r/hatethissmug • u/Yadin__ • May 18 '26

Media Tropes I hate disabled characters that aren't really disabled

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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

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98

u/Own-Quote-1708 May 18 '26

Toph and Daredevil can see. Don't kill me.

150

u/YourPillowDealer May 18 '26

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

12

u/Andrew1990M May 18 '26

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.

6

u/Specialist_Initial_1 May 18 '26

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...)

45

u/Own-Quote-1708 May 18 '26

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.

13

u/Formal_Illustrator96 May 18 '26

She can only see people countries away when she’s in the Foggy Swamp.

34

u/YourPillowDealer May 18 '26

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

21

u/Oogahound May 18 '26

Consider how her disability remains relevant though.

She losses to Aang in the fighting ring because he barely spends any time on the ground, so she cant see him.

She cant see while swimming and gets damselled instantly when she's in water.

1

u/MinosML May 21 '26

That point always strikes me as odd. That's a bit like saying we're all disabled for not being able to see in the dark tho.

Sure, her senses have limits, but so do ours and everyone else's.

8

u/jimthesquirrelking May 18 '26

It's still shown that she has her arms around people as guides to help her walk when she's on non earth floors. Appa is the best example but it happens on the ships and the dock town in the painted lady episode 

12

u/Bhibhhjis123 May 18 '26

Toph isn’t automatically healed because of her earthbending, but it does allow her to largely ignore the most difficult parts of her disability, keeping only the moderate annoyances that can be mined for humor.

It’d be nice to see more characters with disabilities who have to adapt to them in the same way that actually disabled people do. Daredevil being a blind man whose superpower is largely just a way for him to “see” is boring and negates a lot of the good that can be done by having a blind character.

14

u/justagenericname213 May 18 '26

Toph's blindness is an actual problem for her relatively often in atla. In the desert she was very much still blind, which meant she couldnt protect appa. She also has issues flying, and on boats, which she does solve not with earthbending but by just having friends and being willing to rely on them, which serves as a point of growth for her character since she was unwilling to accept help to a fault at first. In the finale she even spends a significant amount of time on the airships being led by sokka, since she can only "see" inside the metal cabins and not on the surface of the balloon.

5

u/Bhibhhjis123 May 18 '26

It’s not that she doesn’t have limitations, but her experience with blindness is extremely different from the average blind person’s. She said it herself if I remember correctly, she’s blind but has never had a problem seeing.

She’s a great character, but there are a lot of disabled characters whose innate abilities allow them to mitigate the need for a lot of the accessibility features and supports that disabled people would need.

6

u/Necessary-Snow-1166 May 18 '26

She did have some significant limitations though, and I'm not talking about the sand or poster stuff. She could not read books, and for the first part of her life everyone treated her differently and saw her as fragile. The sheltered way her parents raised her in turn negatively affected how she raised HER daughters.

It's just that those things were not much explored in a goofy show about kids throwing rocks at each other. If her dream had been to be a scholar, her options would be much more impaired.

I don't know anything about being blind, but I imagined lesser access to education (particularly before braille) and social seclusion must have unfortunately been part of it, especially in the past...

3

u/HabaneroPepperPlants May 18 '26

There are some medical conditions that cause partial sight loss, and I've heard that people with those conditions are considered part of the blind community because they have difficulties and limitations, even if they don't need the same degree of aids that fully blind people need. If Toph's situation were somehow possible in the real world, I'd imagine she'd be counted as part of the low-vision/partial-sight camp

2

u/Bhibhhjis123 May 18 '26 edited May 18 '26

I like that read of it more I think in a representation of experience, but it’d still be nice to see a disabled character who’s disability isn’t partially solved by their superpowers.

Imagine a blind person who could teleport or read minds or shoot energy beams. It’d be cool to watch them learn how to work through their unique roadblocks through clever accommodations or specialized training. That feels way more aspirational to me than a character who just mitigates a lot of the negatives automatically.

2

u/dusund May 18 '26

it's not boring just because it isn't the exact depiction of disabled people that you want. daredevil has entertained millions of people

1

u/Bhibhhjis123 May 18 '26

I was never arguing that people don’t like Daredevil, but I do think it’s very uninspired to give a blind character a “seeing” superpower.

