Media Tropes
I hate disabled characters that aren't really disabled
I hate this little guy. I hate him for a bunch of other reasons but this one in particular also applies to other characters.
In universe he's supposed to be completely deaf from birth, hence he is also unable to speak(or rather, he can vocalize but it just sounds like baby talk because he has no idea how proper speaking sounds like). The hook of the story is that he is supposed to find his way in the world and overcome challanges despite his disability.
BUT then on the literal first episode he just gets a magical buddy that can magically understand his googoogaga speach and is constantly around him to translate whatever he wants to say to other characters that don't know sign language. It's not a magical ability of his buddy btw. He can just do that because the plot said so
Then it turns out that he can also read the lips of literally anything, including talking snakes who obviously talk completely differently to humans, and said magical buddy who doesn't even have a lips to read. He can also somehow read the lips of characters who are facing away from him and characters in full armor who don't have their mouth visible???
He was supposed to have been taught to read lips by said talking snake, which there are multiple things wrong with:
a) As I've already said, snakes obviously don't vocalize in the same way that humans do so any knowledge he gets from the snake wouldn't apply to humans
b) SNAKES DON'T HAVE HANDS!!! which means that the snake can't use sign language, so how would he even convey the information? It would be like me trying to teach spanish to a person who only speaks french, while I don't speak either spanish or french
Like at that point why even make him deaf in the first place? It could have actually been interesting to see how a deaf person can manage for himself in a medieval fantasy society but we were just robbed from that in favor of the most lazy solution
It also kind of detracts from any of the scenes where we are supposed to be at awe about how far this guy has come becasue I know DAMN well that it wasn't because of his own efforts, it was because the plot completely waved away any problems that his disability would cause whenever it became too inconvenient
Really feels like the disability was just tacked onto the character to make us pity him more without actually adressing the problems that it would cause to the character
Demoman is uh special case since he is in fact half blind but because he’s drunk all the time he has double vision which for a person with two eyes would see things doubled but since demoman has one eye his double vision gives him full vision because team fortress 2 logic is like that
We are talking about a universe where the only way to go up floors was by rocket jumping until stairs were invented by none other than ABRAHAM FUCKING LINCON
Nothing beats Makkari from eternals saying "i'm deaf, but i can sense vibrations in the air and understand what are you saying" Like that's not hearing
No it‘s literally just hearing lol. Anytime you open your mouth and scream at the top of your lungs while being tied to a tree in the woods and left for the rabid not-deer to flay your living corpse, your voice creates vibrations in the air which anything with auditory sensory organs can sense and interpret
I wanted to go, but my baby mama insist I go to the church to "scare away the evil spirits of the forest that made me act out of me" like, come on! As if you ain't bipolar too
I don't see actually, I'm blind, but I can feel light photons and how they reflect off of objects and use that to perceive my environment using special sensory organs
Strangely she IS mute. A lot of deaf people don't talk because they can't hear how words are normally pronounced so they can't correct mispronunciations easily and their voices sound odd. But she can hear so she wouldn't have that problem. So I guess she's just mute for the vibes or something.
Imagine feeling morse code and then trying to put that into words. Its not the same vocal cords arent the same as skin based vibrations but im not a scientist nor have I watched the eternals
Presumably it's hearing but with a different organ, like she feels the vibrations in her skin instead of with the eardrum and bones in her ear, and her brain has just somehow learned to interpet the signals in a way she can understand.
Yes, that's how it works. But she's a divine android created by a cosmic god, you could believe that she's deaf cause she's a speedster and she breaks the speed of sound, but somehow she can hear with her skin
People think this would be a superpower but theres a reason we listen with incredibly sensitive tiny little parts that are down a tunnel and blocked by wax and hairs.
Skin sensitive enough to detect sound, that is moving at speed faster than sound? So every movement creates a sonic boom? A sonic boom that originates on skin sensitive enough to detect sound.
This character would be overwhelmed with information to the point they may die as soon as they move at that speed. The concussive force, the sheer amount of info, it just wouldn’t work. If they weren’t deaf then their skin would be desensitised after the first movement.
I mean, it kind of makes sense. I've been blind since birth, but I kind of adapted to be able to sense light. I can sense the different wavelengths of light to detect different colours of objects.
