What I like about toph is that even tho her seismic sense acts as a replacement for her sight it's still a disability to a certain extent. For example she can't see airborne enemies and there was the arc where she had to adapt to fighting in the desert
Exactly! Toph still faces boundaries but finds adaptive ways to work around .She also relies on friends to describe .As a legally blind person I found it nice to see a stubborn blind character need help but still be independent.She is far from helpless but needs help.
Yeah cause the seismic sense kinda just gives her a sense of what’s around her. Some details don’t really carry over like how she mentions she doesn’t really know what Katara’s face looks like and she can’t read and other stuff like that.
What I like about Toph is that though her seismic sense does compensate for her blindness and even allows her to "see" far more, the writers don't forget the fact that she is blind, her eyes don't work. Toph can't read and write and doesn't have a way to compensate for this beyond asking for help. She has to adjust or rely on others when not in a solid earth environment. And she has no idea what people look like. Toph herself makes jokes about it when her friends forget for a moment that she can't see the way they do. Her blindness is compensated for by her ability, but it's still a part of her character without being the constant focus of her character
And it's not cannonically exclusive to her, she passes down her technique in Korra. So it's more her personal accomplishment/discovery than blind = superpowered. Also there are real world parallels to this through procedures that "restore" hearing and sight but not really because you can't restore what never existed so you end up with something a bit different than what other people experience. Like those hearing implants I can't spell the name of but kinda has the deaf community pissed rn, except for toph its actually more functional and less dangerous 😅
Yeah, her seismic sense may compensate some but we still see she has limits and that’s not portrayed in a shameful light. And I really like what they did with Toph but it’s also the time Toph was created I hope in the future we see more disabled characters whose strengths aren’t always related to coping with or thriving in spite of their disability. I hope we see more autistic characters without savant skills but I also hope when we do see autistic savants it will be noted that sometimes those strengths come because of a disability not in spite of it that something disabling in one way could be an advantage in another. I hope we see more blind characters without skills related to knowing where they are in space with their surroundings, I hope we see more heroes coping with a mental illness as they go, the actual struggles of having prosthetics, super heroes who need to take their meds and aren’t regarded as less strong because of it, I think Toph is great especially for the earlier 2000s but I hope we get to see more characters who are further away from that trope in the future.
@@lavenderpixel9092 I think the MCU has taken a few steps in that direction. We see some characters dealing with mental health: Tony Stark finding coping mechanism for his PTSD. Bucky Barnes working through guilt and trauma to accept that what was done to him wasn't his fault. Thor learning that he is still worthy despite all his loss and the feeling that he failed everyone. We see Rhodey paralyzed in the line of duty and needing an artificial brace to walk when not in his armor. There's a scene where his armor is damaged in battle so he gets out of it and pulls himself across the floor without the use of his legs to save Rocket's life. We see Dr. Strange still with his hands shaking from nerve damage that he could compensate for with magic but doesn't because he recognizes that this is just a part of him now and he has other things to offer besides the surgical skills that he's lost. We see Clint Barton/Hawkeye having to adjust to accumulative hearing loss, using a hearing aid and learning sign language with his youngest son (in the most adorable scene ever). And also Maya who is both deaf and an amputee, and completely badass with no superpowers.
One detail I've noticed with Toph is that she often doesn't face the ppl she's focused on. She is usually standing 90 degrees or has a turned head with the person she's focused on or listening to. This is a detail unique to Toph.
@@Gingersnaps_the_pumpkin_kitty Yeah, it’s never outright stated, but seismic sense seems to be a power a lot if not most master earth-benders have and not something Toph invented. (Unlike say metal bending.)
One thing i love about how toph was depicted is that she learned her seismic sense ability from badgermoles. Since they are all blind, she was seen (no pun intended) as normal by them, and her disability isnt rlly a problem. It only becomes a problem when ppl like her parents treat her like she is helpless, or she's in an environment where she can't use her seismic sense. So basically the real problem is other ppl and places that arent accessable, as apposed to her blindness itself. I also like how her blindness is joked about a lot, but not in an insensitive or offensive way.
Well usually it’s not insensitive. But that one time when Katara and Toph were still getting used to each other katara said something along the lines of “the stars sure are beautiful tonight to bad you can’t see them Toph” but well it’s obvious that Katara is wrong for saying that so it’s still fine
That’s an example of the social model of disability (which is the academic standard). She’s not disabled in the context of the mole badger society, but she is in the human society. This was popularized due to Martha’s Vineyard a long time ago. A huge percentage of MV were deaf and an even larger percentage could sign. So being deaf didn’t impact them in the same way as on the mainland and they could navigate society without too many barriers. This (and other examples) made scholars stop and think, “these individuals have an impairment for sure, but are they disabled?” And in my opinion the answer is a resounding, no, they weren’t. Now that is idealized and MV wasn’t as picturesque as described, but it gets the idea across.
I love Toph, because she embodies the resourcefulness of disabled and neurodivergent people have to develop to the fullest extent. Her different perspective and resourcefulness even gave her access to a new ability no one had ever realized was possible with metalbending.
Exactly. This isn't a blind = superpower as much as it took a new perspective to make that discovery, hence why later non-blind characters also use it. She innovated in her field thanks to her own resourcefulness and insights like so many other minorities have irl even outside of disabled people. From braile to sonar to ac's to blood storage bags to even the computer algorithm, people have accomplished despite having the system rigged against their identities and I think Toph embodies that idea.
I'm blind, and in the middle of writing an essay about this right now, and I may turn it into a video at some point, but I love Toph! So, I don't think her seismic sense is a problem. Blind people do pay more attention to their sense of touch than sighted people do, so, to me, her being blind, and naturally being an earth bender, would go good together. Plus, why can't she have a natural talent for eartbending? I think that's cool. It's more statistically probable for blind people to have a talent from music, but it's not a trope when they do. We also have the fact that she's able to teach seismic sense to Aang, so it's not some sort of magical prosthetic that only she can use. Aang uses it to defeat Ozai! Also, being that she's born blind, it would be something that she would naturally gear to, to make her life easier. Plus, she learns it from blind creatures! That's the best fucking thing ever! Something that would just be a party trick to anybody else, when taught by a person with a disability to a person with the same disability is a life skill! The Badermoles taught her a life skill! One only they could teach, and one only she could learn to the extent that she did! We can kind of assume that Bumi can do it as well, because he is able to bend earth without looking at it, even though it might not be as well trained as hers, but also, she does have weaknesses, very well-done ones in my opinion, like the fact that she can't see when she's not on the ground, she can't fight enemies not on the ground, she can't read or write, and she is obviously week in the desert, which she eventually learn to adapt to, which I think was cool The biggest reason though, growing up, I felt super connected to Toph though, was the social aspect of disability. I can, although to a less Extreme extent, relate to how her parents treated her, I super related to how are the girls in Ba Sing sie, laughed at her, and most of all, I relate so much (and it actually really helped me deal with shit), with her conversation with Iroh. What he said really helped me, although it took a while, deal with some shit. I always had trouble getting help from people, because I felt I needed to prove myself, I still do sometimes, but I learned that everybody needs help, and it's OK to need it, even if people assume you do, sometimes you ACTUALLY do. I also really liked her arc of learning to trust others, and allow herself to be helped. Unlike her parents, her friends knew she could do some things really really well, but also knew she needed help with other things, and respected both of those. They didn't push too hard with helping her, nor did they say "Hey you can't actually do this that are the other thing," when in reality she could. They respected her as a person, and as a bender. Also her sense of humor is the best. The fact that there are blind jokes where she's not, most of time isn't actually the butt of the joke is amazing! Most of the time her friends are the bother the jokes, because they forget she can't fucking see! "It's so dark in here I can't see a thing." "Oh no what a nightmare!" I love it so much! Also, when she IS The butt of the joke, it makes sense! Do you know how much stupid shit I've done because I'm blind?! I want to mistook a towel for my dog, and, a small potted plant, for a fucking brownie! Thankfully I did not bite it. Thank you sense of smell. Anyway, I love this girl! I think she was done really well for a character with a super power. I think they hit a really good balance between making her disabled, and giving her a special ability because she's super talented! I think that's a big part of it. The fact that she put so much work into Learning earthbending, instead of just being given a prosthetic or magic eyeballs, makes a big difference. This isn't just a negation of her disability, it's, this character worked her ass off to be the best earthbender in the world, and she fucking is! Also, the fact that, not having an ordinary perspective on the world, allowed her to see something new, and create not just a new way to see the world THROUGH bending, but a whole new TYPE of bending, it's fucking fantastic! That's how worlds change! Different perspectives I hope you've enjoyed my TER. talk.
By the way dude, I don't know your name unfortunately, but if you would like to make a video discussing this with me, I'd love to! I don't have much of a following at all, but I love talking to people with disabilities about characters with disabilities, because, being the only PWD in my family, although of course I have friends who are, there's so many movies I can't talk about with disabled characters in them, and I'd love to! Especially if you disagree with me on some points, or you wanna go into more detail, or, just wanna give your perspective, I would love that! Even if you don't want to Kalab, and you just want to make a video going into more detail on your own, that would be super cool too! I think, being blind myself, I've got a different perspective on Toph than you, which I think you know, as I don't have all the information on being a wheelchair user. That's the fun of meeting new people now right? I love learning new things about things I don't know! Anyway, I hope you learned something from my comment, and I can't wait to see more of your stuff! I'm gonna go binger and count off of videos now. Just finished your video on Bruno, and I've got so much more to watch! So excited! 😀
Forgot to mention, but I don't like everything they did with Toph, but I do agree that I do wish they had shown her having trouble finding things on tables and little stuff like that. I'm also not sure how I feel about her not looking at people, especially in the desert, or when things suddenly are said or happen, and she's the only one looking in the wrong direction. At least in real life, we're taught to look at people, or at least in their general direction, when they're talking to us, but that's something that were explicitly taught in the real world, and considering Toph wasn't allowed to blow on her own food, I think I can give this one a pass. Still in observation though.
@@ZeldaWolf2000 i always thought that she doesn't look directly at people purposefully to be disrespectful to them, she knows well where the person is, both from seismic sense and simple human hearing, but she rebels by not looking at them, kind of making them feel inferior and less deserving of her full attention. Many times she points at them while having the rest of her body in a different direction, and i feel like it expresses her personality so much. "I know exactly where you are, but I'm not paying attention to you because i have something better to do"
The thing about Daredevil is like like most comic superheroes he's had about a dozen writers over decades of interlocking and diverging continuities. Some are going to be deliberately and disgustingly offensive to blind people and some are going to run every plot development and line of dialog by a carefully selected sensitivity reader. But the most are going to be somewhere in the middle of that
Ironically, the shitty movie has one of the better disability moments. There's a scene just after Matt wakes up and gets ready for the day, and he pulls out 3 braille labeled envelopes containing money, each a different type of bill. He then takes a few of each, and puts them in his wallet folded a different way to indicate value. I had never thought of how blind people would use cash until I saw that. And then there's the entire rest of the film...
@@redgunnit In a Canada the bills have had braille pressed into them for a long time, even back before they were changed to plastic. Though, to be fair, the indentations don't persist well. I thought most money had braille stamped on it, but the US treats their money like a sacred icon so I see that they may be resistant to updating it.
That's why euro bills have different sices and colours to help distinguish them. The coins have different sices, materials and markings on the outside. As a child I would lay in the dark guessing the value of coins when I couldn't sleep:D
I always liked the moments when Toph's unable to use her earth bending because she on sand or has to cross an ice river, they aren't many, but they showed that Toph is still blind and that does make certain things impossible to do like read a book or sighns, because braille hasn't been invented in this universe
She's extremely brave, but is straight up _terrified_ when traveling over water and becomes defeated in the desert. Although she eventually learns sand-bending, being in the water or air frightens her (water more than air). She says she normally doesn't care what people think of her physically, but does get self conscious in the "Tales of Ba Sing Se" episode. Basically, she's really cool. Lol
The thing about Toph is that her power doesn't take away her disability, but for her it functions in essentially the same way a real blind person would have a cane or a guide dog, or how some of them teach themselves to use echolocation. She specifically developed that power in order to help her function in a way that didn't require her to be able to see. It's an aid that helps her exist as a disabled person in an abled world.
I think it's interesting when a usually cognitively disabled character is written with a super power that is directly linked to their disability, and if they didn't have it, the superpowers wouldn't show themselves in the same way. For instance, an autistic character who has a hard time picking up social cues and is processing too much information might be able to read minds: making social interactions even more complex and giving them even more information to process. The two parts of the character amplify each other. Makes for good yet subtle representation.
I’m an Autistic writer, and mind-reading is actually immediately where I went, too, and ironically this video sort of made me want to write a character like that? Like one who has some limited mind reading abilities that help them mask, and maybe cause them to not even realize they’re Autistic, but for some reason their powers act up for a while or even get taken permanently, and they’re super disoriented by the experience and have to learn to navigate their neurodivergence fully for maybe the first time ever, (sort of like what actually happens to high-masking Autistic folks who finally have an Autistic breakdown from the prolonged masking or other life factors, and experience a “regression.”
I actually made an autistic character before and put some of my own experiences as an autist into him, mainly because I was unhappy with how autistic characters are portrayed in some movies. In the movies I've seen that portrayed an autistic character, they were portrayed as the weird nerd everyone picks on and is afraid of dirt and touches. I got so angry because... no! Autists aren't like that! Well, maybe some of them are, but you don't need autism to be socially awkward or a clean freak. That's why I made my character like acting (since Autists are said to be unable to convey feelings) and have him socialize with a small group of people. I took some of my own struggles, like talking to strangers and answering a phone. Still, I think the most important trait I gave him is that he is NOT the defintion of autism (or Asperger Syndrome, to be more specific, but it's still autism), but just a normal dude that happens to have it. He doesn't define himself by his diagnosis, but he also handles it openly and makes no effort in hiding it. Unless he's asked, he won't tell.
@@Canonicallycreative It reminded me about a story of an old man, who lived his whole long life without a sight. I believe his children insisted him to get through an operation which worked: he was able to see things, but he have never learnt to measure distance from object to object.
What I like about Toph is that she developed that power specifically to compensate for her disability. It's not some random power up that completely replaces it.
For me Toph fit in the 'find your angle' category. She fits well into the lore they created for the world since she ended up learning from the original earthbenders, badgermoles, that used the ability to interact with the world. She ended up learning it was something beyond just fighting, that it even served as a separate sense (waterbenders are also mentioned to feel the water around them including in other beings). Makes sense she was so powerful since she had that additional depth on her use of the ability (Zuko also became more powerful after learning from the dragons) and was constantly using it.
I’m not blind, but I am disabled and a writer. and tbh, I don’t think Toph fits in the same category as Daredevil. While I can see what you’re going for, there are definitely numerous instances in the series where Toph’s blindness doesn’t disappear just because she’s also an earth bender. For example: the numerous times she has to advocate for herself against people with ableist assumptions, including her parents and friends; instances where her blindness keeps her from being able to read or write, effectively making her illiterate and putting her at risk via wanted posters; the times when her earth bending is shown to have weaknesses that a sighted person could compensate for but which she can’t, as when Aang flies and she’s essentially rendered powerless although a sighted bender wouldn’t be limited at all. To assume that because a character has the ability to fight like abled people means that their disability is “fixed” is to forget the countless ways every day that disability brings us struggles beyond mobility. Toph’s writers clearly took this into account. It’s enough that I think she falls squarely into the “good rep” category. Daredevil is a hot mess, though, I’ll give you that.
Could you please edit your comment to add paragraph breaks? I am dyslexic (and hyperlexic, but that doesn’t help with this problem) and would like to understand what you wrote, but I cannot process a continuous "wall" of text. 30-50 words per paragraph and an empty row between paragraphs should make it possible for dyslexics who have this same problem to read your comment. With the current number of subscribers on this channel, there likely are a few hundred of us here already. Thanks in advance!
@@ronjaj.addams-ramstedt1023 I’m not blind, but I am disabled and a writer. and tbh, I don’t think Toph fits in the same category as Daredevil. While I can see what you’re going for, there are definitely numerous instances in the series where Toph’s blindness doesn’t disappear just because she’s also an earth bender. For example: - The numerous times she has to advocate for herself against people with ableist assumptions, including her parents and friends. - Instances where her blindness keeps her from being able to read or write, effectively making her illiterate and putting her at risk via wanted posters. - The times when her earth bending is shown to have weaknesses that a sighted person could compensate for but which she can’t, as when Aang flies and she’s essentially rendered powerless although a sighted bender wouldn’t be limited at all. To assume that because a character has the ability to fight like abled people means that their disability is “fixed” is to forget the countless ways every day that disability brings us struggles beyond mobility. Toph’s writers clearly took this into account. It’s enough that I think she falls squarely into the “good rep” category. Daredevil is a hot mess, though, I’ll give you that.
@@matheussanthiago9685 You can. I worked with a woman with hearing aids and a very annoying man. Whenever she worked with him she would position him to one side of her(for the most part) and turn down that aid. She'd keep her other one at her regular volume.
I like how they joke about Toph’s disability and the gang just completely forgetting it’s there. Because for the first time in Toph’s life she doesn’t need to be constantly told by her dad and mentor that she’ll never be a proper earth bender because she’s blind. The exact opposite, she’s on a mission with an air bender teaching him to earth bend and saving the world alongside him from the fire nation.
I remember reading this fantasy comic series as a pre-teen (it was a french comic that was very popular with kids my age at the time) in which, at some point, the elf character gets injured in a battle and loses her sense of sight. She then gets magical elf hair clips or whatever that help her see people’s auras. At first, I was like « that’s a really cool concept! » but then the story promptly ignored her disability, only mentioning the hair clips once or twice, and treated her as if she could see normally (or even better than she did before since she became able to see if someone was a shape-shifting imposter or the like). Completely disregarding the fact that seeing auras should not make her able to read, see any kind of walls or furniture, tell what colour something is, etc… Basically it was just « omg look at her, she’s the same as before except she has more powers, and also cool-looking, perfectly aesthetic and symmetrical scars on her eyes!! She can see because elf magic!! » Almost as if the author thought a badass blind character would be cool, but didn’t want to bother writing her realistically (just like you said). Even as an abled twelve-year-old I remember finding this pretty annoying… x) Edit: now that I think about it, this series did this to many other main characters who like, lost limbs and replaced them with magical demon limbs or something… To be fair, the demon limb _did_ end up being a plot point, but I digress.