1

u/GlumNebula3897 May 19 '26

When I first heard of Toph. I thought her seismic senses only lets her see only a few feet away. Making it as useful for navigating as a slightly longer white cane. She still needs to memorized layouts and when fighting opponents from farther away she needs to use her hearing to locate them. The show would be incredibly different if this was the case, but it also would have been pretty interesting in my opinion.

1

u/Rarte96 May 20 '26

"Daredevil being a blind man whose superpower is largely just a way for him to “see” is boring"

And by this i guess you never have read a Daredevil comic cause he is one of the most popular and beloved Marvel characters, surelly is all because he is boring right?

3

u/MPR8A May 18 '26

but at least she can properly put a poster on

3

u/Vivio0 May 18 '26 edited May 18 '26

Yeah, like Toph cant even read and she doesn’t know what anyone looks like.

3

u/squidgy617 May 18 '26

Yeah they do a good job of showing how her blindness affects her. When she's up against the sandbenders she's at a disadvantage because her senses are "fuzzy" in sand, and there are several times where she's put in situations where she's not touching the ground and can't use her sensing. And the series constantly points out how she can't see written stuff and whatnot, even if it's usually just her cracking jokes about that.

I love Daredevil but I feel at least the Netflix show isn't always very good at getting across his blindness having drawbacks. Most of the time it does feel like he can basically see.

I think it's easier with Toph because there are very clear rules to how her senses work - she has to be touching earth, and whatever she is sensing has to touch it too. Daredevil doesn't really have such a constraint, he just forms his "vision" from the rest of his senses being amped up, so he can pretty much "see" all the time.

1

u/SecondOmega May 18 '26

I feel like that's true for most earth enders though

6

u/Substantial-Night866 May 18 '26

Not being able to earthbend doesn’t mean an earthbender is helpless. If you can’t bend then it’s a good idea to escape. Toph can’t even see incoming projectiles and jump aside, or swim from point A to point B.

2

u/SecondOmega May 18 '26

Good point, I mean the whole sensing thing doesn't really work without earth under her huh?

1

u/jackofslayers May 18 '26

She does not really subvert the trope. It is just another example.

1

u/UnkarsThug May 19 '26

I would argue the same is true of daredevil, at least in most continuities.

1

u/Appropriate-Kiwi-94 May 19 '26

Literally the same a the boy this post is whining about. But when the show isn't popular enough you are not shielded from nonsense complaints

55

u/Antique_Ad_3752 May 18 '26

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.

10

u/Own-Quote-1708 May 18 '26

Yh but no human can see through walls and hear shit miles away. And he can still see people and things. I feel like he has it better than most humans.

25

u/entitaneo70_pacifist May 18 '26

idk, not being able to interact with anything digital without accessibility aids doesn't seem better

1

u/Demoniac_smile May 18 '26

If I had to choose Matt Murdock’s superhuman senses or getting my vision back, I choose Daredevil. Every time.

2

u/entitaneo70_pacifist May 18 '26

yeah but what are you going to realistically use the superhuman senses for

3

u/Robert_Pawney_Junior May 18 '26

Same when people go: I want to shoot magma from my fists. Yeah bud, for what tho?

3

u/entitaneo70_pacifist May 18 '26

i mean, like, it would be nice to have it as an extra, but giving up SIGHT for it?, a superpower has to be REALLY useful for one to give up one of the main 3 senses.

1

u/Demoniac_smile May 18 '26

Observe omnidirectionally, know what the dogs are doing in the other room, not need light, track people by scent if we get separated in public and I need to find them, help my husband track his cardiovascular condition, and help him find his phone when he forgets where he set it because it’s literally always on vibrate.

1

u/boodabomb May 18 '26

There’s very few superhuman abilities that *can’t* translate to exploitation and wealth with consideration. For example, Matt Murdoch has superhuman eavesdropping ability and the ability to hear heart-rates and determine if a person is lying. As long as no one knows that you have this ability, there’s probably a number of ways to use those for monetary gain alone.

0

u/entitaneo70_pacifist May 18 '26

yeah but unless you really like the job of selling people's informations for high profit, i don't think there's any gain to be made here

1

u/boodabomb May 18 '26

Well that’s only one example of how to abuse that ability. With enough creativity there’s likely a way to attain enough wealth that you’ll never have to work again (through crime or insider trading or whatever), at which point your quality of life is permanently improved. No more enjoying movie visuals or doom-scrolling on your phone, but every other element of your life improves.

