The issue of good guys having tiny scars was one of the main things I hated in the Mortal Engines movie. In the books, Hester is scarred as a child and ends up with an enormous gash going through her entire face. The movie decided that was too much and decided to just give her a tiny nick on the edge of her mouth. It made me furious.
yeah, in the books Hester straight up doesn't have a nose bc of how much her face is disfigured and she wears a scarf to cover it. in the movie her scar is so barely visible it's laughable and the scarf is more aesthetic than anything
@@HiBuddyyyyyy the reasoning behind Tyrion’s reduced disfigurement was given to budget reasons for the constant prosthetic… but what’s their excuse for Hester?
I'm surprised you didn't mention the most notable thing about Vader in my opinion, and that's the fact that the reveal of his horribly scarred face in ROTJ takes a trope that's normally used for horror (oh the villain has a facial difference, how disgusting!) and instead makes it into a humanizing moment. It's the transition from the invincible killer robot Vader to the very human and vulnerable Anakin, and his scars are the proof that he is a person and not a machine. This is what a hero looks like: anemic, torn, struggling to breathe, and eyes full of love. It's such a beautiful subversion and I wish we had more examples of it, disability as an affirmation of humanity.
It also helps sell the transition to the troubled kid in Episode 1 and the awkward teen who is about to break bad in Return of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. He is not just a robotic killer - in fact he was far too emotional and was manipulated.
People always remember that Anakin has a prosthetic arm but never Luke, even though Luke loosing his hand is way more iconic in movie history. I think people tend to forget because they always just put a glove over their hand/arm so they don't have to green screen it in all the time. It could be nice seeing Luke with his metal hand on display more.
Anakin being on mechanical breather constantly that became his iconic character trait helps a bit, since audience is from then on is constantly reminded of everything related to that breathing sounds and how it got there Luke just got a robot hand that looks and acts exactly like real hand because space technology and the whole next movie they just act like that never happened. Luke himself probably only thinks that hand that one time after when the emperor said he's similar to his father (use the robot hand to point to that similarity), and that's it.
@@slimetank394 Luke is shot in his artificial hand while holding his saber on Jabba's deck. If it were a natural hand, he would not have been able to hold onto the saber and continue fighting.
Trust me besties. If I become a villain, it will not be motivated by my being disabled. It will be motivated by my unending desire for attention and my longing to wear a cool long villain dress and have a giant pet snake that I sic on bigots.
The whole "The Villain has a point, but let's not do anything about it" is a cliche that I absolutely hate. Then again, it make sense. The vast majority of heroes aren't people of virtue or people with case-by-case decision making. They are enforcers of the statue quo. They are soldiers for the world that we know instead of the world that could be. Even if the villain has a point, because they are "breaking the law," the heroes are going to beat them up. I honestly think V from V for Vendetta could be portrayed as a bad guy in a Marvel movie.
LITERALLY!!!!!!!!!!! there could be like a guy whos dirt poor and is dealing drugs to buy food for his starving family and fucking batman or something will just go and beat the shit out of him and call it a day. its so infuriating
WHILE HE REALLY WENT WRONG, Jafar KINDA had a point? I mean, this random guy from a place you, an educated man of about thirty years (who would probably know about trade and and shit; because, and let’s be honest, the sultans a few French fries short of a happy meal), just fucking WALTZES into the palace, KIDNAPS THE PRINCESS FOR A MAGICAL JOYRIDE and is revealed to be a well known thief? Excuse him for being skeptical. (Starkid productions did an excellent musical about this btw check that out).
Are you by any chance familiar with Lily Orchard? She recently put out a video criticizing just that, mostly focused on Magneto. You've got a Holocaust survivor fighting to stop people like him from being ruthlessly oppressed, and he's supposed to be the BAD guy. And all of the heroes on the opposite side are members of the same marginalized group as him, but they're stuck in the mindset of "fighting back at your oppressors makes you just as bad", convinced that the proper solution is to keep on politely asking the leaders of a dysfunctional system to stop the oppression. This despite the fact that, looking at the X-Men franchise as a whole, they've had relatively limited success with that.
I feel like part of what makes Vader work in the original trilogy is how little attention is actually drawn to the fact he is disabled in the first place. If Obi-Wan didn't make the remark about him being 'more machine than man now' I don't think very many people would have even caught on to the fact he was disabled in the first movie. The breathing mechanic could have just as easily been just a plain old space suit respirator instead of life support. He's scary and the clear villain because he's this massive armored man in black strutting around, not because of any obvious visual deformities. Plus that line and the one scene in Empire are the only times it's referenced, and in both fairly minor scenes. The only major instance is when it does become plot relevant at the end when Luke is fighting him on the Death Star, and even then you could argue Luke doing to Vader what Vader did to Luke at the end of Empire was more important than the actual fact they were mutually disabled. Vader works fairly well (to me. obviously people might disagree) is because he is a villain that happens to be disabled rather than a disabled villain. If that makes any sense.
Tbh, I thought he was all flesh under the suit for the longest time, it took literally seeing Anakin's limbs being lobbed off for me to realize a fraction of what was going on with him, heck, even the respiratory I thought was just the sound of the helmet sorta like the gag in Spaceballs
also the line itself "more machine than man" doesn't mean he is evil because of his disability. it could also have been the scenario with many evil (and even good) characters that they decided to replace healthy limbs to improve their skill and power.
Vader's disability alone isn't a huge part of the character, it's the fact his body has been destroyed by his actions and replaced by mechanical supplements. He's not disabled by poor fortune or genetics, he's disabled because of his poor decisions and evil actions. His body is a reflection of his evil.
It works so well because (most of) his disabilities are the result of him being evil instead of the other way around. His overconfidence in his own abilities by the end of ROTS are the reason he lost three limbs and got flambéd. Same thing with Darth Sidious. His facial deformities are caused by his excessive use of the Dark Side, which is eating away at his body. And both of these characters are some of the most powerful force users in the history of Star Wars on top of that.
Yeah, I wouldn’t mind if they just like happened to be disabled? Like show an inhaler on Mr Bad Dude’s nightstand, idc, but I want the disability or scarring motivated villainy to just stop. I think ATLA turned the latter on it’s head with Zuko: Zuko’s scar tells us not how bad he is, but how much of a villain Ozai is to have done it to his son. And Zuko comes around eventually anyways.
I dunno if that concept sounds good, but Disabled villain who isn’t motivated by their disability, they’ve just kinda always been an asshole and only uses their disability as an excuse to themselves. Disabled hero calls them out on it repeatedly
@@-Foliage- In HTTYD 2, Drago is missing an arm and blames it on a dragon attack, saying that's why they can never be friends. They don't draw attention to it, but Hiccup is _only_ missing a leg _because_ he's friends with a dragon. So it's a really good contrast, especially since they both lost a limb to a dragon but take radically different lessons from it.
@@m-pc5334 that's been done before and it kinda sucks to see that idea spread because it's a common thing for disability to just be considered an excuse. For example when I was in school teachers would make me do things I physically could not do, push me too far and take away accessablity devices because it was "just an excuse" not to do the work or activity (or because they decided that I didn't actually need it)
I think there's an interesting issue when the disability or especially facial disfigurements are the result of their villainy (e.g. in Wonder Woman, the facial scars are, I think, implied to be a result of her experiments with poison gas). That allows for some plausible deniability (i.e. it's diagetically a consequence of their villainy, not just arbitrary of a motivator for it), but it not only reinforces ugly=evil (or more accurately evil -> ugly), but it also implies that the kind of danger the heroes put themselves through is fundamentally different (i.e. heroism -> sexy scars, evil -> ugly scars). Also, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the Wayfairers series by Becky Chambers, since it has multiple disabled characters (in a sci-fi space setting, no less), and also broad themes of body autonomy and societal provision for different bodies which are interesting from a disabled perspective.
Oh hey, Wayfarers is really high on my reading list! Originally i wanted to check it out because I've gotten really fixated on like. found family tropes in space scifi settings and especially queer ones (especially been into it since listening to podcasts The Strange Case of Starship Iris & the third season of Juno Steel's story in the Penumbra Podcast, which are like the epitome of fave story/aesthetic/characters for me, and several collab OC settings). You've definitely just added to the list of reasons im very excited to check out this series :)
@@PancakemonsterFO4 Yeah, I mean that's even worse. Instead of evil->ugly (which at the very least had the plausible deniability of being able to say 'they're disfigured because of what they did), it's literally ugly->evil. In some ways, you could even say it's worse than evil=ugly, because at least there there's less implied causality.
Not disabled but a good guy I think of being on life support is the man who invented B-MO from adventure time, but you're right. I can think of way more villains.
Hachimaru from Samurai 8 (it's a manga). Kind of Kokichi Muta in Jujutsu Kaisen. Lordgenome in the second half of Gurren Lagann. Tony Stark. Jane Foster. RoboCop. Robot from Invincible. That's off the top of my head, but I'm certain there are a lot more. There's a trope of heroes who can't survive without the thing that gives them powers, and then there's also just heroes who also have illnesses that require regular treatment.
The Barzan of Star Trek have to wear "respirators" because normal atmosphere doesn't have the gas they need. In Discory there's on that's also a badass.
The fact that Anakin had a small scar across the eye and an easily-covered prosthetic right up until he got flambéd very much fits in line with the idea of "heroic" facial differences being minimized for cool factor... idk if I'm reading this right, but his decision to not wear the glove at his secret wedding with Padmé (showing the metal prosthetic openly) was likely meant as some sort of "omen" about their future. There was even a bizarre take that Anakin losing his limbs literally reduced his Force capabilities due to having less midichlorians in his body. That said, Anakin's body basically being a battlefield & playground for abuse is another conversation entirely. What does it mean to have a bomb embedded in your bones since birth? What does it mean that your childhood groomer, your manipulative abuser, exerts *total* control over your medical health (including a literal "off-switch") as a means to further deny your own personhood? Like that's a whole new swamp to wade thru
I got the impression the arm was visible during the wedding because it was new and he hadn't had the time to cover it believably. Yes, I wish he (aka, the filmmakers) hadn't chosen to cover it by movie three, but that might have been a practical concern of filming.
@@MirrorscapeDC: I'd say it's less a matter of Anakin hadn't had a chance to cover it yet and more so that it's left uncovered for the entirely nondiegetic reason so the audience can see its artificiality and understand why he suddenly has a hand again after losing it a scene earlier. It's basically the same reason we get to see a medical droid making adjustments to the internals of Luke's new hand shortly before closing up the panel that makes it otherwise indistinguishable from the original flesh and blood hand. If I were to try and make an in lore explanation for leaving the hand uncovered during the wedding though, I'd probably ascribe it less to Anakin and more to Padme, that she insisted on it as a way of saying she accepts him, flaws and all, that he never has to hide anything from her.
I don’t really see how it’s a ‘bizarre take’ when it mostly follows from the midichlorian stuff already established but now I’m thinking of it I can see how that’s ableist.
@@MirrorscapeDC Is the arm covered in episode 3? The metal is exposed in the scene where he’s in bed, they don’t ever do what they did with luke by giving him artificial flesh, right?
It's okay for villains to be disabled in some way. What's not okay is presenting them in a way which shows that they're evil BECAUSE they're disabled. Having a villain with a disability could work as a great tool to humanize them, the problem is that most authors use it to do the exact opposite. So it's not really about what conditions the villain has, it's about using them correctly. The hero could be disabled too, or neither of them. My advice is, as long as you're respectful do your research and you'll be fine in my book
What I don’t understand is how no one understands that we make stories about everything People would become villens for less, and in history, they have What’s no ok, is de-humanizing theses charicters because if there disabilities, or having there charicter revolve too closely around that one trait, unless it’s intentional to the story, and is going to be addressed or delt with in a compelling way, weather you have another dissabled charicter in the hero team or not Dosent matter, cause as it happens, people have the capasity to understand other minorities without being appart of it Not compleatly obviously, in the way that you will NEVER understand the pain I learned to deal with everyday, but I have friends families, and even strangers that make me feel well more then understood, even when they don’t compleatly understand It’s actualy nice to have an able body person bring you up out of a slump with there understanding and kindness What people should really be focused on in general,in’s just making better, more compelling stories, for the sake of telling well intentioned stories for entertainment, gosh,
Whenever villainy is tied to appearance the line "Who is the monster and who is the man" from Hunchback of Notre Dom then the song "Hellfire/Heaven's Light" booms in the back of my brain. I blame the fact that it's the first movie I remember seeing with a disfigured character. The soundtrack constantly pops into my brain at opportune and inopportune times. Love this video, as always.
Okay now I really want a rich, disabled villain who’s whole thing is seeking out some rare, single-use cure and the (probably also disable, but working class) heroes come along and go “wtf fuck dude?! You have all this money, just fix the systemic issues in society instead. Add more ramps and subtitles and a subsidized prescription drug program”
Hear me out: disabled villain who’s redemption arc is learning not to hate their disability while the hero goes on to be a politician/lobbyist who fights for the benefit of disabled people but not in an abled-savior way more of a “this will make my new friend have a better life so we can go get tacos!” kinda way
@@the_sky_is_blue_and_so_am_I I’m a digital artist. I do physical art to (like paintings n stuff) but I mostly do digital and I only sell digital. I think I’ve still got a couple old animations kickin around on my channel and I’m currently working on a new vid after my complete silence for years. Thanks for asking!
It’s concerning how disabilities are given to villains as a trait to make them seem less human. Villains can be written in very human ways where even if they’re the bad guy they’re still clearly a person who’s the hero of their own story, but many villains tend to be simply monsters, even if they’re physically human. Facial differences are a big example of this, as it’s used to play into the trope of “ugly=evil” where anyone who isn’t traditionally attractive must be evil; villains can be traditionally attractive, but anyone who isn’t isn’t allowed to be anything but a villain. When people use facial differences or scarring to make their villain “ugly” enough to be clearly evil it’s just the writer loudly proclaiming that they think people with facial differences or scars are ugly which is just very disrespectful. Other disabilities are usually used to separate the villain from everyone else, to other them and make it clear they’re different, and since they’re the villain and many times their disability is why they are the villain that othering is meant to show that they’re bad because they’re different, which implies that everyone who’s different in that way is or will be bad. It goes without saying that these are horrible messages that do a lot of harm to a lot of people, being disabled or looking different doesn’t dictate your morality, lazy writers just try to find ways to make it externally obvious who their villain is and who we should root against without considering the real people they’re hurting by using these traits as their signifiers for evil.
Would be nice to have a disable villain that, through a serendipitous twist, the heroes end up empathizing with and understanding the virtues of their struggle. Even if at time it led them to be pitted against each other with mortal consequences. And through various acts of solidarity and rehabilitation, they learn to forgive each other and fight against a much bigger bad.
Zuko sort of counts and Clayface had a hero arc but comics always resets things. I'm sure there is other examples but I can't think of them from the top of my head.
if you really think about it, the ending of "glass" is like that, unbreakable and split to a lesser extent but glass is the crossover, once all the fighting and stuff is done and the organization is done covering it up, the people who lived and cared for the main three made the video go viral, sure glass started that but the three made it bigger, making the world see that superpowers are real the world is going to change forever, not to give the director any praise but the idea and part was brilliant, the story and acting might have needed some refinement but the idea is really good, a disabled person thought to be the villain was actually trying to be good by using his super intelligence to change the world by proofing that superpowers exist, so why is he considered a bad guy? simply because he loved comics and liked the villains more then the heroes, and who can blame him, villains can be awesome most of time (who am i to talk? my favorite villain is electro from spider-man)
@@benjamincuevas9627 even though I never watched avatar in a long time, I agree with the zuko part. Despite having a burnt scar and apart of the fire nation (the villains of the show, I think), zuko is the nicest of the fire nation (and also the punching bag, because his dad not only favor his sister over him but also abused him)
At the moment, I am writing such a "villain", so I am doing some research in the community. He is a henchman/hitman for his master (a noble, respected man, wo later turns out to be the actuall villain of this story). This henchman is heavily disfigured, and therefore cast out and feared from the people around him, being percieved as a brute, mindless killer. The female MC (wife of the nobleman), equally distrust him, and through a fair bit of detective work uncovers all his "evil doings", only to later find out that all of those things are actually ordered by her husband. The disabled character, later in the story, openly acknowledges his wrongdoings, and througout the story gives the reader a few clues that he doesnt actually believe in the evil things he does. There are even little hints that he cares about the wellbeing of other characters. But only in the second book he really looses his villainous image, when the reader finds out why he does evil for his master... to protect someone close to him, held hostage by the nobleman. So the "villain" of the first book will eventually end up the hero in the later books, without loosing his disability through some magic bs. The only thing that changes is that he starts to hold himself accountable and earns the trust of good people, and the MC to rebell against corruption of the elite. He even eventually loses his mask that he wears to hide his deformity as a symbol of his transformation from a shady henchman, to a confident leader.
Vader drew his strength from the fact he was in so much pain. He got injured because he became evil. He’s not evil because of his injuries. Other villains need to have their disabilities be more thought out.
Having both the hero & villain have the same disability & show how morally neutral disabilities are. And that the good guys isn't doing war crimes because they're upset about their disability so much that they use it to do evil.
hey, this comment bothered me enough that it was difficult for me to focus on the video, so i'm just gonna pause and respond (just about 6 minutes in, so i don't know if anything will be said about this specifically yet). it's really easy to see this take and for it to make intuitive sense to an able-bodied reader. but this... really isn't great either, actually. as oakwyrm said, disabilities and disabled people don't exist in a vacuum. what you've done here is create a trope that isn't unheard of, but which i don't know if has a formal name, wherein you are showcasing The Right ("Good") Way To Be A Disabled Person and The Wrong ("Evil") Way To Be A Disabled Person. making them have *the same disability in name* invites the audience to directly parallel the two even more. say "in name" because no two disabled people will ever have the same experience, & that comes from everything! every single thing, from your familial dynamics, to your parent(s)'s income levels, to the country you live in, to the part of that country that you live in -- everything about the way you grow up influences your disability. there kind of isn't such a thing as "giving them the same disability", other than if you are literally only using it as a narrative trope. as the existence and continued production of content on this channel attests to, disabled people are often presented *as tropes* in and of themselves in a way that is deeply ingrained into societal storytelling. it is in folklore, in fairy tales, in children's media, in anime, in popular culture at large. okay, i'm kind of rambling because i Feel Passionately about this, but to bring it back around to the Specific Problems You Might Face When Trying To Implement This Trope: mirroring your villain and hero in fiction is nothing new; it's kind of a staple of the structure. for example, it's not uncommon to show how people who were raised with similar difficulties (i.e., poverty, being orphaned/losing a parent, etc.) came to view society in different ways, and how one is generally kind, forgiving, and cares about the wellbeing of others, while the other is generally mean-spirited, bitter, and ... well, antagonistic. can you see how this might be a problem when we factor disability into the situation? because if you do try to make their disability "morally neutral" -- i assume you mean removing their disability as consideration for their villainous actions, beliefs, and so on -- you will fail to make a realistic character and, at best, create a flat, 2D, disabled person who is disabled for the sake of being disabled. at worst, you have contributed to the pervasive idea that there is a "right way" and a "wrong way" to be disabled -- that to feel angry and upset about the systems that failed you is a bad thing. i don't think it's possible (it's at the very least not advisable) to completely remove a character's disability as a potential consideration for how they formulate their worldview. it is *hard* to write about a disability that you are not intimately familiar with, unless you are just creating an in-name-only depiction for the sake of "having disability representation." to actually write this would require a very nuanced hand, and would still be incredibly trope-y and something that personally would still make me grimace, but i could MAYBE see it being done by a person who wants to represent their own journey with things like interalized ableism? or with difficulties with things like feeling "pride" in their disabled identity, when their body is so against them every single day? or with personal journeys they've had with a relative / friend / partner who shared their disability, but whom they had a soured relationship with, and they wanna explore the complicated emotions surrounding that? augh, i dunno, it's 7am, why am i writing a rebuttal in a youtube comment. TL;DR: this is a cold take, already a trope, and imo only consider doing this if you're writing about Your Own Specific Disability in this way. otherwise: consider not making disability into literal symbolism.