I remember that comic too! I’m a little disappointed to say I once made a pokemon trainer oc with a similar thing going on as a result, and he became one of my most used characters on the place I rp I still like the character though, so I’ve been trying to figure out how to address it for the years he’s been a character
@@m-pc5334 Y’know, if you grew up with that comic, it only makes sense that you would take inspiration from it with some of your ocs! I wouldn’t worry too much about it. ^^’
Toph's true disability is her pride. She is so determined to prove she can handle herself she can't ask for help or admit there are simple things she just can't do. My favorite bite from her is the 'poster' scene.
I feel like for Toph, her earthbending is less of a superpower and more of a mobility aid. Yeah, it's super useful, but it doesn't work everywhere. It can't account for everything. She's still very much disabled even with her bending.
@@stickynote-slumber I think part of it is the implication that a character who is physically incapable in some way can “make up” for it by being incredibly smart. After all, a wheelchair bound character may find it difficult to defend themselves or fight in the same way as everyone else, so they have to be extra crafty if they want to navigate the world (at least going by the writer’s logic) That’s why you see a lot of dudes in wheelchairs who have massive brains. Personally, I’d like to see it mixed up where a guy in a wheelchair has some other type of power that can also be accommodated to their disability.
@@gregjayonnaise8314 Super Strength and agility would actually be kind of fun for a wheelchair user.... Though I think the biggest issue when it comes to wheelchair using characters is the assumption that the wheelchair is an extension of the person.... Now take Spiderman, imagine his legs don't work and just kind of flop around limply when he's web-slinging.... He can still stick to walls and punch things, and frequently walks on his hands when not in a wheelchair back arched to keep his legs dangling over his head.... Heck he could still probably flail his legs around for kicking with by using his core....
@@gregjayonnaise8314 Inspector Gadget Wheelchair? Like it has a jetpack, little tools, maybe a lazer gun, that’s all compacted into the wheelchair? It sounds cool in theory.
Something I grapple with as an autistic person and hope to see in more writing is addressing how neurodiversity gets treated. From experience I’ve been on both sides of the coin where one person says I don’t need accommodations for school and basically am not disabled enough for their liking and that other side where I’m seen as helpless and incapable no matter what I do. Finding that middle ground internally and especially expressing it externally is the hardest thing ever, you don’t wanna do something impressive but then when you need help people use it as an excuse to not do anything.
The thing with Toph is that Earthbending HASN'T replaced her sight. She can't see airborne enemies, and she can't read or see things drawn on flat surfaces.
I really liked this perspective. This trope has become so tiring. I recently saw The Swordman, that is a Korean film where the titular swordsman is one of the best but starts losing his sight. Years later he has to do some heroism and he just kicks ass even though he has reduced vision. Like he’s so good that he can be as good with his eyes closed. Is that another trope?, where the character is so good they just brush a disability aside like it’s nothing ?
It is possible for a normal person to learn how to fight effectively without the use of sight, but it takes years of dedicated practice before one can become proficient in it. I'm not blind, but I have continuously worked on honing my other senses because I know that an overreliance on sight is also not a good thing, and also because there's always the possibility that I might become blind at some point in time (especially given my current track record of unfortunate events happening to screw me over). I've worked at it nearly every day since I was ten years old. My martial arts instructor would often have me blindfolded while I was doing various tasks. During sparring sessions he would blindfold me, first trying to get me to listen for his footsteps and breathing to figure out where he was at. Once I got a fairly solid grasp on that, he would take off his shoes and play distracting background music to make it even harder. I then had to learn to detect heat and changes to the air currents, eventually being able to track him similar to infrared technology, albeit with a lot shorter range and to a much lesser degree. He also had me utilize this ability in blind navigation; I learned to detect changes in the air currents to be able to tell when I was about to bump into something. Once he had me navigate a corn maze completely without the aid of sight. He's run me through obstacle courses as well. Right now we're working on fighting in the midst of other obstacles; I have to focus not only on figuring out where my opponent is and what he/she is planning, but also making sure I don't run into/trip over obstructions to my path. I'm still not nearly as proficient at fighting without sight than I am at fighting with sight. I still work every day to hone my skills. Often when I'm out on nature walks I'll close my eyes and tune in to my other senses; listening to the birds in the trees to try to figure out where they're at, feeling for changes in temperature and airflow to detect where I am in comparison to my surroundings. One thing that I've noticed as I've worked this skill is that living things have mild electrical fields; my hair stands on end whenever I get really close to something that's alive. Outside of combat scenarios, I've gotten so good at detecting this that I can sense the difference between a sick/dying plant and a healthy one, purely off of the slight differences in electric fields. It takes a lot of time and intense focus in order to do this, but it has become possible. In short, humans are adaptable by nature. If some resource becomes scarce, humans will naturally come up with other ways around the problem. It does take a lot of time and effort to accomplish such feats, but with enough dedicated practice, anyone can learn how to not only succeed in spite of a disability, but also turn their disability into a strength.
Thank you. You are one of the few RUclipsrs to discuss this trope and searching "Disability superpower" on RUclips comes across a bunch of videos about something else entirely.
Can't say I've personally done that search but I can imagine. And yeah this is a topic that is (for obvious reasons) close to my heart so it was inevitable I'd end up talking about it eventually.
I love how toph just stares blankly most of the time and especially that joke that she found the temple even though she was on Appa and couldn't see anything
I'd recommend the netflix daredevil series. It's not perfect and daredevil in that still does have the level of power where he can basically see through his other senses because unfortunatly that was so ingrained into the daredevil comic character by the decades of writers coming through the revolving door with vastly different writting skill levels. However the main actor for daredevil tried really really hard to truely present Matt as a blind person and went to some mild extremes such as method acting by wearing contact that blocked or reduced his vision as well as taking a lot of time to learn about the quirks and mannerims someone who is blind would develop over their life. I think he even got like an award for it by some american institution for disablities but I don't recall the details of that.
As I recall it actually bit him in the ass later. Because of said method acting, at some point while filming the show _not_ making eye contact became his default as if he was actually blind, which caused him to do poorly in an audition after he was done with the show. He actually had to re-train himself to make normal eye contact again.
Daredevil uses the "Blind Swordsman" trope of visually impaired martial artists, from samurai movies, such as the Crimson Bat series, about a blind swordswoman.
I don’t know if it helps, in recent years there’s been efforts to not only be sensitive to Matt’s blindness but to actually incorporate it into the story. They basically did what avatar does with Toph. Especially since Matt’s childhood makes it perfectly clear that this isn’t some magic cure all. Before he learned to control it, his abilities as well as his blindness were incredibly debilitating. He’s taught to use those abilities and they’re helpful but they can STILL be debilitating. Matt has to sleep on silk because anything else feels like sandpaper. He gets overstimulated by the smallest of things. It takes him an enormous amount of energy to focus on making his abilities helpful to him because otherwise his “abilities” are just as useless if not paralyzing. He is still a disabled character. He’s still a character that lives in a world that isn’t catered for him. In the comics and the show he still has to use disability aids. He still gets taken advantage because he’s blind even though he can tell, he can’t show the fact that he can tell. He’s “pitied” or get “special treatment” because he’s blind. Mark Waid does a great job at highlighting his blindness in his run. Give it a read. He shows a Matt that’s become comfortable with his body and abilities but he still gives you glimpses of how his blindness still effects him in the ways I’ve mentioned. Stories written by fans have also been great at making this progress move along with how much research they put into their work
How would someone be able to see while using laser vision anyway? If the laser beams are powerful enough to melt through steel, surely they would outshine external light sources like a flashbang and prevent their user from seeing.
I think it’s easier to get it more grounded if you think of the super power’s aiding the disability as the same as a good disability aide. Like, vibration sensors exist. It helps blind people navigate around space. Doesn’t make all the set backs go away, and has unique problems tied to the aide itself.
Why is it that every disabled character i've seen so far in my life always gotta have a superpower related to their disability? Why can't we have a fire-breathing wheelchair user? Why can't we have an illusion making deaf person? Why can't we have a superspeedy blind guy? Why can't we have a strongman amputee? Why's it gotta always be an aide of some sort? What if the superpower clashes occasional with the disability and the person has to find creative ways to get around it? I would watch something like that in a heartbeat!
@Fighting Flower and another thing is how will the villains react to those disabilities, because they will exploit those heroes disabilities with glee , like for person who uses a wheelchair, have the villain go up stairs or targets the wheels of it , or for a strongman amputee have the villains try to grapple their only arm , or try to knock over their one leg , or if they use a prosthetic break it. use a fire alarm against a blind person, use pocket sand against a deaf person. the most common example i know of this is going for someone's blind spot if they have one seeing eye, and this is done by the good guys and bad guys...
@@Fighting.Flower the main problem with it though , despite how a lot of villains exploit the heroes , and when they do that, it feels tense threatening and makes them cunning! while exploiting someone's disability is much more dirty and can make the villain seem less threatening and their likability take a nose dive because they had to use their opponent disability to win and is often called an "bitch move"...
@@chongwillson972 Yeah, punches below the belt really can make someone unlikeable, especially when it's a belt not everyone wears. You really need to ask yourself what kind of villain you're making and if they would stoop so low as to exploit a disability or if they have enough basic respect to not do something so cheap.
Mileage definitely varies with daredevil on how his blindness may or may not hamper him. I think the netflix series did a better job than most live action, but still was a bit lacking. Sometimes he has the inherent disadvantage that sound moves slower than light, so his reaction speed is worse than a sighter person, sometimes it's magically better. It's what happens with very long standing characters as they pass hands between many writers. There's definitely potential; but it's often wasted, especially if you stack him up against the likes of Toph or any of the amputees from FMA brotherhood. FMA is just about the only popular media I've seen that highlights the downside of robot arms, whereas many think "it would be a great idea to lop of my arms and replace them with robot arms,then I'll be super strong" for building a character in a setting with advanced prosthetics. They don't think of things like phantom limb pains, cleaning the stump area, or pressure injuries from wearing a prosthetic. Worse are ones where the prosthetic is bolted right to bone, and they don't realize the issues around pins going through the flesh, or that just because the robot arm can theoretically lift 50 tonnes doesn't mean their legs and spine can also. Edward finding limits in the arctic, or scenes where the prosthetics are pushed beyond what their mounting points can withstand made FMA brotherhood a lot more believable overall.
@@DESTROY3R05 doesn't change the fact light reaches your eye basically instantly, a guy down a long hall is gonna shoot daredevil dead and he won't even hear the gunshot before the bullet hits him, since almost all modern firearms have supersonic ammo. Someone who could see could see the person reading their shot and go for cover. Daredevil would be behooved to knock out the lights to bring sighted opponents down to his level where he could absolutely stomp them.
Yeah, cyberpunk often uses the prosthetic bolted to bone and super strength cliches. For 50-tonne powerlifting, the Hollywood Cyborg would need mind-uploading into a robot body. This would also allow pop-up power tools like Inspector Gadget has.
one thing I love about Toph is even though she does have seismic sense that does help negate a lot of the problems being blind would have (and even then she had to work hard to master that) to the point her friends frequently forget (I still think Avatar did a great job with the blind jokes because it was more at the expense of everyone but her for the most part and the one example st her expense is actually really funny) is that she's still blind, she can't see faces, can't read or write and well if she isn't on solid earth her power shorts out. like she gets the benefits from her power but she's very much still blind
Honestly, I think the respect one gives a character and the quality of writing can really make or break the trope. Toph was put into a special position because she was blind, she gained _insight_ - if you would - into the badger moles and understood their earth bending better than any person who focuses too much on what they’re seeing. And her seismic sense is not an exclusive ability - she goes on to teach others who can see. It’s not dependent on her disability, it’s just something she was in a particular position to pay more attention to because she is disabled. It’s not a patronizing “look how empowered we made a disabled person - disabled people are special too!!1!” She feels like a person, who just so happened to have a special experience because her experience of just living is different. And lastly, her disability is acknowledged repeatedly when her seismic sense can’t do everything functioning sight could. She’s can’t read and write, she can’t see the sky or airborne attackers, and certain terrains become an accessibility issue in a way. I feel like Toph would lose a lot of her 3 dimensional-ness if she could actually see.
Yeeees, I fricking LOVE that scene in FMA:B that really shows us the drawbacks of automail - the way it contrasts Ed’s emotional turmoil with the physical result of the very moment that he’s spiralling over, and how he forces himself through both the emotional and physical pain because he *has to know* what really happened - such a powerful moment. Ed’s an absolute badass, and the way he uses his automail - his disability - as a source of strength is a huge part of that, so it’s gut-wrenching to get that reminder that yeah, he’s still disabled, this thing that is part of what makes him such a badass can still cause him so much pain.
i do very much agree toph is a good example cus it is very much explicitly stated in show that she is blind and it affects how she does things: she doesnt know what she looks like but still wants to be pretty, she cant read and needs katara to write letter for her, there are a lot of blind jokes that show shes comfortable with that, and everywhere she doesnt have earth under her feet she is pretty much immediately lost (see:scene on the airship with sokka) also, what i consider a deal breaker that firmly places her in good rep category for me is that she is one of many. a lot of people in earth kingdom have bending powers, and what makes her the best is not her blindness, but her character and how in tune she is with earth. I mean, she is an archetypal earthbender - grounded, stubborn, rough and loyal, hard to get through to, but reliable. she *understands* earth and from that perspective her seismic vision becomes more of a mobility aid than anything, really. she had to teach herself use it, its a show of skill and ingenuity. it doesnt negate her disability or cure her - it just helps her to be more mobile and independent in her life. i feel like its at the same level as a good prostetic for an amputee character that still gets a lot of screentime that shows that it needs maintenance and has limits and stuff also like, her main power use is that of a heavy hitter. she is very much specifically a Disabled person that happens to be kick ass powerhouse And smart enough to figure out creative way to use this power as a mobility aid
Only recently found your channel and have been throughly enjoying everything you've discussed. On the topic of disabled characters with superpowers, I wanted to mention anime that only just came out last year; "Ranking of Kings". The story revolves around Prince Bojii, who is the 14 year old son the ailing King Bosse. He is deaf as well as mute, as well as being judged by the people of the kingdom for his lack of size and strength. His father is a giant that built the kingdom through raw power, and his father's shadow looms over everything Bojii due. That being said, while Bojii does have superhuman abilities, they are not immediately related to his disabilities. In fact as he makes friends on the way, they help him with situations he has trouble interacting and dealing with. After watching your video, it reminded me of the show, so I thought I'd give it a mention.
I love hearing your opinions on disabled characters. It gives me a better understanding of how to write disabled characters in my stories, which one of them has quite a lot in the main and secondary cast. Especially with the whole blind character trope. I do have a blind character who’s in tune with nature as the four siblings powers are based around seasons and the older sister is blind, she has a seeing eye bird (she herself is a dog hybrid) and her powers are only able to work with direct connection to plants, animals and nature. It has no use indoors and under extreme stress. But I’m still working on her and her siblings characters, which the two youngest are disabled as they both are missing a wing.
Complaining about Toph in an episode where she was useless to find the library, told her crew she has no interest in books because she can't read and has their bison stolen because she's blind and can't see in the sand is kind of the worst episode you could have picked.
I like that they at least had some limits on Tophs earth bending sight. She requires solid ground to see, so in the desert or in the air her sight is limited. Also she can't read or see colors with it
Matt Murdock/Daredevil is definitely not the greatest example, albeit not necessarily the worst case ever; infamous, maybe? For whatever much or little it may be worth, at the time Stan Lee created him, he was concerned that the character would be considered offensive to the disabled readers of Marvel; he actually received a fair bit of positive feedback at the time for creating him. Which doesn’t mean he’s aged the best, but I appreciate Matt as a Fair For It’s Day case of the trope… and that Lee, while I straight white Jewish man, was himself somewhat ahead of the curve if not as progressive as would’ve preferred.
I just found your channel today right after having a discussion with a friend about this very topic a few days ago. In particular, I was focused on the subject of amputees, because I don't like how common it is for shows to cut off a part of a character's body, only to give them a prosthetic that's functionally the same as a normal body part, if not a complete upgrade. I always felt like it'd be more interesting to explore the ways that these disabilities would affect their characters, even if it involved high-tech prosthetics or superpowers. I'm fine with a disabled character being really powerful in combat, but I also want to see that the disability has some kind of effect elsewhere, like how Toph can use her earthbending to see her surroundings, but can't read or write. I find this kind of portrayal a lot more realistic and interesting than a lot of other shows, for example RWBY, which briefly teases the idea of Yang having to deal with losing an arm, only to give her a robotic prosthetic that returns her to normal in a way that's so egregious that certain scenes seem really odd when you actually think about them; like how she seemingly still uses the prosthetic as her dominant hand, or how she responds to touch on that arm even though she shouldn't realistically be able to feel it. I am not physically disabled myself, but I am writing a story with a prominent main character that happens to be a right-arm amputee, and I want to be very careful with how I handle her. She doesn't use any type of prosthetic, but she can mitigate it with the ability to morph and stretch her body. In combat, she can grow a stretchy claw from her nub, but she never holds this form for very long since it would be exhausting and painful, so it's always visibly clear that she's missing an arm. She can compensate for her shortcomings in a pinch, and can hold her own in a fight, but may rely on her partner for a few simple domestic tasks, which I'm hoping is a decent way of handling a character like this. Anyway, I really appreciate hearing your perspective on issues of disability, and I'm absolutely going to subscribe! This is a subject that I really want to tackle correctly in my own work, so I'm glad to find someone talking about it!
