Abed Nadir and Value: Making the Most Out of Life

When talking about a character's values, sometimes it may be complicated as their actions on screen only reflect their values metaphorically. One of the best parts of Abed Nadir is how his values play out physically for the audience. Abed’s values and interests are often intertwined, but some of his more significant values include loyalty, control, creativity, and authenticity. Abed being on the spectrum also creates great moments that add to his understanding of his values. 

For example, in season 1, episode 5: Advanced Criminal Law, Troy teaches Abed that friends “mess with each other” after messing with Abed's gullibility. This leads Abed to spend the day convincing Troy that he is an alien. It is altogether cute, over the top, and slightly pathetic. As Troy puts it “It would be less crazy if you were actually an alien.” however, the resolution is Troy redacting his original statement and telling Abed, “From now on, Abed, friends don't mess with each other”. This moment plays out in a very touching way, as you can tell that Abed is learning how friendship works through his connection to Troy. Today, we will discuss Abed’s reasons for values: extrinsic, intrinsic, identified, and introjected. 

One episode where we see Abed motivated by his extrinsic values comes in Episode 3 of Season 4: Conventions of Space and Time. Here, we find Abed taking his friends to a convention for ‘Inspector Spacetime’ a fictional show parodying Dr. Who. This is a show that Abed is deeply passionate about and will reference throughout other episodes. In this episode, Abed values the validation of the fan community surrounding Inspector Spacetime to a fault. A crazed fan of the show, who he connects with, attempts to kidnap Abed and take him back to England. This attempt is stopped, however, by Abed’s true best friend Troy, who serves the purpose of showing Abed that he doesn't need external validation to enjoy his passions and, instead, they can both enjoy the show together, roleplaying as the characters of the fictional show in many episodes to follow. Extrinsic reasons for pursuing one’s values are often met with reward. In this episode, the reward that Abed strived for was the validation of someone like-minded. Because of this, he pushes away Troy, which is actively against one of his other core values, loyalty. This exemplifies how extrinsic motivators can dwarf even one's sense of friendship and good nature. 

Next, Abed is intrinsically motivated by his love for movies and TV. This is played out in almost every episode, and Abed can turn the show into an homage to other famous shows and movies. One of my favorites is the show's homage to Goodfellas, which has our characters treat access to chicken tenders during lunchtime as a mafia movie. One episode that I believe does a good job of displaying this value in a way that shows us some of Abed's intrinsic motivators/reasons is the episode Critical Film Studies from season 2, episode 19. This episode is Abed’s birthday, and one of the main characters, Jeff Winger (Joel Mchale), and Abed have a serious and uncharacteristically ‘normal’ dinner, with Abed acting serious, rejecting his normal pop-culture-influenced personality. Abed aims to have a “real” and “genuine” conversation with Jeff. Abed leans on the fact that this is his attempt to break free from his ‘abnormal’ ways of connecting with others, even though this doesn’t follow his standard coping mechanisms.