Disabilities in fantasy lit?

[Weaver]

Anyone seen them? I sure haven't, especially with the antagonist. The worst I've seen is them getting a bad injury and it eventually being healed, sometimes miraculously.

Getting back to the original question here...

I cannot recall seeing an antagonist in fantasy fiction who had a physical disability. (I'm assuming the question refers to physical disability specifically, as it mentions injury.) I'm sure they're out there, though, since it used to be common shorthand for "bad guy" to give the antagonist something like a hunchback or a twisted limb.

I think that many writers avoid giving their antagonists any kind of disability because 1) they don't want to give readers any reason to pity the villian, 2) they don't want to be accused of suggesting that an unsound body equals an unsound mind, or 3) since the hero is judged in part by how powerful his enemies are, the evil overlord needs to be as formidable as possible.

These are all valid reasons not to tack a disability onto your antagonist.

If you're considering giving ANY character a disability merely for the sake of causing the reader to feel pity/sympathy for them, don't do it. For one thing, it will come across as shallow manipulation of the reader's emotions. Readers want their emotions manipulated (I, at least, cannot imagine the appeal of any work of fiction that doesn't make me feel something), but they want it done skillfully, not in a way that is hamhanded and blatant and probably ineffective to boot.

You don't want to be guilty of equating disability with evil. In real life, disabled people are no more - and no less - likely to be good or bad than any able-bodied person. So you don't want to be guilty of equating disability with some kind of moral superiority, either.

It is a common trope in fiction to have a hero who is physically powerful but of average intelligence, versus a villian who is physically deformed in some way but an evil genius. Occasionally you see it the other way around: the smart, unathletic kid versus the big strong bully. (I do not understand why fictional people apparently have to be either/or when it comes to intellect and strength, and I doubt I will ever understand - real life shows me that this is not how things work - but the trope is nearly ubiquitous.) This creates a kind of balance between the characters; each has an advantage that the other lacks. And obviously, if the evil overlord was a pushover, we wouldn't admire the hero for defeating him. Instead, we'd ask, "What took you so long?"

No one seems to consider vampirism a disability. I wonder why.


In contrast to physical disabilities, antagonists with mental disabilities are a dime a dozen. How often do we see Evil = Crazy = Evil? (Or, on the flip side, Crazy = It Isn't His Fault He's a Serial Killer?) We are less likely to see antagonists with intellectual disability (what used to be called mental retardation), perhaps for any of the three reasons listed above. No one wants to appear to equate low intelligence with evil (and yet why is the evil genius so common and acceptable a trope?), and no one wants to be offering excuses for the villian such as "He doesn't know it's wrong." (If he doesn't know that what he is doing is wrong, he is still be an antagonist but not a villian.) And again, if the villian is no match for the hero, we aren't impressed with the hero's ability to win in the end.


I'm probably overthinking this, but it's an interesting topic.

 

[Jess A]

No one seems to consider vampirism a disability. I wonder why.

I had a character or two once who thought their lycanthropy was a disability. And I'm fairly sure I've seen that in other works of fiction too. Not sure about vampirism. Maybe.

 

[Alva]

As with so many other things, I think that writers need to be careful how they portray disabled characters in their stories. You never know when the person reading your story has the disability you've given your character.

Very true.

I try my best to be careful and honest when representing pretty much anything: whether it was an illness or disability or LGBTQ relationship or religion… or any member of a group of people in question.

But still, I do want to write about a variety of things. And in real life I know so many different kinds of interesting people that I, too, (most of the time unconsciously) want to bring that part - variety - of the real world into my written work as well. I’ve at times heard people say that they’d prefer writers to only write about the things they “know about”, but I’d be fooling myself and being dishonest weren’t I to try to write about things I’m not completely familiar with, as well. At times I may do better, at times worse, but all the while I’m trying to be honest to the characters, at the very least. Since the disabilities present in my stories don’t even hold any allegorical or symbolical meanings, the characters are the center of everything.