The first (and really only) character that came to mind that has a superpower unrelated to their disability is Makkari from the Eternals. I know the actress is deaf and with what context clues were provided it would appear the character is too. Although there may be some connection to super speed and breaking the sound barrier, I wouldn't know as I'm not super familiar with the comics. I hadn't ever considered that it might be problematic to always tie superpowers with a character's disability but I'm glad to have heard this perspective! I just discovered your channel and have been binging all day!! keep up the great work!!😊
/i would like to write a character whose disabled but in a magical way, would that be falling into any of the tropes what i mean is, a character who is a fairy that lost her wings. She got a prosthetic that she made herself (a fairy blacksmith) and can no longer feel how the clouds feel like (clouds and portal magic is a big part of my story) There's also a child who's born with broken wings, can never fly and also cant feel clouds. I would like to write an episode where they try to explain what "clouds" are suppose to feel like, kinda like how someone tries to describe what colors are to a blind person
Otherwise great but she needs to be a silversmith, because iron burns the fair folk. (at least it does in every faerie story that I have ever read or heard of)
@@jenniferchaulam Sorry, I stared at "StormBuffalo"*, did not register what stands before and after it and assumed you were from or living in the US. What type of fairy / spirit were you thinking of: huli jing, kitsune, peri, xian, yaksha, ... ? * and now I realize that StormBuffalo could be a word play on Appa -- I'm really not at my sharpest today
I liked your words about how it has to be considered differently for each character. It is one thing if a character has a super power prothestic because they for example constructed it to push aside prejudices for being an amputee. It is another if you just don't wanna write a deaf character and shit.
Congratulations!Also you deserve way more:) I completely agree with your pound. Being a writer( Recreational)I believe a character needs to have a personality,History,and continuity.No matter what because representation can easily strengthen stereotypes or romanize (override) the representation.
I have a character I am working on who isn't in the story yet (they will be), who is blind. But I am waiting writing them in until I research more into it. They have magic but they can't see anything so I have to figure out how to write that. It's actually exciting to figure out.
Matt Murdock falls into the better representation of this trope. His superpower is less... magical (he's just a REALLY good lawyer ;) ) but it is comparatively supernatural. In no way home, yes, you do see him catch a brick out of mid air, but it's in an instance where seeing wouldn't have helped, as it was coming from behind him. you can see his ears perk up at the shouting moments before, and his head tilting in the few seconds after listening for more potential threats. IDK who the actor is, but damn, the entirety of daredevil needs more attention. edit: I wrote this comment preemptively and as soon as I clicked play on the video, you brought up Matt Murdock. My bad.
"Does your disabled character have to have this power?" taking the blind person as an example: sight is pretty important in a fight, so if you want that character to kick ass, you kinda need to replace it.
That's true, but that's were how you handle things come in. With Toph, we see moments where her being blind is an issue her ability doesn't not much to rectify. Like when Opera is captured by sandbenders in the desert. If she had t been blind, or in an environment that hindered her ability she probably would have been able to work them off enough for Appa to get away. But because of those circumstances, she had to make the tough choice of letting him go to save the others. They could've easily wrote her as being able to "see" as well on mounds of sand as she could on solid earth, leaving her with 0 issues or limitations in the desert. But they didn't. Instead we were shown that despite how amazing her ability is, it doesn't completely trump the fact that at the end of the day she is blind. He ability helps with her disability, but doesn't replace what it's lacking in the sense that she never has to deal with the reality of it.
an interesting case of disability with superpower is Maki Zenin from jujutsu kaisen because she has a superpower that is the opposite of her disability she was born with almost no cursed energy which means she wouldn't be able to fight cursed spirits but received a superhuman body in return capable of keeping up with other sorcerers however, being physically strong doesn't make you capable of hurting curses so she has to use cursed tools to fight
I know that Golden Kamuy isn’t that popular in the west, but I’ve been getting into it lately and how they handle disability in fighting is so realistic I haven’t seen anything like it before. Using only one of the disabled characters as an example, Toni Anji. He’s an old blind man who uses a pistol to fight. When I was first introduced to him, I thought he was gonna just be another blind guy who’s basically not blind because of his crazy good hearing, but it just wasn’t the case. When he first fought the main characters, they were in the dark and the mc’s couldn’t see. At first, he didn’t shoot them yet because there was a child in the group they were in, and he didn’t want to accidentally shoot him. His hearing isn’t absolutely godly and he knows how terrible of a mistake he could make if he isn’t careful. He knows his limits and he’s a great fighter because of it. At times where there’s a ton of loud noise, he actually gets extremely upset because of it. His hearing was enhanced because of his blindness, and he even puts domes on his ears so he can hear his opponents better. MAJOR SPOLIERS BEYOND THIS POINT. At the last battle they have at the end. Toni is majorly distressed because there are lots of cannon fire and gunshots going on. It felt really sad watching him still continue to shoot even with how detrimental it is to him. His death though felt like a relief, as he felt it was finally quiet for once in his life. Besides fighting and shit, minor things that he goes through as a blind man really sells in the belief that this dude is actually blind. After the accident that made him blind, he thought he’s always had jet black hair. It only took him someone saying that he had grey hair to realize that’s what it looked like. Another minor thing, he doesn’t actually look at people when they’re talking to them. This surprisingly is a thing I see many artists not do while drawing blind characters. I’m not blind, but I’d assume someone who can’t see wouldn’t feel the need to look in the direction where someone is talking. Except maybe if they were taught to do that. While I don’t entirely see why Toni wouldnt look at someone as he wasn’t born blind, he was blind decades before his appearance, so it would make sense he would lose that habit in that frame of time. This is just one character that isn’t even that major, but his disability is written so well. If you want good disability rep with fighting in it, read Golden Kamuy. It’s chock full of disabled characters who are realistic and kick ass. When characters get traumatically injured, they’re traumatically injured and it changes them a lot. From a sniper suddenly losing a eye to the main character getting brain damage (which also almost gets him excluded from the group. Just like how people today lose their jobs to disability) It’s just great rep that isn’t stupid or pandering.
another really common disability-superpower pairing that i'm tired of is full time wheelchair users with telekinesis, professor x being the most popular iteration of this trope. so many times when people are pitching ideas for wheelchair using characters with superpowers or magic, they default to giving them the power to move their bodies or objects with their minds as a way of circumventing their disability. like they can move their bodies now, so their disability is essentially moot. but does nobody think about how absolutely exhausting it would be to have to constantly actively concentrate to physically move themself and everything they interact with (brain fog? fatigue? hello??) when they could just instead live in a world where their environments and social support systems were accessible and afforded them as much independence as possible? second, the "crippled genius". like, yes, disabled people in real life need to be acknowledged for how awesome we are at adapting our environments and habits to fill the accessibility gap, but that is a process that takes *years*. when characters with acquired disabilities are are shown adapting in media, it's always this hand-waving montage of them inventing some sci-fi device overnight that instantly fixes all their problems and effectively erases their disability struggle. and also, like...just let us be mediocre sometimes?? just give me a character with a major mobility disability who is allowed to be compelling protagonist without also having to be an all-in-one billionaire-engineer-programmer-surgeon. honorable mention to "the guy in the chair" trope, where the resident wheelchair user character is defaulted to sitting in front of a computer, feeding information to the ablebodied heroes. i am very tired.
Toph is my ultimate favorite ATLA video~ she is so complex and simple at the same time~ Plus, she can't see in the air and has a difficulty with seeing in sand so her seismic sight doesn't completely replace her eyes.
One of the subtle things about Toph's portrayal I like is that she tends not to face the person she's talking to; she's never needed to personally before, never grew up with that being integral to how she interacts.
Toph is one of the best examples of doing this right her seismic sense helps her manuver around without tripping on everything and being aware of her surroundings without sight which real life blind people have seeing aids like walking sticks and seeing eye dogs. And sure seismic sense is better than thise but itd still fall into that category a seeing aid not a true replacement for seight. She still cannot do things like read due to her lack of vision. She cant see the stars in the sky. She could manage the downsides of her disability so well her companions occasionally forgot she was disabled but she still was. Like when Sokka tossed her championship belt to her she couldn't catch it not because she had bad reflexes but because she couldn't see it and her seismic sense cannot sense airborne things. It has limitations like any form of disability aid it helps but doesnt erase the disability. She also couldn't read the bounty papers or see their pictures. She couldn't help put up posters because she couldn't see the proper way for them to go. And if her feet cant touch solid ground shes cut off from her seismic sense and its no help to her. She is still very much still a disabled character and has the drawbacks still play a part in her life shes not like matt murdock who is blind but can still read because he's so touch sensitive he can feel the ink on the page and make out the letters and other ridiculous feats like that. Shes still a truly disabled character and her powers help. And it doesn't feel like these powers were chosen just to erase her disability. She has earth bending a power prominent in her world and she just adapted to learn to use it creatively to aid her in her everyday lives as im sure most people disabled or not would do if they had powers, they'll try to use their powers creatively to overcome shortcomings. And the power of seismic sense is just an earthbender technique and its not exclusive to her nor is she the first or last to use it. Badgermoles use seismic sense to navigate underground due to a lack of light and biological blindness and that makes sense many animals in nature sense things in ways humans do not. Observing them taught her a new way to use her power in order to help navigate through life. And even able bodied earth benders use it because its not just "a replacement for eyes" but instead its a useful technique and tool for all earthbenders. And others used bending to help with their disabilities. Using gliders (airbender technology) to aid with mobility to those with mobility impairments, using water whips to give dexterity to an armless woman but again these do not erase their disabilities. Water hands cant pick up papers for you, or handle technology safely, nor can it work as well as true digits in some situations. But it atleast allows her to lift and place objects she otherwise couldn't. I think avatar was great at using powers to help with disabilities without just erasing the disability.
Much like other commenters here who have made much better points than me, I love toph. Not just her humour and how cool she is but, because of how she has learned to adapt to being blind. Shes good at what she does because she is blind, she learned it to compensate for her not being able to see from blind earth bending creatures no less. Yet we never forget she cannot see, because although she can sense vibration in the ground, with her heightened sense of touch there are a lot of instances where an enemy is in the air, or in sand where she cannot really feel anything. I hold the belief it is BECAUSE she is blind that she is the greatest earth bender. Sure her sense of touch can compensate for sight, but its never perfect and she is still disabled and such a fun and entertaining character.
Was gonna write a comment about Toph, but I reconsidered because; 1) I'm not physically disabled in any way, only neurodiverse. (Therefore I don't feel as though I have any place to talk about a physical disability.) 2) There's already plenty of comments about Toph
This was recommended to be at EXACTLY the right time! (I'm late, I know) I have a blind character that I'm crafting at the moment and this was a topic that I have been researching a lot to try and make him feel realistic. He lives in a fantasy world, and while he isnt exactly the mc, he is one of the main protags, and I want him to have an arc with good representation. He has a seeing eye dragon, who helps him with day to day tasks. At some point he does address the sort of issues you talk about, how blind people In stories (he reads braille) always have a power that makes their disability easy, or 'better', and that in reality, though he puts on a front, it's hard for him. It's hard that he doesn't know what his best friend looks like, that he will never see his gf's face, that he can only guess what colours look like. He struggles with it. It's not easy for him, no matter what others might assume. Other than his dragon, he has no magical powers to 'make up' for his blindness, even though they do exist in the world. Part of his character is that he has a fascination with magic, but he doesn't have any. I would also like to adress the thing that people say to try and 'cheer up' disabled people, like; "you don't seem disabled to me!" Or "you aren't disabled, just differently abled!" Things that, while they have good intentions, can be very hurtful I found most of these stereotypes through other disabled content creators, such as footless Jo. But I am not disabled, so to any of those who are, are there any severely overused tropes, flaws in what I've said, or stereotypes that you would like to see addressed in a character like this? Or do you have any other content creators/books/blogs that would help furthering my research? I definitely don't want to offend through him, so don't feel bad if you need to let me know if one of the large parts of his character are stereotypical or hurtful. Edit: to clarify, while he does think magic would help make his blindness 'more convenient', that is not his main reason for wanting magic.
Could you please edit your comment to add paragraph breaks? I am dyslexic (and hyperlexic, but that doesn’t help with this problem) and would like to understand what you wrote, but I cannot process a continuous "wall" of text. 30-50 words per paragraph and an empty row between paragraphs should make it possible for dyslexics who have this same problem to read your comment. With the current number of subscribers on this channel, there likely are a few hundred of us here already. Thanks in advance!
@@ronjaj.addams-ramstedt1023 done! I'm so sorry, I didn't realise that I had made it so hard for some to read this. Thankyou so much for letting me know🙏 I'm trying to be a lot more careful to not write 'walls' of text like this in the future, as it's a problem I have while writing stories too, I tend to just write and forget about any sort of punctuation or break to make it easier to read.
@@meraki48 Thank you! I am squeeing here for the seeing eye dragon, I would read your story just for that! Regarding where to learn more: the roundtable discussion with Jessica Kellgren-Fozard, Hannah Witton and two or three others whose names escape me ATM, about romantic relationships and disability is excellent. If I recall correctly, each of them has a RUclips channel and/or a website where they talk about many things, also their respective disabilities. Footless Jo and Amputee OT are two very different leg amputees and I like both channels. I have recently started following a bookworm channel where the creator is disabled, too (was born with fewer fingers than five and has several other issues too). I'll go check the name of the account next. There are also blind RUclipsrs. I remember two whose content I found informative, but of course I cannot remember their names, so I'll be back with that info as well.
@@ronjaj.addams-ramstedt1023 Thankyou SO much! Also I love the seeing eye dragon concept too! Her name is Wren and the two of them have a very subtle set of physical signals to help my character out.
I'm not blind so i can't speak with personal experience, but i do think that Toph's disability isn't "replaced" with her earthbending. The seismic sense is how she learned to cope and navigate, but she has been shown to have difficulty doing this when she's not walking on ground. When she's on an airship or on Appa, or she's walking on wood, you see her holding onto Sokka or Aang for support. It's also more difficult for her to fight something flying in the air, and she needs someone to pinpoint the direction. Not to mention, her having flying sickness connects to her blindness (though I'm not sure if this is something all blind people experience). She's also someone who has learned how to cope with her disability very well, to the extent that she doesn't mind joking about it. It was also confirmed in Legend of Korra that people who can see can still use seismic sense. The only reason Toph is so good at it is because that was her only way to function well, but we see that both Lin and Suyin also use seismic sense while fighting, and Korra learns it too. So it's not necessarily a replacement made specifically for a disabled person, it's something most people can use but is just more useful to a disabled person.
Toph (in my able-bodied opinion) is good because her earthbending doesn’t make her not blind, it just makes her blindness more circumstantial. She can’t read or see pictures, colour is meaningless, flying and sand remove her primary sense. Also the fact that she can’t hit a noisy flying target suggests that her reliance on earthbending actually prevented the typical heightening of auditory perception, which is kinda neat.
I’m very glad to have found this video! Being more aware of tropes like these truly helps! I’ve been wanting to write a story that has a blind protagonist, and have been wanting to do proper representation. I’m glad to know I’m headed in the right direction! I’ve been trying to do as much research as I can about the topic, and trying to get information from people with varying levels of blindness. I’ve found many great RUclipsr’s on this journey, and it’s been so educational! Hopefully I can create a character that’s both realistic, and kicks ass. :D That’s the goal.
I would love to hear your opinions on Ming-hua from legend of korra. She doesn't have arms but basically has water arms that she developed. I'm not sure if she is an example of something done right because she is just using the octopus water bending style like katara but she adapted to it.
I made/am planning a Character for a book who is blind, but this is compensated for the fact that she is a Werewolf. This basically means that her other senses, especially her sense of smell, allow her to navigate, but it comes with disadvantages as well, like she sometimes experiences overstimulation that can send her into shock, she gets rashes unless her clothes are made out of specific materials, so on and so forth.
When it comes to prostetics in media I always wondered what was the perspective of actually disbled people on the use of prostetics in Star Wars. With the prevalent theme of various mutilations in both the movies and other such media related to the series I just figure there would be people who both hate and like the representation based on the specific movie they watched ( Anakin doesn't really cover his prosthetic arm too much in the prequels, but Luke's arm is covered in synthetic skin in the original films etc.)
Maybe the explanation was stupid, but there could be a few explanations. Different paints have different properties that can be perceived by touch. I actually recall a blind dude telling the color of clothes by touch. Because of those tactile properties. So in limited environments that even works in reality. Also on the microscopical level many colors only differentiate by surface patterns. It has to do with how light wavelengths are reflected. So it is theoretically absolutely possible to feel most colors. But again, the explanation in the comic might have been stupid I don't know the comic I only know some of the real physics behind this topic.
love Toph. She knows she blind, she confidently reminds people she is and struggles with daily activities despite having this amazing seismic ability. I think early on I was very amazed she had seismic abilities. she used it to help her in daily activities, in secret and perfected it but also to her advantage when in a fight. i see her seismic ability as her learning to use all of her other senses, as she grows more skilled and experiencing more different challenging environments, she struggles but learns to adapt either problem solving by making so she can or getting assistance. to me her seismic ability serves as her heightened sense of touch and hearing, but also serves in place of modern day tools for the blind and visually impaired. the show never shows braille, a cane, seeing eye service animals, or even anything remotely to camera glasses or sensory gadgets even though tech is booming. Even in korra her seismic ability has not been replaced. and her learning metal bending as an extension of her earth bending and seismic ability may sort of represent the innovations that help people become more independent in a new modern world, mostly because it was borne out of a need.
the best thing you can do with a disabled character is let them be disabled. none of this "differently abled" bullshit. Disabled people are not able to do some things. It often sucks, it often causes pain, it often causes things to be a bit more convoluted than they need to be... but thats ok. At the end of the day EVERYONE has these things, even if they are NOT disabled by them. Taking away the fact a disabled character will be PREVENTED from doing some things isolates real disabled people. It isn't a power fantasy for us to just imagine being typically abled. Sometimes its a nice thought. Man, I wish I could have a stomach that works, id eat soooo much food... but seeing someone with a broken stomach take a magic broken-stomach pill that dosn't exist and live a typically abled life? Doesn't exactly make me feel empowered or seen. Taking someone without an arm and just giving them a magic arm that's even better than anyone else's arms is the same shit. Imagine a non-disabled character who is HUGELY afraid of water. Avoiding it has been a bit of a sore burden for them, nobody else really understands it and it gets in the way of 'normal' activity. But one day, they need to go near the water... ...so they get out their trusty "begone-fear" pill and have no issues swimming. Wouldn't that be anti-climactic? Wouldn't that feel mean to anyone who IS hugely afraid of water? The character teaches the viewer nothing, the character dosnt develop in any direction - its a boring cop-out at best and insulting at worst. Nobody wants to see someone just get "fixed" - only able bodied people who don't give a shit about us want to see that! Toph is great because she isn't "fixed" by her powers. They happen to come in REAL handy... but, like any mobility aid, is not perfect. She still struggles and has to deal with the fact she can't handle some things like everyone else can, but is not considered weaker because of it. Someone I personally take alot of comfort in is All Might from My Hero Academia. MHA is not a perfect show for disability or anything, its not really its focus and I don't expect it to be. All Mights portrayal is far from perfect, either. But his injury - his lack of a stomach - is similar to me... and its been debilitating for him. Just trying to hold on to a "normal" life DESTROYED his body, made him thin and gaunt and sick and broken... to the point where he is forced to retire, and has to re-think his priorities in life and what he needs to do. Its not perfect. But seeing someone similar to me who has tried the whole "Just push yourself harder and harder! itll be fine!" and have it hurt them, rather than the typical narrative of "youll just be fixed if you try harder"...? refreshing.
