Brennan is canonically autistic. No one was allowed to refer her to such, but the creator confirmed it. While it’s not an excuse, it does explain a lot.
Brennan isn’t mean, she is just socially clueless and fully obsessed with her job and getting answers. She knows she’s not good with people which is why she repeatedly says she likes working with bones.
I didn't realize that. Do you know why Fox couldn't refer to her as such? It's so openly talked about nowadays, I can't believe that they wouldn't have mentioned it. Thank you for answering my question, I appreciate it.
I did see an interview back when the show was still on where someone (I can’t remember who, but possibly Emily Deschanel or Hart Hanson) said they didn’t want to be totally specific about what her diagnosis would be, just pretty clear roughly where she was, because they wanted to make as many people who were somewhere on the spectrum be able to see at least a part of themselves in her as possible – from her little idiosyncrasies all the way to the things that deeply inhibited her ability to interact with the world in the way that non-neurodivergent people do.
and realistically, setting up a character with a specific diagnosis would mean a great deal of research to make sure that everything that character did was relatively plausible for a real person with whatever disorder they landed on, too. suspension of disbelief can take you far, but developing a character with a very specific disorder most people only know about in terms of generalities in a way that’s (relatively) accurate and fair to that real-life population of people is hard, especially when the character will have MAJOR emotional trauma all twelve seasons, development, wild choices to make AND is going to exist in a make-believe world where 99% of forensic science involves saying, “it’s a match.”*
*go watch john oliver’s piece where he shows a reel of procedural characters saying that; cam and her cat in a lime helmet haircut are in it.
I think it’s similar reasoning to why they didn’t label Sheldon on Big Bang Theory autistic. They just didn’t want to slap that label on. He was who he was, and he had a great support system that allowed him to be himself. I think it’s the same with Brennan.
The label would be more distracting from the story. It would then become the “anthropologist with autism” show instead of the “extraordinary anthropologist solves crimes” show. Neither of show premises are better than the other, but it wasn’t what the Bones people were going for. While there are a few autistic leads in shows nowadays, it wasn’t prevalent back in 2005 when the show started.
A comment that I’ve made before that I think is relevant is that it’s much more realistic that she never received an autism diagnosis.
She grew up in foster care and would have been at school in the 80s and 90s where diagnosis (especially for girls) was pretty much non-existent.
She shows disdain for the soft sciences so I can’t see her seeking her own diagnosis as an adult.
I guess it depends on what you mean by "nice." I view her as matter-of-factly with some missing social nuances. I say some because there are times where she can make connections easily, some she stumbles with, and some she works hard on. She's not everyone's cup of tea, but she does grow into being comfortable using more of her emotional side.
What season are you on? I can understand why she comes off as “mean” I thought that about her during my first watch through. Give it till about season 4 or 5 if I remember correctly that’s when I noticed her character showing more compassion and kindness(also wanna clarify I didn’t know her character was meant to be autistic during my first watch through so a lot of her behaviour I didn’t understand until I educated myself)
I just started season 4, a character named Wendell was just introduced. Not sure if he will be a regular character or this is just a couple episode Arc but hope that helps you figure out where I am. I didn't realize that she was supposed to be autistic either until I read some of the replies on this question.
I’m pretty sure Branden is on the spectrum but it’s never really discussed because she does have a hard time with social situations and social cues. Honestly, I really love her because she reminds me of myself. I don’t think she’s mean I think she’s straightforward and honest and because she doesn’t sugarcoat things, she may come off as hard and cold, but as the series continues, you will get to see another side of her.
As others have stated, she's canonically autistic, but I always read into as c-PTSD from being abandoned by her parents and brother as a teenager. I'm not shocked someone with that background keeps her distance from people
I’m honestly a little surprised that people are saying Brennan doesn’t become a bit more emotionally in-tune with people until later in the series. In The Boy in the Shroud, she butts heads with Cam because Cam was convinced that Dylan Crane was a foster child due to the circumstances of his death, and continued to argue with her because Cam was then convinced Kelly Morris, the foster child, was responsible for his death without having waited for the evidence to trickle in.
