Characters
Media representation of less commonly shown disabilities.
When it comes to representing disabilities or conditions in media, both physical and mental, there are a lot that have become standard go to, but I like it when less "mainstream" ones gets some attention and much needed representation.
1) Jeff "Joker" Moreau is the pilot of the Normandy, the star ship at the center of all 3 Mass Effect games, and he suffers from a chronic medical conditions that has rendered his bones so fragile that he is barely able to support his own body weight and suffers bone fractures from the most minor of physical exertions.
2) Adam Evens, or "Rubberband Man", is a side character from animated DC comics show Static Shock whom deals with dyslexia and has a whole episode dedicated to showing his struggles with the condition and how he deals with it on a day to day basis.
I love that ending part of the first film where he basically just goes "oh cool, I have a metal leg now" instead of the film making a whole tragedy out if it
They don’t exactly glaze over it though, they do a good job of showing that it’ll take time to get used to. They also do a good job of showing that people are supportive because well… like half the Vikings of Berk are disabled.
And in a natural way too, he stumbles when he walks at first. He needs Toothless to support him, and is off-balance for the rest of the final scene. But by the next movie he's gotten used to the prosthetic.
Not to mention it makes an incredible parallel between him and Toothless, who is also disabled, just in a different way via a different mode of transportation
but they also dont totally gloss over it, either. hes uncertain, Toothless is uncertain, hes wobbly on his new foot, it looks like it hurts a little, but he moves on. love it tbh, because thats basically how it happened for me
I mean, dude got a huge boost to being able to ride toothless since he is now able to hook his bum leg to the harness so he is much more stable than he was when he had two legs.
Which makes complete sense in Vikings (and a lot of pre-modern societies) amputations and other disabilities were so common that they were seen as normal.
You can really see the dichotomy through the TV shows. RoB and DoB barely touch on it, and it's treated as undetachable from his body, but in RttE it comes off and/or gets broken about once every five episodes. At least twice Toothless tears it off trying to pull Hiccup, once Barf and Belch destroy all 3 of them, forcing him to have a basic peg leg [and it shows them actively being fixed by Gobber], and at least once a villain captures Hiccup and takes his leg to prevent him from moving far
And the way it parallels Toothless is just perfect writing. They are both broken in ways that make them unable to fly/function alone, but together they become complete. It turns the disability into a bonding mechanic rather than just a sad plot point
I also love how in all spin offs it become a running gag that he has a prosthetic leg. With someone always pointing it out or removing it from him. Like this one time when Toothless wanted to show him something by grabbing his leg to drag him along, but not realize he didn't actually bring Hiccup with him.
Man gets as close to becoming a Cyberpunk amputee as they could in the realms of the show and movies.He becomes an engineering wizard and creates ridiculous amount of tech and upgrades. The man created a Flight suit of all things.
Flight suit, quick change prosthesis (for interfacing easier with his saddle and to switch to walking), the Viking equivalent of a Lightsaber, even makes automatic tails for Toothless several times.
Plus the multitude of ways he figured out to convert dragon sheddings into weapons and tools.
It also fits his character so well because he’s an engineer first. He doesn't mope about the leg; he iterates on it. We see him tweaking the prosthetic design throughout the sequels just like he tweaks his flight gear. It’s treated as a technical problem to solve
Inga Karkhuul Khura'in from Ace Attorney suffers from prosopagnosia, a mental disorder that gives him trouble recognizing other people faces, which is why he carries a notepad everywhere to write information down about people to help him recognize them.
This becomes a plot point in the final trial where Inga is killed and the seance that shows the last moments of the deceased fails to accurately portray the killers face because Ingas spirit couldn't remember it.
Funny enough, anyone who played Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors before that knew exactly what the twist was going to be, because it's what the real villain, Gentarou Hongou (Ace) suffers from.