Dude I love All Might, I also love how no matter what, people respect All Might, his legacy and get visibly nervous in a good way or act fanboys/fangirls when they're in front of him, no matter if he's in his muscled in his hero persona or not. I also like how they don't treat him with pity, Gran Torino expects him to be a good mentor to Deku, Aizawa still gives him shit and expects him to act like a decent teacher, and he's also best dad to Izuku :,)
I agree totally with your statement about lazy writing, but keep in mind that for TV shows with a set lifespan. Writers don't always get to write their characters the way they want. More often than not, they're told to change things to fit certain check boxes by higher ups and those are the lazy ones in my eyes rather than pushing the boundaries for making characters better or even more real. Still, there have been shows or movies with disabled people or creatures that are just "there" and given much screen time other than to serve as a person that the main talks to to get info, generally turning them into something like a npc while some are given screen time but have the personality of cardboard.
I think General/Aunt Amaya from The Dragon Prince is all excellent example of a disabled character who doesn't have a replacement power for her disability but is still a badass. She is deaf, and signs rather than reading lips. This results in her either needing to talk with someone who signs or have an interpreter. She is also a total badass. As a result, we end up with a disabled person who is also a badass, rather than someone who is a badass despite or because of her disability. It is worth noting, that I am not deaf, and that a deaf person might disagree with me on this for some reason I've missed. Take my opinion with a grain of salt.
I'm not exactly sure if this falls under this trope but my character Doa due to being a hybrid has some resulting health issues like a heart that cannot handle their height and vocal chords that simply dont work. They also have perks because of this however, like being a hybrid between a hex demon and an eldritch they are quite tall, they are capable of having as many surface level body parts as they want (or as many as their heart can handle carrying blood to) They have a natural limit to these perks because of these (I originally intended for them to be 2 separate characters one with all the perks and one with the health issues with growing resentment between the 2 but i didnt like that idea so Doa is just one very emotional, very loved bean) I may have info dumped a tad too much there but eh Its a RUclips comment section from 2 years ago i dont think it matters TOO much.
Meanwhile my superhero character in a comic I'm working on has type one diabetes but uses an insulin pump the big issue is he can't over exert himself or he may go into diabetic shock His power is forcefeilds and the ability to create small energy orbs of which he can shoot
One of the supporting characters in my story has developed disabilities that his already existing abilities can't "fix". His name is Aster and he's a half dragon/human. He has all these super human abilities like super strength, hearing, sense of smell, literal fire breathing, flight, and is fireproof, but he ends up getting mortally injured in the story and he loses an eye and suffers brain damage from the accident. Bullet to the skull will kind of do that. So now he's got a severe speech impediment and a missing eye that are very much hindrances for him, whether it's in battle or simply just trying to communicate with someone. I very much love his character, not because of any of that, but because omfg his personality makes him such a precious cinnamon roll- And he's nearly the last of his kind so that's actually one of the many things that weighs on him mentally, along with his abandonment issues, his PTSD due to sexual assault (despite him not even being aware he was assaulted), and his constant struggle of his own and other people's human emotions. He is definitely faaar more than just his disabilities. Oh, he's also vegetarian, despite being a dragon.
Me, watching my super-hero able to turn into a pigeon with chronic pain : I mean... She's not always good enough to kick ass, and her shape-shifting make the pain worse, and the fact that I'm scared to badly write her and her being a bad representation I didn't write anything yet.
as someone with fibromyalgia who’s loved pigeons all my life, that character concept is unironically like, my favourite thing ever. if you ever release a comic or something with her i’d love to read it!! /gen
With toph it reminds me more of that procedure that partially restores sight but not totally, can't remember it off the top of my head but it too had set backs. Same with those hearing implants that don't always work and don't completely restore hearing. A partial restoration but not a total because frankly someone born with those issues like toph could never have fully functional sight or hearing, their brain literally isn't wired for it like that. Therefore I feel like she's actually a bit realistic in terms of what can actually be accomplished. Also later in the series people with sight can use it so it may have been invented by a blind lady but it's not exclusive to the blind, so I feel like its more a "unique perspective" approach than let's "fix" the blind girl. Idk, I just think her character is cool so it could be bias.
This made me think of Alma from the anime Radiant, she is missing an arm, but she is badass without needing some prostetic. I mean, she has magic, but she doesn't have some spell that gives her a "magic arm" She is not that big of a character for the main plot, but is still important. I belive she will get more important in the future when the author dicides to show us her past and how she came across the protagonist.
A good excample of a superpower, that is a disability as well is the book series called 'woodwalkers'/'seawalkers' it is about humans who can shapeshift into a specific animal for excample a wolf. The charakters can also transform single parts of the body. For excample they would have a human body but the paw of a wolf. Because not everyone is a 'shapeshifter' (has this ability) The shapeshifters need to hide. As long as they are 'animals' humans and other animals treat them like that, so relatives of main characters sometimes get killed by humans or other animals. Or the main Character is getting hunted, because he was to far away from his secrete shapeshifter school where all animals are protected and hunting is not allowed. Another main problem is that some characters can't (completely) control their transformation into an animal what can be deadly for a person, that turns into a fish because that can kill this person, if it happens outside of the water. If a shapeshifter sees the animal that he turns into, a picture of it, or, sometimes, even thinks about his animal form he can accidentally start turning into his animal form. Even for an experienced shape shifter it is always a (very) little risk to be to far away from water, if he is a fish. ( this can happen the other way around, if he sees a shapeshifter shifting to his human form as well) It is also pretty hard for shapeshifters that they have to keep their existence a secrete from family members or partners in a relationship. Sometimes they live more or entirely as animals and sometimes as humans, but because they sometimes tend to have problems figuring out who they are, most shapeshifter in southern countries gravitated towards crime, this is why a shapeshifter founded the woodwalker school in South America (I guess, I forgot where it was). The idea behind the special schools for shapeshifters is that they learn to live as humans and animals and find a balance. While a part of them is in their animal form, they can send messages and even pictures to the mind of other shapeshifters, even if they are in their human form, but this makes it almost impossible for them to lie and other (expirienced and talented) shapeshifters can always read the mind of a person, that is not trained to protect it's thoughts. The book series is for kids, but the positive and negative aspects of being a shapeshifter are a quite important part of the plot. It is just interesting to see, how a super power can turn out to be a disability that might make you're live a lot more complicated or even dangerous. But it focuses on some everyday life's situations, as well. For example the main character of the first season is a mountain lion named Carag with very good ears that hates water. His human 'brother' (he doesn't know, that Carag is a shapeshifter) always opens the door and blasts loud music, whenever Carag goes past his room and give's Carag a massive jump scare. The first book was released in English in 2022 btw. It is a great book for people at the age of around 10 years (even though I started reading it, when I was like 17, a few years ago, luckily I am from Germany, where this book comes from)
Talking about how this is such bad writing, all the while showing a fantastic character that is written this way in the background, was a dang bold move. It's hard to admit that Toph could be poorly designed when she's so great. But her disability really is just there to be a gimmick that she can ignore 90% of the time. The suoer prosthetic as another example was great as it instantly brought MANY characters to mind, where they wear the diabled lable, but they're super heroes BECAUSE of that disability. This was eye opening, and in my irritation at realising how common this is, I am instantly inspired. I already have a character with a prosthetic arm, where it's not even a replacement, he has two regular ones, but just wanted a 3rd anyway. And whilst I forget what inspired him, he works as a parody of poorly written "disabled" characters. But I feel a genuinely fun type of character to subvert this trope, would be a reverse superman. Someone who's godly powers all vanish, turning him into a regular human. Which by his standards makes him vulnerable and disabled. And whilst technically true, his human friends would probably not appreciate him calling himself disabled for being only as strong as a human now. That sounds like a fun character to write. Making fun of bad tropes is one of my favourite things right now... But I wonder if someone beat me to this idea already. Doesn't matter, I'm more worried about how much I'll now realise this trope is in lots of things I like. This is not going to be enjoyable, but I know this is a big and common one. If it's in Avatar, it can be in anything.
I like top because, like many people in atla, she has earth bending. Also she has a disability. earth bending isn’t known in the series to help people see beyond their eyes. Toph figured that she could use her ability to help with her disability. She wasn’t given her ability after her disability and she is still disabled. She can’t see anything with her eyes she can only use her sense of hearing and touch to kinda locate where everything is. She can’t read or write and can’t see at all when not on solid earth.
i have seen cases where what starts as good rep ends as just alternatively sited, the person accidently blinds herself as an infint out of a combination of bordom (you would be to if you had a fully or mostly developed mind and a newborns body) and some attempts to explore magic and her soul going wrong (magic eather wasnt a thing yet, was just starting to be a thing, or maby our world couldnt acces it when she lived the first time) and got the highest tear of true site without any of the soul parts in place for it to work right, so opening her eyes is just pure pain, (might be mental overload, might just be recoil) to the point she cant and gave up after 2 or 3 tries.she later gets a skill she can actualy use "sense mana" and it starts out as useless, its only after she can walk (a couple years later of constant use) that she can see enough to get around with, it takes years for people to get used to the blindfolded blind child being able to see in any way a all, and i think she is at least 10 by the time she can clearly see a face, and she breaks down crying. later between some natural disasters and literly spending most of her time working on the skill she literly becomes the best in the world at it, by capping the skill, and while the author dosent seem to have forgotten she sees entries spheres of aria, she bsicaly ends up with supersite, and when she goes to new places nobody questions the wrapping because the whole world knows she capped the skill (the world announces when you cap a skill, its quite rare) so they eather asume the wrapping is because she dosent need to see because of her high skill level (basicky showing off) or because she is just there as a mana clone, so she is using the skill to help piolet her clone body tldr, disabillity goes from real, to the insiteing incident for a massive advantage
What about a character with wings but missing a leg? Like she can't fly in a building or street because the wing span is to large and she'd hit things so she has to wear a prosthetic but in large open spaces she can fly?
It's an interesting premise, but you'd have to do a lot of research on body mechanics to pull it off properly. If she has bird-style wings, then she would probably naturally launch by jumping; taking off would be more difficult, and she might need to find thermals/something tall to jump off to get airborne. Depending on the level of materials science available in your setting, the weight of her prosthetic leg might also impede her in flight/put her off-balance. If her kind ordinarily use their legs as a rudder in flight, like birds use their tails, that's another design constraint on her prosthetic and another task she'd need to re-learn. Or she might prefer to fly without the leg, and maybe have a modular peg-leg system, where she usually wears the cup/attachment part, and only cuts a stick to slot into it when she needs to walk. Not trying to discourage you, to be clear - it's an awesome idea, and you could elaborate on it in a variety of ways. Good luck with the research!
So I'm working on writing a comic that would have two protagonists with disabilities, one with a chronic illness and one who is blind. The world takes place in a world with superpowers and both characters' disabilities are because of their powers. I want to make sure I write them well, are there any pitfalls or tropes I should be aware of and avoid? The powers in question are a healing ability that harms the user. The character has to take medicine prevent their power from slowly killing them. The other power is a power that is mutation of an empath power and an advance sense power. The character can feel people's presence and their emotions, but can not see.
Hello! I love your content and this specyfic topic really bothered me for years! I read the book series "Warriors" about cats with high-working society and every disabled character either has a superpower or dies and I really hate it. Recently I'm working on a video about Rivet form Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart and why she is a terrible and overrated character and one of the things I wanted to touch upon when it comes to her writing was the fact that she's an amputee and the creators decided to do it to her just for the character design to look cool. Like the plot really tries to tell you: yeah this really matters! With her backstory and one conversation she has while on an action chaise segment, but NO IT DOES NOT. She is not affected mentally or physically at all. She is right handed - loses a right hand - makes herself (!) a prostetic that functions flawlessly. So it is also connected to her beeing a Mary Sue and just a female skin for Ratchet. The hand has no impact on gameplay or story at all - the fact that it's robotic doesn't make it more powerfull, or jinxes during combat or has to charge, no, showing that what happened to her really had no impact. Emotionally too, we are TOLD that it is a big deal but never shown. She would be exactly the same, the conflict of the story (if you can even call it that) would be the same, her hand is just an aestethic choice with a backstory and terribly shallow, told not shown to you, "moral of the story" added as an afterthought. Could I maybe contact you and ask few questions before making my video on the matter? Of course with the proper credit. I myself am not physically disabled (well I am almost blind on one eye, but my only problems are thick glasses and messed-up deph perception) and would love to discuss it with someone who knows more and can provide their own experience and maybe even tell me that I'm wrong and point where I misread the situation...?
just stumbled across this vid, I enjoyed the presentation of the argument, my only thing was I did not really know if you were trying to say toph was a bad character for this troupe until the very end. I did like the fact that you included near the end the fact that she got hit in the head with the belt, katara helping her aim scene to help clarify that she was a well written character. Im definitely going to look more into your videos. these seem interesting and enlightening. =D
I would be interested to see how you feel about The Boys. There was a blind character that was deafened to make a point. There's also an animated series what includes a shirt about a bunch of Supes (people with powers) that got the "shitty" powers and have to live in an assisted living facility bc their parents abandon them. Very gruesome show overall. I'm also pretty sure one of the main characters is burned all over his body? He wears a full body suit and is mute. There's also a fully deaf character with super strength.
Are you still love this when I was a little kid just because finding any blind character with super rare Then I realized how mind-boggling irritating it is I think the worst example is Ian from michael vey Without going into too many details some of the characters in that book series have magical superpowers relating to electricity One of these characters was blind but has the ability to see things through electrons the way sighted people would see things through light This means that not only if he functionally not blind at all he's actually got better vision than everybody else in the cast and they use him when they need to look at things they can't see He used to be my favorite character because he was blind and then I realized just how much I hated this and now he's like on my bottom half of my top three or five Because he's still a cool character personality wise but still Then and sometimes like a graveling series someone will have a superpower that replaces sight but they'll have it while being cited and then they go blind and actually I really love the way Graceland did this it was super cool Convenient but cool and had this nice little way of still having it be a struggle but also still being a superpower But honestly you know I just really want to blind character who doesn't have any powers and it's still capable and just show struggles realistically Please Well give me a character with a cane or a guide dog or talk text or Braille device in an average TV show
I have a universe of books I'm writing that are like mythical creature fantasy and somewhere in there I want to put a character who's blind and has a guide dragon.
A video like this about General Amaya from the Dragon prince would be amazing. Just because she is mute and Def doesn't mean she is helpless and useless. Though that brings the question, how did she learn signe language? I mean, yeah she can see but... how?
If the sing language existed before her, and wasn't invented specifically for her quite easily! Human brain is great at learning language and sing language is indeed just that, a language. Writing is even more abstract way of communications. Even hearing toddlers can learn sing language quicker than spoken becouse it's easier.
The same way hearing babies learn spoken languages basically. Babies are fast learners, and in fact deaf babies or babies speaking sign language as a first language can "babble" with their hands!
I think just about any compensation is going to have limitations so a writer really should consider what those limitations are and should probably include a chance to show them because that's interesting.
Lol remember that season of doctor who where 12 “lost his sight” but then immediately pulled these vision shades out of his ass and acted no differently than he had before he was “blind”
What I like about toph is that even tho her seismic sense acts as a replacement for her sight it's still a disability to a certain extent. For example she can't see airborne enemies and there was the arc where she had to adapt to fighting in the desert
Exactly! Toph still faces boundaries but finds adaptive ways to work around .She also relies on friends to describe .As a legally blind person I found it nice to see a stubborn blind character need help but still be independent.She is far from helpless but needs help.
Yeah cause the seismic sense kinda just gives her a sense of what’s around her. Some details don’t really carry over like how she mentions she doesn’t really know what Katara’s face looks like and she can’t read and other stuff like that.
also that led to metalbending so thats cool too
Agreed.
Yes, that plus she can't read or see pictures.
What I like about Toph is that though her seismic sense does compensate for her blindness and even allows her to "see" far more, the writers don't forget the fact that she is blind, her eyes don't work. Toph can't read and write and doesn't have a way to compensate for this beyond asking for help. She has to adjust or rely on others when not in a solid earth environment. And she has no idea what people look like. Toph herself makes jokes about it when her friends forget for a moment that she can't see the way they do. Her blindness is compensated for by her ability, but it's still a part of her character without being the constant focus of her character
And it's not cannonically exclusive to her, she passes down her technique in Korra.
So it's more her personal accomplishment/discovery than blind = superpowered.
Also there are real world parallels to this through procedures that "restore" hearing and sight but not really because you can't restore what never existed so you end up with something a bit different than what other people experience.
Like those hearing implants I can't spell the name of but kinda has the deaf community pissed rn, except for toph its actually more functional and less dangerous 😅
Yeah, her seismic sense may compensate some but we still see she has limits and that’s not portrayed in a shameful light. And I really like what they did with Toph but it’s also the time Toph was created I hope in the future we see more disabled characters whose strengths aren’t always related to coping with or thriving in spite of their disability. I hope we see more autistic characters without savant skills but I also hope when we do see autistic savants it will be noted that sometimes those strengths come because of a disability not in spite of it that something disabling in one way could be an advantage in another. I hope we see more blind characters without skills related to knowing where they are in space with their surroundings, I hope we see more heroes coping with a mental illness as they go, the actual struggles of having prosthetics, super heroes who need to take their meds and aren’t regarded as less strong because of it, I think Toph is great especially for the earlier 2000s but I hope we get to see more characters who are further away from that trope in the future.
