The differences in attention, cognition, mood and behaviour makes the tribe capable to survive more types of challenges. You can't know what is the best thing to do in a certain situation. If everyone would do what usually is the best thing in 99.99% of situations, they would sooner or later perish to unusual but fatal events. Some people are fast to accept new situations. Some will hold on to the old ways. Those few people may save the tribe if the situation later changes again. Different levels of acceptance will guide some people to try out alternative ways of doing things, while the majority will keep doing the thing that is known to work good enough. The actual behaviour depends on the culture and environmental factors. But the genetic variation will make sure that the tribe will have a diversity of reactions to challenges even when the environmental factors are similar.

Some variations of neurodivergence has had a social stigma, since they contribute to behaviours that seems strange, unproductive or dangerous to the neurotypical majority. Differences can lead to misunderstandings in social situations in both directions. The behaviour may be regarded as maladapted or socially unwanted. The difference can lead the majority to loathe and fear and ostracize the person. These social problems will in turn lead to other psychological problems related to fear, anger, anxiety and depression. The eccentric may adapt to the compounded problems by breaking the rules and customs or by minimizing social contact.

One such neurodivergence is the inability to feel shame or guilt. The child with this variation will probably be treated by others as dangerous and maybe even evil. That treatment may cause resentment and contribute to the ethical development. But if those same persons would be valued for their divergence, they could contribute a lot to the tribe. The lack of emotional bias can in some situation save your life and also make you the best person to save others and the whole tribe.


Horizon has a great diversity in personality types. Sylens and Nil are characters that helps Aloy during her adventures and they are probably psychopaths. There are a lot characters that go against their respective cultures class or gender norms. The illustration for this post is the autistic Boomer from Horizon Forbidden West that loves exploding weapons.

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