Head Canon: Is Everest Autistic?

Everybody has fictional characters that they feel a connection to and find that they relate to a lot more than others. Sometimes a character is written and/or portrayed in a certain way that is deemed by fans to be an indicator (whether deliberate or not) of certain attributes such as autism for example. There are a number of characters that autistics seem to widely relate to, and of course some that only a few relate to. While it's not a game that I've ever played there's a character called Symmetra from Overwatch who many fans had speculated was autistic. The creators of the game later confirmed that the speculation is correct and that Symmetra is indeed autistic.

As a dad of 2 I don't have a lot of time to watch TV, but one of the things we do watch a lot of is Paw Patrol. I could absolutely be either right or wrong here, but I've got a theory that if any members of the Paw Patrol are autistic it's Everest. For anybody unfamiliar with Paw Patrol, Everest is the Siberian Husky who is an expert in mountain/snow and ice missions. She's always been my favourite of the pups but I've always put it down to her being a Husky, which is a breed I've always liked because of their wolf-like appearance. But recently I've started to wonder if there's more to it and I've noticed that she has a few traits that could be considered autistic. Admittedly spotting these traits is a bit difficult because she's not one of the 6 main/original pups so she's not in too many episodes, but here are the few that I've spotted without deliberately going through each of her appearances with a fine-toothed comb.

She doesn't seem to understand metaphors and non-standard speech. The first example comes in her first episode The New Pup where she joins the Paw Patrol after meeting and looking after Jake while he's stranded in the Antarctic. At one point Jake tells Everest that she rocks, to which her response is to assume that it's a good thing and then starts singing "I rock! I rock! I rock!" before she pauses to ask "Wait, what kind of rock am I?" Jake tells her he'll explain on the way to her igloo, which he presumably does because at the very end of the episode she tells the rest of the pups that "Paw Patrol rocks!" There's another episode, Pups & A Whale Of A Tale, where she's confused by Captain Turbot (who regularly - and annoyingly - speaks in alliteration) when he explains that there's a baby whale separated from it's mum under the ice. She gets the gist of it as she repeats it in simple terms but she does that to check she's understanding him right, whereas most of the time everyone else understands him straight away.

Going back to her debut episode The New Pup, Everest indicates at least a couple of times that she loves rescuing people. To be honest I can't quite put my finger on it, but there's something about it that comes across to me as an autistic special interest. It may just be the number of times she mentions it in the episode, but it's worth mentioning when considering if she's autistic.

In the episode Pups Get Skunked, Everest is actually the only pup who gets "skunked" when a skunk sprays her in the face causing her to stink, which repulses the rest of the Paw Patrol. This one is particularly relatable for me because my sense of smell is hyposensitive (meaning it's weaker than most people's sense of smell). Everest seems to have a similar hyposensitivity because she doesn't think it smells much and can't understand why the rest of the pups are behaving the way they are. Similarly, she doesn't seem to be sensitive to the cold at all but that could just be because of where she lived for presumably all of her life until she met Jake, and also because of her breed she's designed to withstand the cold with a big fluffy coat.

Speaking of Jake, the 2 of them live together in a cabin near the mountain, away from the rest of the Paw Patrol. Previously to that she was living on her own in an igloo in the Antarctic. This screams autism to me because most autistics have such a lack of social interest and prefer living either alone or just with someone who they're very, very close to like Jake is to Everest. As far as I know it's not clear what happened to Everest's family, or why she was living alone prior to meeting Jake, but it's definitely food for thought when looking from a neurodiversity point of view.

The final thing I noticed is in the episode The Pups' Winter Wonder Show. Everest is driving with Tracker during a blizzard when Tracker asks how she can see where she's going. Everest replies with "I can get around Adventure Bay blindfolded." This comes across as an autism sign to me because she met the Paw Patrol in series 2, and The Pups' Winter Wonder Show was only in series 3. Add that to the fact that she's been spending the majority of her time in Jake's cabin away from Adventure Bay and it makes me wonder if she's some form of savant with the ability to rapidly memorise maps or routes. I once saw a video online a few years ago where an autistic artist took a single helicopter flight around New York and then was able to accurately draw the skyline completely from memory. I think Everest being able to navigate around Adventure Bay without seeing where she's going may be a similar thing.

Those are all of my reasons for suspecting that Everest is autistic, and if I'm honest it actually makes a lot more sense written down than it did in my head! Next time you're watching your favourite shows, playing your favourite games or reading your favourite books, why not see if you can spot any undertones in your favourite characters? It doesn't even have to be autism - it can be anything! If this post has been interesting for you please click Subscribe at the top of the page and follow me on social media. I'm @DepictDave on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

[Image description: A black silhouette of a head with a white silhouette of a cannon in the brain area. Under the head silhouette are the words "Autism Had Canon" with "Autsim" in rainbow colours and "Head Canon" in black.]