@@Eve.v You say this is a staple of the structure and yet there is no example of this being done. But it would be great. You can't tell me you wouldn't be thrilled to see a villain rant and rave about how their disability is such a good excuse to be such an awful person, to sound like a sypathetic victim, and then for the hero to point out that no, they are just a bad guy, cause they share the same disability. It would be so nice to see this repetetive trope get demolished like that. Besides, how to be the right kind of disabled person? This is not a good argument to even bring up when the media is already saying one way is the wrong way to be, and the other is the right, at a base human level. That's why we use words like villain and hero. One is acting the right way, one is not. That's in the genre. So to pull away from that and somehow make it specifically only about the right way to be disabled would take effort I think. Effort to write it that way, or effort to percieve it as being written that way. It's not a sensible risk to expect. This would be removing that risk surely, by returning it to the hero and villain perspective alone. If it did end up feeling like it was saying there was a right and wrong way though, well would it be so bad to say the wrong way to be disabled is to kill people and kidnap the president's daughrer and plant a bomb on the moon? Is that such an offensive message?
@@TailsClock weasel words like "You can't tell me you wouldn't be thrilled..." are reason enough that I have zero interest in responding any more than this. Next time try to lead with something other than bad faith and crude attempts at manipulation.
On Vader (and Star Wars as a whole): Even Emperor Palpatine, his master, fits the "disabled villain on life support" trope if you examine the lore. He is the emperor of the galaxy, and pretty much a very powerful, very evil space wizard for those unfamiliar with his thing, yet is super shocked that he was able to at one point just walk without the use of the dark side of the force despite being able to melt peoples faces off with his dark sidery. Heck - Most Sith (and dark siders) you could argue fit this trope, because the dark side ravages their bodies in ever-increasing increments the more power they gain via it. For most Sith, as well as for Palpatine, their evil has nothing to do with what he has going on body wise, and more to do with the fact they are just enjoys being evil, so they are really cruel and selfish individuals. But now that I think we've had that niche with villains such as Vader, or Emperor Palpatine very well covered, I think fellow creators, writers, and artists alike should do what we do best and be creative. Why copy and redo this, when there is a world of unused ideas out there that do not feed ableism by using villains with disabilities in the prior mentioned way?
@@historicflame972 Darth Nihilus is an interesting case, now that you bring it up. He is basically more an eldritch horror made manifest than a person, despite upon his death just being a "man under the mask." I'm frankly not sure could you even call what he has a disability (I mean sure it does hinder his life, and you could argue it is one, but still...he basically is a walking black hole, and there is nothing you can really equate him to in the real world) - unless there is a trope for "disability as an eldrich horror", which I would not be surprised if there is, he is kind of an odd one to even class. For that reason, I'm not sure could you class Darth Nihilus as another disabled villain on life-support villain. Because most of these tropes work to support, sustain, and feed real life prejudices, hate, and the likes. What Darth Nihilus is probably doesn't bring to mind people with disabilities to most people who hear about em, and unless you squint your eyes and tilt your head a little, it's almost impossible to connect him at all to this whole formulae as...like, what discrimination, fear, or hate would someone like him be bringing up, sustaining, or supporting? Then again, even as someone with a disability, I am not a spokesperson for some monolith (which doesn't exit), and just myself, so I think there is definitely room for a conversation on does Darth Nihilus fit this trope too, because it's actually from a writers' standpoint quite interesting to think about.
Proud to say that the characters I have as heroes with facial scarring do not fall into the, “Scarred but still conventionally attractive for the sake of the ablebodied audience,” trope. One of them is refered to as, “The Decomposer,” and is the angel of rot, decay and putrefaction. She is very obviously disabled because her body is literally rotting away. She has an eye missing, patches of hair are gone, her teeth are visible through one side of her face, etc. The other is a nurse who’s face was badly disfigured when she was attacked by a monster as a child. Her whole thing was that she used to be considered the most beautiful girl in her village until her face was messed up, so she’s been on both sides of the coin, being beautiful and vapid, and being considered ugly and bitter. From this, she’s grown, and I’m seriously proud of how both have effected her character wise, making her more empathetic and genuinely kind to others. ETA - I also wanted to add something about the angel-Her name’s Thana btw. Her wings don’t work at all and actually act as a burden to her since, due to their large size, they’re extremely heavy and, since they’ve basically died completely, they sort of just drag behind her when she walks. They’re constantly cause her bad pain and will occasionally twitch from time to time. I’m honestly so genuinely proud of her entire vibe. One of her arms, from fingertips to just below the elbow, is completely skeletal, and she has these leg braces she wears to keep her upright in case one of her bones rots to the point of snapping while she works. Pretty much, whenever she begins causing something to rot, the same effect is thrown back at her. This is based somewhat in Biblical lore, so she’s been doing this for as long as things have decayed, meaning millions of years of this (Or thousands depending on if it’s viewed as subscribing to the earth being 6000 years old. It’s up for interpretation.) But either way, a long, long time. If I ever start posting, I might write and narrate a quick story about her sometime.
I love them both. 10/10. Funnily, my ideas also tend to resemble " Uhh.. missing/eye face scar" or " YES they're undead and you can see their ribcage/bones/jaw"
@@ScoundrelChestnut I don’t have anywhere for them right now, but I’ll probably make a Tumblr at one point or another. That is, if it ever becomes properly accessible to do so *Sigh* I’m glad you like the concepts though. I have a lot of stories I’ve written in my time. Like I said, might start narrating them at one point
In the movie "Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight" the villains are mutants with physical characteristics very similar to those generated by my genetic disorder, and it was a horrible feeling that kept me from finishing the movie. Seeing someone like me show as a murderous, ruthless monster with the intellect of a rock is very uncomfortable. The idea that deformity, the lack of hegemonic beauty, not having a body as society expects, somehow represents a lack in humanity and moral qualities is a trope that really tires me.
All this talk of facial scars reminds me of Dr. Blight from Captain Planet. She had one side of her face horribly scarred, but usually had her hair covering it up. One episode had her learn about a species of frog that can regrow lost limbs, and start collecting every frog she could find in hopes of developing a cure. Except her attempt at that consists of putting frogs in a blender, spreading the frog puree on her face, then drinking it. Even as a child, I remember thinking "You're a scientist - you should know it doesn't work that way!"
I remember in a creative writing class I was told to make my characters easily recognizable. Among the ways to do this was to make them disabled. I really appreciate the perspective you bring here about the implications of those choices. It’s making for some really interesting explorations on my end.
Okay third comment: Jenks from the Wayfarer’s series is my favorite representation of dwarfism ever. He’s in a sci-fi space future, he could have his dwarfism modded out at anytime, but doesn’t, cuz his mom never believed in gene tweaking unless it was to vastly improve or save a life, and raised him to be confident. He’s a communications tech dating the ships NavAI, and has a bunch of sweet tattoos and is besties with their Mech. I like him even more than Tyrian. The book doesn’t ignore his short stature, but it makes it clear that he’s happy and able as long as he has the appropriate accommodations made for him.
Man. That "If you make your villian a minority and their motivation is because they are part of that minority" thing you said really hit hard. I mean, when we see it with something else, like race or gender, we see it as bad writing.
I’ve always found it a bit sad that an able-bodied person just assumed that they’d turn evil if they became disabled. Cuz that’s what I get from disabled evil characters. It’s the idea “you must be miserable because I’d be miserable” and I mean, it would be difficult to adjust (as all big life changes are) but you’d be able to be happy again, you know?
In school, I was voted most likely to become a super-villain and I would really hate for my disabilities to steal the show if I conquered the world. Like, yes, I am disabled, but I was a radical scientist first
Honestly depends on the disability. In some cases I would never be happy again, mostly because of the things I like doing being not possible in certain cases.
As an aspiring writer, I want to do disabled characters justice both in the protagonistic and antagonistic role, want to make their disability part of their character without it being their whole character. So this channel is very helpful in getting a better understanding and advice on how to write such characters.
The video game 999 has this too. Without spoiling anything too much, the villain's motivations turn out to be solely based on an invisible disability of his. I won't say what it is to avoid spoilers unless someone asks me to, but I actually have the same condition, albeit a very minor version. When I watched the dramatic reveal scene I was like "WTF?! You're murdering children for THAT?!" I've honestly never even considered it a disability. It's such a non-issue for me.
@@elenafriese891 The main villain in 999 has prosopagnosia, and is using children, specifically sets of siblings, in unethical experiments involving life or death games to see if he can awaken them to what is... essentially psychic powers so he can harness them himself to 'cure' his disability.
I'd love to hear your thoughts about disabled rep in My Hero Academia (if you're aware of/into it). It's got a fair number of both characters who start the series as disabled and characters who become disabled over the course of the story, both heroes and villains, everything from chronic pain and psychological disorders to loss of body parts and repetitive strain injuries. Its self-described strongest hero and strongest villain are both disabled in pretty severe ways. I'd like to see if you think it's positive/overall good rep, or if it has some glaring flaws that its mostly able-bodied fanbase don't acknowledge. As a (currently) able-bodied fandom regular myself, your content has taught me a lot, thank you!
@@xylothemagnificent420 Off the top of my head, All Might sustained an injury that made one of his lungs basically useless, and it was a major plot point that he couldn't use his powers for too long because he could lose them permanently (also he'd cough up blood whenever he exerted himself too much). Guess what happens in the third season. Even the protagonist, Izuku Midoriya, starts off with his initial lack of powers and the powers All Might gave him practically being disabilities due to his inability to control them without literally shattering his bones. The "strongest villain" Jay mentioned, All for One, is basically Darth Vader in terms of disability.
Also Deku strains his arms so badly using them again might cost him use of them at all, Aoyama's quirk leaks if he doesn't have an assistive device and quirks in general act as a way to make every character differently abled.
I think Twice also has a disability as well as Ectoplasm. Twice is great because his mental instability is only a little part of his developed character and he remains loyal to his friends. I don't want to spoil anything, but there are times in which the audience actually cares and roots for Twice as a character, even more than the heroes.
What I just hate is when like you said, the villain has legitimate grievances about how others have treated them and continue to treat people like them - which are ignored when the third act or second-to-last episode rolls around and it's time to hold the world hostage with a bomb or something.
Kinda curious about what you think about hordak from she-ra ? He’s a “dark lord in life support” as you said but he’s not trying to cure him, he’s a failed clone that’s trying to prove himself, so what are your opinions on him ?
Hordak is also an interesting case study because not only is he solidly on the path to redemption by the finale, but there’s a much larger case of gaslighting and cult dynamics with Horde Prime who Hordak spends most of the series trying to prove himself to. It’s Horde Prime’s rejection of Hordak for his disability specifically that causes much of his self loathing. And once Hordak got better disability aids by Entrapta specifically tailoring ones for him instead of him absentmindedly fixing them when they broke, while he wasn’t doing good actions in the cosmic sense of things, he was more stable and less snippy because his pain levels were down and he could do things again. Plus there’s the fact that Hordak, while not great, is certainly less conformist with the Etherian Horde than Horde Prime is with the army/cult of clones, allowing different body types, species and abilities for all of his soldiers- he doesn’t enforce his trauma onto everyone else. The narrative around abuse and disability with Hordak and Horde Prime would be an excellent one to hear more thoughts on.
the way Entrapta discusses the aids she’s giving him and corrects his language about his disability is genuinely so refreshing compared to the way other shows would handle it
@@benjisaac for real, in any other show she would have “cured” him or even fused him to his mobility aids to give him a cool new form but one that completely ignores his needs.
I really felt what you said about short people. I hate our portrayal in media. We're not gnomes or hobbits, we're not court jesters, we're not freaks. We are not evil, or insane, or dumb, or angry at the world (and if we *are* angry, then rightfully so). We're not comic reliefs, we're not jokes. If a comic relief character is short and it's the only joke about them, then it is an awful joke. If a villain is short and it serves as a way to show how pathetic they are, then it's an awful way to establish that they're pathetic.
It’s also just- the assumption that, as disabled people, we spend ALL our time thinking about being disabled and being bitter about it. In ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ it’s implied (or even directly stated, I can’t remember) that Mr Potter is evil because he’s upset about not being able-bodied. He hurts all of those people, not only out of greed, but because he wishes he was like them. Very few people spend THAT much time fixating on the fact that they aren’t able bodied. And virtually no one uses it as a driving force for anger.
Can we also discuss how most of the "body horror" subgenre has very ableist over/undertones? Or can we get a "haunted mental asylum" story where it's the ghost of the sadistic doctors and nurses that are evil and need to be feared and the ghosts of the patients are just trying to move on from the trauma that they endured/possibly caused their deaths?
I feel that painting mental health workers as evil actually adds to the mental health stigma. It contributes to the image of psychological problems as some sort of weird otherworldly disturbing thing rather than normal issue that everyone can encounter in real life. If that makes sense. I guess that if someone insists on haunted asylum, it will be a better option (especially in historical settings to which it would be accurate), but not something I'd see as desirable.
@@chanterelle483 Yeah, that's what I meant. I know we've come a long way from having actual mental care facilities simply being dumping grounds for society's undesirables, but we have BARELY just moved passed that kind of trauma. Hell, the N@zis were inspired the Eugenics program that began in the USA, and there is still a ton of shit that we need to fix in the system. So, yeah, I would prefer for a horror movie in a haunted asylum to focus more on the barbaric treatments that so many people were subjected to, but I also want to it bring to light all of the modern day issues, as well.
@@RachelMWinship I don't think horror stories are a good way to heal this sort of trauma, for the reason I mentioned above. Also, it's actually quite a common trope already.
I'm writing a story where the villain has a hearing disability, idk the name, but basically their hearing is very sensitive, they're an emperor so they modified their castle to accommodate to their disability, like soundproofing loud rooms such as the medbay or workshop, and specialized flooring and shoes to not make a lot of noise when walking. They're not evil because of their disability, but their disability does cause the main character trouble when sneaking around. Because if someone doesn't have the right shoes, their footsteps can still be heard, and the villain can find them. I'm saying this because... You can create disabled villain who's not evil BECAUSE of their disability, the villain can be evil for a different reason but still be disabled
The best example of disabled villains are from the How to Train Your Dragon series. When there’s a disabled villain, he’s opposite a disabled protagonist. And they are both Amputees, so one is not more severe than the other. And the 2 villains who have/receive severe facial scars are both redeemed and no longer villains by the show’s end
Tbh the thing about Sherlock Holmes is that we have disabled heroes in Holmes and Watson. The terms for their neurodivergence didn't exist yet, but Holmes could very very easily be interpreted as autistic and/or ADHD (and probably other things I haven't looked into yet) and Watson has PTSD. Whether Watson's shoulder is injured or his leg, either way, he is also a physically disabled hero who deals with chronic pain. That's why it's such a twist of the knife for the BBC version to cast aside Watson's cane and disregard his PTSD, to give the role of Holmes to Benadryl Cunterbitch, to destroy the bond between our two disabled heroes, to discard the kindness the detective showed so many times. I personally interpret them as being queer, and many others do, but an undeniable part of the original canon is that Watson and Holmes are disabled. It's far from perfect, I will readily admit, but damn, it is a travesty that adaptations of Sherlock Holmes stories so often abandon that very important part of their characters. Watson is disabled, and he's also courageous and loyal. Holmes is disabled, and he's also intelligent and compassionate. Their disability is an intrinsic part of their characters, and it's rare in my experience for something so well known to have two disabled heroes as the main characters. And it especially stings knowing that such a prominent disabled hero is not allowed to be depicted as he is all because of copyright law and the Conan Doyle estate.
what I find additionally pretty sad, is your criticisms are basically good writing advice. What's the point of a villain if they aren't a new perspective on something? What does having them be disabled add if there's nothing/no one else to deepen that stuff? we need to make it standard, expected practice to budget plenty of funds to consultants on basically anything the lead writer(s) don't know about on their own, and maybe even doing so even if they DO know. if there ain't a consultant committee that discusses the writing choices or /something/, red flag.
Depends on the disability but if it's a scar or a limb missing it can easily be used to liven up character design, personally, I think Zuko's character design would be a lot less interesting without the scar.
@@lefishe6611 It's also worth mentioning that because of the backstory for Zuko's scar it kinda ends up being connected to his capacity to be a good, moral person and I think that's really fun.
While there are sadly far too many examples of this trope, the character Sal Fisher from the game "Sally Face" is a great example for good representation. Specifically for those who have a prosthetic face. Sal is also the protagonist of the game.
I think another exception to the rule might be Captain Long John Silver from Treasure Island and Moby Dick's capt. Ahab is problematic. I mean, Silver isn't despondent over his disability, he's jovial and clever and proves to be very charming. But Ahab is desperate for revenge because of disability and as a result is dealing with some emotional stress. Maybe neither are perfect, but they exist to serve a message. Maybe disability should ve used carefully when making statements in works of fiction! Like that statement on Kubo and the Two Strings. I never really thought about the movie that way, but it was insightful to understand the downside to that allegory.
Yeah, Silver is a really interesting case because his arm and eye give him so many tactical and functional advantages (leg, not so much, we saw how that went badly). The one time he seemed despondent about it was his response to what happened. "You give up a few things chasing a dream"
I don't see why that makes Ahab problematic. If someone was vengeful (and petty) enough, I'm sure they'd seek revenge on someone or something that cost them a limb. The contrast between him and Silver just shows that people can experience similar trauma and deal with it in very different ways.
@@SF-ow9ym Fair point, I just thought that Ahab is easily interpret as being problematic. But the man was clearly dealing with trauma and the loss of his leg would lead to that. Reminds me of Sol Regen in the Dragon Prince. He was already a bastard of a character and his blinding only enhanced his already bad attitude. While Vildas, the blind pirate/ferryman was jolly before being blinded. His handicap did not impact his view on life.
@@kimeraclan3135 Hey! c: I think Ahab’s character is not about dealing with disability, rather dealing with his massive pride. In my opinion Ahab wouldn’t have cared about his missing limb, if he lost it in a fight, but then killed/punished his opponent. But he thinks he “lost” to the whale, and feels humiliated, because it got away from him - Moby Dick didn’t only take his leg, but a part of his pride too, and I think the latter was more painful to the captain. Not the exact quote, but Ahab once says that if the sun ever disrespects him, he would punch it. Someone from the crew points out that he physically cannot punch the sun, and then Ahab says, if the sun would be capable of disrespecting him, he would find a way to punch it. That's how prideful this man is. I think if something trivial happens to him (so nothing like losing a body part), like some drunk idiot vomits on him, he would be similarly furious, and still pursue revenge. Yea, Ahab is problematic in the sense of he is not a good role model. Being prideful and confident is a cool thing, but when said pride becomes more important than one’s and others' lives, then there is a big problem. (Sorry if there are any grammatical mistakes, I’m not a naitive English speaker.)
It is so gross to make nearly all disabled characters main villains, so little diversity or actual heroes and main characters with disabilities. And as you said in the past, most of their reasons for being evil because of their disability.
@@Zeno11Salazar Cyborg from Teen Titans has half of his body cybernetic after an accident. It's apart of his character but it's something he quickly realized he can live with. Barbara Gordon from Batman gets paralyzed in The Killing Joke and has to stop being Batgirl to become Oracle instead. She continues to be extremely useful to Batman, even while confined to a wheelchair, but not too overpowered, just very helpful. Jimmy Valmer and Timmy Burch are disabled in South Park but it's never really a big deal. There are episodes about it, sure, but all the other kids treat them as if they were normal, because they are. Walter Jr. in Breaking Bad has Cerebral-paulsy and he acts like a normal teen, even if he is one of the more morally correct characters compared to all the drug lords and killers. Ryuji from Persona 5 has a bum leg and it's referenced many times as something he has to work with, but he's a hero. Duster from Mother 3 also has a bum leg and yet he proudly limps his way to saving the world alongside Lucas, Boney and Kumatora. Steven Universe has PTSD and he's still a hero, even if his condition can make him act irrational, like a lot of people with PTSD (including myself). Johnny Joestar from Steel Ball Run goes around the entire part unable to use his legs or feel anything below his spine, and yet he ends up one of the few survivors of the race, he kills the corrupt president and he beats his rival, and then afterwards dies protecting his family. John Marston has a heart condition that makes him unable to swim and although he's an outlaw, he dies protecting his family and ends up saving many people along his travels. Donatello from Rise of the TMNT is high functioning autistic and he's still a Ninja Turtle, as is Futaba Sakura from Persona 5, and she's an elite hacker who saves innocent lives. Professor X from X-Men is wheelchair bound and can still read people's minds and is the leader of the group, Deadpool is horrifically scarred all over and still occasionally saves the day albeit very flamboyantly, Kabal from Mortal Kombat 9 joins the heroes after receiving third degree burns over his entire body and needing to breathe through a mask to survive and he's able to defeat many powerful villains before his death, Lester Crest from GTA V is technically a villain morally but he's on the protagonists side. He's the one who comes up with all of the plans, sets up heists and ends up saving the three main characters in the end. Lee Everett and Rick Grimes from The Walking Dead are both amputees who save lives and are extremely loyal until the bitter end, Clementine is also an amputee and Carl Grimes is missing an eye, but they do so much good too. Need I go on? I can.