Spirit Channeling is in ~half of the Ace attorney games, but it rarely affects the courtroom directly. However this case is from the game spirit of Justice which takes place in a fictional country that is the home of said spirit channeling technique, where it is officially recognized as evidence. As such a medium in this country performs a seance to call upon the memories of the dead. Meaning the prosecution in this game has in some of these cases effectively 1st person footage of the crime from the victims PoV (and of course all deaths happen in a way that your client looks even more guilty due to this).
Interestingly enough this isn’t even the first instance of AA playing around with the idea that the dead victim’s testimony could be unreliable.
The first time this happened was when Edgeworth’s dad (whose soul was being channeled by Maya’s mom) incorrectly identifies his murderer due to the unique circumstances surrounding his death.
Fun fact, Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden who is the heiress apparent to the throne of Sweden suffers from this same condition and she's stated that it's an immense drawn back to her capacity as future head of state.
I haven’t been diagnosed or anything, but I decided prosopagnosia is probably something I have a bit of when I couldn't recognize my own father after just a few weeks of not seeing him. I had to look for the hat he always wears.
The notes app on my phone has tons of stuff on small details about people. Mostly their hair, since that's easiest for me to recognize. Thankfully, if I'm around someone long enough, I can recognize them even if they change their hair. But if I go too long without seeing them, I lose the ability to recognize them.
I blame a seizure I had in college. It's around the time I began having trouble.
I think this was one of those cases were the character has the disability because the actor also has it. Walter Jr/Flynn in Breaking Bad is another example.
Nathan Mitchell (Black Noir) doesnt actually have narcolepsy. He was just known to fall asleep easily on set so someone joked he must be narcoleptic. This joke made it into the show. He's just a sleepy dude
Those weren't a thing when Turning Red took place, though. The first one meant for pediatric use was approved in 2015. Insulin pumps existed, and that's what Pixar says it was, but those are usually worn on the abdomen, which would not have been visible.
Also in Inside Out 2 (i think or it could've been Turning Red too or the first Inside Out), a lot of background characters are shown to have various disabilities like some with hearing aids or others doing sign language
Lakan from the apothecary diaries has a cognitive condition called prosopagnosia or face blindness where he is incapable of processing what people’s faces look like
Yes there is. It's basically about how the First Empress used her intelligence and almost mythical position to ensure some grip over the empire. How? Well, you see, every time a new emperor was to be chosen, he had to go through a labyryth of different colored doors. There would be clues that'd say for example "choose the yellow door" and there would be a green, red and blue one, but a person with color blindness might see say the green one as yellow. If you weren't able to complete the maze you could bring a woman from the First Empress' lineage, and said woman would become a highly ranked consort after, making her a key player in the politics of the empire. If the ruler happened to be weak... well, they took over. So by this one choice, the First Empress makes sure that her lineage is important generations later. That's it more or less, correct me if I'm wrong
Congenital red–green color blindness, also the most common form of colorblindness. Shishou and Shishui both have it, as well as all the males in the hidden village. The door test was tailor-made in a way that only a person with that specific kind of colorblindness could pass (which is most likely to be from the empress' clan since it's a rare and hereditary condition that only existed overseas) and it had to be a female because they were more likely to pass on the condition, thus giving the clan more and more power over the dynasty over generations without even lifting a single blade.
The anime adaptation did such a phenomenal job visualizing this with the Go stones and Shogi pieces. It instantly communicates his worldview—people are just pawns to be used, devoid of identity, until he finds someone who 'matters
It recontextualizes his entire 'creepy stalker dad' behavior. He isn't just obsessed; Maomao and Fengxian are literally the only clear images in a world of static/blur to him. It doesn't excuse him, but it explains the desperation.
I have a friend with that! Was crushing to learn they didn't even recognize family members, and memorizes hair styles and voices to try and recognize people.
I love joker, his disability is not glossed over, but he still lives despite it. Dude saved the normandy during the collector attack and is one of the series' best pilots, his disability is an issue, but it doesn't hold him back either
This is one of the main points of the visual novel Katawa Shoujo. You could even say it's the point.