@@lavenderpixel9092 I think the MCU has taken a few steps in that direction. We see some characters dealing with mental health: Tony Stark finding coping mechanism for his PTSD. Bucky Barnes working through guilt and trauma to accept that what was done to him wasn't his fault. Thor learning that he is still worthy despite all his loss and the feeling that he failed everyone.
We see Rhodey paralyzed in the line of duty and needing an artificial brace to walk when not in his armor. There's a scene where his armor is damaged in battle so he gets out of it and pulls himself across the floor without the use of his legs to save Rocket's life.
We see Dr. Strange still with his hands shaking from nerve damage that he could compensate for with magic but doesn't because he recognizes that this is just a part of him now and he has other things to offer besides the surgical skills that he's lost.
We see Clint Barton/Hawkeye having to adjust to accumulative hearing loss, using a hearing aid and learning sign language with his youngest son (in the most adorable scene ever). And also Maya who is both deaf and an amputee, and completely badass with no superpowers.
One detail I've noticed with Toph is that she often doesn't face the ppl she's focused on. She is usually standing 90 degrees or has a turned head with the person she's focused on or listening to. This is a detail unique to Toph.
@@Gingersnaps_the_pumpkin_kitty Yeah, it’s never outright stated, but seismic sense seems to be a power a lot if not most master earth-benders have and not something Toph invented. (Unlike say metal bending.)
One thing i love about how toph was depicted is that she learned her seismic sense ability from badgermoles. Since they are all blind, she was seen (no pun intended) as normal by them, and her disability isnt rlly a problem. It only becomes a problem when ppl like her parents treat her like she is helpless, or she's in an environment where she can't use her seismic sense. So basically the real problem is other ppl and places that arent accessable, as apposed to her blindness itself. I also like how her blindness is joked about a lot, but not in an insensitive or offensive way.
One of my favorite story beats is them forgetting she's blind, usually due to her wonderfully snarky attitude. Also when she mistakes Suki for Sokka.
Well usually it’s not insensitive. But that one time when Katara and Toph were still getting used to each other katara said something along the lines of “the stars sure are beautiful tonight to bad you can’t see them Toph” but well it’s obvious that Katara is wrong for saying that so it’s still fine
That’s an example of the social model of disability (which is the academic standard). She’s not disabled in the context of the mole badger society, but she is in the human society. This was popularized due to Martha’s Vineyard a long time ago. A huge percentage of MV were deaf and an even larger percentage could sign. So being deaf didn’t impact them in the same way as on the mainland and they could navigate society without too many barriers. This (and other examples) made scholars stop and think, “these individuals have an impairment for sure, but are they disabled?” And in my opinion the answer is a resounding, no, they weren’t. Now that is idealized and MV wasn’t as picturesque as described, but it gets the idea across.
I love Toph, because she embodies the resourcefulness of disabled and neurodivergent people have to develop to the fullest extent.
Her different perspective and resourcefulness even gave her access to a new ability no one had ever realized was possible with metalbending.
Exactly. This isn't a blind = superpower as much as it took a new perspective to make that discovery, hence why later non-blind characters also use it.
She innovated in her field thanks to her own resourcefulness and insights like so many other minorities have irl even outside of disabled people.
From braile to sonar to ac's to blood storage bags to even the computer algorithm, people have accomplished despite having the system rigged against their identities and I think Toph embodies that idea.
personally, I've always saw Toph's resilience and confidence as hers superpower , after all , being a Bender in that world is not unusual
I'm blind, and in the middle of writing an essay about this right now, and I may turn it into a video at some point, but I love Toph!
So, I don't think her seismic sense is a problem. Blind people do pay more attention to their sense of touch than sighted people do, so, to me, her being blind, and naturally being an earth bender, would go good together. Plus, why can't she have a natural talent for eartbending? I think that's cool. It's more statistically probable for blind people to have a talent from music, but it's not a trope when they do. We also have the fact that she's able to teach seismic sense to Aang, so it's not some sort of magical prosthetic that only she can use. Aang uses it to defeat Ozai! Also, being that she's born blind, it would be something that she would naturally gear to, to make her life easier. Plus, she learns it from blind creatures! That's the best fucking thing ever! Something that would just be a party trick to anybody else, when taught by a person with a disability to a person with the same disability is a life skill! The Badermoles taught her a life skill! One only they could teach, and one only she could learn to the extent that she did!
We can kind of assume that Bumi can do it as well, because he is able to bend earth without looking at it, even though it might not be as well trained as hers, but also, she does have weaknesses, very well-done ones in my opinion, like the fact that she can't see when she's not on the ground, she can't fight enemies not on the ground, she can't read or write, and she is obviously week in the desert, which she eventually learn to adapt to, which I think was cool
The biggest reason though, growing up, I felt super connected to Toph though, was the social aspect of disability. I can, although to a less Extreme extent, relate to how her parents treated her, I super related to how are the girls in Ba Sing sie, laughed at her, and most of all, I relate so much (and it actually really helped me deal with shit), with her conversation with Iroh. What he said really helped me, although it took a while, deal with some shit. I always had trouble getting help from people, because I felt I needed to prove myself, I still do sometimes, but I learned that everybody needs help, and it's OK to need it, even if people assume you do, sometimes you ACTUALLY do.
I also really liked her arc of learning to trust others, and allow herself to be helped. Unlike her parents, her friends knew she could do some things really really well, but also knew she needed help with other things, and respected both of those. They didn't push too hard with helping her, nor did they say "Hey you can't actually do this that are the other thing," when in reality she could. They respected her as a person, and as a bender.
Also her sense of humor is the best. The fact that there are blind jokes where she's not, most of time isn't actually the butt of the joke is amazing! Most of the time her friends are the bother the jokes, because they forget she can't fucking see! "It's so dark in here I can't see a thing." "Oh no what a nightmare!" I love it so much! Also, when she IS The butt of the joke, it makes sense! Do you know how much stupid shit I've done because I'm blind?! I want to mistook a towel for my dog, and, a small potted plant, for a fucking brownie! Thankfully I did not bite it. Thank you sense of smell.
Anyway, I love this girl! I think she was done really well for a character with a super power. I think they hit a really good balance between making her disabled, and giving her a special ability because she's super talented! I think that's a big part of it. The fact that she put so much work into Learning earthbending, instead of just being given a prosthetic or magic eyeballs, makes a big difference. This isn't just a negation of her disability, it's, this character worked her ass off to be the best earthbender in the world, and she fucking is! Also, the fact that, not having an ordinary perspective on the world, allowed her to see something new, and create not just a new way to see the world THROUGH bending, but a whole new TYPE of bending, it's fucking fantastic! That's how worlds change! Different perspectives
I hope you've enjoyed my TER. talk.
By the way dude, I don't know your name unfortunately, but if you would like to make a video discussing this with me, I'd love to! I don't have much of a following at all, but I love talking to people with disabilities about characters with disabilities, because, being the only PWD in my family, although of course I have friends who are, there's so many movies I can't talk about with disabled characters in them, and I'd love to! Especially if you disagree with me on some points, or you wanna go into more detail, or, just wanna give your perspective, I would love that! Even if you don't want to Kalab, and you just want to make a video going into more detail on your own, that would be super cool too!
I think, being blind myself, I've got a different perspective on Toph than you, which I think you know, as I don't have all the information on being a wheelchair user. That's the fun of meeting new people now right? I love learning new things about things I don't know!
Anyway, I hope you learned something from my comment, and I can't wait to see more of your stuff! I'm gonna go binger and count off of videos now. Just finished your video on Bruno, and I've got so much more to watch! So excited! 😀
Forgot to mention, but I don't like everything they did with Toph, but I do agree that I do wish they had shown her having trouble finding things on tables and little stuff like that. I'm also not sure how I feel about her not looking at people, especially in the desert, or when things suddenly are said or happen, and she's the only one looking in the wrong direction. At least in real life, we're taught to look at people, or at least in their general direction, when they're talking to us, but that's something that were explicitly taught in the real world, and considering Toph wasn't allowed to blow on her own food, I think I can give this one a pass. Still in observation though.
Cool.
@@ZeldaWolf2000 i always thought that she doesn't look directly at people purposefully to be disrespectful to them, she knows well where the person is, both from seismic sense and simple human hearing, but she rebels by not looking at them, kind of making them feel inferior and less deserving of her full attention. Many times she points at them while having the rest of her body in a different direction, and i feel like it expresses her personality so much. "I know exactly where you are, but I'm not paying attention to you because i have something better to do"
@@alessiaagazzi8605 i never thought of it that way. It'd be funny if that was case. I wish we had confirmation either way. Nice idea though.☺️
The thing about Daredevil is like like most comic superheroes he's had about a dozen writers over decades of interlocking and diverging continuities. Some are going to be deliberately and disgustingly offensive to blind people and some are going to run every plot development and line of dialog by a carefully selected sensitivity reader. But the most are going to be somewhere in the middle of that
Ironically, the shitty movie has one of the better disability moments. There's a scene just after Matt wakes up and gets ready for the day, and he pulls out 3 braille labeled envelopes containing money, each a different type of bill. He then takes a few of each, and puts them in his wallet folded a different way to indicate value. I had never thought of how blind people would use cash until I saw that. And then there's the entire rest of the film...
@@redgunnit In a Canada the bills have had braille pressed into them for a long time, even back before they were changed to plastic. Though, to be fair, the indentations don't persist well. I thought most money had braille stamped on it, but the US treats their money like a sacred icon so I see that they may be resistant to updating it.
Y'know, for a country that holds money in such reverence, you'd be surprised how shitty the quality of our cash money is.
That's why euro bills have different sices and colours to help distinguish them. The coins have different sices, materials and markings on the outside. As a child I would lay in the dark guessing the value of coins when I couldn't sleep:D
@@stopske9332 tbh I thought every country's coins are easily identifiable even by touching? Isn't their values like engraved on them
I always liked the moments when Toph's unable to use her earth bending because she on sand or has to cross an ice river, they aren't many, but they showed that Toph is still blind and that does make certain things impossible to do like read a book or sighns, because braille hasn't been invented in this universe
She's extremely brave, but is straight up _terrified_ when traveling over water and becomes defeated in the desert. Although she eventually learns sand-bending, being in the water or air frightens her (water more than air). She says she normally doesn't care what people think of her physically, but does get self conscious in the "Tales of Ba Sing Se" episode.
Basically, she's really cool. Lol
The thing about Toph is that her power doesn't take away her disability, but for her it functions in essentially the same way a real blind person would have a cane or a guide dog, or how some of them teach themselves to use echolocation. She specifically developed that power in order to help her function in a way that didn't require her to be able to see. It's an aid that helps her exist as a disabled person in an abled world.
I think it's interesting when a usually cognitively disabled character is written with a super power that is directly linked to their disability, and if they didn't have it, the superpowers wouldn't show themselves in the same way. For instance, an autistic character who has a hard time picking up social cues and is processing too much information might be able to read minds: making social interactions even more complex and giving them even more information to process. The two parts of the character amplify each other. Makes for good yet subtle representation.
I’m an Autistic writer, and mind-reading is actually immediately where I went, too, and ironically this video sort of made me want to write a character like that? Like one who has some limited mind reading abilities that help them mask, and maybe cause them to not even realize they’re Autistic, but for some reason their powers act up for a while or even get taken permanently, and they’re super disoriented by the experience and have to learn to navigate their neurodivergence fully for maybe the first time ever, (sort of like what actually happens to high-masking Autistic folks who finally have an Autistic breakdown from the prolonged masking or other life factors, and experience a “regression.”
As an autist that sounds so cool and terrifying and I’d like to see someone explore that
I actually made an autistic character before and put some of my own experiences as an autist into him, mainly because I was unhappy with how autistic characters are portrayed in some movies.
In the movies I've seen that portrayed an autistic character, they were portrayed as the weird nerd everyone picks on and is afraid of dirt and touches. I got so angry because... no! Autists aren't like that! Well, maybe some of them are, but you don't need autism to be socially awkward or a clean freak.
That's why I made my character like acting (since Autists are said to be unable to convey feelings) and have him socialize with a small group of people. I took some of my own struggles, like talking to strangers and answering a phone.
Still, I think the most important trait I gave him is that he is NOT the defintion of autism (or Asperger Syndrome, to be more specific, but it's still autism), but just a normal dude that happens to have it. He doesn't define himself by his diagnosis, but he also handles it openly and makes no effort in hiding it. Unless he's asked, he won't tell.
I was just thinking of that!
@@Canonicallycreative It reminded me about a story of an old man, who lived his whole long life without a sight. I believe his children insisted him to get through an operation which worked: he was able to see things, but he have never learnt to measure distance from object to object.
What I like about Toph is that she developed that power specifically to compensate for her disability. It's not some random power up that completely replaces it.
For me Toph fit in the 'find your angle' category.
She fits well into the lore they created for the world since she ended up learning from the original earthbenders, badgermoles, that used the ability to interact with the world. She ended up learning it was something beyond just fighting, that it even served as a separate sense (waterbenders are also mentioned to feel the water around them including in other beings). Makes sense she was so powerful since she had that additional depth on her use of the ability (Zuko also became more powerful after learning from the dragons) and was constantly using it.
I’m not blind, but I am disabled and a writer. and tbh, I don’t think Toph fits in the same category as Daredevil. While I can see what you’re going for, there are definitely numerous instances in the series where Toph’s blindness doesn’t disappear just because she’s also an earth bender. For example: the numerous times she has to advocate for herself against people with ableist assumptions, including her parents and friends; instances where her blindness keeps her from being able to read or write, effectively making her illiterate and putting her at risk via wanted posters; the times when her earth bending is shown to have weaknesses that a sighted person could compensate for but which she can’t, as when Aang flies and she’s essentially rendered powerless although a sighted bender wouldn’t be limited at all. To assume that because a character has the ability to fight like abled people means that their disability is “fixed” is to forget the countless ways every day that disability brings us struggles beyond mobility. Toph’s writers clearly took this into account. It’s enough that I think she falls squarely into the “good rep” category.
Daredevil is a hot mess, though, I’ll give you that.
Could you please edit your comment to add paragraph breaks? I am dyslexic (and hyperlexic, but that doesn’t help with this problem) and would like to understand what you wrote, but I cannot process a continuous "wall" of text.
30-50 words per paragraph and an empty row between paragraphs should make it possible for dyslexics who have this same problem to read your comment. With the current number of subscribers on this channel, there likely are a few hundred of us here already.
Thanks in advance!
@@ronjaj.addams-ramstedt1023
I’m not blind, but I am disabled and a writer. and tbh, I don’t think Toph fits in the same category as Daredevil.
While I can see what you’re going for, there are definitely numerous instances in the series where Toph’s blindness doesn’t disappear just because she’s also an earth bender.
For example:
- The numerous times she has to advocate for herself against people with ableist assumptions, including her parents and friends.
- Instances where her blindness keeps her from being able to read or write, effectively making her illiterate and putting her at risk via wanted posters.
- The times when her earth bending is shown to have weaknesses that a sighted person could compensate for but which she can’t, as when Aang flies and she’s essentially rendered powerless although a sighted bender wouldn’t be limited at all.
To assume that because a character has the ability to fight like abled people means that their disability is “fixed” is to forget the countless ways every day that disability brings us struggles beyond mobility.
Toph’s writers clearly took this into account. It’s enough that I think she falls squarely into the “good rep” category.
Daredevil is a hot mess, though, I’ll give you that.
@@sstar339 Thank you! And good analysis.
Meanwhile me with my hearing aids that can turn up the volume up to 200% so I sometimes hear more than my peers *nervous sweating*
can you also just turn it completely off and shut annoying sounds completely?
cause I couldn't count how many times I've wished to able to do that
@@matheussanthiago9685 You can. I worked with a woman with hearing aids and a very annoying man. Whenever she worked with him she would position him to one side of her(for the most part) and turn down that aid. She'd keep her other one at her regular volume.
I like how they joke about Toph’s disability and the gang just completely forgetting it’s there. Because for the first time in Toph’s life she doesn’t need to be constantly told by her dad and mentor that she’ll never be a proper earth bender because she’s blind. The exact opposite, she’s on a mission with an air bender teaching him to earth bend and saving the world alongside him from the fire nation.
I remember reading this fantasy comic series as a pre-teen (it was a french comic that was very popular with kids my age at the time) in which, at some point, the elf character gets injured in a battle and loses her sense of sight. She then gets magical elf hair clips or whatever that help her see people’s auras. At first, I was like « that’s a really cool concept! » but then the story promptly ignored her disability, only mentioning the hair clips once or twice, and treated her as if she could see normally (or even better than she did before since she became able to see if someone was a shape-shifting imposter or the like). Completely disregarding the fact that seeing auras should not make her able to read, see any kind of walls or furniture, tell what colour something is, etc… Basically it was just « omg look at her, she’s the same as before except she has more powers, and also cool-looking, perfectly aesthetic and symmetrical scars on her eyes!! She can see because elf magic!! » Almost as if the author thought a badass blind character would be cool, but didn’t want to bother writing her realistically (just like you said). Even as an abled twelve-year-old I remember finding this pretty annoying… x)
Edit: now that I think about it, this series did this to many other main characters who like, lost limbs and replaced them with magical demon limbs or something… To be fair, the demon limb _did_ end up being a plot point, but I digress.
I remember that comic too! I’m a little disappointed to say I once made a pokemon trainer oc with a similar thing going on as a result, and he became one of my most used characters on the place I rp
I still like the character though, so I’ve been trying to figure out how to address it for the years he’s been a character
@@m-pc5334
Y’know, if you grew up with that comic, it only makes sense that you would take inspiration from it with some of your ocs! I wouldn’t worry too much about it. ^^’
What's the name of the comic?
@@pawprint9025
_Les légendaires._
If you were raised in a French-speaking country in the 2000s-2010s you’ve probably heard of it. ^^
Toph's true disability is her pride. She is so determined to prove she can handle herself she can't ask for help or admit there are simple things she just can't do. My favorite bite from her is the 'poster' scene.
I feel like for Toph, her earthbending is less of a superpower and more of a mobility aid. Yeah, it's super useful, but it doesn't work everywhere. It can't account for everything. She's still very much disabled even with her bending.
i want like a blind character with superspeed or something. or like. a wheelchair user with superstrength or firebreath instead of brainiac stuff.
how come a lot of wheelchair bounded characters are seen as brainiacs, anyway? like.. cool! but i’m not seeing the correlation or anything.