One of the reasons they do this is that back in ancient times societies would often brand and disfigure people who where criminals and the idea that beauty =good and ugly = bad has stuck with us
Unfortunately true. Keeping that myth alive strikes me as not high quality or interesting writing, though. Uncritically repeating what has been done thousands of times before is pretty boring IMO (thinking of James Bond movies especially).
Oh and that's why fictional characters in fictional worlds are disfigured? Because the creators get off to the idea that back in ancient times criminals were disfigured to show how disgusting disabled people are?
I reacently watched ”The amezing spiderman” for the frist time and noticed the trope of a disabled character trying to do anything to ”cure” disability with the villain in the movie
I am very glad I found your channel. I’m 14 and have been recently diagnosed as autistic, and while learning more about my neurodivergence I started realising how many of the characters I used to love and see myself in were all the stereotypical smarty villain character (with the only exception being like, Velma from Scooby Doo). Neurodivergent characters are often really just portrayed as weird and outcast geniuses and it sickens me, not to mention the real lack of neurodivergent main characters, but I often feel like I don’t have the right to say anything about it since I got my diagnosis so recently and since people often labelled me as “high functioning” which to them equals to less autistic, and your videos really make me feel seen and validated. Thank you for producing this kind of content, I love your stuff
Man, I get that. High functioning does not mean less autistic, you just express a different part of the spectrum. I remember my mother tried to get me into special ed programs when I was little, but was told I was 'too smart' (or something along those lines. Anyway, unrelated, but good luck with yourself. I wish I could tell you all the little lessons I've learned from being like this, but it would take too long and words are hard to put together anyway. Just learn to cherish the changes you get in life, good or bad, as they can all teach you something new. It's hard some days, but my life has always been one step forward, two steps back. Ya get used to it after a while.
@RobotBlue makes sense i guess, but isn't the new system the same? instead of high functioning and low functioning we now have... high support and low support. how did that change anything?
I'm actually creating a story where a protagonist is disabled and her story is about coming to terms with it. At the end she has the option to "reverse" the disability, but love wins and she decides that it's better to be disabled than parting with the life she built herself over the years.
I've got a villain with some acid burn scars on his face, but one of the love interests is actually the assistant he used as a meat shield when he got the scars. They took the brunt of the damage and since they're nowhere near as wealthy or affluent as him they got less advanced medical care after. They're much more noticeably scarred and the mask they usually wear to obscure most of the damage is a lot less advanced than the one the villain has, and it looks more "off-putting" to the average viewer. Almost the entire cast is neurodivergent, disabled, or has mental illness, including the protagonist, so there's also that. As usual, the important thing is to make sure there's actual representation and you aren't making a hateful caricature and calling it a day. Honestly even with purely positive representation it's better if a sizeable chunk of the cast is involved anyway.
So... have you heard of Upside-Down Magic? Short version: It's about magic learning disabilities. The first book is decent, but the Disney Channel movie is terrible, all because of how they approach that magic learning disability theme. In the book, there's a program for people with learning disabilities, to help them learn how to live with said disabilities. In the film, not only is their "program" to NOT teach them how to use said magic at all, but stigmatizes the association of magic disability with magic sociopathy, even though in-universe that is incorrect. I would say "don't watch it," but then you wouldn't understand its problems.
Honestly I was just distracted by the fire mage education system in that movie (and also that the thing the filmmakers chose to make the _final exam_ in a movie with _magic_ was *making popcorn with your hands,)* but yeah. I probably should've been paying closer attention to the thematic stuff that the filmmakers obviously didn't. And probably pull the book back off my shelf and read through it. (But seriously, points for designing the classroom entirely out of concrete and stuff, but _who_ sets a room full of *people who can set buildings on fire with a stray thought* up for an academic nervous breakdown? Of _course_ people started getting into dark magic crap out of desperation you eejits) Like, sure, you _could_ argue it's supposed be a metaphor for school violence or something, but when you're talking about *fire powers* and they're the _only_ class remotely that stressful (the animal speaking was, like, "here's this cozy as heck looking garden gazebo, let's talk to a rabbit") that doesn't really hold much water.
My favorite trope has GOT to be disabilities showing the humanity in an individual, especially when said individual is the 'villain'. It's a shame it's so criminally underused.
How do you feel about Long John Silver from Disney's "Treasure Planet". While he is disabled and an antagonist, he also serves as a father figure to Jim and is crucial to the escape from the exploding planet. Without his help they all would have died and at the end he sails off to continue his adventure and search for treasure.
I genuinely wonder how the precedence for this prevalent trope came to be. I don’t get why people think a disability would turn someone villainous. Like is there anytime in history where that was a thing?
Probably just the idea of being downbad in some aspect of life, becoming embittered by it, boom, malice and villianous actions. Think Charles Muntz from Up. He is shamed for his reportedly failed hunt for that bird, he then sends himself back out into the wilderness alone with only himself and his dog army, giving him plenty of time to stew in his circumstances. This bitterness slowly drives him insane thus when he meets Carl and Russel and sees they have Kevin, he flies off the handle as all this brewing malice would entail. It's born under assuming all disabled people just sit there stewing in their circumstances all their lives.
@@BlazingKhioneus I understand the way that a writer would take it, like imagining an affliction as a motivation to hurt others. I was just thinking about how on a historical scale I can't think of a historical evil figure who took his anger about having a disability out on people.
@@Nightman221k Ah, that's what you're asking. Maybe it comes back to nazi generals having dualing scars and was thus used to spawn the scar on face to signify evil trope, then other people expanded it to all disabilities? I really dont know
@@Nightman221k Firstly mate there aren't "evil figures" in history. They're just people, they're not different from us. Anywho, in historical contexts disabilities that fuel atrocities are typically mental disabilities. Many violent dictators suffer from paranoia, narcissism, and sociopathy. Social disconnection and drug abuse can amplify these disabilities. Herakles (not a historical figure, but whatever) killed his family while suffering from PTSD (or a curse from a Greek Goddess, basically the same thing), Caligula was completely self-absorbed and disconnected from reality and would kill people on a whim out of boredom, and everyone's favourite dictator Hitler suffered from paranoia and schizophrenia which intensified over time. He was also hospitalised from disabling injuries from a mustard gas attack in WW1 (Which is why the Nazi's never employed gas on the frontlines) and has been considered a main motivator for his hatred of the French/British. I can't think of many famous examples of someone suffering from a physical disability taking their anger out on others, they typically commit suicide. I've known former soldiers who've become physically disabled and become violent and abusive from a sense of lost autonomy and purpose, but they typically sufferer from compounding mental disabilities such as depression and PTSD. And, as I mention earlier, they normally commit suicide. Having a physical disability can also lead to mental illnesses which can foster destructive behaviour. In reality, physical disabilities don't make people "evil", but mental disabilities can stem from physical disabilities that lead to destructive behaviour. Aside from that, I'd assume the disabled villain trope stems from 3 points. Firstly, disabled people are typically considered unattractive. Just a natural selection thing, breed with a healthy person you should have healthy babies. Sorry, blame nature. Second, throughout most of human history disabilities (especially mental disabilities) were poorly understood. As I mentioned earlier, physical disabilities can lead to mental disabilities. So the former would be blamed, not the latter. Both physical and mental disabilities were also seen as signs of omens, curses, or the vengeance of angry gods. So disabilities became synonymous with bad things happening (in many cultures, they would be actively killed, such as the Witch Hunts of Medieval Europe or the euthanisation of mentally ill patients in Nazi Germany). Thirdly, I'd say American/British/Anglo culture is very elitist, especially in the mainstream. There is the expectation that main characters attractive and fit and typically "A cut above the rest". Disabled people aren't considered typically attractive, so disabled characters are regulated to side-characters or antagonists. Ugly characters are almost always made attractive in mainstream media. Hermione was a chubby, curly haired nerd in the Harry Potter books, she was made beautiful in the movies. Tyrion Lanister had half his face cut open and his nose cut off in the books, in the TV series he got a clean scar across his face. Sex sells, blame hollywood. Hope you enjoy the info dump.
In a "tabletop rpg" group I am hosting, one of our main antagonists is disabled, he has a cybernetic arm and leg But this is just because most characters in this setting and campaign are literally also disabled in some way We have a guide character who is missing both legs, a party member npc who lost their arm recently, a nonverbal companion character, a blind companion character, etc There is also a character with waardenburg syndrome, an albino character, a character with vitiligo, etc Edit: in case anyone is curious, the antagonist is a bounty hunter that the players only recently found out had cybernetic limbs when wires and oil unexpectedly came out of a wound He's been hunting a character (the one who lost their arm recently) who's blood is made of silver instead of iron
It always seemed weird to me that villainous traits have so much overlap with traits that get you made fun of on the schoolground. Quiet, introverterted, intellectual and as you point out, disabled or disfigured in some way. And as you pointed out, being mistreated by society can be part of their motivation. What's so scary to most people about misfit loners? Would a society that mistreat people make a way more intimidating villain than a mistreated individual?
I wonder if the disabled "Villain" in my story is any better He was driven by an ever worsening case of lung cancer the healers in his world could not fix (their magic only ACCELERATES natural regeneration, the thing you dont want with cancer) and dug up recently burried corpses for research into either figuring out how to transplant another ones lungs into his body or create a suitable replacement using artificing. One day he was caught digging up a grave and fled, beliving he was going to be hanged for graverobbing and desecration of corpses. Surprisingly his charge would have only been grave robbing, since the temple of life also performs autopsies to teach their healers medicin (like IRL doctors do too) and they never forbade the practise of autopsies but everyone just assumed it was illegal. The "Villain" escaped and after some more grave robbing and performing autopsies he had a breakthrough, allowing him to construct a working magic mechanical lung, that has a bulky extrerior part to it. He didnt have anyone to help him implant it though and his time started to run out. Then the real BBEG showed up to him, saying that he would help him and also teach him the basics of the creation of Homunculi (in this world they are a type of slime that requires a scaffolding struckture like a skeleton to be able to hold shape) and he only wished to "Be his right hand and create more of his (homonculi) kind". In reality the BBEG wanted to create an army of simple Homuculi and just needed a scapegoat to produce them for him. at some point the protagonists figure this all out and take pity on him (the "Villain") and essentially put him into witness protection, cause alot of atrocities were commited in his name desptite him not knowing about it and people not wanting to consider the truth, only their own vengeance could be lethal to a brilliant but missguided mind. Also one of the protagonists is FASCINATED by his lung prosthetic. Yes, theres my transhumanism sneaking into the story...
Honestly that's a pretty interesting concept! It does have a few issues imo, I don't think many people would be very cool with some random guy digging up grave sites to steal organs, lung cancer or not that's just extremely disrespectful of the dead and their families and the reason he got charged relatively light sounds more like a legal loophole, the villain himself recognizing that he's desecrating corpses. I have no idea why the protagonists would be so protective of him, he wasn't responsible for the BBEG's homunculi but that's not the only thing he's done. The second thing is more of a logical disconnect, the healers of your story seem to have magical and semi-modern medical knowledge via healing magic and autopsies and considering that the villain knows he has lung cancer and the idea of lung transplants is a thing, why wouldn't he or the healers look into that? Or at least they could research transplant procedures since they study medicine via non-magical means? The time spent digging up people's graves and autopsying them could have been spent looking into legitimate medical procedures to further medical science and help out more than one dude. Plus, you bring up Transhumanism, which usually implies advanced technology, making the lack of medical science make even less sense. Considering that the villain is considered brilliant and has knowledge of how to perform autopsies, I figure he's a healer or doctor himself- but due to the holes I've pointed out, he's either secretly a weird grave robbing idiot or the healers of your story are incredibly negligent or UNWILLING to help the villain- which could be a great plot point, but with the BBEG it seems that's it's not a very large part of the story, rather a backstory, and I feel that's a wasted opportunity if you want to make this villain sympathetic. Again, your concept is genuinely interesting, I particularly like that their healing magic is actually harmful when it comes to cancer, that's an EXCELLENT balance to a magic system and the fact that it lines up to how cancer actually works is a fantastic detail. Seeing as this is a RUclips comment, I doubt all your story notes are out here, but from what I can glean, I'd definitely clarify the setting when it comes to the medical aspects of the villains' disease and adjust the villain's story a bit. Some suggestions; To keep the villain as morally questionable as he already is is: Make the protagonists morally grey/questionable themselves or have similar experiences, a ragtag group of morally questionable people is a scenario I've seen and it can work and make more sense as to why the protags would be so accepting of the villain. To make the villain more sympathetic: Adjust the healers, making them negligent and/or unwilling to help the villain is a legitimate reason for the villain to be vengeful, I'd emphasize that the grave digging was more out of desperation rather than just his method of getting a new lung, this could also be used to set up a conflict between the villain and the protags, since grave robbing and desecrating cadavers is kind of super weird and disrespectful, but if they learn why he did it and it was more of a desperate move, that'll make it a lot easier to swallow and could really contextualize that the BBEG manipulated someone in an extremely dire position. All in all, very nice concept! Just could use more refining.
@@pinkwafers2157 so far i had the idea that the healers use corpses to practise their medicine, procedures that also existed in old rome/medival time/early renaissance but do not understand yet how to safely transplant organs yet. No one but the healers know that the healers perform these autopsies and the loophole was intentionally placed there for their protection. The villain himself was NOT a healer or doctor and did a botch job with his early autopsies till he learned from failures. dont know if i addressed all points but my "TL;DR" is that the healers refused to help him cause they dont know HOW to help him, they know how to heal a stabwound or treat an infection but not how to heal something that gets worse from healing. And the "Villain" misstook that as them refusing to help him cause of his neurotic and obsessiv nature (traits i actually like but i know that can be very abrasiv to others). the party can symaphise with him also cause one of them is a necromancer, who specialises into communication with the dead and giving deceased a second chance (no full resurections here, only coming back as an undead) and who can see the moral dilemma.
@@pinkwafers2157 ADDENDUM: What if the healing magic does not properly heal transplants since they are technically from 2 different beings? discouraging the use of transplants due to compability issues with standart medicin/healing practise?
@@firebladeentertainment5739 Ohhh that definitely makes more sense, honestly I was very uncertain about what time period you were going for, the transhumanism and mechanical lung threw me off a little i think haha (i got the impression of an iron lung or something similar, so I thought it would be a little closer to the 1990's) I think your addendum is good too, in addition to the limited medical knowledge of those times, that is definitely a valid reason why they wouldn't want to risk it with transplants, I'd emphasize that it was more of the villains interperetation of their rejection. The necromancer protag definitely helps me understand why they took to him a bit better, though I still think it may be a good idea to push the grave robbing as a more desperate act. I feel grave robbing doesn't _quite_ align with the necromancers morals on giving the dead a second chance as he's just autopsying them and i assume putting them back, meaning he didn't really do anything for the dead- only desecrating them for a fix for himself. Plus it would make the BBEG's misguidance of him a bit more sinister, making the villain more sympathetic and making the BBEG a little more of a BBEG. (On that note, emphasizing the villains neuroticism, and thus emphasizing the fact that he doesn't think like your average guy would also make his actions a bit easier to understand, and making the BBEG more aware of this would highlight the more manipulative aspects of the BBEG.) Overall you actually hit a lot of my points, thank you for giving me more context!
@@pinkwafers2157 No problem, it was good to hear some feedback on it, which is mostly some backstory/worldbuilding lore that will be told to the viewer cause it happend in the past of the story, before the written story even began
I like how you thought to adjust the size of the eyes in the picture, just as they would appear with the correcting glasses in front of them! It's such a small thing and easy to miss, so I find it very cool when it's not forgotten
Portrayal, yes, spelled and used correctly. An instance of someone being portrayed, such as in a portrait :3 English is a hilariously terrible language, but I love it anyway.
@@captaincanterberrystudios6920 Indeed! When the magic of the universe allows you to regrow lost limbs or cure your bad eyesight, then not healing a disability is definitelly a conscious choice. I don't like all his portrayals of minority groups, but overall I think he does good work. @Woodledude Thank you for the clarification. I always love to learn and to improve =)
This is why I stan professor Xavier from the X-men. He's a full-on hero, a mentor to the mutants and a caring authority figure, and the fact that he's on a wheelchair rarely even comes up. The X-men comics have their problems, but when they do things right, they do them very right.
One of my favorite things about Red Hood is the extreme scarring he has from his death and autopsy. For those who don’t know, Red Hood was Batman’s sidekick, Robin, until he was killed, and then later brought back to life. He has a villain arc, during which he wears a menacing mask. In all the sexy shirtless panels that Jason has, and any shots of him naked otherwise, his burned back and his y-shaped autopsy scar are both visible. They do not detract from his attractiveness, his heroics, or his character. They complete it.
Coming back to this with a little more time to sit on Amphibia's ending, they actually do give their heroes their fair share of more severe scars, though typically in places the staff won't have to animate differently very often (Sasha's back, Marcy's matched pair of scars from the events of True Colours, Grime's arm.) and it's been cool to see fanartists include those when drawing outfits which would naturally show those scars. I would've liked to see a few more on Anne to complete the set though. (Like some fanartists who added a streak of premature silver hair because that's a thing intense childhood stress can do.)
I think there is a place for disabled villains, but only in cases where they aren't pitied or seen as less because of their disabilities. Look at Gazelle from Kingsman or Donald Pierce from Logan. Both are missing limbs (Gazelle her legs and Donald his arm), but they are almost portrayed as being MORE than the people around them thanks to their prosthetics that give them an advantage in one way or another.
I think this misses the point a bit. Villains need to be capable to pose a threat but if your villains are in some way disabled and your protagonists aren't, it still communicates this harmful trope of "broken people lashing out at the world" and that is harmful in and of itself. Especially in Kingsman, where the main villain's quirky behaviour is just this caricature of neurodivergence in the "mad genius" trope, which has it's own issues with sanism. Basically, it doesn't make it better if the disabled villains are strong. It only makes it better if you have equal representation on both sides, or if disability ends up being incidental to villainy and not the villain's defining characteristic.
If we wanna consider Donnie disabled how far does that go with regards to characters who purposely replace body parts with prosthetics for an advantage in some form. I mean I wouldn’t call Adam Smasher disabled
"The villain is the only (relevantly) disabled character and their reason for villainy is directly tied to their disability" is the exact problem I had with She-Ra and Hordak. Like, sure, Spinnerella is revealed to have a lasting ankle injury while she's mind controlled by Prime that doesn't come up at any other point, and there are a couple of one-off characters in the last season, but Hordak's chronic pain and breathing problems 1) are the reason he's considered "imperfect" and directly tied to his villainous motivation, and 2) become less prominent in his life as his redemption arc kicks in, to the point that by the time he's not the main villain anymore they've stopped coming up. And don't even get me started on Scorpia and Entrapta's treatment wrt their autism... I've already talked about this a lot I shouldn't get into it again
I love Entrapta and Hordak, and how their disability is used to humanize them, and its also shown how the ableds treatment of them forced them into villany, not that they are bad because of their disability... but its very visibly still a show written by and for neurotypical abled people, and that they only disabled people are villains and how they are often mocked for their disability shows this.
@RobotBlue the redemption that’s literally signified in the narrative by him getting cured? That redemption?? The precise one I was complaining about???
@@coreDesignix Oh god yeah, I was so pissed that they, instead of exploring how his disability might affect him back in the galactic Horde, just completely brushed it aside. Peak ableism and carelessness. I mean thanks to them not caring about him at all and only using him and every single other character as backdrop for making Catra look good it is kinda up to the viewer if he is still disabled and Horde Prime just drugged him up to go over his bodies limits, but its still not a good look at all. And then Stevenson being so damn holier-than-thou at how amazingly progressive he is, but then doing absolutely nothing as the fandom harasses Entrapdak fans and even riling them up... I relate a lot to both Entrapta and Hordak, and there are good parts in their narrative beside them being villains (which in itself does not bother me that much, but then, I always was a villain fan), but season 5 really ruined a lot of the good things
Colonel Miles Quaritch from Avatar might be one-dimensional, but he’s the only one I’ve seen so far with a ‘hero’ facial scarring, because it’s on his tempia and cheekbone, leaving his face ‘clean’ (even his ear isn’t torn), and it’s a cool set of scratch marks like those of a grandpa character who’d tell his grandkids how he got them while fighting a bear. As far as I remember, the scar is never brought up as an insecurity, no one says it’s ‘monstrous’, it’s not even awknowleged, it’s just a physical trait.
