I want to make one of my MCs in the story I'm currently working on partially blind from an accident. My problem is I don't know HOW blind/not blind I want to make him. This MC needs to be able to still see well enough to fight with a sword. Now, that doesn't mean that he can't have blurry vision, blindspots, etc; he just needs to see enough to be able to fight. To make my story work, my MC also needs to NOT be able to see well enough to read. Is it possible to have him see well enough to fight, but not well enough to read? Any and all comments/thoughts welcome!
BAH! Sorry, I just realized I probably should have posted this in the "Character Development" forum. My Bad! :redface:
<waves> Hi there! I have the exact vision you're describing in your MC! I am blind enough in my left eye that, if I closed my right eye, I would still be able to walk around with mild difficulty, however I would not be able to read a thing. I'd be able to see that there's something written or typed on a piece of paper, but it'd be too difficult to make out what it said. Could I still fight with just my left eye open? Sure. I can see enough out of that eye to give out a somewhat decent fight. But since I have no training, my butt will be beaten quickly. I assume your MC will have already gone through sufficient training? I have only peripheral vision in my left eye. I cannot see directly ahead with it. Now, I was born like this, but I'm sure your MC can get the same thing from an accident in both his eyes. Not sure if that's what you're looking for, but the condition you wanted his vision to be fits almost perfectly with how my left eye is like.
I assume your are writing a fantasy story as you mentioned swords. As for your question about partial blindness, a trauma could definitely impair one's vision.
Yeah, but headblows seem...too easy! Maybe the MC got his eyes burnt or something? During a fight, someone somehow manages to get hot embers into his eyes or something? Really, anything that goes at the eyes can really screw up the vision.
There's lots of info on the net about eye trauma - google is your friend. About 2 minutes gave me a pretty good idea of what kind of traumas cause which types of injury: http://www.uic.edu/com/eye/LearningAboutVision/EyeFacts/EyeTrauma.shtml
Zatoichi couldn't see at all and it was a very successful story and later movie etc. The Blind Swordsman story is a good one. Little cheesy and a little done (don't watch Blind Fury its a dreadful take on Zatoichi), but you can still give it life. Why tread the half measure and have your MC half blind - thats sounds a little too pale to me.
Just my opinion, and observation, but any blind character that can 'see like a regular person' because of a trinket or highten senses makes for a boring character. I wonder, 'Then why is this character blind in the first place?' You said he can't read anything, right? Maybe have a scene where someone (not knowing of his visual problem) gives him a letter and scurries away before he can tell him/her to read it for him. To make it worse, maybe he's in a hostile city and the both of them are spies, so he has to find someone that looks trustworthy enough to read the letter for him.
If the point is just to have it so the can't read then they can simple be a foreigner who can't read the language or a brain disorder that affects their ability assemble written words.