Plus, I only consider “disabled” the characters who actually view themselves somehow disabled within the context of the story. First of all, there’s no need to label everything. Secondly, from the point of view of my characters, another person should be regarded as an individual – as a whole. As a writer I can have my opinion that certain character is – for instance - having autistic traits, but in the end it’s only my own interpretation of the situation. I don’t even mean to state anything like that anywhere on the pages of my story, and since I prefer sublety in my writing, I’ll be leaving space for interpretation for the reader as well.

For instance, there are only a few “clear” illnesses/disabilities present in my main story: delayed speech, blindness, dementia and dyslexia. I’ve been writing about depression as well, but that is something I’ve once again left unlabeled and “undiagnosed”. Furthermore, I’m not going to pick up characters with certain conditions. I may be interested in eyesight, for example, but it’s not enough criteria to me. Usually characters simply develop into directions I hadn’t even speculated when I originally started writing. I prefer it that way.

What comes to the existence of any kind of personal experience: one of my closest relatives is dyslexic. She’s really smart, she can express herself in a total of five different languages and she studies music (…notes). Even though I haven’t told her, I reckon she must have been an inspiration of some sort to me when my dyslexic main character came to be. As I’ve already mentioned, this character of mine is of scientific type and I consider him highly energetic and imaginative. He’s always coming up with ideas and points of interest. He loves exploration and is not hindered by other people’s prejudices. Quite the contrary: he is skilled at drawing, he’s good at seeking meaningful connections between things and has a healthy amount of self-confidence. His only problem is expressing his thoughts and feelings in written word. A thing that causes confrontations with his old-fashioned guardian who, unfortunately, cannot see the reason behind the text-processing difficulties.

"Crippled" describes me pretty well. So does "disabled". I am not "differently abled" or "handicapped" or any of those other euphemistic terms that people use to make themselves feel better about the fact that there are some of us who have significant limitations. I don't think "crippled" is an offensive term.
Other crippled people might feel differently.

Ouch. “Crippled”. I’m quite fluent in English but I must admit that at times I’m uncertain or even unaware of the nuances (and polarities) contained by certain words and expressions. I guess the situation and discussion here is a bit similar to a discussion of the same topic going on in my native language (concerning on a word “vammainen” to those interested). Or I don’t know. In Finnish “vammainen” is completely usable and valid term, but it all depends on the context, the person using it and the tone of voice. Among other things. I personally avoid using that word at all, even though I appreciate it that a lot of people with actual disabilities are fighting for their rights and willfully using the said expression.

Well, in any case the scenario of a non-hero and in some way disabled person saving the day sounds still different. Usually heroes of the day are in a good physical condition/healthy/able to run a mile –type – whatever expression is even close to politically correct here. I’m already lost.

No one seems to consider vampirism a disability. I wonder why.

I’m not into vampire stories but what I’ve seen and heard, I was thinking this was a more or less common trope(?) Awkward example, but isn’t it so that the Cullen’s family are considering themselves as somehow contaminated or something along those lines?

In contrast to physical disabilities, antagonists with mental disabilities are a dime a dozen. - - I'm probably overthinking this, but it's an interesting topic.

I don’t think you are overthinking. I’m very much agreeing with you here.

 

[Ireth]

I’m not into vampire stories but what I’ve seen and heard, I was thinking this was a more or less common trope(?) Awkward example, but isn’t it so that the Cullen’s family are considering themselves as somehow contaminated or something along those lines?

They do consider themselves somehow "impure", but it's pretty obvious from the writing that vampirism is preferable over human life -- you've got nigh-invulnerability, super strength and speed, and other heightened senses. The Cullens themselves strive to stay morally "pure" by only feeding from animals rather than humans, and their whole family life is steeped in Mormon values, whether it's intentional or not. Edward calls himself a "monster" for wanting to feed from Bella, yet she constantly begs him to turn her, and this is seen as a good thing by all characters involved (except Edward, at least until he marries her).