He is conventionally attractive / handsome despite the scar, so I agree, it's definitely a 'hero' scar, even though the character turns out to be suspect -> antagonist -> villain (and the foreshadowing for that starts pretty early IIRC)
Hey Oakwyrm! I was wondering if you have talked/could talk about the possibly negative disability rep in Toy Story 4? (One of the characters, Gabby Gabby, doesn't have a functional voice box -- her disability, so she tries to steal Woody's voice box to "fix" herself to attract the attention of a kid that she likes so she can finally be played with, which could be potentially problematic if you just remove the cartoony atmosphere)
I’d like to give a shout out to Dr. Doom as a great example of a villain with a facial difference. He grows up valuing his own appearance over all else, and then loses his mind when he gets a scar on his face, using it as an excuse to commit serious war crimes. He is the primary villain against the Fantastic Four, and it perfectly fits against the Thing, who has a hard, rock-like body, and has to learn to love it. The contrast between a vain, self-obsessed villain with facial scarring and a kind, selfless hero with severe full-body differences is wonderful to see. I really hope it’s executed well when the F4 come to the MCU.
what is the problem with making your character, losing his hands and then switching it with robot arms and then making a scheme to commit genocide. that is fun to watch and he looks cool
I’ve got nothing against disabled villains and sometimes even admire their use of disability as a metaphor BUT and it’s huge but this should only be in the context of the world or work with disabilities exist all over the spectrum. An example I like the cite is rogue one. Darth Vader aside there are arguably three disabled characters. Saw Gerera is the most morally ambiguous is a wonderful piece of in universal symbolism. His left me has lead him down a very dark road, and the prosthetics he has to use for making him resemble Darth Vader who had a similar trajectory. As an audience we can immediately infer this is someone who is falling into villainy. K2SO4 is a bit more debatable but could be argued to be a character with a brain damage. Their eccentricity is a source of light relief but ultimately they are portrayed sympathetically and heroically. Chirrut Falls into disability superpowers a little, but it is clear that he still has difficulties caused by his blindness and is probably the most inarguably heroic character in the movie. It does a lot better than the other movies.
4:19 I do not remember the dates involved but there are stories of ancient Chinese emperors that tried to achieve immortality with elixirs usually contains mercury
As someone with quite an ugly, foot-long surgical scar, it always bothered me how even when the heroes *did* get scars, at most it was just a nick or a cheek wound that would “make them more handsome” while only the antagonists got the massive scars. Like, no!! Give me a kind, strong hero whose face looks like someone took a meat cleaver to it! I want the heroes to have ugly scars, too. (Hence why I made a hero whose face essentially got destroyed when he was mauled by a wild dog. He lost an eye and a good third of his face is gnarly web-like scar tissue.)
Same irritatation. My kind and overall awesome husband has an about 30 cm (one foot) long scar mid-body after extensive cancer surgery 27 years ago. I have never observed anyone like him in any media and it makes me mad.
@@ronjaj.addams-ramstedt1023 I know, right? It would be so nice for the heroes to not look conventionally attractive all the time. Just seeing that only the villains can have massive scars can also make people with similar scars feel insecure. Also I hope your husband is doing well! Glad that I learned I have another scar buddy!
Not even close. His scarring is a result of how much a villain his father is and no, it does not motivate him. And "villain", well. That is a philosophical question. Antagonist, sure. Villain? Debatable. Maybe pay attention next time.
The intersting part about Darth Vader is that he is a fusion of two seperate characters from earlier drafts of Star Wars, the main hero's father Kane, who is mostly a cyborg and sacrifies his life so his sons can escape, and the villian Darth Vader who wears a space suit during his introduction fight. Lucas liked McQuarries design for Vader's space suit so much, he decided to make the armor a central part of the character, and thus the space suit became a life support system. Due to the fact Kane was a heroic and good character, the one movie (RotJ) where Vader's disability does effect how the story plays out (him dying shortly after Palpatine's Force lightening damages his suit) is also the movie in which Vader is an Anti Hero rather than a villian.
As a writer, I found this to be a fascinating discussion, because I've observed that the most convincing villains are those driven by a character flaw, rather than a physical factor. While disabilities are certainly a factor in peoples' lives, we all have the freedom to choose how we respond to our circumstances, and movies don't do anyone a service when they imply that villainy is the natural response to disability or any other factor. Humans have free will, we have a choice!
Well... Vader isn't a disabled villain, he's a villain who is also disabled. By the time he suffered his disabilities (disregarding the earlier loss of a hand because, as you have pointed out, it really isn't that severe of a disability in a world where prosthetics are so perfect that they could essentially just be considered a cosmetic change over the original limb), by the time he was mutilated by his best friend and father figure and suffered extreme burns, he already was a villain. And whilst he certainly wasn't happy to be wearing that suit, it really didn't factor into his character motivations. He wakes up after nearly being burnt to a crisp and his first concern isn't figuring out what the hell happened to him, it's what the hell happened to his wife, and it ends up being her death (and the fact that he caused it) that really breaks him to the point where he spends roughly two decades as an unquestioning, mercyless executor for the man who ruined his life. The disabilities are something that Darth Vader probably would have been able to come to terms with, but there was no way for Anakin Skywalker to cope with Padmé's death.
I’ve actually seen this trope subverted really well before where the “disabled mastermind” isn’t actually disabled at all and was faking it which makes them really hatable.
Ok but vader is "disabled" due to fighting AFTER he turned evil (well, save for his one hand he lost to the count in ep 2). Hes a half insane space wizard who fights with a laser sword constantly in 2 different wars. Its hardly a knock against the disabled and more "someone in this situation, doing these things, is bound to lose bits" I was in the navy for 6 years, doing construction (seabees) on quite a few projects, and even with no exposure to actual combat, we had people lose bits just to the WORK. I myself have a scar on my lower neck due to a piston, well, exploding. Some lives just get exposed to situations where you are going to get some chunks torn out of you, and sense most villain characters are naturally written to be attached to warfare/ dangerous professions, it makes sense that allot of them are scarred in some way. Also, allot of classic villain's from the past half century in cinema are direct parallels to the nazis, many of which had dueling scars due to prussian cultural norms. So the made up characters share those scars.
I wonder what your opinion about the film Freaks is. Your comment about the Hayes Code reminded me about its existence. ColdCrashPictures did a video on it about how the film seams to portray the disfigured and disabled people as monsters, but at the same time the true villain of the film is the able bodied beautiful woman trying to con them out of money. In his video he even goes over the history of nondisabled actors portraying disabled characters and how Freaks hired actual disable actors... and how they were discriminated against on set.
Loved every point made in this video but there's something else I wanted to point out. The glasses in your art actually cause distortion and make the eyes look smaller! As someone who has had to wear glasses since first grade I rarely see anyone do that! Usually, they just slap a pair of frames of the subject's face and call it a day. It really made me so happy to see you take the time to add such a minor detail to your art!
6:00 Regarding how Alastor Moody and Zuko are the exception, not the rule, when it comes heroes with severe facial scaring... Isn't it a bit curious that both examples were kind of villanous when they were first introduced?
The fact villains have more severe disabilities or more particularly, facial scars from a movie standpoint is to make them more scary. Because yes, a large amount of scars can be quite intimidating. Missing half a jaw is horrifying. And overall it gives character development more interest because the villains are likely going to cut corners to get where they want even if it risks parts of themselves. The heroes however are
Accidentally posted to early. As I was saying, the heroes however are going to have more caution early on and likely no severe damage. It’s to reach and connect with the majority audience. Just because villains tend to more often be disabled doesn’t mean it has to be viewed as a bad thing. It’s merely a character design to add to them. Sometimes the reasoning is stupid. And yes I do think that heroes should take more damage when they are in brutal fights. But over all I find the disabled villains very intriguing. How did they get those scars?
I don't mind disabled villain. I mean disabled people aren't saints and can do bad. The problem here is how they portray the disability as scary and evil or a representation of evil. But whats worse is where they make all the heros not disabled but the villians disabled
What could be interesting though only if it was very carefully done would be a story where the villain works to invert the direction of oppression but ONLY and I repeat ONLY if at the end things are made far more equal by the heroes
I never realized until I came across your channel how many disabled characters are in my stories. Your videos have made me consider not only the role they serve as characters but the importance of how their disabilities are shown. Thank you always for the amazing content!
I'm currently writing a story. It's in the draft process right now and I'd love some feedback involving a plot point about disabled characters. The villain of the story lost their vision in one eye and got a facial scar when they were younger and was bitter about it for years until they came across a magical method that 'fixed' him. When he meets the story's hero, a wheelchair user who lost his ability to walk in an accident similar to what the villain went through, we're treated to the "we're not so different you and I, join me" speech. Except the villain is entirely floored by the hero's unflinching refusal to join him in exchange for 'fixing' him. The hero said no so fast, he didn't even need to think about it. The villain, in more ways than one, cannot move on with his life when something doesn't goes his way and he cannot comprehend the hero, someone he's mistakenly pegged as being just like him, would be able to either. But he's wrong. The hero has moved on with their life after the accident. They've accepted themselves the way they are and some good things have come into his life since then.
This part is believable and realistic, please don't change it: the villain's inability to understand or even imagine that the hero's personal values and life goals are clearly different from his own. To verify the realism* we only need to scroll any comment section that has over 100 comments, on RUclips or elsewhere, and we will find a few comments that apparently start from this premise: "I am human, therefore all humans think and feel just like me (or are striving towards that). If they claim anything else they are lying / white knighting / virtue signaling, or mentally defective (naive / simple), deluding themselves or brainwashed." I like this plot point as a whole, especially as the disabilities of the two characters are different. Diversity in disability representation is cool! * I do _not_ recommend my way of verifying this in meatspace: I married someone who turned out to be like this when our kids hit their preteens and developed their own ideas. Divorced him of course, but especially the late stages of that marriage were not a pleasant experience for anyone involved.
My question is, I get the tropes of the disabled villain being problematic, is there space for a disabled villain who's disability has nothing to with his villainy? Like he just is disabled? Like Vader? Like, I'm wondering about how to do disabled characters who aren't heroic or even morally good, because without that we risk disabled characters being turned into flat paragons or role models.
When you brought up Vader, I was reminded of the Emperor, and that made me think: Do you have any thoughts on ageism and how it's connected to ableism and disability? The Emperor, especially in the the Rise of Skywalker, the Judge in Nothing But Trouble, Redmond and Bluford from Team Fortress 2, the Vulture from the comics, among many others, present the parasitic elderly, greedily holding on to life, often at the expense of others. Their physical decreptitude is presented as a sign of moral decay. And that's when they're presented as active agents, rather than vaguely sympathetic lumps.
At first, I was a bit taken a back with the title of the video ; "Why would you want to get rid of representation?", but I figured out : Hey, I want to hear that opinion out! And that was one of the best things I have done today! I am so glad I clicked on this because you opened my eyes on a subject I was totally boind to, and you are absolutely right in every point you maked. Thank you, for opening my and so many other's eyes! God bless you. Amen.
I feel it can be valuable to point out that a lot of media getting consumed are action flicks of some sort or other, particularly ones with clear-set good and bad guy. Since story follows actions of the good guy, they are expected to perform feats of athletics, acrobatics, fighting capability on screen, often in different circumstances, and thus, many disabilities are excluded from that paradigm. There is fantasy and sci-fi ways to enable that, but, I honestly do not see Avatar being brought up as stellar representation much. Also, as one can easily guess, writers often try to be relatable to broadest common denominator, and disabled persons do not fit into that. I really wish for more "impactfully" disabled protagonists (so it is not like with Luke Skywalker having a fleshy coating and a glove on prosthetic that we almost never see requiring any adjustement or anything like that) in "body-focused" media, but I also wish that disabled protagonists would get their deserved coverage in things that are not based on having a body capable of jumping off cliffs and fighting goons on a rickety bridge. It is kind of inane that, even when that wouldn't be a requirement, writers can't bother properly writing things beyond "a societally-default dude", and without making the disabled person a jerk anyway because... why, really?
Not directly related to the topic because I have nothing unique to contribute to it, but i wanted to say that it's a joy to watch your speedpaints! You've got extraordinarily clean and controlled lines that I honestly envy. This character's design is really nice too! My favourite part is their hair, it looks very good and seems like it would have been really fun to draw! Usually with media discussions I do my own thing and listen in the background because my hands like to be active when I'm listening to audio, helps me focus, but your speedpaints are engaging enough for me to pause whatever else I'm doing to give them my full attention Also, props to you for working to educate and inform people! Even being disabled myself there are tropes out there that either I hadn't noticed, or hadn't thought to question. And with subjects I did already have an awareness of I've found it really refreshing to hear media being discussed from the perspective of another disabled person! In short: you're doing excellent work, thank you :]
Doctor Who is also a heavy user of the disabled villian trope, at least in the old series. Off the top of my head the villian from The Sunmakers is slime… but in human form he has to use a mechanical chair, Morbius (the TIMELORD) who is replacing his body by killing others and his side kick who is missing of his arms, evil Brigadier from Inferno having facial scaring, etc etc. Those are just one off things, but one of the most famous Doctor Who villains Davros also falls (crashes) into this trope, and technically both the 2 most famous Doctor Who monsters, the Daleks (the Dalek outer body is used to support and help protect the soft squishy Dalek inside it, and The Cybermen are basically the question what if people replaced their bodies with extra parts.
Oh gosh, I just watched clips of a classic doctor who villain where the guy main motivation is being pissed his he has to keep his body constantly cold and wanting revenge on his race for it. I’m not sure the implications of new who characterizing all the master incarnations of being generically crazy bode well either….
I'm so glad I found your channel! It's so educational. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on Disney's portrayal of Quasimodo in the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Makes me think of one of the stories from Earthsea, from Ursula K. Le Guin, where Tenar decides to take care of a child that was thrown by her own parents and relatives in the fire, and has lost one eye, and most of a hand, and has scarring on all that side of her body, and is more difficult for her to talk and play...in the book, Tenar calls her Terru (that means "Fire"), and loves her a lot, even if the child is seen as something evil, "because no one would do such thing to a good child", and she still tries to hide her, and to imagine her as if her face was whole and smooth...the child grows as very timid...but then, she is a dragon, the last human that can change her shape to that of a dragon and back. She has incredible powers, and even if she is too shy to show them, in the end she will be fundamental to save the world, in a sense...but her dragon form is whole...I interpreted it as a kind of death and rebirth thing, but now I'm not so sure anymore...
This is one big problem I've seen in Mad Max: Fury Road (a movie I like a lot otherwise) - technically both the villains and two of the heroes are disabled in a way that alters their physical appearance, but only the villains are portrayed as particularly "abnormal" (or harder to ignore as visibly disabled), while Furiosa and Nux are far easier to ignore if you just take a glance at them
The other side of the coin, if a hero is disfigured (V for Vendetta) or disabled (House MD) make disabled/autistic people unrelenting assholes to the point everyone avoids them. I think the only exception is Entrapta from She-Ra, who is kind from the get-go, just never given a chance by everyone else.
Wouldn’t call Entrapta kind at the beginning. She could care less about the people around her. She focused on her own wants to the point of negligence. But she was never malicious. I loved her relationship with Hordak.
@@dragletsofmakara1120 Well, yeah. To clarify, I think they make people on the spectrum seem incapable of kindness or at least trying. At the end of her intro episode, she showers the group with things she likes in an attempt to make them comfortable (tiny snacks, showing off her robots and equipment).
@@dragletsofmakara1120 Apart from that one bit where she wants to experiment on Adora she actually is kind and caring, she just isn't in the same way the neurotypicals around her
What do you all think of fullmetal alchemist? I think they avoid this trope for the most part, since while Edward can still be a bit of an asshole sometimes (like with Rose in the beginning) it feels more like "realistic edgy teenager" than anything else. Plus a big part of the motivation for his actions is because he cares about other people.
Are there any good examples of "The villain is a terrifying unstoppable overlord, except when we see the parts of how their disability affects their lives; in those moments, some vulnerability and humanity can be seen."? If not, I think there should be, 'cause then it would be like their disability is disconnected from their villainy, or it even disconnects the character themself from their villainy for a moment.
Vader. Literally everytime he’s not killing imperial officers he’s crying in a bacta tank because his life sucks after he murdered his wife and was out into a leather suit with burns all over his body
FINALLY SOMEONE'S TALKING ABOUT THIS! I'm not disabled myself but I've I can't express the ridiculous amount of times I've seen a villain on a wheelchair. It's ridiculous
The issue of good guys having tiny scars was one of the main things I hated in the Mortal Engines movie. In the books, Hester is scarred as a child and ends up with an enormous gash going through her entire face. The movie decided that was too much and decided to just give her a tiny nick on the edge of her mouth. It made me furious.
yeah, in the books Hester straight up doesn't have a nose bc of how much her face is disfigured and she wears a scarf to cover it. in the movie her scar is so barely visible it's laughable and the scarf is more aesthetic than anything
They do that with a lot of book adaptions from what I’ve heard. :(
@@jelliefishr2336 I think that was the same for Tyrion in GOT.
@@HiBuddyyyyyy the reasoning behind Tyrion’s reduced disfigurement was given to budget reasons for the constant prosthetic… but what’s their excuse for Hester?
I refuse to watch the movie on principle. Grow some gumption Hollywood and take her nose off!
I'm surprised you didn't mention the most notable thing about Vader in my opinion, and that's the fact that the reveal of his horribly scarred face in ROTJ takes a trope that's normally used for horror (oh the villain has a facial difference, how disgusting!) and instead makes it into a humanizing moment. It's the transition from the invincible killer robot Vader to the very human and vulnerable Anakin, and his scars are the proof that he is a person and not a machine. This is what a hero looks like: anemic, torn, struggling to breathe, and eyes full of love. It's such a beautiful subversion and I wish we had more examples of it, disability as an affirmation of humanity.
i like this take
@@Envy_May me too
This made me happy, thank you
Great take, it's also in addition to the fact that Luke is able to see his father's true face and humanity for the first, last, and only time.
It also helps sell the transition to the troubled kid in Episode 1 and the awkward teen who is about to break bad in Return of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. He is not just a robotic killer - in fact he was far too emotional and was manipulated.
People always remember that Anakin has a prosthetic arm but never Luke, even though Luke loosing his hand is way more iconic in movie history. I think people tend to forget because they always just put a glove over their hand/arm so they don't have to green screen it in all the time. It could be nice seeing Luke with his metal hand on display more.
Anakin being on mechanical breather constantly that became his iconic character trait helps a bit, since audience is from then on is constantly reminded of everything related to that breathing sounds and how it got there
Luke just got a robot hand that looks and acts exactly like real hand because space technology and the whole next movie they just act like that never happened. Luke himself probably only thinks that hand that one time after when the emperor said he's similar to his father (use the robot hand to point to that similarity), and that's it.
@@slimetank394 Luke is shot in his artificial hand while holding his saber on Jabba's deck. If it were a natural hand, he would not have been able to hold onto the saber and continue fighting.
Trust me besties. If I become a villain, it will not be motivated by my being disabled. It will be motivated by my unending desire for attention and my longing to wear a cool long villain dress and have a giant pet snake that I sic on bigots.
And to have a lady lover who’s smitten by my cool villainy, but that’s not important rn
@@SqualorOpera what sorts of horrible crimes shall you commit?
Track down billionaires and give them wedgies
Ooooo giant snake is good, If I get one too i'll join you!
NOT EVEN STARTED YET AND I’VE GOT A PARTNER IN CRIME. FEELIN GOOD ABOTU THIS WHOLE VILLAIN THING ALREADY.
The whole "The Villain has a point, but let's not do anything about it" is a cliche that I absolutely hate. Then again, it make sense. The vast majority of heroes aren't people of virtue or people with case-by-case decision making. They are enforcers of the statue quo. They are soldiers for the world that we know instead of the world that could be. Even if the villain has a point, because they are "breaking the law," the heroes are going to beat them up. I honestly think V from V for Vendetta could be portrayed as a bad guy in a Marvel movie.