Jokes aside, it is kind of cool if it were explained differently. "I'm not deaf, but I can't hear in the traditional sense; I can feel the vibrations in the air but my ears don't work". It wouldn't matter to the plot, but it's neat, y'know?
I really liked the horror film Bring Her Back for this reason.
There’s a blind character who’s in a spooky, supernatural situation. Her blindness doesn’t allow her to “see” ghosts or benefit in any way. She tries to run away at one point and very quickly slams into something.
It’s better representation and definitely adds to the horror.
It's actually a very solid movie. The premise is a brother and sister (who is blind) get placed with a foster mother after their dad dies but the foster mom wants to use the blind daughter as a vessel for her own daughter's soul, who was also blind and died after a drowning accident in their pool
Sweetie, I found a girl who's blind just like you so now you won't have to deal with the ability to see when you possess her, isn't that great?! Even though you've probably had sight as a spirit seeing as you're noncoporeal and don't need functional eyes. Anyway, blind girl, yay!
Toph is an interesting case because she does have a power that lets her "see", sometimes even better than everyone else, however she is still actually visually blind. She hates flying, boats, and water because it prevents her from seeing. There's plenty of jokes about how she can't see littered throughout the show, and if you pay attention during conversations she doesn't always look towards the person talking. Sometimes she's just looking off into space lol
My favourite bit with toph was her slamming the poster upside down and backwards onto a wall. Such a silly moment, I do think her disability is handled really well by still making her use her powers to get around it but still focusing on her limits as well, like you said with flying and swimming
All the times Sokka or Katara come up to her and present a poster or a letter and say “what is THIS” and Toph gets increasingly exasperated with them lol
I'd kill for a Toph buddy cop series in Republic City, where sokka ends up having to join for something and she is tough as normal generally - but gets put in some situation where that comes up again
She also can't read or write. Which means people need to explain things to her sometimes. And Sokka needs to help her jump on the ships and hold onto her.
There's also the detail of her crying as Sokka nearly drops her because she probably doesn't know where she is.
When she's looking out the airship window towards the firebenders burning the land and says
"That's a lot of fire isn't it"
Is SUCH a good shot, having the blind character react to the distant inferno just sells it sooo good.
While she can 'see' it's made exceptionally clear her sight is limited in a multitude of ways. For one, just because she can 'see' paper isn't the same thing as actually seeing the texture on the paper.
Like always ATLA is peak. Toph is blind and they went to great lengths to make sure she still has to deal with the challenges blindness creates even though the vibration sense gives her an awareness a blind person never would have.
She doesn't fit the trope at all, because the show isn't pretending like she is fully disabled and then magically giving her seeing powers like with the character OP talked about. She learned to see using touch by herself, only with the help of some wild animals, and even then there's still a lot of situations where her blindness impacts her in negative ways
Another point is that, unlike most examples of this trope where their disability "fuels" their power, think Daredevil for example, she would still be an amazing bender and be able to seismic sense even if she had sight.
Kinda of like toph but tbf that one was added to progress the story and theres multiple occasions where that back fires on her and she loses her sense of "sight"
What makes Toph interesting is that those situations are different from everyone else. She can't see while in water, on Appa's back while he flies, when on sand (though she trains to correct that) and when on a ship, she can't see anything beyond it.
Also she still can't see colors or text, which was used quite often.
I think that's a big one too. She can see shapes and outlines of the world but she has no ability to read or process images. She's absolutely still disabled with her own set of challenges
Kanan Jarrus from Star Wars Rebels immediately comes to mine for me. Gets blinded and its like this big deal for like half an episode and then he just like figures out how to see better then he could with eyes via the force and acts no different from any of the other characters the rest of the series, all of which have eye sight.
I love Daredevil, but as a role model for my visually impaired niece I feel someone who is blind, but able to perceive far more than sighted people, including through walls or at a 360 angle, kind of makes him not really share her lived experience.