@@stickynote-slumber maybe writers think they have a lot of time to study?
@@stickynote-slumber
I think part of it is the implication that a character who is physically incapable in some way can “make up” for it by being incredibly smart. After all, a wheelchair bound character may find it difficult to defend themselves or fight in the same way as everyone else, so they have to be extra crafty if they want to navigate the world (at least going by the writer’s logic) That’s why you see a lot of dudes in wheelchairs who have massive brains.
Personally, I’d like to see it mixed up where a guy in a wheelchair has some other type of power that can also be accommodated to their disability.
@@gregjayonnaise8314 Super Strength and agility would actually be kind of fun for a wheelchair user.... Though I think the biggest issue when it comes to wheelchair using characters is the assumption that the wheelchair is an extension of the person.... Now take Spiderman, imagine his legs don't work and just kind of flop around limply when he's web-slinging.... He can still stick to walls and punch things, and frequently walks on his hands when not in a wheelchair back arched to keep his legs dangling over his head.... Heck he could still probably flail his legs around for kicking with by using his core....
@@gregjayonnaise8314 Inspector Gadget Wheelchair? Like it has a jetpack, little tools, maybe a lazer gun, that’s all compacted into the wheelchair?
It sounds cool in theory.
Something I grapple with as an autistic person and hope to see in more writing is addressing how neurodiversity gets treated. From experience I’ve been on both sides of the coin where one person says I don’t need accommodations for school and basically am not disabled enough for their liking and that other side where I’m seen as helpless and incapable no matter what I do. Finding that middle ground internally and especially expressing it externally is the hardest thing ever, you don’t wanna do something impressive but then when you need help people use it as an excuse to not do anything.
The thing with Toph is that Earthbending HASN'T replaced her sight. She can't see airborne enemies, and she can't read or see things drawn on flat surfaces.
I really liked this perspective. This trope has become so tiring. I recently saw The Swordman, that is a Korean film where the titular swordsman is one of the best but starts losing his sight. Years later he has to do some heroism and he just kicks ass even though he has reduced vision. Like he’s so good that he can be as good with his eyes closed. Is that another trope?, where the character is so good they just brush a disability aside like it’s nothing ?
I loved the film because the fighting is very well done.
It is possible for a normal person to learn how to fight effectively without the use of sight, but it takes years of dedicated practice before one can become proficient in it. I'm not blind, but I have continuously worked on honing my other senses because I know that an overreliance on sight is also not a good thing, and also because there's always the possibility that I might become blind at some point in time (especially given my current track record of unfortunate events happening to screw me over). I've worked at it nearly every day since I was ten years old. My martial arts instructor would often have me blindfolded while I was doing various tasks. During sparring sessions he would blindfold me, first trying to get me to listen for his footsteps and breathing to figure out where he was at. Once I got a fairly solid grasp on that, he would take off his shoes and play distracting background music to make it even harder. I then had to learn to detect heat and changes to the air currents, eventually being able to track him similar to infrared technology, albeit with a lot shorter range and to a much lesser degree. He also had me utilize this ability in blind navigation; I learned to detect changes in the air currents to be able to tell when I was about to bump into something. Once he had me navigate a corn maze completely without the aid of sight. He's run me through obstacle courses as well. Right now we're working on fighting in the midst of other obstacles; I have to focus not only on figuring out where my opponent is and what he/she is planning, but also making sure I don't run into/trip over obstructions to my path. I'm still not nearly as proficient at fighting without sight than I am at fighting with sight. I still work every day to hone my skills. Often when I'm out on nature walks I'll close my eyes and tune in to my other senses; listening to the birds in the trees to try to figure out where they're at, feeling for changes in temperature and airflow to detect where I am in comparison to my surroundings. One thing that I've noticed as I've worked this skill is that living things have mild electrical fields; my hair stands on end whenever I get really close to something that's alive. Outside of combat scenarios, I've gotten so good at detecting this that I can sense the difference between a sick/dying plant and a healthy one, purely off of the slight differences in electric fields. It takes a lot of time and intense focus in order to do this, but it has become possible.
In short, humans are adaptable by nature. If some resource becomes scarce, humans will naturally come up with other ways around the problem. It does take a lot of time and effort to accomplish such feats, but with enough dedicated practice, anyone can learn how to not only succeed in spite of a disability, but also turn their disability into a strength.
@@emmasilver2332 holy s*** what is this
@@jaxon3186 it's called practice and dedication
@@emmasilver2332 ah yes, the famous infared sensors built intl all humans.
Thank you. You are one of the few RUclipsrs to discuss this trope and searching "Disability superpower" on RUclips comes across a bunch of videos about something else entirely.
Can't say I've personally done that search but I can imagine. And yeah this is a topic that is (for obvious reasons) close to my heart so it was inevitable I'd end up talking about it eventually.
I love how toph just stares blankly most of the time and especially that joke that she found the temple even though she was on Appa and couldn't see anything
I'd recommend the netflix daredevil series. It's not perfect and daredevil in that still does have the level of power where he can basically see through his other senses because unfortunatly that was so ingrained into the daredevil comic character by the decades of writers coming through the revolving door with vastly different writting skill levels.
However the main actor for daredevil tried really really hard to truely present Matt as a blind person and went to some mild extremes such as method acting by wearing contact that blocked or reduced his vision as well as taking a lot of time to learn about the quirks and mannerims someone who is blind would develop over their life. I think he even got like an award for it by some american institution for disablities but I don't recall the details of that.
As I recall it actually bit him in the ass later. Because of said method acting, at some point while filming the show _not_ making eye contact became his default as if he was actually blind, which caused him to do poorly in an audition after he was done with the show. He actually had to re-train himself to make normal eye contact again.
Daredevil uses the "Blind Swordsman" trope of visually impaired martial artists, from samurai movies, such as the Crimson Bat series, about a blind swordswoman.
I don’t know if it helps, in recent years there’s been efforts to not only be sensitive to Matt’s blindness but to actually incorporate it into the story. They basically did what avatar does with Toph. Especially since Matt’s childhood makes it perfectly clear that this isn’t some magic cure all. Before he learned to control it, his abilities as well as his blindness were incredibly debilitating. He’s taught to use those abilities and they’re helpful but they can STILL be debilitating. Matt has to sleep on silk because anything else feels like sandpaper. He gets overstimulated by the smallest of things. It takes him an enormous amount of energy to focus on making his abilities helpful to him because otherwise his “abilities” are just as useless if not paralyzing. He is still a disabled character. He’s still a character that lives in a world that isn’t catered for him. In the comics and the show he still has to use disability aids. He still gets taken advantage because he’s blind even though he can tell, he can’t show the fact that he can tell. He’s “pitied” or get “special treatment” because he’s blind. Mark Waid does a great job at highlighting his blindness in his run. Give it a read. He shows a Matt that’s become comfortable with his body and abilities but he still gives you glimpses of how his blindness still effects him in the ways I’ve mentioned. Stories written by fans have also been great at making this progress move along with how much research they put into their work
Consider this: Blind character with laser vision.
No they can't see with their laser vision.
How would someone be able to see while using laser vision anyway?
If the laser beams are powerful enough to melt through steel, surely they would outshine external light sources like a flashbang and prevent their user from seeing.
I think it’s easier to get it more grounded if you think of the super power’s aiding the disability as the same as a good disability aide. Like, vibration sensors exist. It helps blind people navigate around space. Doesn’t make all the set backs go away, and has unique problems tied to the aide itself.
Why is it that every disabled character i've seen so far in my life always gotta have a superpower related to their disability? Why can't we have a fire-breathing wheelchair user? Why can't we have an illusion making deaf person? Why can't we have a superspeedy blind guy? Why can't we have a strongman amputee? Why's it gotta always be an aide of some sort? What if the superpower clashes occasional with the disability and the person has to find creative ways to get around it? I would watch something like that in a heartbeat!
@Fighting Flower
and another thing is how will the villains react to those disabilities,
because they will exploit those heroes disabilities with glee , like for person who uses a wheelchair, have the villain go up stairs or targets the wheels of it , or for a strongman amputee have the villains try to grapple their only arm , or try to knock over their one leg , or if they use a prosthetic break it.
use a fire alarm against a blind person, use pocket sand against a deaf person.
the most common example i know of this is going for someone's blind spot if they have one seeing eye, and this is done by the good guys and bad guys...
@@chongwillson972 See? There's so many possibilities for interesting fight scenes & conflicts by giving heroes disabilities!
@@Fighting.Flower
the main problem with it though , despite how a lot of villains exploit the heroes , and when they do that, it feels tense threatening and makes them cunning!
while exploiting someone's disability is much more dirty and can make the villain seem less threatening and their likability take a nose dive because they had to use their opponent disability to win and is often called an "bitch move"...
@@chongwillson972 Yeah, punches below the belt really can make someone unlikeable, especially when it's a belt not everyone wears. You really need to ask yourself what kind of villain you're making and if they would stoop so low as to exploit a disability or if they have enough basic respect to not do something so cheap.
Mileage definitely varies with daredevil on how his blindness may or may not hamper him. I think the netflix series did a better job than most live action, but still was a bit lacking. Sometimes he has the inherent disadvantage that sound moves slower than light, so his reaction speed is worse than a sighter person, sometimes it's magically better. It's what happens with very long standing characters as they pass hands between many writers.
There's definitely potential; but it's often wasted, especially if you stack him up against the likes of Toph or any of the amputees from FMA brotherhood. FMA is just about the only popular media I've seen that highlights the downside of robot arms, whereas many think "it would be a great idea to lop of my arms and replace them with robot arms,then I'll be super strong" for building a character in a setting with advanced prosthetics.
They don't think of things like phantom limb pains, cleaning the stump area, or pressure injuries from wearing a prosthetic. Worse are ones where the prosthetic is bolted right to bone, and they don't realize the issues around pins going through the flesh, or that just because the robot arm can theoretically lift 50 tonnes doesn't mean their legs and spine can also. Edward finding limits in the arctic, or scenes where the prosthetics are pushed beyond what their mounting points can withstand made FMA brotherhood a lot more believable overall.
the sound and light thing is compensated for, humans react to audio stimuli faster than visual. (something like 50-100ms faster.)
@@DESTROY3R05 doesn't change the fact light reaches your eye basically instantly, a guy down a long hall is gonna shoot daredevil dead and he won't even hear the gunshot before the bullet hits him, since almost all modern firearms have supersonic ammo.
Someone who could see could see the person reading their shot and go for cover. Daredevil would be behooved to knock out the lights to bring sighted opponents down to his level where he could absolutely stomp them.
@@kauske well yeah if you add bullets its different
@@DESTROY3R05 Daredevil exists in a world where bullets are very much a thing, hell, once of his main enemies is a bloody marksman. :P
Yeah, cyberpunk often uses the prosthetic bolted to bone and super strength cliches. For 50-tonne powerlifting, the Hollywood Cyborg would need mind-uploading into a robot body. This would also allow pop-up power tools like Inspector Gadget has.
one thing I love about Toph is even though she does have seismic sense that does help negate a lot of the problems being blind would have (and even then she had to work hard to master that) to the point her friends frequently forget (I still think Avatar did a great job with the blind jokes because it was more at the expense of everyone but her for the most part and the one example st her expense is actually really funny)
is that she's still blind, she can't see faces, can't read or write and well if she isn't on solid earth her power shorts out. like she gets the benefits from her power but she's very much still blind
Honestly, I think the respect one gives a character and the quality of writing can really make or break the trope. Toph was put into a special position because she was blind, she gained _insight_ - if you would - into the badger moles and understood their earth bending better than any person who focuses too much on what they’re seeing. And her seismic sense is not an exclusive ability - she goes on to teach others who can see. It’s not dependent on her disability, it’s just something she was in a particular position to pay more attention to because she is disabled. It’s not a patronizing “look how empowered we made a disabled person - disabled people are special too!!1!” She feels like a person, who just so happened to have a special experience because her experience of just living is different. And lastly, her disability is acknowledged repeatedly when her seismic sense can’t do everything functioning sight could. She’s can’t read and write, she can’t see the sky or airborne attackers, and certain terrains become an accessibility issue in a way. I feel like Toph would lose a lot of her 3 dimensional-ness if she could actually see.
I love Daredevil but yeah I see your point
I'd be interested in your thoughts on Amaya the deaf general in the Dragon prince.
Yeeees, I fricking LOVE that scene in FMA:B that really shows us the drawbacks of automail - the way it contrasts Ed’s emotional turmoil with the physical result of the very moment that he’s spiralling over, and how he forces himself through both the emotional and physical pain because he *has to know* what really happened - such a powerful moment. Ed’s an absolute badass, and the way he uses his automail - his disability - as a source of strength is a huge part of that, so it’s gut-wrenching to get that reminder that yeah, he’s still disabled, this thing that is part of what makes him such a badass can still cause him so much pain.
i do very much agree toph is a good example
cus it is very much explicitly stated in show that she is blind and it affects how she does things: she doesnt know what she looks like but still wants to be pretty, she cant read and needs katara to write letter for her, there are a lot of blind jokes that show shes comfortable with that, and everywhere she doesnt have earth under her feet she is pretty much immediately lost (see:scene on the airship with sokka)
also, what i consider a deal breaker that firmly places her in good rep category for me is that she is one of many. a lot of people in earth kingdom have bending powers, and what makes her the best is not her blindness, but her character and how in tune she is with earth. I mean, she is an archetypal earthbender - grounded, stubborn, rough and loyal, hard to get through to, but reliable. she *understands* earth and from that perspective her seismic vision becomes more of a mobility aid than anything, really.
she had to teach herself use it, its a show of skill and ingenuity. it doesnt negate her disability or cure her - it just helps her to be more mobile and independent in her life.
i feel like its at the same level as a good prostetic for an amputee character that still gets a lot of screentime that shows that it needs maintenance and has limits and stuff
also like, her main power use is that of a heavy hitter. she is very much specifically a Disabled person that happens to be kick ass powerhouse And smart enough to figure out creative way to use this power as a mobility aid
Only recently found your channel and have been throughly enjoying everything you've discussed.
On the topic of disabled characters with superpowers, I wanted to mention anime that only just came out last year; "Ranking of Kings".
The story revolves around Prince Bojii, who is the 14 year old son the ailing King Bosse. He is deaf as well as mute, as well as being judged by the people of the kingdom for his lack of size and strength. His father is a giant that built the kingdom through raw power, and his father's shadow looms over everything Bojii due.
That being said, while Bojii does have superhuman abilities, they are not immediately related to his disabilities. In fact as he makes friends on the way, they help him with situations he has trouble interacting and dealing with.
After watching your video, it reminded me of the show, so I thought I'd give it a mention.
Seeing this video over two years after you posted it, and after your channel has grown several thousand more strong is pretty cool! Good for you!
I love hearing your opinions on disabled characters. It gives me a better understanding of how to write disabled characters in my stories, which one of them has quite a lot in the main and secondary cast. Especially with the whole blind character trope.
I do have a blind character who’s in tune with nature as the four siblings powers are based around seasons and the older sister is blind, she has a seeing eye bird (she herself is a dog hybrid) and her powers are only able to work with direct connection to plants, animals and nature. It has no use indoors and under extreme stress. But I’m still working on her and her siblings characters, which the two youngest are disabled as they both are missing a wing.
Complaining about Toph in an episode where she was useless to find the library, told her crew she has no interest in books because she can't read and has their bison stolen because she's blind and can't see in the sand is kind of the worst episode you could have picked.
I like that they at least had some limits on Tophs earth bending sight. She requires solid ground to see, so in the desert or in the air her sight is limited. Also she can't read or see colors with it
Matt Murdock/Daredevil is definitely not the greatest example, albeit not necessarily the worst case ever; infamous, maybe? For whatever much or little it may be worth, at the time Stan Lee created him, he was concerned that the character would be considered offensive to the disabled readers of Marvel; he actually received a fair bit of positive feedback at the time for creating him. Which doesn’t mean he’s aged the best, but I appreciate Matt as a Fair For It’s Day case of the trope… and that Lee, while I straight white Jewish man, was himself somewhat ahead of the curve if not as progressive as would’ve preferred.
I just found your channel today right after having a discussion with a friend about this very topic a few days ago.
In particular, I was focused on the subject of amputees, because I don't like how common it is for shows to cut off a part of a character's body, only to give them a prosthetic that's functionally the same as a normal body part, if not a complete upgrade. I always felt like it'd be more interesting to explore the ways that these disabilities would affect their characters, even if it involved high-tech prosthetics or superpowers. I'm fine with a disabled character being really powerful in combat, but I also want to see that the disability has some kind of effect elsewhere, like how Toph can use her earthbending to see her surroundings, but can't read or write. I find this kind of portrayal a lot more realistic and interesting than a lot of other shows, for example RWBY, which briefly teases the idea of Yang having to deal with losing an arm, only to give her a robotic prosthetic that returns her to normal in a way that's so egregious that certain scenes seem really odd when you actually think about them; like how she seemingly still uses the prosthetic as her dominant hand, or how she responds to touch on that arm even though she shouldn't realistically be able to feel it.
I am not physically disabled myself, but I am writing a story with a prominent main character that happens to be a right-arm amputee, and I want to be very careful with how I handle her. She doesn't use any type of prosthetic, but she can mitigate it with the ability to morph and stretch her body. In combat, she can grow a stretchy claw from her nub, but she never holds this form for very long since it would be exhausting and painful, so it's always visibly clear that she's missing an arm. She can compensate for her shortcomings in a pinch, and can hold her own in a fight, but may rely on her partner for a few simple domestic tasks, which I'm hoping is a decent way of handling a character like this.
Anyway, I really appreciate hearing your perspective on issues of disability, and I'm absolutely going to subscribe! This is a subject that I really want to tackle correctly in my own work, so I'm glad to find someone talking about it!
