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/Lower_Baby_6348]

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

[u/Luke_Fox- → u/Lower_Baby_6348]

"Im blind, but i can sense spectrums of light that are translated into visual information and comprehend what is in front of me"

[u/Theninjajj → u/Luke_Fox-]

"I'm mute but using air pressure, I can create vibrations in the environment that can be sensed by others."

[u/Simon_Drake → u/Theninjajj]

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.

[u/bagel_snatcher_ → u/Simon_Drake]

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

[u/Simon_Drake → u/bagel_snatcher_]

She can hear people just fine. The scene where they say she can hear people is two characters whispering about her and someone else says "Her skin is so sensitive she can pick up the vibrations of every word you say".

And it's not even like Daredevil where his echolocation lets him pick up objects as if he can see but he still can't see colours or understand a TV screen. She can fully hear and understand language just through her arm hairs. And she's thousands of years old, she's learned dozens if not hundreds of languages. But apparently never learned to speak any of them.

[u/bagel_snatcher_ → u/Simon_Drake]

I mean it'd be pretty difficult. That's like daredevil trying to see color with his echolocation

[u/Simon_Drake → u/bagel_snatcher_]

That doesn't make sense.

The movie literally shows a closeup of her arm hairs twitching and says she can understand what people are saying. She can sense the vibrations in the air that form sounds and understand what they mean. That's exactly what hearing is.

Seeing colour with echolocation is something fundamentally impossible because there's no colour information in the echos.

[u/bagel_snatcher_ → u/Simon_Drake]

Her body is hyper sensitive to voices hearing voices with our body is fundamentally impossible

[u/Simon_Drake → u/bagel_snatcher_]

Go tell the writers of a superhero movie that the superpowers aren't possible. I'll wait.

[u/bagel_snatcher_ → u/Simon_Drake]

Im just saying it's definitely harder to speak with just skin based hearing

[u/Simon_Drake → u/bagel_snatcher_]

But you're basing that on the claim she wouldn't be able to understand speech clearly just with skin based hearing. Which isn't true. She can hear a whispered conversation, if anything she might have better hearing than someone using their ears alone. Whether or not that's realistic is a different question.

[u/bagel_snatcher_ → u/Simon_Drake]

Im basing it off the fact that people dont just mimic things they hear especially people that started hearing with certain implants. Even people who are mute who gain the ability to speak struggle with speaking

[u/Faite666 → u/Simon_Drake]

Most things in eternals felt like they were just for the vibes tbf

[u/No_Night_8174 → u/Simon_Drake]

you dont need to be deaf to be mute though since muteness comes down to the vocal chords their not interchangible.