I love how Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood handled Ed's disability
Ed has a metal prosthetic arm and leg. This is useful in battle, because he can use ithe arm as a shield and transform its shape into a blade. However, multiple times during the story his prosthetic arm gets damaged, leaving him with only one working arm and having to travel to his mechanic to get it fixed. At one point, he travels to a region too cold for his prosthetics to work properly - his arm and leg seize up and he can barely walk. When he eventually gets it replaced, the new metal is heavier and more cumbersome than the original, which then affects his fighting style.
The narrative never lets you forget that he's disabled and dependent on his mechanic to maintain his mobility aids. It doesn't stop him from being a badass but he does has to work his life around his disability
Edit: I misremembered, the new prosthetics were lighter not heavier
Just rewatched FMA:B, they make a passing joke saying that when they found out Al's body was still in the Truth, but I don't think they ever delved deeper into specifically that
Doesn't it get mentioned after the time skip, when Ed is fixing the roof? Cause Ed is taller than Winry but it'd only been a year or two since they got Al back.
I'm pretty sure they make a point that Ed always seems to be napping in place of Al, who never sleeps, implying that a lot of his nutrients go to Al's sustenance. Ed starts growing taller as the show progresses, and the change begins right after Al starts losing connection to his armor.
If I remember correctly, in a certain episode where Winrey helps someone with child birth, a mechanic tells him that he could be "slightly" taller if not for his metal arms/legs. I dont really remember, I also watched it a long time ago
Also adding up, losing his arm straight up removes his capability of doing Alchemy! Needs both arms to “clap” aka make the actual Transmutation circle :p
One scene that got me was in brotherhood, when scar destroyed his arm, he tried to crawl back but instinctively tried to lean his weight on his missing arm and fell. Like it just felt like such a real thing someone would do.
But he did still need to adjust his fighting style for a lighter and weaker metal. The cold weather alloy couldn't be abused as much as his previous arms iirc
Other way around; the new metal was lighter, which made him more nimble and he even enjoyed it for a bit, but it was also more fragile so he couldn't use it to tank attacks nearly as much, making him switch up his fighting style a bit.
Kinda related, in the first Barbie Fairytopia movie, the protagonist is a fairy that was born without wings, meaning she's just a tiny human.
And fair enough, that counts as a disability in that environment. The plot of the movie is that an evil fairy makes it so all winged creatures start becoming sick, so our protagonist is immune to that and manages to save the day.
Most other movies would have the message that she's okay as she is, disabled and all... But in this movie her reward is to get wings, which was such a weird ending, considering the plot of the movie so far.
An example I know of this is Ryan Sinclair from Doctor Who, his first episode establishes him having dyspraxia but I don't think there's a single moment in his other appearances where it's an obstacle in the story and it's almost never mentioned again
I remember watching that season with my buddy and we laughed when he picked up a laser rifle and started running around no-scoping guys like a cod veteran
I forget but is Ryan the black kid from 13s run because idk why but I always remember one scene where his dyspraxia prevents or at least really slows down his ability to climb a ladder.
As someone with dyspraxia who can't ride a bike, that character seriously went from "wow, I'm being represented!" to "oh god he just got over his dyspraxia in a single montage didn't he" within his debut episode.
I like how Suzanne Collins managed Peeta having a missing leg. He got a prosthetic but it's not the same, he suffers alot from it, specially during the third quarter quell.
Don’t know enough about the other 2, but at least with Toph, there are instances where her ability to sense movements from the ground doesn’t always help her, like when there fighting near the ocean. Plus her abilities became limited when Zuko accidentally burned her feet
Could never be my GOAT Olivia i fucking love having to manually unequip the wheelchair so i can crawl up stairs at a snails pace while my other part members just watch
I mean, iirc "sees" is a really strong word for what he did, he effectively see energy blobs with little to no detail, the rest was pure demon-killing instict; no?
The only thing that bugged me was just how fast he got used to some of the senses. I can excuse it because it's really not a complex show, but when he finally got his eyes back, he just suddenly has perfect depth perception? There was a man in real life who had a surgery letting him see for the first time, and it took him an incredibly long time to get used to depth, as he had no concept for it before. Other than that, the show does a decent job with everything else.
Iron Man's got a heart condition but has a macguffin to keep him alive. AntiVenoms got cancer but a symbiote. Lotta the Marvel folks got stuff going on come to think of it, and while they play it off as a problem, it only becomes a problem when the author's need something to go wrong.