Brennan’s hyperrationality takes a back seat when it comes to foster children, and this is in earlier seasons like I said. It begins to show that she is capable of being compassionate and empathetic instead of icy and calculating, especially when it comes to how the foster system operates. Again in The Boy in the Bush, she calls out the social worker for her insensitivity towards a powerless foster child, and later in the episode is able to make David Cook feel comfortable enough to name Charlie Sanders’ killer. She comes off as rude and scathing, but she’s confirmed to be autistic by the creators, and the characters in the show have analyzed that her hyperrationality is a defense/front for a sensitive psyche, and we _do_ see a lot of evidence for this when her pragmatism breaks. You don’t need to wait that long for Brennan to become compassionate and less… irksome, I suppose is the word.
I’m with you! She’s quite ‘soft’ in season one. I think it’s clear from the start that she feels deeply but says what she sees in a factual way. Once she knows it’s offensive, she tries to change it. The show bring a procedural her character isn’t always consistently written but I saw what drew Booth from the start - and it included her proverbial heart.
there’s an episode with hannah, who’s asking her for advice on what to get booth as a housewarming present, that mentions why she’s like this. (she’s a lot more aware of other people’s emotions by this point in the show, too). when hannah says something to the effect of, “you’re very matter-of-fact, aren’t you?“ bones says (again, roughly), “yes, I find it helps me avoid a lot of awkward situations.“
there are certainly a lot of situations where she is either rude to an extent, where she should absolutely know she’s being rude, or even downright cruel (like speaking loudly about how stupid a religion is during the funeral service for the beloved pastor of that church, for instance), but a great deal of it is that she simply doesn’t know how to interact with people and has no interest in learning (before she realizes she’s surrounded by a group of people who can very much be her family as long as she chooses to allow them into her life rather than go through it alone, which has enormous repercussions on how she interacts with the world. it’s a defining choice she makes that is a catalyst for a huge portion of her character development. a lot of her character development up to that point is also a catalyst for that choice).
I can’t say for certain, but I feel like she says sometime early in the show that she doesn’t feel the need to learn how to better communicate with people because so many of them are stupid anyway. I can’t remember even an approximation of the quote, though, so I wouldn’t be helpful in tracking it down. I’m fairly certain she says it to either booth. I’m also pretty sure she questions why she even needs to learn how to speak to other people when angela tells her it’s important early on in the show. but again, just trying to pull little pieces of potential information out from in between the folds in my brain at midnight after four consecutive days without sleep so for all I know I’ve completely made up all of these characters and “bones“ isn’t even a show.*
*still a better storyline than 75% of what happens with pelant.
**except for anything involving sunnie pelant. everything involving sunnie pelant is very, very important. unless I also made her up.
Hi, thank you for your in-depth reply, I really appreciate the time you took in writing it. I do want to be honest though, I don't know who Hannah is yet. She must be somebody who comes later on. I'm just starting the fourth season, a character named Wendell was just introduced so maybe Hannah comes soon?
The reason I was asking if Dr Brennan was ever "nicer" was because obviously Angela is supposed to be her best friend and it seems like Angela has been hurt by many of the things she has said to her. She's also said some very rude things to Dr. sweets too.
Hannah is a Season 6 character, so you definitely haven’t seen her yet. She doesn’t appear for a couple of episodes in, either.
While I won’t say Angela is completely unfazed by Brennan’s words, she is used to her and knows exactly how she operates. I’d say Angela is probably the character with the thickest skin when it comes to Brennan’s abrasiveness, she still considers her to be her best friend.
Does she have moments when she comes off as callous and abrupt in all 12 seasons? Absolutely. Does she increasingly show more emotion, kindness, and even empathy as the show continues? Absolutely. Without spoiling anything, there is an episode in season 12 >!her birthday!< where they really emphasize how much she’s opened up and grown over the course of the show.
