There is a seemingly endless flow of crime dramas on streaming platforms these days. Many are fictional, some dramatise real historical crimes and criminal figures.

But have you noticed how many characters – hero or villain, fictional or based on a real person – are explicitly or implicitly written as neurodivergent?

Consider the super-sleuth detectives of The Killing, The Bridge, Bones and more recently Will Trent.

The protagonist of The Killing obsesses over cases to the point of abandoning almost all other social obligations. And it’s hard to miss how Saga Norén from The Bridge (Sonya Cross in the American remake) or Temperance Brennan from Bones are portrayed as “on the spectrum”.

As for Will Trent, he is explicitly known to be dyslexic and implicitly portrayed as somewhere on that same autism spectrum.

The same often applies to an anti-hero, too. Dexter Morgan, the much-loved serial killer of Dexter, is a psychopath, albeit one who has been trained to work on the right side of the moral fence.

Shows that reimagine historical crimes and characters – often as archetypes of evil – also depict them as different in ways other than simply their propensity for violence.

Take the popular........

© The Conversation