 

[Weaver]

Very true.
I’ve at times heard people say that they’d prefer writers to only write about the things they “know about”,

We're fantasy writers. We have a different definition of "know about" than most people do.

 

[Alva]

They do consider themselves somehow "impure", but it's pretty obvious from the writing that vampirism is preferable over human life -- you've got nigh-invulnerability, super strength and speed, and other heightened senses. The Cullens themselves strive to stay morally "pure" by only feeding from animals rather than humans, and their whole family life is steeped in Mormon values, whether it's intentional or not. Edward calls himself a "monster" for wanting to feed from Bella, yet she constantly begs him to turn her, and this is seen as a good thing by all characters involved (except Edward, at least until he marries her).

Ah well. Thank you. Now I'm once again a bit more informed. : D As said, I've never been into vampire stories. Even Dracula is still waiting for his turn... and has been for years.

We're fantasy writers. We have a different definition of "know about" than most people do.

Indeed. : ) But it's an interesting debate nonetheless, even though I'm not personally agreeing with the point.

 

[plucifer]

I have found that characters with disabilities should be taken as an interesting challenge of a sort. Mostly by portraying their daily routine and how said disability would affect their life. Were they born with it? Did it happen suddenly? How did they cope? etc. etc. I always find it best to do as much research as possible as well. Never want to get things wrong and offend someone.

As for my own characters being disabled, I have a mute boy named Viktor. A blind boy and a few others that can fall in to the category of being disabled as well.

 

[StuartEWise]

Hey all.

Intreresting discussion, so thought I would throw my two penn'orth into the mix.

Firstly a couple of 'disabled' characters for you, first Beldin the hunchbacked, foul mouthed dwarf from David Edding's Belgariad.

More recently, Inquisitor Glokta created by Joe Abercrombie, who is a fantastically realised character with multiple injuries.

For the last 6 years I have been running a leisure centre that was specifcially designed to be Inclusive and has won a number of awards in the UK for our work with people of all ability levels and medical conditions.

Being 'disabled,' comes from society and how the person is viewed and interracted with and the opportunities that they are given, or can access - not from their medical status (which may be progressive, but is a constant).

So my advice if you are writing about a specific medical condition - blindness, amputation, cerebral palsy etc etc, is to first research the condition itself thoroughly, in all its variations. Decide exactly how it presents itself within your character, but then also have a look at the environment and society as a whole and any barriers or prejudice that exists and factor those in as well.

'In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king...'

 

[Weaver]

It isn't only society that decides that a person missing a limb is at a disadvantage. How much of a disadvantage is what is determined by their environment, which includes other people, but that isn't the whole picture any more than the medical condition itself is. Dyslexia didn't become as much of an issue until literacy became widespread, but the brain quirk that causes it was still there and still had an effect. An autistic person who doesn't like to make eye contact with others is at less of a disadvantage from that one thing if they are from a culture that doesn't expect eye contact during conversation. It doesn't mean that no one in that culture has autism or that there are not other problems they suffer because of it.

As Stuart says, the medical condition is not the whole picture. In the right environment, the medical condition can have minimal effect. If everyone uses magic all the time and rides around on flying carpets, being lame is not nearly as much of a problem as it would be if people have to be able to climb stairs everywhere they go. No sense of smell could be bad for a wizard who must identify the herbs she uses for her spells, but it's a good thing for a lowly shoveler of fewmets.

But absolutely, how society views those with disabilities plays a large role in how the disability affects those people's lives. It's rather a depressing topic to think about at this time of year, when the weather is turning cold and I have to wonder if my neighbors are going to cuss at me and call me a parasite because I walk with a limp and therefor must be a drug addict who is living off the taxes paid by real people with real jobs... Yeah. And that's just a mild example from modern life, when people supposedly know what causes these various disabilities and don't think that epilepsy is demonic possession, or that dyslexia is either willfulness or low intelligence, or that a physical defect is punishment from God for a sin committed by one's parents.