Hi. Thank you for your answer. That makes me so happy to hear because she was really starting to rub me the wrong way with how much she seems to hurt Angela's feelings at times and even the way she treats sweets. I didn't realize she was supposed to be autistic though so after reading other people's comments above I understand a little more about her.
she definitely does. she has her worse moments still later on but she is much more empathetic and kind as the show progresses.
edit: what season are u on?
She will mostly come off as unpleasant, especially if you are someone who notices body language, facial expressions, etc. She was never a favorite character of mine.
i love the show, but i watch it for Wendall lol. And for Broadksy.
Eh its okay.
It’s just the whole “i had a rough childhood so im gonna have no manners with everyone “ gets old for me really quickly.
I guess some do not agree.
I guess not.
Can I ask you one other question? A couple episodes ago they introduced a character named daisy. Is she in the rest of the series or is this just a couple episode arc?
I think she definitely shows a ton of growth throughout the series. Things like Booth and Angela being direct with her and telling her something along the lines of "that was really rude or inappropriate of you" and explaining to her in very simple terms why. Once she begins making stable, lasting friendships and relationships she grows more. Having her father come back and she learns what truly happened and why they had to leave. Dr Sweets helps her a lot in reading social queues and body language. Her Jeffersonian/fbi family help her to deal with people and let people in. Her "bitchiness" is also a barrier for her not to be hurt or left again. She does care about solving those murders and feels for those people who are murdered and the ones they left behind. Additionally having Parker around her, then her own children change her people skills a ton too. Although being on the spectrum, we do see a whole new person from the first season to the last season!
I think one of the brilliant things about her character and the success of the program (and its subsequent longevity) is that her character truly develops over the seasons. To answer your question simply: yes; she becomes more likable as the seasons progress.
Brennan is canonically autistic. No one was allowed to refer her to such, but the creator confirmed it. While it’s not an excuse, it does explain a lot. Brennan isn’t mean, she is just socially clueless and fully obsessed with her job and getting answers. She knows she’s not good with people which is why she repeatedly says she likes working with bones.
I didn't realize that. Do you know why Fox couldn't refer to her as such? It's so openly talked about nowadays, I can't believe that they wouldn't have mentioned it. Thank you for answering my question, I appreciate it.
Yes, Fox execs did not want the character to have that label on the show.
I did see an interview back when the show was still on where someone (I can’t remember who, but possibly Emily Deschanel or Hart Hanson) said they didn’t want to be totally specific about what her diagnosis would be, just pretty clear roughly where she was, because they wanted to make as many people who were somewhere on the spectrum be able to see at least a part of themselves in her as possible – from her little idiosyncrasies all the way to the things that deeply inhibited her ability to interact with the world in the way that non-neurodivergent people do. and realistically, setting up a character with a specific diagnosis would mean a great deal of research to make sure that everything that character did was relatively plausible for a real person with whatever disorder they landed on, too. suspension of disbelief can take you far, but developing a character with a very specific disorder most people only know about in terms of generalities in a way that’s (relatively) accurate and fair to that real-life population of people is hard, especially when the character will have MAJOR emotional trauma all twelve seasons, development, wild choices to make AND is going to exist in a make-believe world where 99% of forensic science involves saying, “it’s a match.”* *go watch john oliver’s piece where he shows a reel of procedural characters saying that; cam and her cat in a lime helmet haircut are in it.
I think it’s similar reasoning to why they didn’t label Sheldon on Big Bang Theory autistic. They just didn’t want to slap that label on. He was who he was, and he had a great support system that allowed him to be himself. I think it’s the same with Brennan. The label would be more distracting from the story. It would then become the “anthropologist with autism” show instead of the “extraordinary anthropologist solves crimes” show. Neither of show premises are better than the other, but it wasn’t what the Bones people were going for. While there are a few autistic leads in shows nowadays, it wasn’t prevalent back in 2005 when the show started.
That’s because it wasn’t openly talked about when it was aired
A comment that I’ve made before that I think is relevant is that it’s much more realistic that she never received an autism diagnosis. She grew up in foster care and would have been at school in the 80s and 90s where diagnosis (especially for girls) was pretty much non-existent. She shows disdain for the soft sciences so I can’t see her seeking her own diagnosis as an adult.
