Fair warning, this is the topic that got me kicked off of WattPad. I feel like the people here are more mature, though, so hopefully that won't happen again... Lately I've been rewatching The Dragon Prince on Netflix. I love that show, I love the story, and I love the characters...most of them, anyway. There's one in particular that has always rubbed me the wrong way: General Amaya. For those who don't watch the show, Amaya is commander of the king's army. She gives orders while also fighting on the front lines. Thing is, she's also completely deaf and mute. She communicates through sign language and lip reading. As a guy with a disability, I've always found disabled characters interesting. Something about Amaya, though, strikes me as...I'm not sure what it is exactly, but it feels wrong somehow. Like the writers wanted a strong character with a disability (fine in and of itself) but never stopped to think of the implications. Let me explain... Like I said, Amaya leads the army and fights on the front lines. She fights with a sword and shield, meaning that both of her hands are constantly being used for something, making sign language an impossibility in the heat of battle. Without the ability to speak, she has no way to give orders to her troops. What's more, it's made clear that most of her troops don't understand her sign language anyway and need her husband there to translate for her. That creates another huge disadvantage, because even if she were able to sign her orders there's only one person in her army that can understand and relay them to the people they are meant for. Plus, not being able to hear what's going on around you on a battlefield would be another massive disadvantage. What happens if something happens behind her? She wouldn't be able to hear it, meaning that the army wouldn't be able to retaliate to whatever happened because she isn't aware and thus isn't able to give orders. Anyone who needs to report to her needs to be standing within just a few feet of her so that she can read their lips, which would be very difficult during a battle. She would also have to be looking right at them, which would take her attention off the fight. Same for whoever is taking orders from her, they can't see her sign language unless they're looking right at her. Not a good thing when you're on the front lines of a battle, where something could try to kill you at any moment from any direction. I know the show is fantasy, with elves and wizards and dragons, but for some reason this is where my suspension of disbelief reaches its limit. There are just so many ways that this couldn't work for me to overlook them. On the other side of the coin, there's Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender, a disabled character who I think is written infinitely better. She's blind, but is still able to kick butt with her earthbending. The difference between them is that Avatar gives a legitimate sounding in-universe explanation as to why she can do this. She's so in tune with the earth that she can feel vibrations that allow her to "see" without eyes. Amaya doesn't get an explanation like this, so I can't accept her the way I do Toph. If they had made her a famous soldier, or the king's bodyguard, or something like that, who happened to be deaf and mute, I could accept that. But putting her in charge of the entire army and expecting the audience to just ignore all the ways something like that wouldn't work...it pulls me out of the story. But that's just me. What do you guys think about this? How do you implement disabled characters to your stories?
This is something I've been struggling with. The MC of my WOP (Work On Pause, not an ethnic slur ) was electrocuted and died briefly. As a result, he's got nerve damage down the left side of his body: a bit of a limp, and his left arm is quite weak. I've based this aspect of him on an old friend who had just such an accident (although he didn't die) and was for the best part of two years unable to lift so much as a cup of coffee with his left hand. However, it's the death that's the main part of the story, so I'm having a little bit of difficulty deciding how often to mention the issue with the arm. One thing I've decided is that he can't open the driver door of his car (American setting) with his left hand and has to reach across every time. It's not really an action book which actually makes things a bit harder in that I keep having to go back over scenes and make sure that his disability is continuous. Of course, Melville had the same problem with Captain Ahab in Moby Dick. There's a theory that he didn't originally write Ahab as missing a leg. Nothing that I spotted, but I'm told there are some passages where he's curiously agile for someone with a literal peg-leg prosthetic.
What I would suggest is that you mention it when the disability becomes noticeable to him. I'm disabled (I'm missing most of my left foot), but most of the time, it doesn't bother me too much. Even walking a distance, for which I use a crutch and a supportive boot, I'm used to it now, and it's just one of those things. The times it does bother me are, for example, if I go somewhere and there are stairs but no lift/elevator. Or when I think about doing a sport, I have to remind myself, "Oh, I can't do that anymore". If I were writing a character, particularly from a first person POV or maybe close third, I think that's how I would approach it.