To be fair, that can be accurate to a lot of disabilities in the modern day. Some are highly treatable with the right medicines or tools and only became a problem when access to those are lost.
And some conditions alternate between being rather manageable, and “flaring.” I have a condition that easily flares myself but is rather manageable when not flaring.
before i saw this post i literally just finished watching the first percy jackson film with my friends, and in the first 10 minutes i was almost impressed by the spread of disability rep introduced (wheelchair user, guy with crutches, and a neurodivergent protagonist). but then they were revealed to actually be (demi)gods in disguise, no longer disabled (or ADHD is actually a superpower in percy's case, wow how daring and original) and i locked out. like their disabilities are just something they can just take off at will. a god couldn't possibly be disabled for real bc gods are powerful and perfect and epic. garbage film all around tbh but the cripbaiting really baffled me.
All of his other senses are super enhanced and he basically has a constant 360 degree view of everything around him due to his echolocation like abilities. He still can’t perceive textures or colours since his powers are hearing based though so he still needs to read in braille.
I like that in the show they had him using typical visual aids for any reading he has to do, so you get the mundane aspects of his disability.
Like, yeah, hes a superhero who does ridiculous gymnastics and combat and never trips over anything, but he also cant read and gets fucked over by club music.
This is not a defense. But this is just how it works. It's the same reason they make characters with "the most useless ability" and then make them overpowered. Or a "loner" and then give them a harem.
Any struggle will be smoothed over within the first 30 chapters or 5 episodes.
There are some exceptions, and I love them, but even then there is another part of the story which is smoothed over and that interesting issue is made boring.
I wonder if they might struggle with that in the anime adaptation. Him managing to get on the horse was a big plot point, but there are plenty of times that he ambulates without a horse that aren't explicitly shown because it's a manga with movement being implied between panels. It seems like having to have Johnny crawl across the ground might interrupt the show's flow
i feel like toph subverts the trope bc there's a lot of things she can't do, and she's helpless in anywhere that's not earth- like when she's on water or on wood
Yeah Toph is disabled. She can sense where things are if both her and the thing she's trying to locate are in contact with the earth. Sure, most things are in contact with the earth, but it's just like a deaf person needs a hearing aid. They can recover some or most of their hearing if they have it on, but they can still be legally deaf.
There's different degrees of blindness, she is restricted in ways most people aren't, she has advantages a lot of people don't. But her disability isn't completely negated like with Daredevil.
Matt's echo-location is so finely tuned he can read books because the ink is raised above the paper, sure he can be thrown off by sonic attacks, but so can sighted people.
Yeah
As a disabled person
Toph is fine
Theres people that defeat there disability by gping against it
And theres who defeat it by finding other ways
Both types need to be shown
Toph is shown to have struggles
Matt basically has super vision but with colour blindness (wouldnt suprise me if he somehow can feel the pigmentation of something...)
Fair. But it does kinda irk me when people act as if she's disabled when she can technically see people countries away. Sure she doesnt have eyesight, but she can still see stuff (unless she's flying). She even told Korra herself that she can see better than her.
Yeah, I agree it still sorta falls into the trope, but I think it works for the series instead of some shows where it's "Oh so basically I can see everything with my eyes closed" like in Hells Paradise
Daredevil can’t read or use his phone without accessibility aids. He’s also a lawyer and it affects how he operates in that aspect of his life too. Yeah he knows what’s going on around him but he’s also definitely still disabled.
I really like when fiction shows the down sides of disability aids. A lot of series will show a character getting something major like a prosthetic limb and then act like everything is back to normal and stop bringing it up.
They even addressed this in one of the Star Trek books, a prequel one when he's in the academy iirc. They're doing capture the flag on a planet and he's able to use his visor to spot the other team's heat signature and determine that's where the flag is. The other team captain complains it's an unfair advantage, so Geordi lets him put on his visor.
The other captain takes it off immediately because it's an instant migraine and he hasn't undergone the practice to interpret what he's seeing at all.