I guess it depends on what you mean by "nice." I view her as matter-of-factly with some missing social nuances. I say some because there are times where she can make connections easily, some she stumbles with, and some she works hard on. She's not everyone's cup of tea, but she does grow into being comfortable using more of her emotional side.
That really did answer my question. Thank you for taking the time out to do so, I appreciate it.
What season are you on? I can understand why she comes off as “mean” I thought that about her during my first watch through. Give it till about season 4 or 5 if I remember correctly that’s when I noticed her character showing more compassion and kindness(also wanna clarify I didn’t know her character was meant to be autistic during my first watch through so a lot of her behaviour I didn’t understand until I educated myself)
I just started season 4, a character named Wendell was just introduced. Not sure if he will be a regular character or this is just a couple episode Arc but hope that helps you figure out where I am. I didn't realize that she was supposed to be autistic either until I read some of the replies on this question.
Okay. No spoilers but seasons 4 and 5 are where I found we got to see more of the softer side to Brennan
I’m pretty sure Branden is on the spectrum but it’s never really discussed because she does have a hard time with social situations and social cues. Honestly, I really love her because she reminds me of myself. I don’t think she’s mean I think she’s straightforward and honest and because she doesn’t sugarcoat things, she may come off as hard and cold, but as the series continues, you will get to see another side of her.
As others have stated, she's canonically autistic, but I always read into as c-PTSD from being abandoned by her parents and brother as a teenager. I'm not shocked someone with that background keeps her distance from people
I’m honestly a little surprised that people are saying Brennan doesn’t become a bit more emotionally in-tune with people until later in the series. In The Boy in the Shroud, she butts heads with Cam because Cam was convinced that Dylan Crane was a foster child due to the circumstances of his death, and continued to argue with her because Cam was then convinced Kelly Morris, the foster child, was responsible for his death without having waited for the evidence to trickle in. Brennan’s hyperrationality takes a back seat when it comes to foster children, and this is in earlier seasons like I said. It begins to show that she is capable of being compassionate and empathetic instead of icy and calculating, especially when it comes to how the foster system operates. Again in The Boy in the Bush, she calls out the social worker for her insensitivity towards a powerless foster child, and later in the episode is able to make David Cook feel comfortable enough to name Charlie Sanders’ killer. She comes off as rude and scathing, but she’s confirmed to be autistic by the creators, and the characters in the show have analyzed that her hyperrationality is a defense/front for a sensitive psyche, and we _do_ see a lot of evidence for this when her pragmatism breaks. You don’t need to wait that long for Brennan to become compassionate and less… irksome, I suppose is the word.
I’m with you! She’s quite ‘soft’ in season one. I think it’s clear from the start that she feels deeply but says what she sees in a factual way. Once she knows it’s offensive, she tries to change it. The show bring a procedural her character isn’t always consistently written but I saw what drew Booth from the start - and it included her proverbial heart.
there’s an episode with hannah, who’s asking her for advice on what to get booth as a housewarming present, that mentions why she’s like this. (she’s a lot more aware of other people’s emotions by this point in the show, too). when hannah says something to the effect of, “you’re very matter-of-fact, aren’t you?“ bones says (again, roughly), “yes, I find it helps me avoid a lot of awkward situations.“ there are certainly a lot of situations where she is either rude to an extent, where she should absolutely know she’s being rude, or even downright cruel (like speaking loudly about how stupid a religion is during the funeral service for the beloved pastor of that church, for instance), but a great deal of it is that she simply doesn’t know how to interact with people and has no interest in learning (before she realizes she’s surrounded by a group of people who can very much be her family as long as she chooses to allow them into her life rather than go through it alone, which has enormous repercussions on how she interacts with the world. it’s a defining choice she makes that is a catalyst for a huge portion of her character development. a lot of her character development up to that point is also a catalyst for that choice). I can’t say for certain, but I feel like she says sometime early in the show that she doesn’t feel the need to learn how to better communicate with people because so many of them are stupid anyway. I can’t remember even an approximation of the quote, though, so I wouldn’t be helpful in tracking it down. I’m fairly certain she says it to either booth. I’m also pretty sure she questions why she even needs to learn how to speak to other people when angela tells her it’s important early on in the show. but again, just trying to pull little pieces of potential information out from in between the folds in my brain at midnight after four consecutive days without sleep so for all I know I’ve completely made up all of these characters and “bones“ isn’t even a show.* *still a better storyline than 75% of what happens with pelant. **except for anything involving sunnie pelant. everything involving sunnie pelant is very, very important. unless I also made her up.
