Can we talk about how reckless and tactless Watts is when speaking in Salems presence?

Initially i just guessed he didn’t fear Salem, and i was trying to figure out why for the longest time, but it’s very obvious to me now that he DOES very clearly fear Salem, but just accidentally keeps speaking out of line or acting a little too comfortable in her presence.

In the episode where we meet Watts, the first interaction we see him have with Salem, is her telling him off for bullying Cinder.

When contacting Salem with Lionhart via the Grimm, he interrupts the otherwise pressing and important conversation in order to comment on the Grimm and insult Cinder. Salem doesn’t seem frustrated by this, so it’s likely she knows what he’s like and makes exceptions. But still it seems a little detached for him to act so brazenly.

Then there’s the scene in the most recent episode where he outright questions Salem without thinking about it and he has to quickly apologise only after he’s called out on it. He then seems very sheepish for the rest of the scene.

So i started thinking that it was just a quirky character trait, that he’s super intellectual and smart but when it comes to acting appropriately in the presence of superiors, he’s a little hopeless.

But that’s when i realised, that unintentionally angering people and saying the wrong thing at the wrong time is something common with people on the Autism/Asperger spectrum. Being on that spectrum can mean that person might find it hard to understand or read others, this can often lead to them saying something that unintentionally angers or upsets people.

The way Arthur doesn’t outwardly appear to fear Salem in situations where perhaps he really should can be put down to the fact that he struggles to read the situation and how characters are feeling unless it is made abundantly clear to him, (abundantly clear like how Salems wrath was literally destroying an entire room. That seems to be the only time i’ve seen him openly fear Salem and react appropriately for instance.)

I genuinely believe him not showing the same level of caution or fear around Salem is not because he simply doesn’t fear her, but because he’s genuinely not 100% sure of what’s appropriate behavior and what’s not.

This might also indicate something about his past as a disgraced Atlesian scientist. It’s my speculation that he is “disgraced” because he violated human rights for the sake of his experiments or something. A character who is very driven by their work and hasn’t got a good grasp on what’s appropriate behavior is a character i can definitely see breaking various taboos in order to further their work/research and they’d just not consider it a big deal.

Either way his character is REALLY interesting to me and i’m excited to see where his character goes!