LITERALLY!!!!!!!!!!! there could be like a guy whos dirt poor and is dealing drugs to buy food for his starving family and fucking batman or something will just go and beat the shit out of him and call it a day. its so infuriating
WHILE HE REALLY WENT WRONG, Jafar KINDA had a point? I mean, this random guy from a place you, an educated man of about thirty years (who would probably know about trade and and shit; because, and let’s be honest, the sultans a few French fries short of a happy meal), just fucking WALTZES into the palace, KIDNAPS THE PRINCESS FOR A MAGICAL JOYRIDE and is revealed to be a well known thief? Excuse him for being skeptical.
(Starkid productions did an excellent musical about this btw check that out).
Are you by any chance familiar with Lily Orchard? She recently put out a video criticizing just that, mostly focused on Magneto. You've got a Holocaust survivor fighting to stop people like him from being ruthlessly oppressed, and he's supposed to be the BAD guy. And all of the heroes on the opposite side are members of the same marginalized group as him, but they're stuck in the mindset of "fighting back at your oppressors makes you just as bad", convinced that the proper solution is to keep on politely asking the leaders of a dysfunctional system to stop the oppression. This despite the fact that, looking at the X-Men franchise as a whole, they've had relatively limited success with that.
Black Panther subverts this common trope.
A "V for Vendetta"-like character is the main villain in Major Grom: the plague doctor
I feel like part of what makes Vader work in the original trilogy is how little attention is actually drawn to the fact he is disabled in the first place. If Obi-Wan didn't make the remark about him being 'more machine than man now' I don't think very many people would have even caught on to the fact he was disabled in the first movie. The breathing mechanic could have just as easily been just a plain old space suit respirator instead of life support. He's scary and the clear villain because he's this massive armored man in black strutting around, not because of any obvious visual deformities. Plus that line and the one scene in Empire are the only times it's referenced, and in both fairly minor scenes. The only major instance is when it does become plot relevant at the end when Luke is fighting him on the Death Star, and even then you could argue Luke doing to Vader what Vader did to Luke at the end of Empire was more important than the actual fact they were mutually disabled. Vader works fairly well (to me. obviously people might disagree) is because he is a villain that happens to be disabled rather than a disabled villain. If that makes any sense.
Tbh, I thought he was all flesh under the suit for the longest time, it took literally seeing Anakin's limbs being lobbed off for me to realize a fraction of what was going on with him, heck, even the respiratory I thought was just the sound of the helmet sorta like the gag in Spaceballs
Yeah I think Anakin would be evil or at least ill regardless.
also the line itself "more machine than man" doesn't mean he is evil because of his disability.
it could also have been the scenario with many evil (and even good) characters that they decided to replace healthy limbs to improve their skill and power.
Vader's disability alone isn't a huge part of the character, it's the fact his body has been destroyed by his actions and replaced by mechanical supplements. He's not disabled by poor fortune or genetics, he's disabled because of his poor decisions and evil actions. His body is a reflection of his evil.
It works so well because (most of) his disabilities are the result of him being evil instead of the other way around. His overconfidence in his own abilities by the end of ROTS are the reason he lost three limbs and got flambéd.
Same thing with Darth Sidious. His facial deformities are caused by his excessive use of the Dark Side, which is eating away at his body.
And both of these characters are some of the most powerful force users in the history of Star Wars on top of that.
Yeah, I wouldn’t mind if they just like happened to be disabled? Like show an inhaler on Mr Bad Dude’s nightstand, idc, but I want the disability or scarring motivated villainy to just stop. I think ATLA turned the latter on it’s head with Zuko: Zuko’s scar tells us not how bad he is, but how much of a villain Ozai is to have done it to his son. And Zuko comes around eventually anyways.
I dunno if that concept sounds good, but
Disabled villain who isn’t motivated by their disability, they’ve just kinda always been an asshole and only uses their disability as an excuse to themselves.
Disabled hero calls them out on it repeatedly
@@m-pc5334 I think something like that that happened in one of the HTTYD films or books, I don’t remember which.
@@-Foliage- How to train your dragon 2. both hero and villain are amputees
@@-Foliage- In HTTYD 2, Drago is missing an arm and blames it on a dragon attack, saying that's why they can never be friends. They don't draw attention to it, but Hiccup is _only_ missing a leg _because_ he's friends with a dragon. So it's a really good contrast, especially since they both lost a limb to a dragon but take radically different lessons from it.
@@m-pc5334 that's been done before and it kinda sucks to see that idea spread because it's a common thing for disability to just be considered an excuse. For example when I was in school teachers would make me do things I physically could not do, push me too far and take away accessablity devices because it was "just an excuse" not to do the work or activity (or because they decided that I didn't actually need it)
I think there's an interesting issue when the disability or especially facial disfigurements are the result of their villainy (e.g. in Wonder Woman, the facial scars are, I think, implied to be a result of her experiments with poison gas).
That allows for some plausible deniability (i.e. it's diagetically a consequence of their villainy, not just arbitrary of a motivator for it), but it not only reinforces ugly=evil (or more accurately evil -> ugly), but it also implies that the kind of danger the heroes put themselves through is fundamentally different (i.e. heroism -> sexy scars, evil -> ugly scars).
Also, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the Wayfairers series by Becky Chambers, since it has multiple disabled characters (in a sci-fi space setting, no less), and also broad themes of body autonomy and societal provision for different bodies which are interesting from a disabled perspective.
Oh hey, Wayfarers is really high on my reading list! Originally i wanted to check it out because I've gotten really fixated on like. found family tropes in space scifi settings and especially queer ones (especially been into it since listening to podcasts The Strange Case of Starship Iris & the third season of Juno Steel's story in the Penumbra Podcast, which are like the epitome of fave story/aesthetic/characters for me, and several collab OC settings). You've definitely just added to the list of reasons im very excited to check out this series :)
Harvey Dent only becomes Twoface after his disfigurement. I guess this is how Hollywood works
@@PancakemonsterFO4 Yeah, I mean that's even worse. Instead of evil->ugly (which at the very least had the plausible deniability of being able to say 'they're disfigured because of what they did), it's literally ugly->evil. In some ways, you could even say it's worse than evil=ugly, because at least there there's less implied causality.
How about the villain having a minute scar that they blow out of proportion because of their need for perfection?
@@Barakon You could argue that happens with Xerxes in 300, but you're right, that is a good inversion of the trope.
the dark lord on life support has not been good my self esteem. i'm on a ventilator and i've never seen anyone like me who isn't a villain.
A very fair point. It would be lovely to see someone like that in media one of these days.
I'm sorry, you deserve better representation :/
Not disabled but a good guy I think of being on life support is the man who invented B-MO from adventure time, but you're right. I can think of way more villains.
Hachimaru from Samurai 8 (it's a manga). Kind of Kokichi Muta in Jujutsu Kaisen. Lordgenome in the second half of Gurren Lagann. Tony Stark. Jane Foster. RoboCop. Robot from Invincible.
That's off the top of my head, but I'm certain there are a lot more. There's a trope of heroes who can't survive without the thing that gives them powers, and then there's also just heroes who also have illnesses that require regular treatment.
The Barzan of Star Trek have to wear "respirators" because normal atmosphere doesn't have the gas they need. In Discory there's on that's also a badass.
The fact that Anakin had a small scar across the eye and an easily-covered prosthetic right up until he got flambéd very much fits in line with the idea of "heroic" facial differences being minimized for cool factor...
idk if I'm reading this right, but his decision to not wear the glove at his secret wedding with Padmé (showing the metal prosthetic openly) was likely meant as some sort of "omen" about their future. There was even a bizarre take that Anakin losing his limbs literally reduced his Force capabilities due to having less midichlorians in his body.
That said, Anakin's body basically being a battlefield & playground for abuse is another conversation entirely. What does it mean to have a bomb embedded in your bones since birth? What does it mean that your childhood groomer, your manipulative abuser, exerts *total* control over your medical health (including a literal "off-switch") as a means to further deny your own personhood? Like that's a whole new swamp to wade thru
I got the impression the arm was visible during the wedding because it was new and he hadn't had the time to cover it believably. Yes, I wish he (aka, the filmmakers) hadn't chosen to cover it by movie three, but that might have been a practical concern of filming.
that's an excellent point I hadn't considered! ^^
@@MirrorscapeDC: I'd say it's less a matter of Anakin hadn't had a chance to cover it yet and more so that it's left uncovered for the entirely nondiegetic reason so the audience can see its artificiality and understand why he suddenly has a hand again after losing it a scene earlier.
It's basically the same reason we get to see a medical droid making adjustments to the internals of Luke's new hand shortly before closing up the panel that makes it otherwise indistinguishable from the original flesh and blood hand.
If I were to try and make an in lore explanation for leaving the hand uncovered during the wedding though, I'd probably ascribe it less to Anakin and more to Padme, that she insisted on it as a way of saying she accepts him, flaws and all, that he never has to hide anything from her.
I don’t really see how it’s a ‘bizarre take’ when it mostly follows from the midichlorian stuff already established but now I’m thinking of it I can see how that’s ableist.
@@MirrorscapeDC Is the arm covered in episode 3? The metal is exposed in the scene where he’s in bed, they don’t ever do what they did with luke by giving him artificial flesh, right?
It's okay for villains to be disabled in some way. What's not okay is presenting them in a way which shows that they're evil BECAUSE they're disabled. Having a villain with a disability could work as a great tool to humanize them, the problem is that most authors use it to do the exact opposite.
So it's not really about what conditions the villain has, it's about using them correctly. The hero could be disabled too, or neither of them. My advice is, as long as you're respectful do your research and you'll be fine in my book
I think the best way to counter this issue would be also making the heroes disabled. Take Hiccup and Drago in the second HTTYD film.
Usually, I would agree, but Two-Face is the one exception.
What I don’t understand is how no one understands that we make stories about everything
People would become villens for less, and in history, they have
What’s no ok, is de-humanizing theses charicters because if there disabilities, or having there charicter revolve too closely around that one trait, unless it’s intentional to the story, and is going to be addressed or delt with in a compelling way, weather you have another dissabled charicter in the hero team or not Dosent matter, cause as it happens, people have the capasity to understand other minorities without being appart of it
Not compleatly obviously, in the way that you will NEVER understand the pain I learned to deal with everyday, but I have friends families, and even strangers that make me feel well more then understood, even when they don’t compleatly understand
It’s actualy nice to have an able body person bring you up out of a slump with there understanding and kindness
What people should really be focused on in general,in’s just making better, more compelling stories, for the sake of telling well intentioned stories for entertainment, gosh,
Zuko is good example of disfigured villain that is disfigured to humanize him
Good defense!
Whenever villainy is tied to appearance the line "Who is the monster and who is the man" from Hunchback of Notre Dom then the song "Hellfire/Heaven's Light" booms in the back of my brain.
I blame the fact that it's the first movie I remember seeing with a disfigured character. The soundtrack constantly pops into my brain at opportune and inopportune times.
Love this video, as always.
They still yassified Frodo in the movie, but I see your point.
EDIT: Quasimodo, not Frodo. 😅
@@grandsome1 its frollo
@@akitauma2387 in English.
EDIT: Not even that's the priest name(Frollo). XD
@@grandsome1 oh really?
@@akitauma2387 Yep, that's what Wikipedia says.
Okay now I really want a rich, disabled villain who’s whole thing is seeking out some rare, single-use cure and the (probably also disable, but working class) heroes come along and go “wtf fuck dude?! You have all this money, just fix the systemic issues in society instead. Add more ramps and subtitles and a subsidized prescription drug program”
This sound too much Real camarade
Bonus points if the villain has no idea what they're on about and then they just... Yknow talk?
Cars two.. you should look at cars two
“But with that power, you could cure cancer!”
“But I don’t want to cure cancer, Spider-Man, I want to turn people into dinosaurs!”
"What about a compromise... Do both"
Hear me out: disabled villain who’s redemption arc is learning not to hate their disability while the hero goes on to be a politician/lobbyist who fights for the benefit of disabled people but not in an abled-savior way more of a “this will make my new friend have a better life so we can go get tacos!” kinda way
Please. Please. PLEASE WRITE IT
@@the_sky_is_blue_and_so_am_I sadly writing isn’t really my preferred medium
@@cynthiabrogan9215 what do you do?
I'm interested lol
@@the_sky_is_blue_and_so_am_I I’m a digital artist. I do physical art to (like paintings n stuff) but I mostly do digital and I only sell digital. I think I’ve still got a couple old animations kickin around on my channel and I’m currently working on a new vid after my complete silence for years. Thanks for asking!
@@cynthiabrogan9215 Your welcome!! I might have to write this! I write mainly fanfiction but when I get good enough to do this Idea justice I will.
It’s concerning how disabilities are given to villains as a trait to make them seem less human. Villains can be written in very human ways where even if they’re the bad guy they’re still clearly a person who’s the hero of their own story, but many villains tend to be simply monsters, even if they’re physically human. Facial differences are a big example of this, as it’s used to play into the trope of “ugly=evil” where anyone who isn’t traditionally attractive must be evil; villains can be traditionally attractive, but anyone who isn’t isn’t allowed to be anything but a villain. When people use facial differences or scarring to make their villain “ugly” enough to be clearly evil it’s just the writer loudly proclaiming that they think people with facial differences or scars are ugly which is just very disrespectful. Other disabilities are usually used to separate the villain from everyone else, to other them and make it clear they’re different, and since they’re the villain and many times their disability is why they are the villain that othering is meant to show that they’re bad because they’re different, which implies that everyone who’s different in that way is or will be bad. It goes without saying that these are horrible messages that do a lot of harm to a lot of people, being disabled or looking different doesn’t dictate your morality, lazy writers just try to find ways to make it externally obvious who their villain is and who we should root against without considering the real people they’re hurting by using these traits as their signifiers for evil.
I love your profile picture
@@scarlettwho1819 Thank you! I really like the way it looks too 🖤🤍💜
The solution is make your villains hot in some way /hj
Plus many of the “ good guys “ in my writing are heavily scarred, So making the villain scarred is not so different to the others
@@aceofspades8474 i like it too, it's very clever btw.
Would be nice to have a disable villain that, through a serendipitous twist, the heroes end up empathizing with and understanding the virtues of their struggle. Even if at time it led them to be pitted against each other with mortal consequences. And through various acts of solidarity and rehabilitation, they learn to forgive each other and fight against a much bigger bad.
Zuko sort of counts and Clayface had a hero arc but comics always resets things. I'm sure there is other examples but I can't think of them from the top of my head.
if you really think about it, the ending of "glass" is like that, unbreakable and split to a lesser extent but glass is the crossover, once all the fighting and stuff is done and the organization is done covering it up, the people who lived and cared for the main three made the video go viral, sure glass started that but the three made it bigger, making the world see that superpowers are real the world is going to change forever, not to give the director any praise but the idea and part was brilliant, the story and acting might have needed some refinement but the idea is really good, a disabled person thought to be the villain was actually trying to be good by using his super intelligence to change the world by proofing that superpowers exist, so why is he considered a bad guy? simply because he loved comics and liked the villains more then the heroes, and who can blame him, villains can be awesome most of time (who am i to talk? my favorite villain is electro from spider-man)
@@benjamincuevas9627 even though I never watched avatar in a long time, I agree with the zuko part. Despite having a burnt scar and apart of the fire nation (the villains of the show, I think), zuko is the nicest of the fire nation (and also the punching bag, because his dad not only favor his sister over him but also abused him)
Star Wars original trilogy
At the moment, I am writing such a "villain", so I am doing some research in the community. He is a henchman/hitman for his master (a noble, respected man, wo later turns out to be the actuall villain of this story). This henchman is heavily disfigured, and therefore cast out and feared from the people around him, being percieved as a brute, mindless killer.
The female MC (wife of the nobleman), equally distrust him, and through a fair bit of detective work uncovers all his "evil doings", only to later find out that all of those things are actually ordered by her husband. The disabled character, later in the story, openly acknowledges his wrongdoings, and througout the story gives the reader a few clues that he doesnt actually believe in the evil things he does. There are even little hints that he cares about the wellbeing of other characters.
But only in the second book he really looses his villainous image, when the reader finds out why he does evil for his master... to protect someone close to him, held hostage by the nobleman. So the "villain" of the first book will eventually end up the hero in the later books, without loosing his disability through some magic bs. The only thing that changes is that he starts to hold himself accountable and earns the trust of good people, and the MC to rebell against corruption of the elite. He even eventually loses his mask that he wears to hide his deformity as a symbol of his transformation from a shady henchman, to a confident leader.
Vader drew his strength from the fact he was in so much pain. He got injured because he became evil. He’s not evil because of his injuries. Other villains need to have their disabilities be more thought out.
Plus didn't the Emporer make the suit intentionally uncomfortable and painful so that way Vader was always angry?
Having both the hero & villain have the same disability & show how morally neutral disabilities are. And that the good guys isn't doing war crimes because they're upset about their disability so much that they use it to do evil.
Could do, you could also have that the hero is dissable and that the villian is not and get the samething
hey, this comment bothered me enough that it was difficult for me to focus on the video, so i'm just gonna pause and respond (just about 6 minutes in, so i don't know if anything will be said about this specifically yet).
it's really easy to see this take and for it to make intuitive sense to an able-bodied reader. but this... really isn't great either, actually.
as oakwyrm said, disabilities and disabled people don't exist in a vacuum. what you've done here is create a trope that isn't unheard of, but which i don't know if has a formal name, wherein you are showcasing The Right ("Good") Way To Be A Disabled Person and The Wrong ("Evil") Way To Be A Disabled Person. making them have *the same disability in name* invites the audience to directly parallel the two even more.
say "in name" because no two disabled people will ever have the same experience, & that comes from everything! every single thing, from your familial dynamics, to your parent(s)'s income levels, to the country you live in, to the part of that country that you live in -- everything about the way you grow up influences your disability. there kind of isn't such a thing as "giving them the same disability", other than if you are literally only using it as a narrative trope.
as the existence and continued production of content on this channel attests to, disabled people are often presented *as tropes* in and of themselves in a way that is deeply ingrained into societal storytelling. it is in folklore, in fairy tales, in children's media, in anime, in popular culture at large.
okay, i'm kind of rambling because i Feel Passionately about this, but to bring it back around to the Specific Problems You Might Face When Trying To Implement This Trope:
mirroring your villain and hero in fiction is nothing new; it's kind of a staple of the structure. for example, it's not uncommon to show how people who were raised with similar difficulties (i.e., poverty, being orphaned/losing a parent, etc.) came to view society in different ways, and how one is generally kind, forgiving, and cares about the wellbeing of others, while the other is generally mean-spirited, bitter, and ... well, antagonistic.
can you see how this might be a problem when we factor disability into the situation?
because if you do try to make their disability "morally neutral" -- i assume you mean removing their disability as consideration for their villainous actions, beliefs, and so on -- you will fail to make a realistic character and, at best, create a flat, 2D, disabled person who is disabled for the sake of being disabled. at worst, you have contributed to the pervasive idea that there is a "right way" and a "wrong way" to be disabled -- that to feel angry and upset about the systems that failed you is a bad thing.
i don't think it's possible (it's at the very least not advisable) to completely remove a character's disability as a potential consideration for how they formulate their worldview. it is *hard* to write about a disability that you are not intimately familiar with, unless you are just creating an in-name-only depiction for the sake of "having disability representation." to actually write this would require a very nuanced hand, and would still be incredibly trope-y and something that personally would still make me grimace, but i could MAYBE see it being done by a person who wants to represent their own journey with things like interalized ableism? or with difficulties with things like feeling "pride" in their disabled identity, when their body is so against them every single day? or with personal journeys they've had with a relative / friend / partner who shared their disability, but whom they had a soured relationship with, and they wanna explore the complicated emotions surrounding that?
augh, i dunno, it's 7am, why am i writing a rebuttal in a youtube comment.
TL;DR: this is a cold take, already a trope, and imo only consider doing this if you're writing about Your Own Specific Disability in this way. otherwise: consider not making disability into literal symbolism.
@@Eve.v thank you, thank you, thank you! Excellent reply
@@Eve.v You say this is a staple of the structure and yet there is no example of this being done. But it would be great. You can't tell me you wouldn't be thrilled to see a villain rant and rave about how their disability is such a good excuse to be such an awful person, to sound like a sypathetic victim, and then for the hero to point out that no, they are just a bad guy, cause they share the same disability. It would be so nice to see this repetetive trope get demolished like that.