(Side note: There's a variation on the 'one-eyed man is king' saying: "In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is stoned to death." Sadly, I find this more likely to be true.)

 

[SeverinR]

In the old days we tend to write about, only the strong survived is the mentality.

Just finished watching season 1 Game of thrones.
The young boy was thrown from a tower and is a paraplegic. He lays around for alittle while then with help sees he can still do stuff. They did a good job of showing that a rich handicapped person(noble) can survive.

In my books, I have one MC who is color blind. Not a huge problem, except the colors of trainee and full dragon riders look the same to her, thus she tries to steal from a trainee with very little.

In another, my MC is autistic, no one can connect with him until stumbles into or is called into a room and finds a dragon's egg. They draw each other into the real world and assist each other to learn.

How a character overcomes handicaps in days when they didn't have ADA(America with disablities act) makes the triumph that much greater if they can do it.

Losing a hand or part of an arm was not uncommon, and they overcame it. You got massive sharp blades swinging wildly, there is bound to be unlucky hits or life changing injuries. Not to mention punishment for crimes often involved amputation of a hand.

 

[Guru Coyote]

They did a good job of showing that a rich handicapped person(noble) can survive.

Actually... not only survive. There is a well known scholar of ancient Rome who's works are read even today. He was blind, and it just didn't matter. In that time, it wasn't expected that you could read or write, you had servants to do that. Also, getting around wasn't an issue for a blind noble, again due to servants.

My point here is: A handicap or disability is always due to the context the people live in. In our time, not being able to read and write is a serious flaw. In ancient Rome one could be a well known scholar and author of works that survived to our times, and no one even talked about the fact that you were blind.

 

[SeverinR]

Actually... not only survive. There is a well known scholar of ancient Rome who's works are read even today. He was blind, and it just didn't matter. In that time, it wasn't expected that you could read or write, you had servants to do that. Also, getting around wasn't an issue for a blind noble, again due to servants.

My point here is: A handicap or disability is always due to the context the people live in. In our time, not being able to read and write is a serious flaw. In ancient Rome one could be a well known scholar and author of works that survived to our times, and no one even talked about the fact that you were blind.

When I saw the quote, I thought you were going to tell me something about the boy doing more thne surviving. I haven't watched anything more then 1st season.

The higher in society the more opportunities the handicapped had.

I did forget one of the main nobles has a handicap that we don't even consider now days, he is what they call a dwarf.
No problem today, but back then...

 

[Kit]

I did forget one of the main nobles has a handicap that we don't even consider now days, he is what they call a dwarf.
No problem today, but back then...

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's "no problem" today- it's better, I'm sure, but they still get stared at.... and everyday things like driving a car and going through a grocery store checkout lane and sitting at a table are difficult without special tools and modifications. Also, many of the genetic issues that result in dwarfism come along with a bonus package of additional physical/health challenges aside from just being short.

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The higher in society the more opportunities the handicapped had.

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True, yet it was not uncommon in the past for the high crust of society to quietly get such family members "out of the way" somehow- or at least to not accord them the same treatment as a "normal" person. Even Tyrion's father refused him Casterly Rock. (And of course I can't help but mention that Cercei was the elder and should have been heir ahead of Tyrion, but having a vagina is one of the worst handicaps of all in some societies.)

 

[SeverinR]

People with dwarfism have unique problems, but I wouldn't go as far as to say they are handicapped just from being little.
They do have unique medical problems common to little people.

In the past, the rich could get away with hiding or even kulling the handicapped "embarrassment".
Even in history(all periods), rich people do seem to believe they have special privledges in regards to laws that commoners don't.

 

[ALB2012]

"Crippled" describes me pretty well. So does "disabled". I am not "differently abled" or "handicapped" or any of those other euphemistic terms that people use to make themselves feel better about the fact that there are some of us who have significant limitations. I don't think "crippled" is an offensive term.

Other crippled people might feel differently.