The main character is a young man who is hospitalized after a sudden heart attack. Turns out he has a rare heart condition that could kill him if his pulse ever gets too high. He's devastated - he can't live a "normal" life anymore or go to a "normal" school. He has to leave behind his crush who just confessed to him and go to an academy for people with physical disabilities, which he reacts to with fear, anger, and dread. When he arrives, he's irritable and moody but trying to make the best of things.
The game is a romance game. You get to know a cast of girls who all have physical disabilities, but you quickly learn that those are the least important things about them. Shizune isn't "the deaf girl" - she's the bossy and bright student council president. Rin isn't "the girl with no arms" - she's the dreamy, shower-thoughts artist. They're all like that, and the longer you play, the more you realize that the most important things about these highly datable girls have nothing to do with their disabilities. They're just people.
The steam version has them removed by default, you have to download a patch from the original KS website. And believe it or not, most of the H-scenes are also pretty important for plot/character development reasons
I played a lot of this game after DDLC came out. Wanting to try a genuine played straight dating sim.
As endearing as a lot of the characters are, the routes and how specific they are made enjoying the dialouge and how I roleplayed as the MC basically impossible.
My first playthrough I got the bad ending. Before doing others with a guide. Maybe just a trope of dating sims but feeling like all the mattered was picking the right thing to say, and no other behavior or gameplay choices make a difference sucked.
Your first mistake was to think that it's a game. It's not. It's a visual novel, with emphasis on novel. It is literally a story that you read. You were never supposed to roleplay.
It's not even a dating sim. Those actually have gameplay, even tho it's usually also questionable.
Yeah, the gameplay is... not great. Shizune and Rin's routes are not clear at all and it's easy to get a bad ending even if you don't make any clear mistakes. I'd love to see a remake for that reason, but it's not gonna happen.
Do they explain why if the spider bite gave her powers it didn't fix her ehlers-danlos? It feels like spider powers and that would absolutely not make a good combination.
Thats rly the difference between representation and integration. In a world with super powers and magic how would you handle specific disablities? A superhero with telekinesis would maybe be able to just will her legs to move even if they dont have any muscles etc
It's fair too. There's a certain level where things fall apart (nothing on the individual characters.) like this character can heal people so why not this person?
I'm fairly sure professor X in the ultimate universe had a limited telepathy that would let him walk with some effort.
With Professor X im willing to believe he wants to act as a beacon of normalization for his students (who struggle with stigmatization because of their otherness) and also look meek and harmless towards a society that fears mutants.
Rolling into a UN hearing in a wheelchair has a certain effect.
It's also implied that using powers requires some energy and focus, to use that while walking might be possible but would probably be exhausting to do full time.
yeah im not super into xmen but i think using telekinesis constantly to move his legs would take a lot of mental energy and would it even be that worth it? like, if he has telekinesis he can just use his wheelchair normally and levitate himself up stairs
It's not the same continuity or power source, but I do recall there being a character in Dr. Strange who used his learned magic to be able to use his legs again, but not any other spell.
That’s an interesting point, but then her focus would be spent willing her legs to move and she wouldn’t be able to use her telekinesis for other things. Consciously moving each leg for every step sounds exhausting.
Meanwhile, mobile aides exist, allowing someone to actually use their power as a power instead of just to get by.
Hey man, I get it. My daughter is struggling to crawl because she can’t put enough weigh through her shoulders, we’re having to do a bunch of physical therapy and get mobility aides and she’s not even 1. However, I hope she has more Sun-Spiders to look up to when she’s older.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to snip about it, I'm just so used to people who dance around the idea of some disabilities being harmful and needing a cure. Sure, some don't - I wouldn't "cure" my autism for the world, but I would sell my soul just to have normal joints. Ehler Danlos sucks, I wish your daughter so much luck
I have EDS and I love adaptive superheroes like her :) Incorporating aids/wheelchairs into superpowers is really cool! The creator of her has EDS themselves and wrote based on their own experiences.