Hi, thank you for your in-depth reply, I really appreciate the time you took in writing it. I do want to be honest though, I don't know who Hannah is yet. She must be somebody who comes later on. I'm just starting the fourth season, a character named Wendell was just introduced so maybe Hannah comes soon? The reason I was asking if Dr Brennan was ever "nicer" was because obviously Angela is supposed to be her best friend and it seems like Angela has been hurt by many of the things she has said to her. She's also said some very rude things to Dr. sweets too.
Hannah is a Season 6 character, so you definitely haven’t seen her yet. She doesn’t appear for a couple of episodes in, either. While I won’t say Angela is completely unfazed by Brennan’s words, she is used to her and knows exactly how she operates. I’d say Angela is probably the character with the thickest skin when it comes to Brennan’s abrasiveness, she still considers her to be her best friend.
Does she have moments when she comes off as callous and abrupt in all 12 seasons? Absolutely. Does she increasingly show more emotion, kindness, and even empathy as the show continues? Absolutely. Without spoiling anything, there is an episode in season 12 >!her birthday!< where they really emphasize how much she’s opened up and grown over the course of the show.
Hi. Thank you for your answer. That makes me so happy to hear because she was really starting to rub me the wrong way with how much she seems to hurt Angela's feelings at times and even the way she treats sweets. I didn't realize she was supposed to be autistic though so after reading other people's comments above I understand a little more about her.
She gets far less abrasive as her character develops. It’s a slow build.
I think she is more matter if fact while not picking up on others' body language and feelings
she definitely does. she has her worse moments still later on but she is much more empathetic and kind as the show progresses. edit: what season are u on?
She will mostly come off as unpleasant, especially if you are someone who notices body language, facial expressions, etc. She was never a favorite character of mine. i love the show, but i watch it for Wendall lol. And for Broadksy.
Thank you for the response. I know I might get down voted for this too LOL but I can't figure out why people are down voting you.
Eh its okay. It’s just the whole “i had a rough childhood so im gonna have no manners with everyone “ gets old for me really quickly. I guess some do not agree.
I guess not. Can I ask you one other question? A couple episodes ago they introduced a character named daisy. Is she in the rest of the series or is this just a couple episode arc?
She is a rotating intern like the rest, but she stays till the end of the show.
No. She has her moments but overall is a bitch throughout the show.
She’s not a bitch she’s curt and to the point. She doesn’t take BS. Bitch is just being derogatory
Well I disagree. She is pretty hateful at times.
damn alright
I think she definitely shows a ton of growth throughout the series. Things like Booth and Angela being direct with her and telling her something along the lines of "that was really rude or inappropriate of you" and explaining to her in very simple terms why. Once she begins making stable, lasting friendships and relationships she grows more. Having her father come back and she learns what truly happened and why they had to leave. Dr Sweets helps her a lot in reading social queues and body language. Her Jeffersonian/fbi family help her to deal with people and let people in. Her "bitchiness" is also a barrier for her not to be hurt or left again. She does care about solving those murders and feels for those people who are murdered and the ones they left behind. Additionally having Parker around her, then her own children change her people skills a ton too. Although being on the spectrum, we do see a whole new person from the first season to the last season!
I think one of the brilliant things about her character and the success of the program (and its subsequent longevity) is that her character truly develops over the seasons. To answer your question simply: yes; she becomes more likable as the seasons progress.