Besides, how to be the right kind of disabled person? This is not a good argument to even bring up when the media is already saying one way is the wrong way to be, and the other is the right, at a base human level. That's why we use words like villain and hero. One is acting the right way, one is not. That's in the genre. So to pull away from that and somehow make it specifically only about the right way to be disabled would take effort I think. Effort to write it that way, or effort to percieve it as being written that way. It's not a sensible risk to expect. This would be removing that risk surely, by returning it to the hero and villain perspective alone.
If it did end up feeling like it was saying there was a right and wrong way though, well would it be so bad to say the wrong way to be disabled is to kill people and kidnap the president's daughrer and plant a bomb on the moon? Is that such an offensive message?
@@TailsClock weasel words like "You can't tell me you wouldn't be thrilled..." are reason enough that I have zero interest in responding any more than this. Next time try to lead with something other than bad faith and crude attempts at manipulation.
On Vader (and Star Wars as a whole): Even Emperor Palpatine, his master, fits the "disabled villain on life support" trope if you examine the lore. He is the emperor of the galaxy, and pretty much a very powerful, very evil space wizard for those unfamiliar with his thing, yet is super shocked that he was able to at one point just walk without the use of the dark side of the force despite being able to melt peoples faces off with his dark sidery. Heck - Most Sith (and dark siders) you could argue fit this trope, because the dark side ravages their bodies in ever-increasing increments the more power they gain via it. For most Sith, as well as for Palpatine, their evil has nothing to do with what he has going on body wise, and more to do with the fact they are just enjoys being evil, so they are really cruel and selfish individuals.
But now that I think we've had that niche with villains such as Vader, or Emperor Palpatine very well covered, I think fellow creators, writers, and artists alike should do what we do best and be creative. Why copy and redo this, when there is a world of unused ideas out there that do not feed ableism by using villains with disabilities in the prior mentioned way?
And then there's Darth Nihilus
@@historicflame972 Darth Nihilus is an interesting case, now that you bring it up. He is basically more an eldritch horror made manifest than a person, despite upon his death just being a "man under the mask." I'm frankly not sure could you even call what he has a disability (I mean sure it does hinder his life, and you could argue it is one, but still...he basically is a walking black hole, and there is nothing you can really equate him to in the real world) - unless there is a trope for "disability as an eldrich horror", which I would not be surprised if there is, he is kind of an odd one to even class.
For that reason, I'm not sure could you class Darth Nihilus as another disabled villain on life-support villain. Because most of these tropes work to support, sustain, and feed real life prejudices, hate, and the likes. What Darth Nihilus is probably doesn't bring to mind people with disabilities to most people who hear about em, and unless you squint your eyes and tilt your head a little, it's almost impossible to connect him at all to this whole formulae as...like, what discrimination, fear, or hate would someone like him be bringing up, sustaining, or supporting?
Then again, even as someone with a disability, I am not a spokesperson for some monolith (which doesn't exit), and just myself, so I think there is definitely room for a conversation on does Darth Nihilus fit this trope too, because it's actually from a writers' standpoint quite interesting to think about.
@@videocrowsnest5251 I mean he never died
@@historicflame972 what happened to him?
@@kwayneboy1524 Nihilus survives the events of kotor 2 and his robes which have his soul still in it is moved and lost on korriban
Proud to say that the characters I have as heroes with facial scarring do not fall into the, “Scarred but still conventionally attractive for the sake of the ablebodied audience,” trope. One of them is refered to as, “The Decomposer,” and is the angel of rot, decay and putrefaction. She is very obviously disabled because her body is literally rotting away. She has an eye missing, patches of hair are gone, her teeth are visible through one side of her face, etc.
The other is a nurse who’s face was badly disfigured when she was attacked by a monster as a child. Her whole thing was that she used to be considered the most beautiful girl in her village until her face was messed up, so she’s been on both sides of the coin, being beautiful and vapid, and being considered ugly and bitter. From this, she’s grown, and I’m seriously proud of how both have effected her character wise, making her more empathetic and genuinely kind to others.
ETA - I also wanted to add something about the angel-Her name’s Thana btw. Her wings don’t work at all and actually act as a burden to her since, due to their large size, they’re extremely heavy and, since they’ve basically died completely, they sort of just drag behind her when she walks. They’re constantly cause her bad pain and will occasionally twitch from time to time.
I’m honestly so genuinely proud of her entire vibe. One of her arms, from fingertips to just below the elbow, is completely skeletal, and she has these leg braces she wears to keep her upright in case one of her bones rots to the point of snapping while she works. Pretty much, whenever she begins causing something to rot, the same effect is thrown back at her. This is based somewhat in Biblical lore, so she’s been doing this for as long as things have decayed, meaning millions of years of this (Or thousands depending on if it’s viewed as subscribing to the earth being 6000 years old. It’s up for interpretation.) But either way, a long, long time. If I ever start posting, I might write and narrate a quick story about her sometime.
I love them both. 10/10. Funnily, my ideas also tend to resemble " Uhh.. missing/eye face scar" or " YES they're undead and you can see their ribcage/bones/jaw"
jesus christ, i got goosebumps reading those descriptions... I LOVE IT
@@robbietheweirdo I’m so so glad :D I love causing emotion based off of what I write :O I’m glad you like them
sooooo pal where can i read your writings?? blog? tumblr? this sound pretty lit
@@ScoundrelChestnut I don’t have anywhere for them right now, but I’ll probably make a Tumblr at one point or another. That is, if it ever becomes properly accessible to do so *Sigh*
I’m glad you like the concepts though. I have a lot of stories I’ve written in my time. Like I said, might start narrating them at one point
In the movie "Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight" the villains are mutants with physical characteristics very similar to those generated by my genetic disorder, and it was a horrible feeling that kept me from finishing the movie. Seeing someone like me show as a murderous, ruthless monster with the intellect of a rock is very uncomfortable. The idea that deformity, the lack of hegemonic beauty, not having a body as society expects, somehow represents a lack in humanity and moral qualities is a trope that really tires me.
All this talk of facial scars reminds me of Dr. Blight from Captain Planet. She had one side of her face horribly scarred, but usually had her hair covering it up. One episode had her learn about a species of frog that can regrow lost limbs, and start collecting every frog she could find in hopes of developing a cure. Except her attempt at that consists of putting frogs in a blender, spreading the frog puree on her face, then drinking it. Even as a child, I remember thinking "You're a scientist - you should know it doesn't work that way!"
I remember in a creative writing class I was told to make my characters easily recognizable. Among the ways to do this was to make them disabled. I really appreciate the perspective you bring here about the implications of those choices. It’s making for some really interesting explorations on my end.
Okay third comment: Jenks from the Wayfarer’s series is my favorite representation of dwarfism ever. He’s in a sci-fi space future, he could have his dwarfism modded out at anytime, but doesn’t, cuz his mom never believed in gene tweaking unless it was to vastly improve or save a life, and raised him to be confident. He’s a communications tech dating the ships NavAI, and has a bunch of sweet tattoos and is besties with their Mech. I like him even more than Tyrian. The book doesn’t ignore his short stature, but it makes it clear that he’s happy and able as long as he has the appropriate accommodations made for him.
Man. That "If you make your villian a minority and their motivation is because they are part of that minority" thing you said really hit hard. I mean, when we see it with something else, like race or gender, we see it as bad writing.
I’ve always found it a bit sad that an able-bodied person just assumed that they’d turn evil if they became disabled. Cuz that’s what I get from disabled evil characters. It’s the idea “you must be miserable because I’d be miserable” and I mean, it would be difficult to adjust (as all big life changes are) but you’d be able to be happy again, you know?
THIS! A zillion times this
In school, I was voted most likely to become a super-villain and I would really hate for my disabilities to steal the show if I conquered the world. Like, yes, I am disabled, but I was a radical scientist first
Honestly depends on the disability. In some cases I would never be happy again, mostly because of the things I like doing being not possible in certain cases.
Abel people usually wnatvto stay that way that there normal
@@theoryfoxes1879 bingo its never going to be equal to being able
As an aspiring writer, I want to do disabled characters justice both in the protagonistic and antagonistic role, want to make their disability part of their character without it being their whole character. So this channel is very helpful in getting a better understanding and advice on how to write such characters.
The video game 999 has this too. Without spoiling anything too much, the villain's motivations turn out to be solely based on an invisible disability of his. I won't say what it is to avoid spoilers unless someone asks me to, but I actually have the same condition, albeit a very minor version. When I watched the dramatic reveal scene I was like "WTF?! You're murdering children for THAT?!" I've honestly never even considered it a disability. It's such a non-issue for me.
Aren’t they rich? You’ve got to find something to fill the time when you aren’t swimming in your money.
Almost definitely never gonna play that game, so please, tell me what the motivation was
@@elenafriese891 could be wrong but I think the bad guy has face blindness, can’t tell faces apart.
@@SorowFame wait what?
(Err, apologies about previous reply, I mixed some things up)
@@elenafriese891 The main villain in 999 has prosopagnosia, and is using children, specifically sets of siblings, in unethical experiments involving life or death games to see if he can awaken them to what is... essentially psychic powers so he can harness them himself to 'cure' his disability.
I'd love to hear your thoughts about disabled rep in My Hero Academia (if you're aware of/into it). It's got a fair number of both characters who start the series as disabled and characters who become disabled over the course of the story, both heroes and villains, everything from chronic pain and psychological disorders to loss of body parts and repetitive strain injuries. Its self-described strongest hero and strongest villain are both disabled in pretty severe ways. I'd like to see if you think it's positive/overall good rep, or if it has some glaring flaws that its mostly able-bodied fanbase don't acknowledge.
As a (currently) able-bodied fandom regular myself, your content has taught me a lot, thank you!
Can u tell me some examples? I haven't watched mha in a while ...
@@xylothemagnificent420 Off the top of my head, All Might sustained an injury that made one of his lungs basically useless, and it was a major plot point that he couldn't use his powers for too long because he could lose them permanently (also he'd cough up blood whenever he exerted himself too much). Guess what happens in the third season. Even the protagonist, Izuku Midoriya, starts off with his initial lack of powers and the powers All Might gave him practically being disabilities due to his inability to control them without literally shattering his bones. The "strongest villain" Jay mentioned, All for One, is basically Darth Vader in terms of disability.
@@stormbix ooh yes! I remember thanks for refreshing my memory.
Also Deku strains his arms so badly using them again might cost him use of them at all, Aoyama's quirk leaks if he doesn't have an assistive device and quirks in general act as a way to make every character differently abled.
I think Twice also has a disability as well as Ectoplasm.
Twice is great because his mental instability is only a little part of his developed character and he remains loyal to his friends.
I don't want to spoil anything, but there are times in which the audience actually cares and roots for Twice as a character, even more than the heroes.
What I just hate is when like you said, the villain has legitimate grievances about how others have treated them and continue to treat people like them - which are ignored when the third act or second-to-last episode rolls around and it's time to hold the world hostage with a bomb or something.
Kinda curious about what you think about hordak from she-ra ?
He’s a “dark lord in life support” as you said but he’s not trying to cure him, he’s a failed clone that’s trying to prove himself, so what are your opinions on him ?
Hordak is also an interesting case study because not only is he solidly on the path to redemption by the finale, but there’s a much larger case of gaslighting and cult dynamics with Horde Prime who Hordak spends most of the series trying to prove himself to. It’s Horde Prime’s rejection of Hordak for his disability specifically that causes much of his self loathing. And once Hordak got better disability aids by Entrapta specifically tailoring ones for him instead of him absentmindedly fixing them when they broke, while he wasn’t doing good actions in the cosmic sense of things, he was more stable and less snippy because his pain levels were down and he could do things again. Plus there’s the fact that Hordak, while not great, is certainly less conformist with the Etherian Horde than Horde Prime is with the army/cult of clones, allowing different body types, species and abilities for all of his soldiers- he doesn’t enforce his trauma onto everyone else. The narrative around abuse and disability with Hordak and Horde Prime would be an excellent one to hear more thoughts on.
I would love to see a discussion about Hordak! Btw I've got the horde symbol tattooed on my ribs lol
the way Entrapta discusses the aids she’s giving him and corrects his language about his disability is genuinely so refreshing compared to the way other shows would handle it
@@benjisaac for real, in any other show she would have “cured” him or even fused him to his mobility aids to give him a cool new form but one that completely ignores his needs.
“Imperfection is beautiful” -Entrapta
I really felt what you said about short people. I hate our portrayal in media. We're not gnomes or hobbits, we're not court jesters, we're not freaks. We are not evil, or insane, or dumb, or angry at the world (and if we *are* angry, then rightfully so). We're not comic reliefs, we're not jokes. If a comic relief character is short and it's the only joke about them, then it is an awful joke. If a villain is short and it serves as a way to show how pathetic they are, then it's an awful way to establish that they're pathetic.
Yoda.
It’s also just- the assumption that, as disabled people, we spend ALL our time thinking about being disabled and being bitter about it.
In ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ it’s implied (or even directly stated, I can’t remember) that Mr Potter is evil because he’s upset about not being able-bodied. He hurts all of those people, not only out of greed, but because he wishes he was like them.
Very few people spend THAT much time fixating on the fact that they aren’t able bodied. And virtually no one uses it as a driving force for anger.
Can we also discuss how most of the "body horror" subgenre has very ableist over/undertones?
Or can we get a "haunted mental asylum" story where it's the ghost of the sadistic doctors and nurses that are evil and need to be feared and the ghosts of the patients are just trying to move on from the trauma that they endured/possibly caused their deaths?
"where it's the ghost of the sadistic doctors and nurses that are evil"
The modern "House on Haunted Hill" (with Famke Janssen) is this.
I feel that painting mental health workers as evil actually adds to the mental health stigma. It contributes to the image of psychological problems as some sort of weird otherworldly disturbing thing rather than normal issue that everyone can encounter in real life. If that makes sense. I guess that if someone insists on haunted asylum, it will be a better option (especially in historical settings to which it would be accurate), but not something I'd see as desirable.
@@chanterelle483 Yeah, that's what I meant. I know we've come a long way from having actual mental care facilities simply being dumping grounds for society's undesirables, but we have BARELY just moved passed that kind of trauma.
Hell, the N@zis were inspired the Eugenics program that began in the USA, and there is still a ton of shit that we need to fix in the system.
So, yeah, I would prefer for a horror movie in a haunted asylum to focus more on the barbaric treatments that so many people were subjected to, but I also want to it bring to light all of the modern day issues, as well.
@@RachelMWinship I don't think horror stories are a good way to heal this sort of trauma, for the reason I mentioned above. Also, it's actually quite a common trope already.
Id like to hear more about what you mean by body horror having ablelist undertones
I'm writing a story where the villain has a hearing disability, idk the name, but basically their hearing is very sensitive, they're an emperor so they modified their castle to accommodate to their disability, like soundproofing loud rooms such as the medbay or workshop, and specialized flooring and shoes to not make a lot of noise when walking. They're not evil because of their disability, but their disability does cause the main character trouble when sneaking around. Because if someone doesn't have the right shoes, their footsteps can still be heard, and the villain can find them. I'm saying this because... You can create disabled villain who's not evil BECAUSE of their disability, the villain can be evil for a different reason but still be disabled
That sounds like a great idea
The best example of disabled villains are from the How to Train Your Dragon series.
When there’s a disabled villain, he’s opposite a disabled protagonist. And they are both Amputees, so one is not more severe than the other.
And the 2 villains who have/receive severe facial scars are both redeemed and no longer villains by the show’s end
I really appreciate talks about this. Challenging the status quo should be integral, and that's both in the real world and in the fictional world.
Exactly.
Tbh the thing about Sherlock Holmes is that we have disabled heroes in Holmes and Watson. The terms for their neurodivergence didn't exist yet, but Holmes could very very easily be interpreted as autistic and/or ADHD (and probably other things I haven't looked into yet) and Watson has PTSD. Whether Watson's shoulder is injured or his leg, either way, he is also a physically disabled hero who deals with chronic pain.
That's why it's such a twist of the knife for the BBC version to cast aside Watson's cane and disregard his PTSD, to give the role of Holmes to Benadryl Cunterbitch, to destroy the bond between our two disabled heroes, to discard the kindness the detective showed so many times.
I personally interpret them as being queer, and many others do, but an undeniable part of the original canon is that Watson and Holmes are disabled. It's far from perfect, I will readily admit, but damn, it is a travesty that adaptations of Sherlock Holmes stories so often abandon that very important part of their characters. Watson is disabled, and he's also courageous and loyal. Holmes is disabled, and he's also intelligent and compassionate. Their disability is an intrinsic part of their characters, and it's rare in my experience for something so well known to have two disabled heroes as the main characters. And it especially stings knowing that such a prominent disabled hero is not allowed to be depicted as he is all because of copyright law and the Conan Doyle estate.
what I find additionally pretty sad, is your criticisms are basically good writing advice. What's the point of a villain if they aren't a new perspective on something? What does having them be disabled add if there's nothing/no one else to deepen that stuff? we need to make it standard, expected practice to budget plenty of funds to consultants on basically anything the lead writer(s) don't know about on their own, and maybe even doing so even if they DO know. if there ain't a consultant committee that discusses the writing choices or /something/, red flag.
Depends on the disability but if it's a scar or a limb missing it can easily be used to liven up character design, personally, I think Zuko's character design would be a lot less interesting without the scar.
@@lefishe6611 It's also worth mentioning that because of the backstory for Zuko's scar it kinda ends up being connected to his capacity to be a good, moral person and I think that's really fun.
While there are sadly far too many examples of this trope, the character Sal Fisher from the game "Sally Face" is a great example for good representation. Specifically for those who have a prosthetic face. Sal is also the protagonist of the game.
I think another exception to the rule might be Captain Long John Silver from Treasure Island and Moby Dick's capt. Ahab is problematic. I mean, Silver isn't despondent over his disability, he's jovial and clever and proves to be very charming. But Ahab is desperate for revenge because of disability and as a result is dealing with some emotional stress. Maybe neither are perfect, but they exist to serve a message. Maybe disability should ve used carefully when making statements in works of fiction! Like that statement on Kubo and the Two Strings. I never really thought about the movie that way, but it was insightful to understand the downside to that allegory.
Yeah, Silver is a really interesting case because his arm and eye give him so many tactical and functional advantages (leg, not so much, we saw how that went badly). The one time he seemed despondent about it was his response to what happened. "You give up a few things chasing a dream"
I don't see why that makes Ahab problematic. If someone was vengeful (and petty) enough, I'm sure they'd seek revenge on someone or something that cost them a limb. The contrast between him and Silver just shows that people can experience similar trauma and deal with it in very different ways.
@@SF-ow9ym Fair point, I just thought that Ahab is easily interpret as being problematic. But the man was clearly dealing with trauma and the loss of his leg would lead to that.
Reminds me of Sol Regen in the Dragon Prince. He was already a bastard of a character and his blinding only enhanced his already bad attitude. While Vildas, the blind pirate/ferryman was jolly before being blinded. His handicap did not impact his view on life.
@@kimeraclan3135
Hey! c: I think Ahab’s character is not about dealing with disability, rather dealing with his massive pride. In my opinion Ahab wouldn’t have cared about his missing limb, if he lost it in a fight, but then killed/punished his opponent. But he thinks he “lost” to the whale, and feels humiliated, because it got away from him - Moby Dick didn’t only take his leg, but a part of his pride too, and I think the latter was more painful to the captain. Not the exact quote, but Ahab once says that if the sun ever disrespects him, he would punch it. Someone from the crew points out that he physically cannot punch the sun, and then Ahab says, if the sun would be capable of disrespecting him, he would find a way to punch it. That's how prideful this man is. I think if something trivial happens to him (so nothing like losing a body part), like some drunk idiot vomits on him, he would be similarly furious, and still pursue revenge.
Yea, Ahab is problematic in the sense of he is not a good role model. Being prideful and confident is a cool thing, but when said pride becomes more important than one’s and others' lives, then there is a big problem.
(Sorry if there are any grammatical mistakes, I’m not a naitive English speaker.)
Hell yeah Silver is awesome in every incarnation I’ve seen
It is so gross to make nearly all disabled characters main villains, so little diversity or actual heroes and main characters with disabilities.
And as you said in the past, most of their reasons for being evil because of their disability.
That's not true at all. So many heroes are disabled it's not even funny.
@@duncangaming4165 Oh really? That's actually cool, can you give a couple examples and where they're from? I would love to know.