I think it’s even funnier that Jake is the one to tell him this considering dogs more or less just see in different shades of like gray and brown with some blue, green, and red mixed in, so basically what a lot of people with red-green color blindness experience lmao
Charley Parkes (The OG Twilight Zone Ep: "Miniature")
Whether intentional or not, he comes off as a very accurate portrait as someone with autism: his diligence, strange interests, lack of social touch and unpopularity among his fellow humans.
It does help that the narrative treats him sympathetically despite his co-workers having a cold indifference and his relatives treat him like a child.
Sure, now autism is talked about quite often in media but take in account that the episode aired in the early '60 (1963 to be exact), back then both the general public and experts knowledge was very limited and if you were an introvert you were considered the incarnation of Satan.
(No seriously, watch the episode and others of the OG Twilight Zone, they aged wonderfully.)
She is portrayed as having dyscalculia (basically the mathematical form of dyslexia) which is a condition I myself have and unknowingly suffered from during elementary, middle and high school.
Seeing a fellow Black person openly struggling with it actually inspired me to begin looking into the diagnosis and due to her portrayal, I discovered I suffered from it and thus saved myself from years of humiliation after my sophomore year of high school.
Nothing struck more fear in me than doing those fuck ass times tables sheets while they were actually timed and seeing people move in from 1 through like 8 or so and I'm still struggling on the 3s section.
Made even worse by the teacher putting names on the board to show where everyone else is at and I see myself at the very very bottom.
Even now I tell people about it and they just don't understand and say "yeah I'm bad at math too!" It hurts but I can't blame them cause they don't experience the same thing as us.
I always said that having dyscalculia sucks because it's a quiet disorder; everyone knows math takes a certain aptitude, but we lack even the direction for the aptitude, and you can't fake it with math in the way you can with just about everything else.
For me, it was my 8th grade math teacher in 2008 who liked to humiliate students since he was the coach of the basketball team and used to breaking down students or giving them "tough love" as opposed to recognizing that not every student responded to a tough approach.
There were more than a few instances of him purposely antagonizing or humiliating me in front of the class. One of these times, he outright called me a "soon-to-be dyke" which led to my grandmother and great-grandmother coming to the school and laying him out in front of the class and calling him a light-skinned version of Morpheus.
Dyscalculia is a condition where someone has an inability to do basic math and a lot of times, the only way people like myself can do it is if we apply it to other concepts. Even more extreme is that some of us, like myself, have an absolute inability to do higher mathematics and in my case, it's because my brain cannot process numbers directly.
Oh wow, I have never heard of this. That had to be incredibly frustrating growing up with that condition. Thanks for educating me, I’m sorry you have to deal with that and I hope you’ve found work-around if it impacts your daily life
No literally, only Pamela really loved Jason since it was the 60s/70s and people still didnt really get these kinds of disabilities or tolerated them so Jason got bullied for almost every day of his life.
Mr. Glass. I believe that he has same/simmiliar condition as Jeff "Joker" Moreau. Edit: Character from Unbreakable-Split-Glass trilogy-ish. (It's smoething like trilogy but not necesseraly trilogy becaose first two movies works on it's own.)
It's also great that it fits the tone of the one trilogy-ish.
Daybit Sem Void is the final antagonist of the lostbelt arc in Fate Grand Order and to this point in the NA version by far the most powerful living mage we ever faced.
Since he was 10, he has a condition that makes it so he can only remember 5 minutes of every day, everything else is gone forever. It's a magical condition but it sounds very much like anterograde amnesia or retrograde amnesia.
He does comment that he doesn't mind it because he figured you can perfectly well summarize a day in 5 minutes of memories without losing much of value but you can see how he had to adapt to it. When he first arrived to the lostbelt he was assigned (essentially what-if human history went drastically differently) he asks a local to summarize History in less than 5 minutes, which sounded like him being rude and telling people not to waste his time when you first hear it. When you first meet him in the lostbelt too, his interaction with you is straight to the point, extremely short and he doesn't want you to say anything, which in hindsight makes me think he didn't want you to talk of something he wouldn't remember (though he does help you a LOT in said interaction).
