Disabilities in fantasy lit?

[Ankari]

Rand had the insanity issue in Wheel of Time. He also suffered a wound that would never heal.

Jaime Lannister (I won't say more because people may be reading/watching the series)

Tyrion Lannister is a dwarf.

Brandon Stark is paralyzed from the waist down.

Hodor


It's been done. Seems like George Martin seems to consider it a lot more than other authors, but its common enough.

[Kit]

I'm making a point of putting a whole bunch of disabled characters in my WIP. Their duties are very dangerous, and injuries/deaths are common. It wouldn't be realistic to have everyone still be able-bodied. Most of them can still contribute to their community.

[Jess A]

There is a character in my story who is mentally handicapped - similar to Downs Syndrome, I suppose. She's of high birth.

Chade, the fellow with the poked face - Robin Hobb. She is most unkind to her characters in general (to help them 'grow'). Nicholas who has a club foot - Raymond Feist (but the character 'healed' himself later). As mentioned above, Brandon Stark. I do see blindness a lot, and burned faces/bodies, also scars and missing eyes (usually the antagonist or due to battle scars). Leprosy is another. Even Sara Douglass, though on a different level. Some of her winged people lack wings. It could be considered a disability in their culture. Having wings and cumbersome bird feet was a 'disability' as far as Kate Forsyth's character Lachlan was concerned - he failed to fully return to human form after being cursed into the shape of a blackbird by a witch. Sickly children/adults is another I see, particularly with the higher classes and royalty (also notable in our history).

[Chilari]

Fantasy does not easily lend itself to dealing with disabilities, because the nature of stories often involves characters travelling great distances, getting involved in fights, living in locations unsuitable for disabled people, or other plot requirements that mean you need able-bodied characters. Often when disabilities are used, they're used as a plot point rather than just a character facet - someone has had an injury to their shoulder which means they can't lift their right arm above their head, so when someone attacks from above they cannot defend themselves easily, for example. In terms of learning difficulties, something like dyslexia just wouldn't crop up in any fantasy story whithout 21st-century Earth elements, because in most pre-industrial societies, literacy is fairly limited, usually to elites, so most people never get the opportunity to discover it and those who do don't stand out as having a learning disability because they've been taught something so few people know that there's just not the sample size there to differentiate between someone who has had limited education and someone who has had more buy struggles with it.

It would be good to see more examples of characters simply living with disabilities without their disability being a plot point - or a source of bitterness for the character. I'm planning on having a character in the story I'm currently planning who is a war hero but was injured in that war to the extent that he has difficulty walking. After a decade of living with it, he has gotten past the bitterness and just learned to live with it, finding ways to be useful and productive to his family and community without needing to use his legs too much - by decorating ceramic vessels and teaching elite young men about military strategy on a theoretical level, including things like morale. Dispite being a commoner, because he's a hero he has access to and influence over the military side of the government of the town and is a community leader. He still lives in a house that has steps between every room (the whole town is built on the side of a steep hill so this is standard) and getting to the palace at the top of the hill takes twice as long for him as anyone else, even with help from his nephew, but he has learned to deal with it because he will not allow himself to be a burden on his family (except his nephew) or his community.

It would certainly be interesting to see a character who is autistic in a fantasy story, but would take a lot of research - and probably personal experience - to get it right.

[Jess A]

Fantasy does not easily lend itself to dealing with disabilities, because the nature of stories often involves characters travelling great distances, getting involved in fights, living in locations unsuitable for disabled people, or other plot requirements that mean you need able-bodied characters. Often when disabilities are used, they're used as a plot point rather than just a character facet - someone has had an injury to their shoulder which means they can't lift their right arm above their head, so when someone attacks from above they cannot defend themselves easily, for example. In terms of learning difficulties, something like dyslexia just wouldn't crop up in any fantasy story whithout 21st-century Earth elements, because in most pre-industrial societies, literacy is fairly limited, usually to elites, so most people never get the opportunity to discover it and those who do don't stand out as having a learning disability because they've been taught something so few people know that there's just not the sample size there to differentiate between someone who has had limited education and someone who has had more buy struggles with it.

It would be good to see more examples of characters simply living with disabilities without their disability being a plot point - or a source of bitterness for the character. I'm planning on having a character in the story I'm currently planning who is a war hero but was injured in that war to the extent that he has difficulty walking. After a decade of living with it, he has gotten past the bitterness and just learned to live with it, finding ways to be useful and productive to his family and community without needing to use his legs too much - by decorating ceramic vessels and teaching elite young men about military strategy on a theoretical level, including things like morale. Dispite being a commoner, because he's a hero he has access to and influence over the military side of the government of the town and is a community leader. He still lives in a house that has steps between every room (the whole town is built on the side of a steep hill so this is standard) and getting to the palace at the top of the hill takes twice as long for him as anyone else, even with help from his nephew, but he has learned to deal with it because he will not allow himself to be a burden on his family (except his nephew) or his community.

It would certainly be interesting to see a character who is autistic in a fantasy story, but would take a lot of research - and probably personal experience - to get it right.

Why does this bring Bates to mind (Downton Abbey)? :P

In any case, I like the sounds of your character. In real life, such a person would gain my respect.

[Chilari]

Ha, Downton Abbey is awesome. When's season 3 coming? They do make us wait! Bates is one of the best characters in that.

[Sheilawisz]

Would black and white vision be considered a disability for a Fantasy character??

[Feo Takahari]

If we're talking about our own characters, I'm using alexithymia as a model for a disorder one of my characters suffers. (It's a magical curse, so it's not true alexithymia, but I think research on alexithymia will help me write the curse in greater detail. Basically, this character is incapable of directly recognizing what emotions she's feeling, though she can puzzle them out from her physical reactions--for instance, she might not realize she's sad unless she starts crying.)

[Aravelle]

My two heroines in my WIP each have a disability [at least I think they'd count as one]. One is dyslexic and another has albinism.

[Jess A]

Ha, Downton Abbey is awesome. When's season 3 coming? They do make us wait! Bates is one of the best characters in that.

I've only seen the first episode (and bits of later ones) so far. I just got season 1. I already like Bates' character quite a bit - he just gets on with the job. I particularly liked the end of the episode when the earl practically dragged him out of the motor vehicle. We get things late here in Australia; season 2 has only just been advertised. That's not to say I can't order it from the UK or elsewhere. Do you have season 2 on DVD in the UK yet?

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Would black and white vision be considered a disability for a Fantasy character??

I think it would be considered something of a 'disability' if the rest of the people in the character's society (or species) have colour vision, particularly if having colour vision makes life that little bit easier. A disability depends on the society. As I mentioned earlier, Sara Douglass has a race of bird-winged people. Not having wings would be a disability in their culture/society, but as they otherwise appear to be human, an Icarii lacking wings would function perfectly fine in human society (in the context of her novels).