The first (and really only) character that came to mind that has a superpower unrelated to their disability is Makkari from the Eternals. I know the actress is deaf and with what context clues were provided it would appear the character is too. Although there may be some connection to super speed and breaking the sound barrier, I wouldn't know as I'm not super familiar with the comics. I hadn't ever considered that it might be problematic to always tie superpowers with a character's disability but I'm glad to have heard this perspective! I just discovered your channel and have been binging all day!! keep up the great work!!😊
/i would like to write a character whose disabled but in a magical way, would that be falling into any of the tropes
what i mean is, a character who is a fairy that lost her wings. She got a prosthetic that she made herself (a fairy blacksmith) and can no longer feel how the clouds feel like (clouds and portal magic is a big part of my story)
There's also a child who's born with broken wings, can never fly and also cant feel clouds. I would like to write an episode where they try to explain what "clouds" are suppose to feel like, kinda like how someone tries to describe what colors are to a blind person
I think it's a good story ! I really like the sound of it ^^
@@05grace91 /ouhhh
thank you
Otherwise great but she needs to be a silversmith, because iron burns the fair folk. (at least it does in every faerie story that I have ever read or heard of)
@@ronjaj.addams-ramstedt1023 /ohhh really? listen, i grew up asian and the tropes for faeries are different around here, i never knew
@@jenniferchaulam Sorry, I stared at "StormBuffalo"*, did not register what stands before and after it and assumed you were from or living in the US.
What type of fairy / spirit were you thinking of: huli jing, kitsune, peri, xian, yaksha, ... ?
* and now I realize that StormBuffalo could be a word play on Appa -- I'm really not at my sharpest today
I liked your words about how it has to be considered differently for each character. It is one thing if a character has a super power prothestic because they for example constructed it to push aside prejudices for being an amputee. It is another if you just don't wanna write a deaf character and shit.
Congratulations!Also you deserve way more:) I completely agree with your pound. Being a writer( Recreational)I believe a character needs to have a personality,History,and continuity.No matter what because representation can easily strengthen stereotypes or romanize (override) the representation.
I have a character I am working on who isn't in the story yet (they will be), who is blind. But I am waiting writing them in until I research more into it. They have magic but they can't see anything so I have to figure out how to write that. It's actually exciting to figure out.
Matt Murdock falls into the better representation of this trope. His superpower is less... magical (he's just a REALLY good lawyer ;) ) but it is comparatively supernatural. In no way home, yes, you do see him catch a brick out of mid air, but it's in an instance where seeing wouldn't have helped, as it was coming from behind him. you can see his ears perk up at the shouting moments before, and his head tilting in the few seconds after listening for more potential threats. IDK who the actor is, but damn, the entirety of daredevil needs more attention.
edit: I wrote this comment preemptively and as soon as I clicked play on the video, you brought up Matt Murdock. My bad.
"Does your disabled character have to have this power?" taking the blind person as an example: sight is pretty important in a fight, so if you want that character to kick ass, you kinda need to replace it.
That's true, but that's were how you handle things come in. With Toph, we see moments where her being blind is an issue her ability doesn't not much to rectify. Like when Opera is captured by sandbenders in the desert. If she had t been blind, or in an environment that hindered her ability she probably would have been able to work them off enough for Appa to get away. But because of those circumstances, she had to make the tough choice of letting him go to save the others. They could've easily wrote her as being able to "see" as well on mounds of sand as she could on solid earth, leaving her with 0 issues or limitations in the desert. But they didn't. Instead we were shown that despite how amazing her ability is, it doesn't completely trump the fact that at the end of the day she is blind. He ability helps with her disability, but doesn't replace what it's lacking in the sense that she never has to deal with the reality of it.
@@_IVXX I can't believe it! The sandbenders also kidnapped a web browser! cant have anything in The Si Wong Desert
.
an interesting case of disability with superpower is Maki Zenin from jujutsu kaisen
because she has a superpower that is the opposite of her disability
she was born with almost no cursed energy which means she wouldn't be able to fight cursed spirits
but received a superhuman body in return capable of keeping up with other sorcerers
however, being physically strong doesn't make you capable of hurting curses
so she has to use cursed tools to fight
I know that Golden Kamuy isn’t that popular in the west, but I’ve been getting into it lately and how they handle disability in fighting is so realistic I haven’t seen anything like it before.
Using only one of the disabled characters as an example, Toni Anji. He’s an old blind man who uses a pistol to fight. When I was first introduced to him, I thought he was gonna just be another blind guy who’s basically not blind because of his crazy good hearing, but it just wasn’t the case.
When he first fought the main characters, they were in the dark and the mc’s couldn’t see. At first, he didn’t shoot them yet because there was a child in the group they were in, and he didn’t want to accidentally shoot him. His hearing isn’t absolutely godly and he knows how terrible of a mistake he could make if he isn’t careful. He knows his limits and he’s a great fighter because of it.
At times where there’s a ton of loud noise, he actually gets extremely upset because of it. His hearing was enhanced because of his blindness, and he even puts domes on his ears so he can hear his opponents better.
MAJOR SPOLIERS BEYOND THIS POINT.
At the last battle they have at the end. Toni is majorly distressed because there are lots of cannon fire and gunshots going on. It felt really sad watching him still continue to shoot even with how detrimental it is to him. His death though felt like a relief, as he felt it was finally quiet for once in his life.
Besides fighting and shit, minor things that he goes through as a blind man really sells in the belief that this dude is actually blind. After the accident that made him blind, he thought he’s always had jet black hair. It only took him someone saying that he had grey hair to realize that’s what it looked like. Another minor thing, he doesn’t actually look at people when they’re talking to them. This surprisingly is a thing I see many artists not do while drawing blind characters. I’m not blind, but I’d assume someone who can’t see wouldn’t feel the need to look in the direction where someone is talking. Except maybe if they were taught to do that. While I don’t entirely see why Toni wouldnt look at someone as he wasn’t born blind, he was blind decades before his appearance, so it would make sense he would lose that habit in that frame of time.
This is just one character that isn’t even that major, but his disability is written so well. If you want good disability rep with fighting in it, read Golden Kamuy. It’s chock full of disabled characters who are realistic and kick ass. When characters get traumatically injured, they’re traumatically injured and it changes them a lot. From a sniper suddenly losing a eye to the main character getting brain damage (which also almost gets him excluded from the group. Just like how people today lose their jobs to disability) It’s just great rep that isn’t stupid or pandering.
another really common disability-superpower pairing that i'm tired of is full time wheelchair users with telekinesis, professor x being the most popular iteration of this trope. so many times when people are pitching ideas for wheelchair using characters with superpowers or magic, they default to giving them the power to move their bodies or objects with their minds as a way of circumventing their disability. like they can move their bodies now, so their disability is essentially moot. but does nobody think about how absolutely exhausting it would be to have to constantly actively concentrate to physically move themself and everything they interact with (brain fog? fatigue? hello??) when they could just instead live in a world where their environments and social support systems were accessible and afforded them as much independence as possible?
second, the "crippled genius". like, yes, disabled people in real life need to be acknowledged for how awesome we are at adapting our environments and habits to fill the accessibility gap, but that is a process that takes *years*. when characters with acquired disabilities are are shown adapting in media, it's always this hand-waving montage of them inventing some sci-fi device overnight that instantly fixes all their problems and effectively erases their disability struggle. and also, like...just let us be mediocre sometimes?? just give me a character with a major mobility disability who is allowed to be compelling protagonist without also having to be an all-in-one billionaire-engineer-programmer-surgeon.
honorable mention to "the guy in the chair" trope, where the resident wheelchair user character is defaulted to sitting in front of a computer, feeding information to the ablebodied heroes.
i am very tired.
so the number at the start is smaller than now. well done
Toph is my ultimate favorite ATLA video~ she is so complex and simple at the same time~
Plus, she can't see in the air and has a difficulty with seeing in sand so her seismic sight doesn't completely replace her eyes.
One of the subtle things about Toph's portrayal I like is that she tends not to face the person she's talking to; she's never needed to personally before, never grew up with that being integral to how she interacts.
Toph is one of the best examples of doing this right her seismic sense helps her manuver around without tripping on everything and being aware of her surroundings without sight which real life blind people have seeing aids like walking sticks and seeing eye dogs. And sure seismic sense is better than thise but itd still fall into that category a seeing aid not a true replacement for seight. She still cannot do things like read due to her lack of vision. She cant see the stars in the sky. She could manage the downsides of her disability so well her companions occasionally forgot she was disabled but she still was. Like when Sokka tossed her championship belt to her she couldn't catch it not because she had bad reflexes but because she couldn't see it and her seismic sense cannot sense airborne things. It has limitations like any form of disability aid it helps but doesnt erase the disability. She also couldn't read the bounty papers or see their pictures. She couldn't help put up posters because she couldn't see the proper way for them to go. And if her feet cant touch solid ground shes cut off from her seismic sense and its no help to her. She is still very much still a disabled character and has the drawbacks still play a part in her life shes not like matt murdock who is blind but can still read because he's so touch sensitive he can feel the ink on the page and make out the letters and other ridiculous feats like that. Shes still a truly disabled character and her powers help.
And it doesn't feel like these powers were chosen just to erase her disability. She has earth bending a power prominent in her world and she just adapted to learn to use it creatively to aid her in her everyday lives as im sure most people disabled or not would do if they had powers, they'll try to use their powers creatively to overcome shortcomings. And the power of seismic sense is just an earthbender technique and its not exclusive to her nor is she the first or last to use it. Badgermoles use seismic sense to navigate underground due to a lack of light and biological blindness and that makes sense many animals in nature sense things in ways humans do not. Observing them taught her a new way to use her power in order to help navigate through life. And even able bodied earth benders use it because its not just "a replacement for eyes" but instead its a useful technique and tool for all earthbenders.
And others used bending to help with their disabilities. Using gliders (airbender technology) to aid with mobility to those with mobility impairments, using water whips to give dexterity to an armless woman but again these do not erase their disabilities. Water hands cant pick up papers for you, or handle technology safely, nor can it work as well as true digits in some situations. But it atleast allows her to lift and place objects she otherwise couldn't.
I think avatar was great at using powers to help with disabilities without just erasing the disability.
Much like other commenters here who have made much better points than me, I love toph. Not just her humour and how cool she is but, because of how she has learned to adapt to being blind. Shes good at what she does because she is blind, she learned it to compensate for her not being able to see from blind earth bending creatures no less. Yet we never forget she cannot see, because although she can sense vibration in the ground, with her heightened sense of touch there are a lot of instances where an enemy is in the air, or in sand where she cannot really feel anything. I hold the belief it is BECAUSE she is blind that she is the greatest earth bender. Sure her sense of touch can compensate for sight, but its never perfect and she is still disabled and such a fun and entertaining character.
Was gonna write a comment about Toph, but I reconsidered because;
1) I'm not physically disabled in any way, only neurodiverse. (Therefore I don't feel as though I have any place to talk about a physical disability.)
2) There's already plenty of comments about Toph
This was recommended to be at EXACTLY the right time! (I'm late, I know)
I have a blind character that I'm crafting at the moment and this was a topic that I have been researching a lot to try and make him feel realistic.
He lives in a fantasy world, and while he isnt exactly the mc, he is one of the main protags, and I want him to have an arc with good representation.
He has a seeing eye dragon, who helps him with day to day tasks. At some point he does address the sort of issues you talk about, how blind people In stories (he reads braille) always have a power that makes their disability easy, or 'better', and that in reality, though he puts on a front, it's hard for him.
It's hard that he doesn't know what his best friend looks like, that he will never see his gf's face, that he can only guess what colours look like. He struggles with it. It's not easy for him, no matter what others might assume.
Other than his dragon, he has no magical powers to 'make up' for his blindness, even though they do exist in the world. Part of his character is that he has a fascination with magic, but he doesn't have any.
I would also like to adress the thing that people say to try and 'cheer up' disabled people, like; "you don't seem disabled to me!" Or "you aren't disabled, just differently abled!"
Things that, while they have good intentions, can be very hurtful
I found most of these stereotypes through other disabled content creators, such as footless Jo.
But I am not disabled, so to any of those who are, are there any severely overused tropes, flaws in what I've said, or stereotypes that you would like to see addressed in a character like this?
Or do you have any other content creators/books/blogs that would help furthering my research? I definitely don't want to offend through him, so don't feel bad if you need to let me know if one of the large parts of his character are stereotypical or hurtful.
Edit: to clarify, while he does think magic would help make his blindness 'more convenient', that is not his main reason for wanting magic.
Could you please edit your comment to add paragraph breaks? I am dyslexic (and hyperlexic, but that doesn’t help with this problem) and would like to understand what you wrote, but I cannot process a continuous "wall" of text.
30-50 words per paragraph and an empty row between paragraphs should make it possible for dyslexics who have this same problem to read your comment. With the current number of subscribers on this channel, there likely are a few hundred of us here already.
Thanks in advance!
@@ronjaj.addams-ramstedt1023 done!
I'm so sorry, I didn't realise that I had made it so hard for some to read this. Thankyou so much for letting me know🙏
I'm trying to be a lot more careful to not write 'walls' of text like this in the future, as it's a problem I have while writing stories too, I tend to just write and forget about any sort of punctuation or break to make it easier to read.
@@meraki48 Thank you! I am squeeing here for the seeing eye dragon, I would read your story just for that!
Regarding where to learn more: the roundtable discussion with Jessica Kellgren-Fozard, Hannah Witton and two or three others whose names escape me ATM, about romantic relationships and disability is excellent. If I recall correctly, each of them has a RUclips channel and/or a website where they talk about many things, also their respective disabilities.
Footless Jo and Amputee OT are two very different leg amputees and I like both channels.
I have recently started following a bookworm channel where the creator is disabled, too (was born with fewer fingers than five and has several other issues too). I'll go check the name of the account next.
There are also blind RUclipsrs. I remember two whose content I found informative, but of course I cannot remember their names, so I'll be back with that info as well.
@@ronjaj.addams-ramstedt1023 Thankyou SO much! Also I love the seeing eye dragon concept too! Her name is Wren and the two of them have a very subtle set of physical signals to help my character out.
I'm not blind so i can't speak with personal experience, but i do think that Toph's disability isn't "replaced" with her earthbending. The seismic sense is how she learned to cope and navigate, but she has been shown to have difficulty doing this when she's not walking on ground. When she's on an airship or on Appa, or she's walking on wood, you see her holding onto Sokka or Aang for support. It's also more difficult for her to fight something flying in the air, and she needs someone to pinpoint the direction. Not to mention, her having flying sickness connects to her blindness (though I'm not sure if this is something all blind people experience). She's also someone who has learned how to cope with her disability very well, to the extent that she doesn't mind joking about it.
It was also confirmed in Legend of Korra that people who can see can still use seismic sense. The only reason Toph is so good at it is because that was her only way to function well, but we see that both Lin and Suyin also use seismic sense while fighting, and Korra learns it too. So it's not necessarily a replacement made specifically for a disabled person, it's something most people can use but is just more useful to a disabled person.
Toph (in my able-bodied opinion) is good because her earthbending doesn’t make her not blind, it just makes her blindness more circumstantial. She can’t read or see pictures, colour is meaningless, flying and sand remove her primary sense. Also the fact that she can’t hit a noisy flying target suggests that her reliance on earthbending actually prevented the typical heightening of auditory perception, which is kinda neat.
I’m very glad to have found this video! Being more aware of tropes like these truly helps!
I’ve been wanting to write a story that has a blind protagonist, and have been wanting to do proper representation. I’m glad to know I’m headed in the right direction!
I’ve been trying to do as much research as I can about the topic, and trying to get information from people with varying levels of blindness. I’ve found many great RUclipsr’s on this journey, and it’s been so educational!
Hopefully I can create a character that’s both realistic, and kicks ass. :D
That’s the goal.
I would love to hear your opinions on Ming-hua from legend of korra. She doesn't have arms but basically has water arms that she developed. I'm not sure if she is an example of something done right because she is just using the octopus water bending style like katara but she adapted to it.
I made/am planning a Character for a book who is blind, but this is compensated for the fact that she is a Werewolf. This basically means that her other senses, especially her sense of smell, allow her to navigate, but it comes with disadvantages as well, like she sometimes experiences overstimulation that can send her into shock, she gets rashes unless her clothes are made out of specific materials, so on and so forth.
You should research sensory processing disorder, since it sounds like your character’s symptoms match it
When it comes to prostetics in media I always wondered what was the perspective of actually disbled people on the use of prostetics in Star Wars. With the prevalent theme of various mutilations in both the movies and other such media related to the series I just figure there would be people who both hate and like the representation based on the specific movie they watched ( Anakin doesn't really cover his prosthetic arm too much in the prequels, but Luke's arm is covered in synthetic skin in the original films etc.)
lol. There’s 33.5 k of us now 😆
Apparently in the early Daredevil comics, he had the power to "feel" colors, which is the silliest thing I've ever read
Maybe the explanation was stupid, but there could be a few explanations.
Different paints have different properties that can be perceived by touch.
I actually recall a blind dude telling the color of clothes by touch. Because of those tactile properties.
So in limited environments that even works in reality. Also on the microscopical level many colors only differentiate by surface patterns. It has to do with how light wavelengths are reflected. So it is theoretically absolutely possible to feel most colors. But again, the explanation in the comic might have been stupid I don't know the comic I only know some of the real physics behind this topic.
omg reminds me of maximum ride, there was a blind character who could tell what color something was by touch like. how pointless is thst
love Toph. She knows she blind, she confidently reminds people she is and struggles with daily activities despite having this amazing seismic ability. I think early on I was very amazed she had seismic abilities. she used it to help her in daily activities, in secret and perfected it but also to her advantage when in a fight. i see her seismic ability as her learning to use all of her other senses, as she grows more skilled and experiencing more different challenging environments, she struggles but learns to adapt either problem solving by making so she can or getting assistance. to me her seismic ability serves as her heightened sense of touch and hearing, but also serves in place of modern day tools for the blind and visually impaired. the show never shows braille, a cane, seeing eye service animals, or even anything remotely to camera glasses or sensory gadgets even though tech is booming. Even in korra her seismic ability has not been replaced. and her learning metal bending as an extension of her earth bending and seismic ability may sort of represent the innovations that help people become more independent in a new modern world, mostly because it was borne out of a need.
the best thing you can do with a disabled character is let them be disabled. none of this "differently abled" bullshit.
Disabled people are not able to do some things. It often sucks, it often causes pain, it often causes things to be a bit more convoluted than they need to be... but thats ok. At the end of the day EVERYONE has these things, even if they are NOT disabled by them.