@@Zeno11Salazar Cyborg from Teen Titans has half of his body cybernetic after an accident. It's apart of his character but it's something he quickly realized he can live with. Barbara Gordon from Batman gets paralyzed in The Killing Joke and has to stop being Batgirl to become Oracle instead. She continues to be extremely useful to Batman, even while confined to a wheelchair, but not too overpowered, just very helpful. Jimmy Valmer and Timmy Burch are disabled in South Park but it's never really a big deal. There are episodes about it, sure, but all the other kids treat them as if they were normal, because they are. Walter Jr. in Breaking Bad has Cerebral-paulsy and he acts like a normal teen, even if he is one of the more morally correct characters compared to all the drug lords and killers.
Ryuji from Persona 5 has a bum leg and it's referenced many times as something he has to work with, but he's a hero. Duster from Mother 3 also has a bum leg and yet he proudly limps his way to saving the world alongside Lucas, Boney and Kumatora. Steven Universe has PTSD and he's still a hero, even if his condition can make him act irrational, like a lot of people with PTSD (including myself). Johnny Joestar from Steel Ball Run goes around the entire part unable to use his legs or feel anything below his spine, and yet he ends up one of the few survivors of the race, he kills the corrupt president and he beats his rival, and then afterwards dies protecting his family. John Marston has a heart condition that makes him unable to swim and although he's an outlaw, he dies protecting his family and ends up saving many people along his travels. Donatello from Rise of the TMNT is high functioning autistic and he's still a Ninja Turtle, as is Futaba Sakura from Persona 5, and she's an elite hacker who saves innocent lives.
Professor X from X-Men is wheelchair bound and can still read people's minds and is the leader of the group, Deadpool is horrifically scarred all over and still occasionally saves the day albeit very flamboyantly, Kabal from Mortal Kombat 9 joins the heroes after receiving third degree burns over his entire body and needing to breathe through a mask to survive and he's able to defeat many powerful villains before his death, Lester Crest from GTA V is technically a villain morally but he's on the protagonists side. He's the one who comes up with all of the plans, sets up heists and ends up saving the three main characters in the end. Lee Everett and Rick Grimes from The Walking Dead are both amputees who save lives and are extremely loyal until the bitter end, Clementine is also an amputee and Carl Grimes is missing an eye, but they do so much good too.
Need I go on? I can.
@@duncangaming4165 Oooo, I actually forgot about a lot of these characters and learned about some new ones. Thanks.
@@Zeno11Salazar Doctor Strange, Daredevil, War Machine, Thor (prosthetic eye), Moon Knight, Bucky Barnes, Echo, Hawkeye, and Iron Man
One of the reasons they do this is that back in ancient times societies would often brand and disfigure people who where criminals and the idea that beauty =good and ugly = bad has stuck with us
Unfortunately true. Keeping that myth alive strikes me as not high quality or interesting writing, though. Uncritically repeating what has been done thousands of times before is pretty boring IMO (thinking of James Bond movies especially).
Oh and that's why fictional characters in fictional worlds are disfigured? Because the creators get off to the idea that back in ancient times criminals were disfigured to show how disgusting disabled people are?
I reacently watched ”The amezing spiderman” for the frist time and noticed the trope of a disabled character trying to do anything to ”cure” disability with the villain in the movie
I am very glad I found your channel. I’m 14 and have been recently diagnosed as autistic, and while learning more about my neurodivergence I started realising how many of the characters I used to love and see myself in were all the stereotypical smarty villain character (with the only exception being like, Velma from Scooby Doo).
Neurodivergent characters are often really just portrayed as weird and outcast geniuses and it sickens me, not to mention the real lack of neurodivergent main characters, but I often feel like I don’t have the right to say anything about it since I got my diagnosis so recently and since people often labelled me as “high functioning” which to them equals to less autistic, and your videos really make me feel seen and validated. Thank you for producing this kind of content, I love your stuff
Man, I get that. High functioning does not mean less autistic, you just express a different part of the spectrum. I remember my mother tried to get me into special ed programs when I was little, but was told I was 'too smart' (or something along those lines.
Anyway, unrelated, but good luck with yourself. I wish I could tell you all the little lessons I've learned from being like this, but it would take too long and words are hard to put together anyway. Just learn to cherish the changes you get in life, good or bad, as they can all teach you something new. It's hard some days, but my life has always been one step forward, two steps back. Ya get used to it after a while.
@RobotBlue i dont understand anything you said there
@RobotBlue ah, so 'low support' means that they need low levels of support right?
doesnt really offend me though
@RobotBlue makes sense. how is 'high functioning' harmful though?
@RobotBlue makes sense i guess, but isn't the new system the same? instead of high functioning and low functioning we now have... high support and low support.
how did that change anything?
I'm actually creating a story where a protagonist is disabled and her story is about coming to terms with it. At the end she has the option to "reverse" the disability, but love wins and she decides that it's better to be disabled than parting with the life she built herself over the years.
I've got a villain with some acid burn scars on his face, but one of the love interests is actually the assistant he used as a meat shield when he got the scars. They took the brunt of the damage and since they're nowhere near as wealthy or affluent as him they got less advanced medical care after. They're much more noticeably scarred and the mask they usually wear to obscure most of the damage is a lot less advanced than the one the villain has, and it looks more "off-putting" to the average viewer. Almost the entire cast is neurodivergent, disabled, or has mental illness, including the protagonist, so there's also that. As usual, the important thing is to make sure there's actual representation and you aren't making a hateful caricature and calling it a day. Honestly even with purely positive representation it's better if a sizeable chunk of the cast is involved anyway.
Yes!! Alot of my oc’s have mental illness!, And alot of them a disabled too, And most of them are heroes!
Biggest gripe is how they try to make the characters ""more appealing to the eyes"" by minimizing their scars. (For an example, see Wonder"
So... have you heard of Upside-Down Magic? Short version: It's about magic learning disabilities. The first book is decent, but the Disney Channel movie is terrible, all because of how they approach that magic learning disability theme.
In the book, there's a program for people with learning disabilities, to help them learn how to live with said disabilities. In the film, not only is their "program" to NOT teach them how to use said magic at all, but stigmatizes the association of magic disability with magic sociopathy, even though in-universe that is incorrect. I would say "don't watch it," but then you wouldn't understand its problems.
The movie should not count or be acknowledged in any way. It is just plain awful.
Honestly I was just distracted by the fire mage education system in that movie (and also that the thing the filmmakers chose to make the _final exam_ in a movie with _magic_ was *making popcorn with your hands,)* but yeah. I probably should've been paying closer attention to the thematic stuff that the filmmakers obviously didn't.
And probably pull the book back off my shelf and read through it.
(But seriously, points for designing the classroom entirely out of concrete and stuff, but _who_ sets a room full of *people who can set buildings on fire with a stray thought* up for an academic nervous breakdown?
Of _course_ people started getting into dark magic crap out of desperation you eejits)
Like, sure, you _could_ argue it's supposed be a metaphor for school violence or something, but when you're talking about *fire powers* and they're the _only_ class remotely that stressful (the animal speaking was, like, "here's this cozy as heck looking garden gazebo, let's talk to a rabbit") that doesn't really hold much water.
My favorite trope has GOT to be disabilities showing the humanity in an individual, especially when said individual is the 'villain'. It's a shame it's so criminally underused.
How do you feel about Long John Silver from Disney's "Treasure Planet". While he is disabled and an antagonist, he also serves as a father figure to Jim and is crucial to the escape from the exploding planet. Without his help they all would have died and at the end he sails off to continue his adventure and search for treasure.
I genuinely wonder how the precedence for this prevalent trope came to be. I don’t get why people think a disability would turn someone villainous. Like is there anytime in history where that was a thing?
Probably just the idea of being downbad in some aspect of life, becoming embittered by it, boom, malice and villianous actions. Think Charles Muntz from Up. He is shamed for his reportedly failed hunt for that bird, he then sends himself back out into the wilderness alone with only himself and his dog army, giving him plenty of time to stew in his circumstances. This bitterness slowly drives him insane thus when he meets Carl and Russel and sees they have Kevin, he flies off the handle as all this brewing malice would entail.
It's born under assuming all disabled people just sit there stewing in their circumstances all their lives.
@@BlazingKhioneus I understand the way that a writer would take it, like imagining an affliction as a motivation to hurt others. I was just thinking about how on a historical scale I can't think of a historical evil figure who took his anger about having a disability out on people.
@@Nightman221k Ah, that's what you're asking. Maybe it comes back to nazi generals having dualing scars and was thus used to spawn the scar on face to signify evil trope, then other people expanded it to all disabilities? I really dont know
@@Nightman221k Firstly mate there aren't "evil figures" in history. They're just people, they're not different from us.
Anywho, in historical contexts disabilities that fuel atrocities are typically mental disabilities. Many violent dictators suffer from paranoia, narcissism, and sociopathy. Social disconnection and drug abuse can amplify these disabilities. Herakles (not a historical figure, but whatever) killed his family while suffering from PTSD (or a curse from a Greek Goddess, basically the same thing), Caligula was completely self-absorbed and disconnected from reality and would kill people on a whim out of boredom, and everyone's favourite dictator Hitler suffered from paranoia and schizophrenia which intensified over time. He was also hospitalised from disabling injuries from a mustard gas attack in WW1 (Which is why the Nazi's never employed gas on the frontlines) and has been considered a main motivator for his hatred of the French/British. I can't think of many famous examples of someone suffering from a physical disability taking their anger out on others, they typically commit suicide. I've known former soldiers who've become physically disabled and become violent and abusive from a sense of lost autonomy and purpose, but they typically sufferer from compounding mental disabilities such as depression and PTSD. And, as I mention earlier, they normally commit suicide. Having a physical disability can also lead to mental illnesses which can foster destructive behaviour. In reality, physical disabilities don't make people "evil", but mental disabilities can stem from physical disabilities that lead to destructive behaviour.
Aside from that, I'd assume the disabled villain trope stems from 3 points. Firstly, disabled people are typically considered unattractive. Just a natural selection thing, breed with a healthy person you should have healthy babies. Sorry, blame nature. Second, throughout most of human history disabilities (especially mental disabilities) were poorly understood. As I mentioned earlier, physical disabilities can lead to mental disabilities. So the former would be blamed, not the latter. Both physical and mental disabilities were also seen as signs of omens, curses, or the vengeance of angry gods. So disabilities became synonymous with bad things happening (in many cultures, they would be actively killed, such as the Witch Hunts of Medieval Europe or the euthanisation of mentally ill patients in Nazi Germany). Thirdly, I'd say American/British/Anglo culture is very elitist, especially in the mainstream. There is the expectation that main characters attractive and fit and typically "A cut above the rest". Disabled people aren't considered typically attractive, so disabled characters are regulated to side-characters or antagonists. Ugly characters are almost always made attractive in mainstream media. Hermione was a chubby, curly haired nerd in the Harry Potter books, she was made beautiful in the movies. Tyrion Lanister had half his face cut open and his nose cut off in the books, in the TV series he got a clean scar across his face. Sex sells, blame hollywood.
Hope you enjoy the info dump.
In a "tabletop rpg" group I am hosting, one of our main antagonists is disabled, he has a cybernetic arm and leg
But this is just because most characters in this setting and campaign are literally also disabled in some way
We have a guide character who is missing both legs, a party member npc who lost their arm recently, a nonverbal companion character, a blind companion character, etc
There is also a character with waardenburg syndrome, an albino character, a character with vitiligo, etc
Edit: in case anyone is curious, the antagonist is a bounty hunter that the players only recently found out had cybernetic limbs when wires and oil unexpectedly came out of a wound
He's been hunting a character (the one who lost their arm recently) who's blood is made of silver instead of iron
Did you already notice Oakwyrm's recent video about disability in DnD? Considering what you commented about, you may find it interesting.
For me personally a disabled villan is ok if their disability isn't the cause of their villany
It always seemed weird to me that villainous traits have so much overlap with traits that get you made fun of on the schoolground. Quiet, introverterted, intellectual and as you point out, disabled or disfigured in some way. And as you pointed out, being mistreated by society can be part of their motivation. What's so scary to most people about misfit loners? Would a society that mistreat people make a way more intimidating villain than a mistreated individual?
You're right! That's why we have the dystopia subgenre!
I wonder if the disabled "Villain" in my story is any better
He was driven by an ever worsening case of lung cancer the healers in his world could not fix (their magic only ACCELERATES natural regeneration, the thing you dont want with cancer) and dug up recently burried corpses for research into either figuring out how to transplant another ones lungs into his body or create a suitable replacement using artificing. One day he was caught digging up a grave and fled, beliving he was going to be hanged for graverobbing and desecration of corpses. Surprisingly his charge would have only been grave robbing, since the temple of life also performs autopsies to teach their healers medicin (like IRL doctors do too) and they never forbade the practise of autopsies but everyone just assumed it was illegal.
The "Villain" escaped and after some more grave robbing and performing autopsies he had a breakthrough, allowing him to construct a working magic mechanical lung, that has a bulky extrerior part to it. He didnt have anyone to help him implant it though and his time started to run out. Then the real BBEG showed up to him, saying that he would help him and also teach him the basics of the creation of Homunculi (in this world they are a type of slime that requires a scaffolding struckture like a skeleton to be able to hold shape) and he only wished to "Be his right hand and create more of his (homonculi) kind".
In reality the BBEG wanted to create an army of simple Homuculi and just needed a scapegoat to produce them for him.
at some point the protagonists figure this all out and take pity on him (the "Villain") and essentially put him into witness protection, cause alot of atrocities were commited in his name desptite him not knowing about it and people not wanting to consider the truth, only their own vengeance could be lethal to a brilliant but missguided mind.
Also one of the protagonists is FASCINATED by his lung prosthetic.
Yes, theres my transhumanism sneaking into the story...
Honestly that's a pretty interesting concept!
It does have a few issues imo, I don't think many people would be very cool with some random guy digging up grave sites to steal organs, lung cancer or not that's just extremely disrespectful of the dead and their families and the reason he got charged relatively light sounds more like a legal loophole, the villain himself recognizing that he's desecrating corpses. I have no idea why the protagonists would be so protective of him, he wasn't responsible for the BBEG's homunculi but that's not the only thing he's done.
The second thing is more of a logical disconnect, the healers of your story seem to have magical and semi-modern medical knowledge via healing magic and autopsies and considering that the villain knows he has lung cancer and the idea of lung transplants is a thing, why wouldn't he or the healers look into that? Or at least they could research transplant procedures since they study medicine via non-magical means? The time spent digging up people's graves and autopsying them could have been spent looking into legitimate medical procedures to further medical science and help out more than one dude. Plus, you bring up Transhumanism, which usually implies advanced technology, making the lack of medical science make even less sense.
Considering that the villain is considered brilliant and has knowledge of how to perform autopsies, I figure he's a healer or doctor himself- but due to the holes I've pointed out, he's either secretly a weird grave robbing idiot or the healers of your story are incredibly negligent or UNWILLING to help the villain- which could be a great plot point, but with the BBEG it seems that's it's not a very large part of the story, rather a backstory, and I feel that's a wasted opportunity if you want to make this villain sympathetic.
Again, your concept is genuinely interesting, I particularly like that their healing magic is actually harmful when it comes to cancer, that's an EXCELLENT balance to a magic system and the fact that it lines up to how cancer actually works is a fantastic detail. Seeing as this is a RUclips comment, I doubt all your story notes are out here, but from what I can glean, I'd definitely clarify the setting when it comes to the medical aspects of the villains' disease and adjust the villain's story a bit.
Some suggestions;
To keep the villain as morally questionable as he already is is:
Make the protagonists morally grey/questionable themselves or have similar experiences, a ragtag group of morally questionable people is a scenario I've seen and it can work and make more sense as to why the protags would be so accepting of the villain.
To make the villain more sympathetic:
Adjust the healers, making them negligent and/or unwilling to help the villain is a legitimate reason for the villain to be vengeful, I'd emphasize that the grave digging was more out of desperation rather than just his method of getting a new lung, this could also be used to set up a conflict between the villain and the protags, since grave robbing and desecrating cadavers is kind of super weird and disrespectful, but if they learn why he did it and it was more of a desperate move, that'll make it a lot easier to swallow and could really contextualize that the BBEG manipulated someone in an extremely dire position.
All in all, very nice concept! Just could use more refining.
@@pinkwafers2157 so far i had the idea that the healers use corpses to practise their medicine, procedures that also existed in old rome/medival time/early renaissance but do not understand yet how to safely transplant organs yet. No one but the healers know that the healers perform these autopsies and the loophole was intentionally placed there for their protection.
The villain himself was NOT a healer or doctor and did a botch job with his early autopsies till he learned from failures.
dont know if i addressed all points but my "TL;DR" is that the healers refused to help him cause they dont know HOW to help him, they know how to heal a stabwound or treat an infection but not how to heal something that gets worse from healing. And the "Villain" misstook that as them refusing to help him cause of his neurotic and obsessiv nature (traits i actually like but i know that can be very abrasiv to others).
the party can symaphise with him also cause one of them is a necromancer, who specialises into communication with the dead and giving deceased a second chance (no full resurections here, only coming back as an undead) and who can see the moral dilemma.
@@pinkwafers2157
ADDENDUM:
What if the healing magic does not properly heal transplants since they are technically from 2 different beings? discouraging the use of transplants due to compability issues with standart medicin/healing practise?
@@firebladeentertainment5739
Ohhh that definitely makes more sense, honestly I was very uncertain about what time period you were going for, the transhumanism and mechanical lung threw me off a little i think haha
(i got the impression of an iron lung or something similar, so I thought it would be a little closer to the 1990's)
I think your addendum is good too, in addition to the limited medical knowledge of those times, that is definitely a valid reason why they wouldn't want to risk it with transplants, I'd emphasize that it was more of the villains interperetation of their rejection.
The necromancer protag definitely helps me understand why they took to him a bit better, though I still think it may be a good idea to push the grave robbing as a more desperate act. I feel grave robbing doesn't _quite_ align with the necromancers morals on giving the dead a second chance as he's just autopsying them and i assume putting them back, meaning he didn't really do anything for the dead- only desecrating them for a fix for himself.
Plus it would make the BBEG's misguidance of him a bit more sinister, making the villain more sympathetic and making the BBEG a little more of a BBEG.
(On that note, emphasizing the villains neuroticism, and thus emphasizing the fact that he doesn't think like your average guy would also make his actions a bit easier to understand, and making the BBEG more aware of this would highlight the more manipulative aspects of the BBEG.)
Overall you actually hit a lot of my points, thank you for giving me more context!
@@pinkwafers2157 No problem, it was good to hear some feedback on it, which is mostly some backstory/worldbuilding lore that will be told to the viewer cause it happend in the past of the story, before the written story even began
I like how you thought to adjust the size of the eyes in the picture, just as they would appear with the correcting glasses in front of them! It's such a small thing and easy to miss, so I find it very cool when it's not forgotten
Portrayal, yes, spelled and used correctly. An instance of someone being portrayed, such as in a portrait :3
English is a hilariously terrible language, but I love it anyway.
I know someone who kept noticing how far Brandon was going to make sure Rysn could stay a disabled character.
@@captaincanterberrystudios6920
Indeed! When the magic of the universe allows you to regrow lost limbs or cure your bad eyesight, then not healing a disability is definitelly a conscious choice.
I don't like all his portrayals of minority groups, but overall I think he does good work.
@Woodledude Thank you for the clarification. I always love to learn and to improve =)
This is why I stan professor Xavier from the X-men. He's a full-on hero, a mentor to the mutants and a caring authority figure, and the fact that he's on a wheelchair rarely even comes up. The X-men comics have their problems, but when they do things right, they do them very right.
One of my favorite things about Red Hood is the extreme scarring he has from his death and autopsy.
For those who don’t know, Red Hood was Batman’s sidekick, Robin, until he was killed, and then later brought back to life. He has a villain arc, during which he wears a menacing mask.
In all the sexy shirtless panels that Jason has, and any shots of him naked otherwise, his burned back and his y-shaped autopsy scar are both visible. They do not detract from his attractiveness, his heroics, or his character. They complete it.
Coming back to this with a little more time to sit on Amphibia's ending, they actually do give their heroes their fair share of more severe scars, though typically in places the staff won't have to animate differently very often (Sasha's back, Marcy's matched pair of scars from the events of True Colours, Grime's arm.) and it's been cool to see fanartists include those when drawing outfits which would naturally show those scars.
I would've liked to see a few more on Anne to complete the set though. (Like some fanartists who added a streak of premature silver hair because that's a thing intense childhood stress can do.)