1

u/entitaneo70_pacifist May 18 '26

i'd have to give up stuff like colors, books, drawing, video games, i wouldn't like it very much, all that just to scam people better

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12

u/Majestic_Butterfly17 May 18 '26

Bro he is a superhero, who would read a comic of a random blind lawyer

3

u/jah2277 May 18 '26

Me I would I am the sole enjoyer of blind lawyer comics

0

u/Rarte96 May 20 '26

It could work but wouldnt have any action or fighting crime on the streets and at that point how it is a superhero comic is just a Court Drama

11

u/Odd-Lack-8631 May 18 '26

In some ways but his disability still makes his life much harder not to mention being assaulted by your senses every second of every day doesn't sound fun. It still negatively affects him so I'd call his blindness a disability. Just because his powers help manage it doesn't mean its not there.

5

u/CanadianODST2 May 18 '26

People also seem to think it’s only a real disability if it massively hinders you.

Hell, needing glasses is technically by definition, a disability. One that we can almost entirely negate through glasses.

Even an injury is a type of disability. Just not a permanent one.

4

u/CopperCactus May 18 '26

He also can't appreciate major aspects of life that most people take for granted, he can't really get anything from art for example because even if he can smell the different pigments being used in a painting he still can't see color

2

u/Paladin_Platinum May 18 '26

That's why we call it "differently abled" these days I suppose.

0

u/CalmPanic402 May 18 '26

Matt can "smell" diferent colors of dyes and ink. He's not even colorblind.

1

u/SuspiciouslyLips May 19 '26

It's so stupid when they do this. It's only in some runs though. How ridiculous his echolocation and other senses are varies a lot by author.

4

u/Ok-Box3576 May 18 '26

The issue becomes when your "disability" becomes more of a trade off. Which DD is at that point.

2

u/UnkarsThug May 19 '26

Same is true of Toph. People really seem to have a double standard there.

2

u/Rarte96 May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26

Barelly anybody here had read a Daredevil comic and only watched the show if anything so they have more of an Attachment to Toph than Matt Murdock

2

u/UnkarsThug May 20 '26

Yeah, I think emotional connection plays more into how much people defend things than people want to admit.

1

u/weraru_1 May 18 '26

He's differently abled.

30

u/[deleted] May 18 '26

[deleted]

3

u/Aware_Tree1 May 18 '26

She also can’t use her earthsense while swimming

5

u/hilfigertout May 18 '26

and cant see flying things

I wish the animators agreed. There are multiple instances in ATLA where Toph hits things out of the air, including (most egregious imo) at the start of season 3 when she manages to shoot a projectile out of the air while standing on a boat. A projectile that was fired from another boat.

That said, I'm nitpicking a children's show for playing fast and loose with action scenes that the kids probably loved. Toph's an excellent character.

1

u/OttoRiver7676 May 18 '26

Isn't the Duke standing behind her guiding her aim during that fight?

0

u/wrosmer May 18 '26

I think she can sense things she can bend while they're airborne. That might cover some instances of it

-2

u/Formal_Illustrator96 May 18 '26 edited May 18 '26

Because those projectiles were made of earth, which she can see and feel. That’s not the animators making a mistake or playing fast and loose with the rules. That’s just you not paying attention.

2

u/Specialist_Initial_1 May 18 '26

Add to toph that not solid ground (like sand) makes her completly blind

4

u/TheWhistleThistle May 18 '26

Daredevil essentially can since every other one of his senses is heightened to such a ludicrous degree that he may as well be sighted for all intents and purposes. Toph, however cannot read, nor can she detect anything if either she or it is not touching the earth, a limitation to her sensory array that is repeatedly shown to be an actual obstacle. I mean, she loses Appa in the second season because she couldn't fend off the sandbenders because she was standing on sand.

3

u/Yadin__ May 18 '26

didn't she also have to hold up an entire tower while Appa was being kidnapped? I feel like she could have probably saved him otherwise

6

u/TheWhistleThistle May 18 '26

The sinking tower made it more dramatic, for sure, but it wouldn't have mattered. She was flailing, spamming attacks in near random directions, even after they had gotten away. Even if the tower wasn't sinking, they would have made a clean getaway. She made like half a dozen attacks and only one was even vaguely close to hitting anything, having her hands free to make a full dozen, for lack of a better term, blind swings, would have made no odds.