Taking away the fact a disabled character will be PREVENTED from doing some things isolates real disabled people. It isn't a power fantasy for us to just imagine being typically abled.
Sometimes its a nice thought. Man, I wish I could have a stomach that works, id eat soooo much food... but seeing someone with a broken stomach take a magic broken-stomach pill that dosn't exist and live a typically abled life? Doesn't exactly make me feel empowered or seen.
Taking someone without an arm and just giving them a magic arm that's even better than anyone else's arms is the same shit.
Imagine a non-disabled character who is HUGELY afraid of water. Avoiding it has been a bit of a sore burden for them, nobody else really understands it and it gets in the way of 'normal' activity.
But one day, they need to go near the water... ...so they get out their trusty "begone-fear" pill and have no issues swimming.
Wouldn't that be anti-climactic? Wouldn't that feel mean to anyone who IS hugely afraid of water? The character teaches the viewer nothing, the character dosnt develop in any direction - its a boring cop-out at best and insulting at worst.
Nobody wants to see someone just get "fixed" - only able bodied people who don't give a shit about us want to see that!
Toph is great because she isn't "fixed" by her powers. They happen to come in REAL handy... but, like any mobility aid, is not perfect. She still struggles and has to deal with the fact she can't handle some things like everyone else can, but is not considered weaker because of it.
Someone I personally take alot of comfort in is All Might from My Hero Academia.
MHA is not a perfect show for disability or anything, its not really its focus and I don't expect it to be. All Mights portrayal is far from perfect, either.
But his injury - his lack of a stomach - is similar to me... and its been debilitating for him. Just trying to hold on to a "normal" life DESTROYED his body, made him thin and gaunt and sick and broken... to the point where he is forced to retire, and has to re-think his priorities in life and what he needs to do.
Its not perfect. But seeing someone similar to me who has tried the whole "Just push yourself harder and harder! itll be fine!" and have it hurt them, rather than the typical narrative of "youll just be fixed if you try harder"...? refreshing.
Dude I love All Might, I also love how no matter what, people respect All Might, his legacy and get visibly nervous in a good way or act fanboys/fangirls when they're in front of him, no matter if he's in his muscled in his hero persona or not. I also like how they don't treat him with pity, Gran Torino expects him to be a good mentor to Deku, Aizawa still gives him shit and expects him to act like a decent teacher, and he's also best dad to Izuku :,)
I agree totally with your statement about lazy writing, but keep in mind that for TV shows with a set lifespan. Writers don't always get to write their characters the way they want. More often than not, they're told to change things to fit certain check boxes by higher ups and those are the lazy ones in my eyes rather than pushing the boundaries for making characters better or even more real.
Still, there have been shows or movies with disabled people or creatures that are just "there" and given much screen time other than to serve as a person that the main talks to to get info, generally turning them into something like a npc while some are given screen time but have the personality of cardboard.
I think General/Aunt Amaya from The Dragon Prince is all excellent example of a disabled character who doesn't have a replacement power for her disability but is still a badass. She is deaf, and signs rather than reading lips. This results in her either needing to talk with someone who signs or have an interpreter. She is also a total badass. As a result, we end up with a disabled person who is also a badass, rather than someone who is a badass despite or because of her disability. It is worth noting, that I am not deaf, and that a deaf person might disagree with me on this for some reason I've missed. Take my opinion with a grain of salt.
I'm not exactly sure if this falls under this trope but my character Doa due to being a hybrid has some resulting health issues like a heart that cannot handle their height and vocal chords that simply dont work. They also have perks because of this however, like being a hybrid between a hex demon and an eldritch they are quite tall, they are capable of having as many surface level body parts as they want (or as many as their heart can handle carrying blood to) They have a natural limit to these perks because of these (I originally intended for them to be 2 separate characters one with all the perks and one with the health issues with growing resentment between the 2 but i didnt like that idea so Doa is just one very emotional, very loved bean)
I may have info dumped a tad too much there but eh Its a RUclips comment section from 2 years ago i dont think it matters TOO much.
Meanwhile my superhero character in a comic I'm working on has type one diabetes but uses an insulin pump the big issue is he can't over exert himself or he may go into diabetic shock
His power is forcefeilds and the ability to create small energy orbs of which he can shoot
I would love to read this! How did you come up with the idea?
@@ronjaj.addams-ramstedt1023 I myself am diabetic and when I was a kid I always wanted to see a diabetic super hero but none existed so I made one
One of the supporting characters in my story has developed disabilities that his already existing abilities can't "fix". His name is Aster and he's a half dragon/human. He has all these super human abilities like super strength, hearing, sense of smell, literal fire breathing, flight, and is fireproof, but he ends up getting mortally injured in the story and he loses an eye and suffers brain damage from the accident. Bullet to the skull will kind of do that. So now he's got a severe speech impediment and a missing eye that are very much hindrances for him, whether it's in battle or simply just trying to communicate with someone. I very much love his character, not because of any of that, but because omfg his personality makes him such a precious cinnamon roll- And he's nearly the last of his kind so that's actually one of the many things that weighs on him mentally, along with his abandonment issues, his PTSD due to sexual assault (despite him not even being aware he was assaulted), and his constant struggle of his own and other people's human emotions. He is definitely faaar more than just his disabilities. Oh, he's also vegetarian, despite being a dragon.
For a change I want a blind soothsayer who can smell and hear the future.
Me, watching my super-hero able to turn into a pigeon with chronic pain : I mean... She's not always good enough to kick ass, and her shape-shifting make the pain worse, and the fact that I'm scared to badly write her and her being a bad representation I didn't write anything yet.
as someone with fibromyalgia who’s loved pigeons all my life, that character concept is unironically like, my favourite thing ever. if you ever release a comic or something with her i’d love to read it!! /gen
@@orokinchi If she's ever something other than a character concept I'm to scared to do badly, I'll sent you the link!
I've never met a blind person who actually liked Daredevil.
Blind girl here and yeah fuck that
probably because they cant read it lol /j
My brother liked daredevil
This is the most positive I've seen you being its worrying
Dare devil can literally hear so well they can sense the raised of ink on the page .
With toph it reminds me more of that procedure that partially restores sight but not totally, can't remember it off the top of my head but it too had set backs.
Same with those hearing implants that don't always work and don't completely restore hearing.
A partial restoration but not a total because frankly someone born with those issues like toph could never have fully functional sight or hearing, their brain literally isn't wired for it like that.
Therefore I feel like she's actually a bit realistic in terms of what can actually be accomplished.
Also later in the series people with sight can use it so it may have been invented by a blind lady but it's not exclusive to the blind, so I feel like its more a "unique perspective" approach than let's "fix" the blind girl.
Idk, I just think her character is cool so it could be bias.
Trumpet of the swan, did a good job with a mute character... would love to hear your thoughts on it. You can watch for free on prime
This made me think of Alma from the anime Radiant, she is missing an arm, but she is badass without needing some prostetic. I mean, she has magic, but she doesn't have some spell that gives her a "magic arm"
She is not that big of a character for the main plot, but is still important. I belive she will get more important in the future when the author dicides to show us her past and how she came across the protagonist.
A good excample of a superpower, that is a disability as well is the book series called 'woodwalkers'/'seawalkers' it is about humans who can shapeshift into a specific animal for excample a wolf.
The charakters can also transform single parts of the body. For excample they would have a human body but the paw of a wolf.
Because not everyone is a 'shapeshifter' (has this ability)
The shapeshifters need to hide.
As long as they are 'animals' humans and other animals treat them like that, so relatives of main characters sometimes get killed by humans or other animals. Or the main Character is getting hunted, because he was to far away from his secrete shapeshifter school where all animals are protected and hunting is not allowed.
Another main problem is that some characters can't (completely) control their transformation into an animal what can be deadly for a person, that turns into a fish because that can kill this person, if it happens outside of the water.
If a shapeshifter sees the animal that he turns into, a picture of it, or, sometimes, even thinks about his animal form he can accidentally start turning into his animal form. Even for an experienced shape shifter it is always a (very) little risk to be to far away from water, if he is a fish.
( this can happen the other way around, if he sees a shapeshifter shifting to his human form as well)
It is also pretty hard for shapeshifters that they have to keep their existence a secrete from family members or partners in a relationship.
Sometimes they live more or entirely as animals and sometimes as humans, but because they sometimes tend to have problems figuring out who they are, most shapeshifter in southern countries gravitated towards crime, this is why a shapeshifter founded the woodwalker school in South America (I guess, I forgot where it was).
The idea behind the special schools for shapeshifters is that they learn to live as humans and animals and find a balance.
While a part of them is in their animal form, they can send messages and even pictures to the mind of other shapeshifters, even if they are in their human form, but this makes it almost impossible for them to lie and other (expirienced and talented) shapeshifters can always read the mind of a person, that is not trained to protect it's thoughts.
The book series is for kids, but the positive and negative aspects of being a shapeshifter are a quite important part of the plot.
It is just interesting to see, how a super power can turn out to be a disability that might make you're live a lot more complicated or even dangerous.
But it focuses on some everyday life's situations, as well. For example the main character of the first season is a mountain lion named Carag with very good ears that hates water. His human 'brother' (he doesn't know, that Carag is a shapeshifter) always opens the door and blasts loud music, whenever Carag goes past his room and give's Carag a massive jump scare.
The first book was released in English in 2022 btw. It is a great book for people at the age of around 10 years (even though I started reading it, when I was like 17, a few years ago, luckily I am from Germany, where this book comes from)
Talking about how this is such bad writing, all the while showing a fantastic character that is written this way in the background, was a dang bold move. It's hard to admit that Toph could be poorly designed when she's so great. But her disability really is just there to be a gimmick that she can ignore 90% of the time. The suoer prosthetic as another example was great as it instantly brought MANY characters to mind, where they wear the diabled lable, but they're super heroes BECAUSE of that disability.
This was eye opening, and in my irritation at realising how common this is, I am instantly inspired. I already have a character with a prosthetic arm, where it's not even a replacement, he has two regular ones, but just wanted a 3rd anyway. And whilst I forget what inspired him, he works as a parody of poorly written "disabled" characters. But I feel a genuinely fun type of character to subvert this trope, would be a reverse superman. Someone who's godly powers all vanish, turning him into a regular human. Which by his standards makes him vulnerable and disabled. And whilst technically true, his human friends would probably not appreciate him calling himself disabled for being only as strong as a human now. That sounds like a fun character to write. Making fun of bad tropes is one of my favourite things right now... But I wonder if someone beat me to this idea already. Doesn't matter, I'm more worried about how much I'll now realise this trope is in lots of things I like. This is not going to be enjoyable, but I know this is a big and common one. If it's in Avatar, it can be in anything.
I like top because, like many people in atla, she has earth bending. Also she has a disability. earth bending isn’t known in the series to help people see beyond their eyes. Toph figured that she could use her ability to help with her disability. She wasn’t given her ability after her disability and she is still disabled. She can’t see anything with her eyes she can only use her sense of hearing and touch to kinda locate where everything is. She can’t read or write and can’t see at all when not on solid earth.
i have seen cases where what starts as good rep ends as just alternatively sited, the person accidently blinds herself as an infint out of a combination of bordom (you would be to if you had a fully or mostly developed mind and a newborns body) and some attempts to explore magic and her soul going wrong (magic eather wasnt a thing yet, was just starting to be a thing, or maby our world couldnt acces it when she lived the first time) and got the highest tear of true site without any of the soul parts in place for it to work right, so opening her eyes is just pure pain, (might be mental overload, might just be recoil) to the point she cant and gave up after 2 or 3 tries.she later gets a skill she can actualy use "sense mana" and it starts out as useless, its only after she can walk (a couple years later of constant use) that she can see enough to get around with, it takes years for people to get used to the blindfolded blind child being able to see in any way a all, and i think she is at least 10 by the time she can clearly see a face, and she breaks down crying. later between some natural disasters and literly spending most of her time working on the skill she literly becomes the best in the world at it, by capping the skill, and while the author dosent seem to have forgotten she sees entries spheres of aria, she bsicaly ends up with supersite, and when she goes to new places nobody questions the wrapping because the whole world knows she capped the skill (the world announces when you cap a skill, its quite rare) so they eather asume the wrapping is because she dosent need to see because of her high skill level (basicky showing off) or because she is just there as a mana clone, so she is using the skill to help piolet her clone body
tldr, disabillity goes from real, to the insiteing incident for a massive advantage
What about a character with wings but missing a leg? Like she can't fly in a building or street because the wing span is to large and she'd hit things so she has to wear a prosthetic but in large open spaces she can fly?
It's an interesting premise, but you'd have to do a lot of research on body mechanics to pull it off properly. If she has bird-style wings, then she would probably naturally launch by jumping; taking off would be more difficult, and she might need to find thermals/something tall to jump off to get airborne. Depending on the level of materials science available in your setting, the weight of her prosthetic leg might also impede her in flight/put her off-balance. If her kind ordinarily use their legs as a rudder in flight, like birds use their tails, that's another design constraint on her prosthetic and another task she'd need to re-learn. Or she might prefer to fly without the leg, and maybe have a modular peg-leg system, where she usually wears the cup/attachment part, and only cuts a stick to slot into it when she needs to walk.
Not trying to discourage you, to be clear - it's an awesome idea, and you could elaborate on it in a variety of ways. Good luck with the research!
So I'm working on writing a comic that would have two protagonists with disabilities, one with a chronic illness and one who is blind. The world takes place in a world with superpowers and both characters' disabilities are because of their powers. I want to make sure I write them well, are there any pitfalls or tropes I should be aware of and avoid?
The powers in question are a healing ability that harms the user. The character has to take medicine prevent their power from slowly killing them.
The other power is a power that is mutation of an empath power and an advance sense power. The character can feel people's presence and their emotions, but can not see.
@Sally SPT
what about an person who enter an emotionless state?
Because we as humans try to compensate for what we're missing. It's realistic and relatable.
Hello!
I love your content and this specyfic topic really bothered me for years! I read the book series "Warriors" about cats with high-working society and every disabled character either has a superpower or dies and I really hate it. Recently I'm working on a video about Rivet form Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart and why she is a terrible and overrated character and one of the things I wanted to touch upon when it comes to her writing was the fact that she's an amputee and the creators decided to do it to her just for the character design to look cool. Like the plot really tries to tell you: yeah this really matters! With her backstory and one conversation she has while on an action chaise segment, but NO IT DOES NOT. She is not affected mentally or physically at all. She is right handed - loses a right hand - makes herself (!) a prostetic that functions flawlessly. So it is also connected to her beeing a Mary Sue and just a female skin for Ratchet. The hand has no impact on gameplay or story at all - the fact that it's robotic doesn't make it more powerfull, or jinxes during combat or has to charge, no, showing that what happened to her really had no impact. Emotionally too, we are TOLD that it is a big deal but never shown. She would be exactly the same, the conflict of the story (if you can even call it that) would be the same, her hand is just an aestethic choice with a backstory and terribly shallow, told not shown to you, "moral of the story" added as an afterthought.
Could I maybe contact you and ask few questions before making my video on the matter? Of course with the proper credit. I myself am not physically disabled (well I am almost blind on one eye, but my only problems are thick glasses and messed-up deph perception) and would love to discuss it with someone who knows more and can provide their own experience and maybe even tell me that I'm wrong and point where I misread the situation...?
just stumbled across this vid, I enjoyed the presentation of the argument, my only thing was I did not really know if you were trying to say toph was a bad character for this troupe until the very end. I did like the fact that you included near the end the fact that she got hit in the head with the belt, katara helping her aim scene to help clarify that she was a well written character. Im definitely going to look more into your videos. these seem interesting and enlightening. =D
I would be interested to see how you feel about The Boys. There was a blind character that was deafened to make a point. There's also an animated series what includes a shirt about a bunch of Supes (people with powers) that got the "shitty" powers and have to live in an assisted living facility bc their parents abandon them. Very gruesome show overall. I'm also pretty sure one of the main characters is burned all over his body? He wears a full body suit and is mute. There's also a fully deaf character with super strength.
Are you still love this when I was a little kid just because finding any blind character with super rare
Then I realized how mind-boggling irritating it is
I think the worst example is Ian from michael vey
Without going into too many details some of the characters in that book series have magical superpowers relating to electricity
One of these characters was blind but has the ability to see things through electrons the way sighted people would see things through light
This means that not only if he functionally not blind at all he's actually got better vision than everybody else in the cast and they use him when they need to look at things they can't see
He used to be my favorite character because he was blind and then I realized just how much I hated this and now he's like on my bottom half of my top three or five
Because he's still a cool character personality wise but still
Then and sometimes like a graveling series someone will have a superpower that replaces sight but they'll have it while being cited and then they go blind and actually I really love the way Graceland did this it was super cool
Convenient but cool and had this nice little way of still having it be a struggle but also still being a superpower
But honestly you know I just really want to blind character who doesn't have any powers and it's still capable and just show struggles realistically
Please
Well give me a character with a cane or a guide dog or talk text or Braille device in an average TV show
I have a universe of books I'm writing that are like mythical creature fantasy and somewhere in there I want to put a character who's blind and has a guide dragon.
A video like this about General Amaya from the Dragon prince would be amazing. Just because she is mute and Def doesn't mean she is helpless and useless. Though that brings the question, how did she learn signe language? I mean, yeah she can see but... how?
If the sing language existed before her, and wasn't invented specifically for her quite easily! Human brain is great at learning language and sing language is indeed just that, a language. Writing is even more abstract way of communications.
Even hearing toddlers can learn sing language quicker than spoken becouse it's easier.
The same way hearing babies learn spoken languages basically. Babies are fast learners, and in fact deaf babies or babies speaking sign language as a first language can "babble" with their hands!
I think just about any compensation is going to have limitations so a writer really should consider what those limitations are and should probably include a chance to show them because that's interesting.
I have no idea how I found you but I love ur content and im now subscribed
There was a moment in Daredevil that was pretty interesting when Matt lost his hearing briefly but it was undone after about an episode.
I have a character with sound bases super powers. She's hard of hearing due to living around such loud sounds all her life.
Lol remember that season of doctor who where 12 “lost his sight” but then immediately pulled these vision shades out of his ass and acted no differently than he had before he was “blind”