Henry, the main character in my WIP, has a disability that's pretty much exclusive to her species. They feed on human laughter, and have the ability to read a person's sense of humor (not quite the same as reading their mind) in order to find what they think is funny and make them laugh. But because Henry was dropped on her head as an infant, the brain damage she suffered made it so she can't make that psychic link with humans. If she tries, the most she'll get is a headache.
Yup, my struggle is remembering as a writer that he's disabled and not having him do things that should be difficult effortlessly. For example, I just realized now that I need to rethink him changing a tire in one scene. I'm sure it's still doable, but that's an excellent place to drop in reference to the problems he has with his arm. I have what I hesitate to classify as a disability: red-green colorblindness. Not atrocious, it mostly comes about as mistaking greens for browns and vice versa, but since those coordinate well anyway it's not a problem. However, since the advent of the internet and mobile computing especially, it has become more serious in that I often can't tell if a 'button' on a website or app is red or green. It's hard to explain since I don't know what colors 'really' look like, but for example the grading software that I use highlights student names in red, yellow, or green text based on their scores to date. I can tell that the red text is a different color than the green text, but I can't tell you which is which. The left side of this is a goddamn mystery to me, especially the bottom row: This is a picture of apples with a white line running diagonally through it. The apples look ripe and ready to eat: ETA: Well that was an unexpectedly hilarious twist. I'll leave it there while I find an example that will show up. Another ETA: Let's see if we can see this image here:
To be fair, you will become increasingly deaf the longer you are in the military. That's what hand signals are for!
Amaya has keen awareness. Even though it's not explained, whenever she is in combat situations, you see her analyze the situation. Like when Rayla was hiding in the lodge, Amaya didn't really know she was in there, just that, based on things out of order and how the princes were acting, that there was something not quite right. Same in the volcano when one of her guards was held at knife point. I'd also imagine that she'd had all of her life to get these things down pact and for her troops to fall into step with her. They seem to follow her commands well, and they are simple enough. Those closest to her understand her, and she isn't treated like a liability. How else are they supposed to treat her? I also think her character wasn't simply just randomly thrown in; the people who made Dragon Prince are the same people who made Avatar and Toph's character. Maybe how they went about her character may have been a bit rushed (we did see a glimpse of her past, like how she got her scar...perhaps we'll see a bit more of her as they continue the seasons) As to disabilities... (I don't really think of it as a disability) I have a stutter and in certain situations, its hard to communicate what I want. I've learned techniques to control it, but in times of extreme stress, or sadness, or when i'm super tired, it gets hard to communicate. I've changed my major in college because i didnt think I could make it in the career I was initially interested in because of my stutter. I met another stutterer who, when I'd met him, was studying physics and aeronautics to become a pilot. His stutter was more severe than mine, and he ended up dropping that career path because the idea of communicating by radio made him nervous because of his speech. It makes me cringe seeing and hearing characters stutter for comedic affect- and then seeing people laugh. Either the stuttering character is a goof, an idiot, or both (porky pig, for example). They are in no positions of strength or power. In Pans Labyrinth, the stuttering farmer was told if he could count to 10 without stuttering, the solder would let him live... he stuttered at 4 and was shot dead. The only movie I've watched where a main character had a stutter and was in a position of power was The King's Speech... but that doesn't count because, you know, its based on a true story. I'm going to rephrase Iain's acronym and say my BBP (Back Burner Piece, not Blood Borne Pathogens) has a MC that navigates life with a stutter.
So many excellent and memorable characters come to mind, when I think about 'disabled characters.' Joe Abercrombie does them particularly well, in the modern fantasy genre. The young protagonist in his Shattered Sea trilogy (written for young adults) has a 'withered arm' that prevents him from being the warrior his family wants him to be. And of course there is the memorable Sand dan Glokta in the First Law trilogy—who acquired his severe disabilities through injury, and who remembers what his life was like before. These characters don't have 'special powers,' but just have to get on with it ...which they do. The reader is always aware the disabilities exist, but the stories don't revolve around the disabilites either.
If the person is born with these disabilities they seem to be more comfortable with them to an extent, it's when you suddenly find yourself disabled and you have to adapt. The only two disabled people I've known in my life became that way from a Stroke. They both had trouble adapting because they were both independent people who suddenly had to rely on others for help and learn how to move around with practically no leg function. My Dad used to say: "I'm physically disabled. I'm confined. But my mind is not and sometimes that's all I have now." Adding those physical challenge can be good for some conflict.
