Tary and Autism

Regardless of creator intent, I see Tary as being autistic and so it is so.

Despite his brash persona, Tary is actually an extremely earnest character. He isn't very good at picking up on social cues, but he tends to be very genuine in his responses. His tone and word choices sometimes might read as kind of self-absorbed, but he's actually very kind and upfront. When Pike tells Tary that Grog is her very best friend, Tary's immediate response is to assure her that he'll do everything in his power to make sure Grog is safe. From Pike's (and the audience's) point of view, it's a funny comment to make, since she well knows that Grog is likely far more capable of defending himself than Tary is, but the sentiment behind it is seemingly entirely genuine. He cares deeply about the concept of Love and Family, despite - or perhaps even because of - his very rocky and unhealthy relationship with his own family.

Tary's family issues are a decent contributor to who he is as a person. His father doesn't like him - he doesn't like Tary's fixation with fantasy, doesn't consider him a good enough canditate for taking over the family business, and looks down on Tary both for his personality and his sexuality. Tary believes that his father hates him, and when pressed, admits he hates his father too. Despite that, Tary is still willing to risk his life and put his career on hold in order to help his father out of the mess he'd made of the family's financials - even immediately after the man had just had Tary kidnapped out of his new home and brought home with the intent to order him into an arranged marriage with a woman. Tary's younger sister is another source of pain for him - she's favored by his father and also seemingly better skilled for the kind of role Tary was expected to fulfill. It strikes a chord in the autistic realm of things - to feel surpassed and less capable than neurotypical siblings who don't have the same developmental delays or symptoms that you deal with. The fact that both his father and sister are actively cruel to him - verbally putting him down in addition to hitting him - makes it even worse.

Tary's love of Stories is not only an escape from an awful home life, it's also deeply representative of autistic Special Interests. There's a tendency to see special interests as "something you like just a lot", but the truth is closer to the fact that special interests are like a filter and frame of reference to help relate to the rest of the world. (Even an interest in trains can operate like this - the roles people fill, the neat scheduling and passage of time, methods of communication -ie railway signalling, etc, history, something to fall back on when other lines of conversation fail, etc.) Tary isn't being childish or naive when he says that his goals and references are pulled from novels, he's doing his best to relate to the rest of the world through a medium he can better understand - the lens of his special interests. Yes, it doesn't always come across as very realistic or rational, but without that internal guide to social awareness or interpretation, autistic people are left working with what we've got. And what Tary has is the clean, trope-filled world presented by fantasy and fiction.

Additionally, Tary's handbuilt automaton, Doty, straddles the line between a deeply important comfort object and a kind of fantasy autism service dog. Although his primary role is to record Tary's adventures in a biographic format, he's also a protector and extremely important cornerstone for Tary. Other characters see Doty as a tool, but Tary relates to Doty as a friend - his best friend, even. Tary scripts social interactions with him, spars with him, plays with him, he talks to him - even though Doty cannot exactly speak back - and is left grieving and bereft when Doty is destroyed during the trip to the nine hells. Tary's loss of Doty in that quest was actually very devastating to me LOL, it struck a very deep chord that was quite painful. I know how awful it is to lose comfort objects - the fear and sadness that the loss inspires is always tremendously deep and overwhelming. I used to carry small rocks or toys in my pockets all the time when I was a child, but eventually the fear of losing or misplacing them became so looming that I made myself stop, but it's still a habit I miss and wish I could have continued.

But Doty serves a variety of roles for Tary. He's a constant, unwavering companion - reassuring on a variety of levels. Tary doesn't have to feel isolated or physically vulnerable when Doty is around. He's a source for conversation to fall back on when usual lines of dialogue might fail - something that Tary is both familiar with and well-knowledgeable about. I can even imagine him being something deeply satisfying to stim with - both in terms of the metal texture and in a method more comparable to Temple Grandin's "squeezing machines".

Other characters do seem to pick up on the fact that Tary is "different". They often tend to take a kind of condescending tone with him that I recognize - the way their voices get higher and softer pitched, the way people tend to talk to children. (Tary can also be kind of condescending when he talks to people, but that has a tendency to read closer to someone who struggles with being able to determine how much experience people other than him might have with a given topic) They also tend to poke fun at Tary for having Doty around - implying that Doty is a caretaker, nanny, etc. none of which Tary seems to entertain as amusing. They also occasionally take advantage of Tary's tendency to read their intentions and statements at face value - giving him false information/impressions of things because he'll believe them. Though, they can also be kind about it. In one episode everyone sort of bands together to help give Tary a better frame of reference for flirting and romantic relationships, since his baseline is based entirely in the purple prose of fantasy novels. (It doesn't necessarily Work Out especially well, since Tary winds up with a woman and returns the next morning Extremely solidified in his knowledge that he definitely prefers men, but the intentions were there lol).

And just for some miscellaneous points: Tary's list of adventures he wants to go on - lots of autistic people enjoy and find it helpful to make lists, break down tasks, and organize information. He does have a canonical aversion to eye-contact (most specifically with Keyleth lol - very funny considering she Also reads as very autistic). He has a tendency to be very blunt in small-talk interactions that he's unprepared for, like when he's meeting the leader of the Earth Ashari for the first time. Also, Sam has a tendency to twist around and wiggle when he gets excited the Exact same way I do, and since he's talking in character as Tary as he does so in the "Daring Days" episode, I choose to believe that these are body language / stimming behaviors that Tary canonically does as well.

All in all, Tary is actually very relatable to me as an autistic person. From the moment he was introduced I knew he would be my favorite character, and when he said that he had A List it was confirmed beyond reasonable doubt. I really wish we had gotten to spend more time with him in the campaign than we did. Although he spent well over a year with Vox Machina in canon, the campaign took a time skip wherein one year was passed through summary rather than direct playing time. Tary was only in like 12 episodes, though he did make appearances in a couple of one-shots.