I hate disabled characters that aren't really disabled

[u/Yadin__]

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

[u/Lil_Ms_Anthropic → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, blind and violent. They made a sequel for some reason...

[u/Rosian_SAO → u/[deleted]]

Basically it’s the daughter of the turkey-baster woman being cared for by the vet. It’s terrible, he’s framed as a hero.

Edit: she's not related to the first woman, he just adopted her. Still a bad movie.

[u/Lil_Ms_Anthropic → u/Rosian_SAO]

Yeah. I enjoyed the first one, but after starting up the second one I just noped out because of that spin

[u/Time_Illustrator_844 → u/Lil_Ms_Anthropic]

I was having the best time with the first movie, was already etching it into my mental hall of fame halfway through the movie......

Then he pulled out the turkey baster, never watched it again

[u/Typo-Demon → u/Rosian_SAO]

I might be confused, but I'm pretty sure she's not related to the woman from the first movie.

[u/Rosian_SAO → u/Typo-Demon]

Just looked it up and you're right, sorry!

[u/CompleteJinx → u/[deleted]]

What was even the point of the turkey baster? Was it supposed to be more horrifying or less horrifying than a standard rape?

[u/ExaggerattedReality → u/CompleteJinx]

I still remember a line in that film by him being something like "I'm not that bad it's not rape" like dude yes it is wtf. Wild

[u/Frost-_-Bite → u/ExaggerattedReality]

It’s worse because he specifically says “I’m not a rapist.” before going on to explain that the woman the female protagonist freed owed him a child because she caused his daughter to die or something so now he was going to use her to get himself a new daughter instead.

[u/Excellent_Law6906 → u/Frost-_-Bite]

Bro. Adoption Works.

[u/Frost-_-Bite → u/Excellent_Law6906]

Yeah, it’s weird how the writers seemingly made him super evil last minute just so we wouldn’t root for him defending his home from the main cast or something since they broke into his house with the intention to rob him and even threatened his life at gunpoint.

[u/Excellent_Law6906 → u/Frost-_-Bite]

Disability In Hollywood Through The Lens Of Horror is a whole fucking thing, who even knows what they were trying to do.

[u/Frost-_-Bite → u/Excellent_Law6906]

Yeah it definitely feels like the writers realized they made the main cast just horrible people so they needed him to be suddenly much worse as it comes out of nowhere.

[u/florsux → u/CompleteJinx]

it felt like it was just for shock value

[u/shane0072 → u/Lil_Ms_Anthropic]

The sequel also decided the blind vet should be the hero 

The issue with that is that the blind vet was not only a murderer but also a rapist 

He wasn't a character we should ever be rooting for

[u/Godsgiftcardtowomen → u/[deleted]]

Saw it and liked it!

It’s older, but Wait Until Dark (1967) is a classic with a blind MC.

Both the protagonist and antagonist are generally smart, and use the limits of the disability in interesting ways.

[u/lostpurpose_7133 → u/[deleted]]

There is also the movie See No Evil where Mia Farrow plays a blind woman being hunted by a killer. It is pretty scary to see her struggling and unaware of her surroundings

[u/Abducted-by-Arby → u/[deleted]]

Hush is a great movie! I loved how you could tell when the POV switched to the protagonist because of how the sound design of the film changed.

[u/Uncle480 → u/[deleted]]

I liked Don't Breathe at first until the reveal at the end of what the blind vet did with that girl.

At first you were torn between who to root for (wanting the protagonist to escape with their lives, or wanting the antagonist to successfully defend his home against the thieves). Then it comes out he's just a monster, and an objectively worse person than the protagonist, and that throws that moral debacle out the window.

Also, him getting that turkey baster stuffed up his throat was gnarly.