Interestingly I am reading your book at present JD and I thought it was an interesting encounter and history between Delnor and the blacksmith- a man disabled by an accident during wartime. The smith still had a thriving business and was a respected member of the community. He was not bitter about his injuries - he was alive and he he managed to get around, pursue his profession and get on with life, it was Delnor who had the guilt over it.

My novels have a mentally handicapped minor character. He is only mentioned briefly as he is just a minor character. B He does not speak much and has difficulty understanding and making himself understood. He could not care for himself as things like cooking a meal are beyond him BUT he is not stupid. He is extremely good a number of things and the main character prizes his skills highly and makes sure he is cared for for those needs he cannot manage. He is simple and complex. In book 2 someone comments about him and is told to watch and see what he can do. The character is unlikely to ever be a major character simply because I have no call to use him as such but he will remain around. He is useful, he serves his employer well and is respected by him.

I can't remember which book it is but a character in one of the cadfael books is missing a hand. In Memoirs of a Geisha Mr Nobo is not only missing an arm but has bad burns but he is a major an important character who is respected and liked.

My old Starwars character had a bad limp and although she healed it was never fully repaired, she also had a drug addiction and was seriously ill and she was a jedi.

 

[ALB2012]

The office where I work has a large number of people with one or other form of disability and many who do not. Everyone is treated with respect (as far as I have seen) and do their fair share. Some people need adaptations to the work place,but then again I have a fractured in my back, carpel tunnel and possibly something as yet undiagnosed so I have a special mouse, allowed extra breaks etc. People adapt and it annoys me intensely when people are rude or ignorant to others. People are people, whether they have extra needs, a disability which prevents them from doing something specific or not. My cousin has a mental disability but she still has a rich life and is happy and loved.

As for fantasy I suppose it does depend on the world setting, a medieval style world people were more likely to die of such injuries but they were probably more common- the woodsman who slips with his axe, the smithy who miscalculated, soldiers before battlefield medicene but I suppose it depended on whether the said disability stopped the person earning a living. Before state support those who were unable to work often became beggers.

I do tend to agree though, in the past the baddie was seen as impaired- Richard the 3rd was not a hunchback for example. On that topic Quasimodo is the hero in Hunchback of Notre dame, such as there is one. He rescues Esmeralda and he defends her against the man who raised him. He is mocked and beaten by the crowd but he defends a stranger and is kind.

 

[Ireth]

On that topic Quasimodo is the hero in Hunchback of Notre dame, such as there is one. He rescues Esmeralda and he defends her against the man who raised him. He is mocked and beaten by the crowd but he defends a stranger and is kind.

Depends which version you're thinking of. In the Disney version, yes, he's a kind soul who rescues Esmeralda, helps and befriends Phoebus, etc.; in the original novel he's hateful toward all of humanity, and he is the one who kidnaps Esmeralda in a plot with Frollo. He has no interaction with Phoebus at all -- in fact Phoebus isn't even in there for more than a page or two before getting killed off.

 

[ALB2012]

Hmm that is true, I haven't read it for a while. I did watch the Anthony Hopkins version a while back. I try and avoid Disney.

Maybe I should read it again.

 

[Aravelle]

Avoid Disney? I don't understand. I'm full aware that their adaptions aren't accurate [Hunchback, Hercules, Jungle Book, etc.] but they still have their own charm.

 

[ALB2012]

Avoid Disney? I don't understand. I'm full aware that their adaptions aren't accurate [Hunchback, Hercules, Jungle Book, etc.] but they still have their own charm.

It is hard to explaine, maybe I am just a cynic but I find them overly twee. It is also the whole trademark disney thing. "Disney's hunchback of notredame" or "Disney's snow white" as though they wrote those stories. I do appreciate the impact disney has had on entertainment and film making but they do tend to mangle things. I am just find it all a bit too nice

I worked on Disney show once as well, years back and they are utter perfectionists and work their people REALLY hard. Now sometimes this is what is needed but it seemed to go too far imo.

I just don't like the films much but they have certainly been influential and bought enjoyment to millions. I think there is just something which annoys me. Each to their own though