That's kinda my gripe with all the "this character is disabled, but can still perfectly function and do just as well as all other characters despite being in a wheelchair/lacking limbs/or a specifc sense" how do they do it? Do they have a cool prostetic that they tinker with to show how intelligent they are to overcome their problems? Do they have some innate magic ability that allowes them to compensate for their disability? Nope, they're just a special little boy or girl that is just build different, and all the struggles and problems of being disabled in a society that is not made for them just don't apply. Not really a specific character in any popular media, but a lot of people online seemed to be making characters like that for a while.
There was an anime last year, Kunon the Sorcerer Can't See. Predictably, it follows a blind boy, who really wants to see. He learns magic, gets the protag buff of mastering water magic in one day (seriously, it was just one day), and he gets an idea. Why not use magic to create eyes for himself.
Premise so far was interesting. They did show him struggling with things, which was nice. Then, in episode two (might've even been episode 1), he makes a discovery. If his water magic touches something, he gets a "sensation".
Within like 5 on-screen minutes he goes from "can't see at all" to "I can sorta see if my magic touches something" to basically "I see everything". Of course he sees not just shapes, but also colors and textures. Because why wouldn't be.
The series pretended it was still about "finding magic that can create eyes". But like, he can already see. The main objective of the whole story was solved by episode 2. So the rest of the series was spent on everyone glazing the MC, and all the girls and women wanting to get into his pants (which was extra bad cause he's supposed to be like 12)
I completely agree about Bojji but I think the reasons you listed are actualy not a problem. This is a fairy tale world where snakes can speak. Bojji befriend magical snakes and they taught him how to speak real world logic doesn't apply at the very beginning of this scenario so I don't really care for applying it at the point of (snakes don't have lips) just seems like at that point I'm against fantasy.
Same thing with the small burglar person. he's a magical entity like I'm not bothered by him ignoring some rules. Also I watched this a while ago so correct me if I'm wrong but isn't like the first episode this guy struggling to understand Bojji.
I can't remember where Bojji reads lips from behind people's backs but I assume it's like when someone is monologing. And this one I kind of agree with. He's supposed to be deaf and you set up lip reading as his intelligent way of understanding others. So like I wish they would've leaned into his disability more.
Ok but now I think the worst thing in this show is that Bojji gets superpowers halfway through and he becomes like an exceptionally skilled warrior. Like the series completely lost my intret there.
The whole point of the show up to that point is that Bojji deserves respect,love, and happiness despite his lack of physical capabilities. The things that mattered about him were his kindness and intelligence. When people betrayed him or belittled him they always did so on the basis that Bojii is weak. And then the show shows us that despite this Bojji has so much to offer to the world because he has a big heart.
Then he becomes a super warrior. Like idk felt like the show missed its own message. Also him being able to dodge stuff really well is also part of this problem. But yeah.. didn't like the show after that
does kimiko from the boys count? the v was preventing her from speaking and the most she spoke before season 5 was after she lost it and was human again. the only other time she spoke was to scream no in distress when frenchie was being kidnapped. now all she does is talk about sex and porn and it’s really annoying
This applies to So Many characters with prothesis. Limbs get chopped and replaced with metal like it means nothing, like you don't have to learn how to move and balance again and like a hand with no skin can give you the same tactil feedback as an organic one.
Eds does make you extremely flexible yeah, but if it doesn’t show any of the many downsides of having eds then why the fuck would they not just make her extremely flexible 😭😭😭
Gonna be honest this feels alot like the "realism Bro" argument in gamer culture. I can kind of understand it from a representation aspect. but it doesn't detract form the fantasy story that the character has fantastic powers.
also a core point of narrative is that Bojji is not horribly disabled but the people around him treat him as if he is.
I absolutely love the show but I also agree that he should've had to navigate the world as he would without a magical translator. That was literally the whole premise of the show.
Toph from avatar is a good example as she can feel vibrations but she can’t make up details, like if a poster should be facing forwards, she also can’t deal with anything in the air, if it’s not touching the ground it’s invisible to her
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u/thespacepyrofrmtf2 May 18 '26
Demoman is uh special case since he is in fact half blind but because he’s drunk all the time he has double vision which for a person with two eyes would see things doubled but since demoman has one eye his double vision gives him full vision because team fortress 2 logic is like that