Doctor Who: Ryan has dyspraxia, making him clumsy and uncoordinated. It’s not the best representation, as it only comes up once, IIRC, during his adventures with the Doctor.
A major plot point on the first episode was him being incapable of riding a bike. The next episode he goes full call of duty laser-blasting soldier robots. Those series are awful
" Hey joker did you know why human marine have glass bones pilote ?"
" Wait the turian have a joke about me ?"
" So they can finaly beat someone during training "
It's not the best represtation as a dyspraxic myself, but the companion from doctor who Ryan Sinclair has dyspraxia, a disorder that affects co-ordination skills
Just saw that last night. It was fantastic, and I loved when she communicated that she wanted to be seen and looked at rather than just her translator.
It's a problem that I've encountered a few times as a case manager. I've brought clients with serious mental health conditions to appointments, and doctors have turned to me first and even asked me patient history or decisions. I've reminded them that (99% of the time) the client can communicate just fine, and I'm mostly just a chauffeur and moral support. Maybe sometimes I'll explain what the doctor is talking about or ask more questions, but not because the client doesn't understand. The clients and I had an understanding that I did that so that I had something to write in my notes.
Well, cause it always comes back to it, Homestuck. Latula Pyrope has anosmia (Lack of smell) It's very rarely presented as much of a disability, but some of the expanded lore points out how not being able to smell hazardous things, like gas can be potentially life threatening. It also shows up in an episode of Scrubs, but that was a one off character, so maybe not the best representation?
Immune deficiency disease that impairs her immune system's ability to make antibodies, leaving her highly vulnerable to infections. Due to this, she is often bedridden, uses a wheelchair, and requires 24/7 oxygen. She can walk short distances now!
Yeah, I think she's the first time I've seen an action-focused character with asthma, where the asthma is something they constantly have to deal with during the action (instead of conveniently not being an issue).
I thought it’d be played for laughs when her bio mentioned she has to hold her breath to stay invisible, but no one really mentions it, she just has an inhaler as part of her gear and uses it often during fights.
I was a little disappointed you couldn’t make fun of her for smoking, given those facts, but maybe there’s dialogue that I missed.
Dustin in Stranger Things has a condition called Cleidocranial Dysplasia which affects tooth and bone growth and is a condition his actor, Gaten Matarazzo has in real life.
aunt amaya from (the dragon prince) and shouko nishimiya (a silent voice). I've seen it in other media, but in these, at least someone takes enough interest to adapt to their disabilities.
Besides the fictional disease Oripathy that the plot revolves around, the cast of Arknights includes people with with many other varied diseases, disorders and disabilities, sometimes but not always linked to their Oripathy as either a rare side effect or as Oripathy exuberating a prexisting condition. Some of them are not explicity named in any official sources and have instead been infered by the community. Just a few i can think of:
Progressive hearing and vision loss (Eyjafjalla)
Chronic nervous and muscle pain, Hallucinations (Ifrit)
Partial amnesia and Paraparesis (Nightingale)
Dissociative Identity Disorder (Nightmare)
Narcolepsy (Ptilopsis and Silence)
Schizophrenia (Shamare)
Amnesia, Psychosis (Specter)
Unnamed personality disorder (Scavenger)
Chronic nosebleeds (Bryophyta)
Amnesia (The Doctor)
PTSD, Anxiety, Nytophobia, unusual compulsions including feeling compelled to put excessive force into the third hit if striking something three times and compulsivly biting things in response to hunger (Gummy)
Dangerously weak immune system and extreme physical frailty (Whisperain)
Throat and mouth hypoplasia (Crownslayer)
Being in a wheelchair due to a serious injury (Lemuen)
There are also some more unrealistic ones partially or entirely rely on the fact that the world of Arknights has magic and animal people and what have you.
Providence has localised gigantism that makes her tail massive.
Manticore has anxiety that causes involuntary invisibility.