I think there is a place for disabled villains, but only in cases where they aren't pitied or seen as less because of their disabilities. Look at Gazelle from Kingsman or Donald Pierce from Logan. Both are missing limbs (Gazelle her legs and Donald his arm), but they are almost portrayed as being MORE than the people around them thanks to their prosthetics that give them an advantage in one way or another.
I think this misses the point a bit. Villains need to be capable to pose a threat but if your villains are in some way disabled and your protagonists aren't, it still communicates this harmful trope of "broken people lashing out at the world" and that is harmful in and of itself. Especially in Kingsman, where the main villain's quirky behaviour is just this caricature of neurodivergence in the "mad genius" trope, which has it's own issues with sanism.
Basically, it doesn't make it better if the disabled villains are strong. It only makes it better if you have equal representation on both sides, or if disability ends up being incidental to villainy and not the villain's defining characteristic.
@@Rupert3434 Thank you, well put!
Trebol from One Piece also falls into the category.
I’m one of the few people who loves him.
If we wanna consider Donnie disabled how far does that go with regards to characters who purposely replace body parts with prosthetics for an advantage in some form. I mean I wouldn’t call Adam Smasher disabled
"The villain is the only (relevantly) disabled character and their reason for villainy is directly tied to their disability" is the exact problem I had with She-Ra and Hordak. Like, sure, Spinnerella is revealed to have a lasting ankle injury while she's mind controlled by Prime that doesn't come up at any other point, and there are a couple of one-off characters in the last season, but Hordak's chronic pain and breathing problems 1) are the reason he's considered "imperfect" and directly tied to his villainous motivation, and 2) become less prominent in his life as his redemption arc kicks in, to the point that by the time he's not the main villain anymore they've stopped coming up. And don't even get me started on Scorpia and Entrapta's treatment wrt their autism... I've already talked about this a lot I shouldn't get into it again
I love Entrapta and Hordak, and how their disability is used to humanize them, and its also shown how the ableds treatment of them forced them into villany, not that they are bad because of their disability... but its very visibly still a show written by and for neurotypical abled people, and that they only disabled people are villains and how they are often mocked for their disability shows this.
@RobotBlue the redemption that’s literally signified in the narrative by him getting cured? That redemption?? The precise one I was complaining about???
@@coreDesignix Oh god yeah, I was so pissed that they, instead of exploring how his disability might affect him back in the galactic Horde, just completely brushed it aside. Peak ableism and carelessness. I mean thanks to them not caring about him at all and only using him and every single other character as backdrop for making Catra look good it is kinda up to the viewer if he is still disabled and Horde Prime just drugged him up to go over his bodies limits, but its still not a good look at all. And then Stevenson being so damn holier-than-thou at how amazingly progressive he is, but then doing absolutely nothing as the fandom harasses Entrapdak fans and even riling them up...
I relate a lot to both Entrapta and Hordak, and there are good parts in their narrative beside them being villains (which in itself does not bother me that much, but then, I always was a villain fan), but season 5 really ruined a lot of the good things
Colonel Miles Quaritch from Avatar might be one-dimensional, but he’s the only one I’ve seen so far with a ‘hero’ facial scarring, because it’s on his tempia and cheekbone, leaving his face ‘clean’ (even his ear isn’t torn), and it’s a cool set of scratch marks like those of a grandpa character who’d tell his grandkids how he got them while fighting a bear. As far as I remember, the scar is never brought up as an insecurity, no one says it’s ‘monstrous’, it’s not even awknowleged, it’s just a physical trait.
He is conventionally attractive / handsome despite the scar, so I agree, it's definitely a 'hero' scar, even though the character turns out to be suspect -> antagonist -> villain (and the foreshadowing for that starts pretty early IIRC)
Hey Oakwyrm! I was wondering if you have talked/could talk about the possibly negative disability rep in Toy Story 4? (One of the characters, Gabby Gabby, doesn't have a functional voice box -- her disability, so she tries to steal Woody's voice box to "fix" herself to attract the attention of a kid that she likes so she can finally be played with, which could be potentially problematic if you just remove the cartoony atmosphere)
I’d like to give a shout out to Dr. Doom as a great example of a villain with a facial difference. He grows up valuing his own appearance over all else, and then loses his mind when he gets a scar on his face, using it as an excuse to commit serious war crimes. He is the primary villain against the Fantastic Four, and it perfectly fits against the Thing, who has a hard, rock-like body, and has to learn to love it.
The contrast between a vain, self-obsessed villain with facial scarring and a kind, selfless hero with severe full-body differences is wonderful to see. I really hope it’s executed well when the F4 come to the MCU.
Freaks, a old movie was a response to this, where the vilains were able bodied and the other non evil characters were disable, except one
what is the problem with making your character, losing his hands and then switching it with robot arms and then making a scheme to commit genocide. that is fun to watch and he looks cool
I’ve got nothing against disabled villains and sometimes even admire their use of disability as a metaphor BUT and it’s huge but this should only be in the context of the world or work with disabilities exist all over the spectrum. An example I like the cite is rogue one. Darth Vader aside there are arguably three disabled characters.
Saw Gerera is the most morally ambiguous is a wonderful piece of in universal symbolism. His left me has lead him down a very dark road, and the prosthetics he has to use for making him resemble Darth Vader who had a similar trajectory. As an audience we can immediately infer this is someone who is falling into villainy.
K2SO4 is a bit more debatable but could be argued to be a character with a brain damage.
Their eccentricity is a source of light relief but ultimately they are portrayed sympathetically and heroically.
Chirrut Falls into disability superpowers a little, but it is clear that he still has difficulties caused by his blindness and is probably the most inarguably heroic character in the movie.
It does a lot better than the other movies.
4:19 I do not remember the dates involved but there are stories of ancient Chinese emperors that tried to achieve immortality with elixirs usually contains mercury
As someone with quite an ugly, foot-long surgical scar, it always bothered me how even when the heroes *did* get scars, at most it was just a nick or a cheek wound that would “make them more handsome” while only the antagonists got the massive scars. Like, no!! Give me a kind, strong hero whose face looks like someone took a meat cleaver to it! I want the heroes to have ugly scars, too.
(Hence why I made a hero whose face essentially got destroyed when he was mauled by a wild dog. He lost an eye and a good third of his face is gnarly web-like scar tissue.)
Same irritatation. My kind and overall awesome husband has an about 30 cm (one foot) long scar mid-body after extensive cancer surgery 27 years ago. I have never observed anyone like him in any media and it makes me mad.
@@ronjaj.addams-ramstedt1023 I know, right? It would be so nice for the heroes to not look conventionally attractive all the time. Just seeing that only the villains can have massive scars can also make people with similar scars feel insecure.
Also I hope your husband is doing well! Glad that I learned I have another scar buddy!
Zuko is a villain, in the beginning of ATLA. And his being a villain is related to his disability.
Not even close. His scarring is a result of how much a villain his father is and no, it does not motivate him. And "villain", well. That is a philosophical question. Antagonist, sure. Villain? Debatable.
Maybe pay attention next time.
The intersting part about Darth Vader is that he is a fusion of two seperate characters from earlier drafts of Star Wars, the main hero's father Kane, who is mostly a cyborg and sacrifies his life so his sons can escape, and the villian Darth Vader who wears a space suit during his introduction fight. Lucas liked McQuarries design for Vader's space suit so much, he decided to make the armor a central part of the character, and thus the space suit became a life support system.
Due to the fact Kane was a heroic and good character, the one movie (RotJ) where Vader's disability does effect how the story plays out (him dying shortly after Palpatine's Force lightening damages his suit) is also the movie in which Vader is an Anti Hero rather than a villian.
As a writer, I found this to be a fascinating discussion, because I've observed that the most convincing villains are those driven by a character flaw, rather than a physical factor. While disabilities are certainly a factor in peoples' lives, we all have the freedom to choose how we respond to our circumstances, and movies don't do anyone a service when they imply that villainy is the natural response to disability or any other factor. Humans have free will, we have a choice!
Well... Vader isn't a disabled villain, he's a villain who is also disabled. By the time he suffered his disabilities (disregarding the earlier loss of a hand because, as you have pointed out, it really isn't that severe of a disability in a world where prosthetics are so perfect that they could essentially just be considered a cosmetic change over the original limb), by the time he was mutilated by his best friend and father figure and suffered extreme burns, he already was a villain. And whilst he certainly wasn't happy to be wearing that suit, it really didn't factor into his character motivations.
He wakes up after nearly being burnt to a crisp and his first concern isn't figuring out what the hell happened to him, it's what the hell happened to his wife, and it ends up being her death (and the fact that he caused it) that really breaks him to the point where he spends roughly two decades as an unquestioning, mercyless executor for the man who ruined his life. The disabilities are something that Darth Vader probably would have been able to come to terms with, but there was no way for Anakin Skywalker to cope with Padmé's death.
Vader is also unique in that we actually see how he became disabled in the first place.
I’ve actually seen this trope subverted really well before where the “disabled mastermind” isn’t actually disabled at all and was faking it which makes them really hatable.
first of all: great video!
second of all: I really like the drawing you did while you were talking!
Ok but vader is "disabled" due to fighting AFTER he turned evil (well, save for his one hand he lost to the count in ep 2). Hes a half insane space wizard who fights with a laser sword constantly in 2 different wars. Its hardly a knock against the disabled and more "someone in this situation, doing these things, is bound to lose bits"
I was in the navy for 6 years, doing construction (seabees) on quite a few projects, and even with no exposure to actual combat, we had people lose bits just to the WORK. I myself have a scar on my lower neck due to a piston, well, exploding. Some lives just get exposed to situations where you are going to get some chunks torn out of you, and sense most villain characters are naturally written to be attached to warfare/ dangerous professions, it makes sense that allot of them are scarred in some way.
Also, allot of classic villain's from the past half century in cinema are direct parallels to the nazis, many of which had dueling scars due to prussian cultural norms. So the made up characters share those scars.
I wonder what your opinion about the film Freaks is.
Your comment about the Hayes Code reminded me about its existence. ColdCrashPictures did a video on it about how the film seams to portray the disfigured and disabled people as monsters, but at the same time the true villain of the film is the able bodied beautiful woman trying to con them out of money. In his video he even goes over the history of nondisabled actors portraying disabled characters and how Freaks hired actual disable actors... and how they were discriminated against on set.
Jhon Silver from Return to Treasure Island is missing a leg yet he’s such a great villain
Loved every point made in this video but there's something else I wanted to point out. The glasses in your art actually cause distortion and make the eyes look smaller! As someone who has had to wear glasses since first grade I rarely see anyone do that! Usually, they just slap a pair of frames of the subject's face and call it a day. It really made me so happy to see you take the time to add such a minor detail to your art!
Wait, no one actually thinks a villains disability is part of what makes them evil... Right?
6:00 Regarding how Alastor Moody and Zuko are the exception, not the rule, when it comes heroes with severe facial scaring...
Isn't it a bit curious that both examples were kind of villanous when they were first introduced?
The fact villains have more severe disabilities or more particularly, facial scars from a movie standpoint is to make them more scary. Because yes, a large amount of scars can be quite intimidating. Missing half a jaw is horrifying. And overall it gives character development more interest because the villains are likely going to cut corners to get where they want even if it risks parts of themselves. The heroes however are
Accidentally posted to early. As I was saying, the heroes however are going to have more caution early on and likely no severe damage. It’s to reach and connect with the majority audience. Just because villains tend to more often be disabled doesn’t mean it has to be viewed as a bad thing. It’s merely a character design to add to them. Sometimes the reasoning is stupid. And yes I do think that heroes should take more damage when they are in brutal fights. But over all I find the disabled villains very intriguing. How did they get those scars?
I don't mind disabled villain. I mean disabled people aren't saints and can do bad. The problem here is how they portray the disability as scary and evil or a representation of evil. But whats worse is where they make all the heros not disabled but the villians disabled
What could be interesting though only if it was very carefully done would be a story where the villain works to invert the direction of oppression but ONLY and I repeat ONLY if at the end things are made far more equal by the heroes
I never realized until I came across your channel how many disabled characters are in my stories. Your videos have made me consider not only the role they serve as characters but the importance of how their disabilities are shown. Thank you always for the amazing content!
I'm currently writing a story. It's in the draft process right now and I'd love some feedback involving a plot point about disabled characters.
The villain of the story lost their vision in one eye and got a facial scar when they were younger and was bitter about it for years until they came across a magical method that 'fixed' him. When he meets the story's hero, a wheelchair user who lost his ability to walk in an accident similar to what the villain went through, we're treated to the "we're not so different you and I, join me" speech. Except the villain is entirely floored by the hero's unflinching refusal to join him in exchange for 'fixing' him. The hero said no so fast, he didn't even need to think about it. The villain, in more ways than one, cannot move on with his life when something doesn't goes his way and he cannot comprehend the hero, someone he's mistakenly pegged as being just like him, would be able to either. But he's wrong. The hero has moved on with their life after the accident. They've accepted themselves the way they are and some good things have come into his life since then.
This part is believable and realistic, please don't change it: the villain's inability to understand or even imagine that the hero's personal values and life goals are clearly different from his own.
To verify the realism* we only need to scroll any comment section that has over 100 comments, on RUclips or elsewhere, and we will find a few comments that apparently start from this premise: "I am human, therefore all humans think and feel just like me (or are striving towards that). If they claim anything else they are lying / white knighting / virtue signaling, or mentally defective (naive / simple), deluding themselves or brainwashed."
I like this plot point as a whole, especially as the disabilities of the two characters are different. Diversity in disability representation is cool!
* I do _not_ recommend my way of verifying this in meatspace: I married someone who turned out to be like this when our kids hit their preteens and developed their own ideas. Divorced him of course, but especially the late stages of that marriage were not a pleasant experience for anyone involved.
@@ronjaj.addams-ramstedt1023 thanks for the feedback
My question is, I get the tropes of the disabled villain being problematic, is there space for a disabled villain who's disability has nothing to with his villainy? Like he just is disabled? Like Vader? Like, I'm wondering about how to do disabled characters who aren't heroic or even morally good, because without that we risk disabled characters being turned into flat paragons or role models.
When you brought up Vader, I was reminded of the Emperor, and that made me think: Do you have any thoughts on ageism and how it's connected to ableism and disability?
The Emperor, especially in the the Rise of Skywalker, the Judge in Nothing But Trouble, Redmond and Bluford from Team Fortress 2, the Vulture from the comics, among many others, present the parasitic elderly, greedily holding on to life, often at the expense of others. Their physical decreptitude is presented as a sign of moral decay. And that's when they're presented as active agents, rather than vaguely sympathetic lumps.
@THAT Guy
couldnt you technically add belos to that list?
and that whole is whole gets over shadowed by the mentors tropes...
At first, I was a bit taken a back with the title of the video ; "Why would you want to get rid of representation?", but I figured out : Hey, I want to hear that opinion out!
And that was one of the best things I have done today!
I am so glad I clicked on this because you opened my eyes on a subject I was totally boind to, and you are absolutely right in every point you maked.
Thank you, for opening my and so many other's eyes!
God bless you. Amen.
I feel it can be valuable to point out that a lot of media getting consumed are action flicks of some sort or other, particularly ones with clear-set good and bad guy. Since story follows actions of the good guy, they are expected to perform feats of athletics, acrobatics, fighting capability on screen, often in different circumstances, and thus, many disabilities are excluded from that paradigm. There is fantasy and sci-fi ways to enable that, but, I honestly do not see Avatar being brought up as stellar representation much. Also, as one can easily guess, writers often try to be relatable to broadest common denominator, and disabled persons do not fit into that.
I really wish for more "impactfully" disabled protagonists (so it is not like with Luke Skywalker having a fleshy coating and a glove on prosthetic that we almost never see requiring any adjustement or anything like that) in "body-focused" media, but I also wish that disabled protagonists would get their deserved coverage in things that are not based on having a body capable of jumping off cliffs and fighting goons on a rickety bridge. It is kind of inane that, even when that wouldn't be a requirement, writers can't bother properly writing things beyond "a societally-default dude", and without making the disabled person a jerk anyway because... why, really?
Not directly related to the topic because I have nothing unique to contribute to it, but i wanted to say that it's a joy to watch your speedpaints! You've got extraordinarily clean and controlled lines that I honestly envy. This character's design is really nice too! My favourite part is their hair, it looks very good and seems like it would have been really fun to draw! Usually with media discussions I do my own thing and listen in the background because my hands like to be active when I'm listening to audio, helps me focus, but your speedpaints are engaging enough for me to pause whatever else I'm doing to give them my full attention
Also, props to you for working to educate and inform people! Even being disabled myself there are tropes out there that either I hadn't noticed, or hadn't thought to question. And with subjects I did already have an awareness of I've found it really refreshing to hear media being discussed from the perspective of another disabled person!
In short: you're doing excellent work, thank you :]
Doctor Who is also a heavy user of the disabled villian trope, at least in the old series. Off the top of my head the villian from The Sunmakers is slime… but in human form he has to use a mechanical chair, Morbius (the TIMELORD) who is replacing his body by killing others and his side kick who is missing of his arms, evil Brigadier from Inferno having facial scaring, etc etc. Those are just one off things, but one of the most famous Doctor Who villains Davros also falls (crashes) into this trope, and technically both the 2 most famous Doctor Who monsters, the Daleks (the Dalek outer body is used to support and help protect the soft squishy Dalek inside it, and The Cybermen are basically the question what if people replaced their bodies with extra parts.
Oh gosh, I just watched clips of a classic doctor who villain where the guy main motivation is being pissed his he has to keep his body constantly cold and wanting revenge on his race for it. I’m not sure the implications of new who characterizing all the master incarnations of being generically crazy bode well either….
I'm so glad I found your channel! It's so educational.
I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on Disney's portrayal of Quasimodo in the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Makes me think of one of the stories from Earthsea, from Ursula K. Le Guin, where Tenar decides to take care of a child that was thrown by her own parents and relatives in the fire, and has lost one eye, and most of a hand, and has scarring on all that side of her body, and is more difficult for her to talk and play...in the book, Tenar calls her Terru (that means "Fire"), and loves her a lot, even if the child is seen as something evil, "because no one would do such thing to a good child", and she still tries to hide her, and to imagine her as if her face was whole and smooth...the child grows as very timid...but then, she is a dragon, the last human that can change her shape to that of a dragon and back. She has incredible powers, and even if she is too shy to show them, in the end she will be fundamental to save the world, in a sense...but her dragon form is whole...I interpreted it as a kind of death and rebirth thing, but now I'm not so sure anymore...
This is one big problem I've seen in Mad Max: Fury Road (a movie I like a lot otherwise) - technically both the villains and two of the heroes are disabled in a way that alters their physical appearance, but only the villains are portrayed as particularly "abnormal" (or harder to ignore as visibly disabled), while Furiosa and Nux are far easier to ignore if you just take a glance at them
The other side of the coin, if a hero is disfigured (V for Vendetta) or disabled (House MD) make disabled/autistic people unrelenting assholes to the point everyone avoids them.
I think the only exception is Entrapta from She-Ra, who is kind from the get-go, just never given a chance by everyone else.
Wouldn’t call Entrapta kind at the beginning. She could care less about the people around her. She focused on her own wants to the point of negligence. But she was never malicious. I loved her relationship with Hordak.
@@dragletsofmakara1120 Well, yeah. To clarify, I think they make people on the spectrum seem incapable of kindness or at least trying. At the end of her intro episode, she showers the group with things she likes in an attempt to make them comfortable (tiny snacks, showing off her robots and equipment).
@@dragletsofmakara1120 Apart from that one bit where she wants to experiment on Adora she actually is kind and caring, she just isn't in the same way the neurotypicals around her
What do you all think of fullmetal alchemist? I think they avoid this trope for the most part, since while Edward can still be a bit of an asshole sometimes (like with Rose in the beginning) it feels more like "realistic edgy teenager" than anything else. Plus a big part of the motivation for his actions is because he cares about other people.
@@jequirity1 True! I forgot about Ed!
Are there any good examples of "The villain is a terrifying unstoppable overlord, except when we see the parts of how their disability affects their lives; in those moments, some vulnerability and humanity can be seen."? If not, I think there should be, 'cause then it would be like their disability is disconnected from their villainy, or it even disconnects the character themself from their villainy for a moment.
Good point!
Vader. Literally everytime he’s not killing imperial officers he’s crying in a bacta tank because his life sucks after he murdered his wife and was out into a leather suit with burns all over his body
FINALLY SOMEONE'S TALKING ABOUT THIS! I'm not disabled myself but I've I can't express the ridiculous amount of times I've seen a villain on a wheelchair. It's ridiculous