goes.