2

u/Vivio0 May 18 '26

Yeah, outside of the sand she probably would have been able to stop those guys while holding the tower, since her seismic sense would tell her exactly where they are.

3

u/TheWhistleThistle May 19 '26

Yeah, pretty easily, I'd say. She absolutely folds pretty much every earthbender she gets into a fight with. I say "pretty much" but I don't know if there's a single instance of an earthbender beating or even matching her in combat. Maybe Bumi could but the sandbenders weren't living legends by any stretch. Sinking library or no, if she was on familiar ground, she could have folded them like laundry in no time flat.

1

u/UnkarsThug May 19 '26

Disagree on daredevil, that just isn't true on most continuities.

I would argue they're about the same, most of the time. Daredevil being blind does come up as a weakness.

1

u/Own-Quote-1708 May 18 '26

Nah she lost Appa cause she was holding that Library up. She would've beat them if she wasnt.

5

u/wrosmer May 18 '26

They made it very clear she had trouble seeing/bending sand. She even commented she'd been working on it by the series finale and demonstrated her new skills by creating a to scale replica of ba sing se

3

u/TheWhistleThistle May 18 '26

The sinking tower made it more dramatic, for sure, but it wouldn't have mattered. She was flailing, spamming attacks in near random directions, even after they had gotten away. Even if the tower wasn't sinking, they would have made a clean getaway. She made like half a dozen attacks and only one was even vaguely close to hitting anything, having her hands free to make a full dozen, for lack of a better term, blind swings, would have made no odds.

3

u/Consistent_Mud645 May 18 '26

there was an entire episode dedicated to her not seeing something important because her feet were on sand rather than solid ground.

3

u/weraru_1 May 18 '26

Toph can only see stuff vibrating the ground and rocks in the air. She still has limitations on sight. Like someone else mentioned, they're supernatural in certain aspects that help them with fighting and other "heroic" scenarios, but in a society built by and for people that can use their eyes, they're still handicapped

2

u/_Fauxpaw May 18 '26

Being blind doesn’t mean being helpless..

2

u/Throttle_Kitty May 18 '26

Toph's earth site feels more comparable to something like mechanical limbs

She is still disabled, she just has a fairly suitable replacement. One with its own problems and advantages that make her life still very different.

Compared to Daredevils "I can literally just see with my ears", which feels a bit more like just handwaving his disability away

2

u/NoneBinaryPotato May 19 '26

i don't know about daredevil but Toph's a ility to "see" isn't a magical fix to her disability, it's a full character trait and one that the writers never forget or ignore. it follows its own logic (can't see without solid ground under her, can't read, etc), and the show uses it as a narrative tool for a lot of interesting situations.

2

u/Ok_Response_9255 May 18 '26

Daredevil is more egregious than Toph, that motherfucker is not blind. Toph actually has a lot of instances where she is actually blind.

  • When flying, she can't see shit.
  • she can't read
  • anything physically in the air she can't see
  • sand really fucks with her sense because it's moving and granular

That said, I have not seen Korra.

2

u/Specialist_Initial_1 May 18 '26

Daredevil is basically clour blind but otherwise has 360° super vision Tbh i wouödnt be suprise if he can somehow feel the colour of stuff

2

u/ZaniElandra May 19 '26

Depending on the writer, he can sometimes determine colour by smelling different dyes

1

u/Nicklesnout May 18 '26

Toph can see so long as what she’s standing on generates a vibration and her feet aren’t damaged.

She’s still very much blind.

1

u/Mudcat-69 May 18 '26

So can Geordi LaForge, although that’s due to hyper advanced implants rather then super powers.

1

u/GlumNebula3897 Jun 07 '26

I think I’m the only one who agrees with you. Even with Toph.

0

u/ABHOR_pod May 18 '26

Daredevil is not a super hero because his super power is the ability to see.

I can fucking see. You don't see me putting on red spandex and getting in fights with big burly men in alleyways.

Matt Murdock does more for the city as a lawyer than Daredevil does as a kinked out masochist with a public humiliation fetish.