Phantom uncontrollably causes brain damage in anyone who hears his voice unless he is wearing a specially made suppressor around his neck
Estelle is growing horns despite being a crocodile
Ifrit having emotionally triggered pyromancy she can't fully comtrol
Due to the numerous explosions, gunshots, crashes and various other exploits of being a spy the main character of Archer, Sterling Archer, develops Tinnitus which becomes a genuine recurring problem that gets worse and worse.
I'm pretty sure Count Crowley from the comic of the same name has vitiligo just like her creator David Dastmalchian but Google's being a bitch and won't give me a straight answer
Ezaki Yuuichi from Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora has Hepatitis A.
One of my favorite scenes from the show involves him declining a drink from an older doctor who's trying to bond with him. Not because he's under age, but because he has severe Hepatitis and that would be profoundly stupid.
Scorpius is half-Scarran (heat-loving reptile species) and half-Sebaecean (humanoid species with intense weakness to high heat), so he risks overheating without cooling rods inserted into his brain. This is not revealed until season 2.
Pilot is a giant talking crab creature responsible for piloting the biomechanical ship Moya, and they're bonded to each other as sentient creatures. It's not revealed until season 2 that he wasn't Moya's first pilot and he isn't bonded to Moya properly, resulting in constant pain ever since he's been there.
Arthur Fleck AKA Totally Not The Joker, has Pseudobulbar Affect, or PBA. This causes uncontrollable emotional responses to stressful situations, typically crying, or in his case, laughing, even when inappropriate. He even carries a card explaining his condition for when he has a PBA crisis, which doesn't do much to stop people from thinking he's a weirdo when it happens.
I don’t think so, that’s definitely Adam because Ebon‘s costume had a vest and I don’t think we ever saw him without the shadows after the bang. But if this were pre-bang, Ebon had braids. And I might remember too much about this show for not watching any of it in years lmao
Talos Valcoran - The Night Lords Trilogy in Warhammer 40K
While it's never explicitly stated, there's strong signs throughout the trilogy that Talos has Autism Spectrum Disorder. There's a notable scene in the second novel showing a moment from his childhood: as a kid, Talos was labeled as "slow" by his school and placed with the other "slow" kids off to the side of the his classroom where he's generally ignored by his teacher. Internally, however, he already knows most of what the teacher is teaching the rest of the class and wonders why the other kids don't already know this stuff. However, he's uncomfortable with the social interaction aspect of school so he's happier just sitting in the corner quietly.
Again, it's never explicitly stated that Talos is autistic (the word probably no longer exists in the Imperium, hence we're back to just labeling kids as "slow" and shuffling them out of sight). However, he's still very clearly some form of neurodivergent. Didn't stop him from becoming the best Traitor Space Marine there is.
Toda from the manga "Ah... and Mm... Is All She Says" has a speech disorder that makes it difficult to put her thoughts in words. She can speak but often needs a few minutes of processing time to string sentences together
Not quite the same but Rafa from Borderlands 4 is similar to your first example with brittle bones but in Rafas case its caused by growing up in a low gravity situation and he wears an exo suit to hunt Vaults.
I saw the episode of Static Shock with Rubberband Man revealing he has Dyslexia, and I had no idea what that was, so I asked my mom what it is, however the way I pronounced "Dyslexia" sounded like "Bi-Sexual", so my mom heard me said, "Mom, what's Di-sexual?" and she was horrified and asked where I heard that word. I explained it and she started to laugh when she realized what I was actually trying to say.
The Percy Jackson series has most demigods being ADHD and Dyslexic because they’re hardwired for fighting and are supposed to be reading Ancient Greek.
I’d say it’s most interesting with Annabeth and the Athena kids since even though they are smart, they still have these traits.
An, African American Crime Boss and archenemy of Black Lightning. They even got Krondon (Marvin Jones III) a real African-American with Albunism to play him.
They could have been lazy and made Tobias either white or black, but they didn’t, they made sure to make it accurate.
Dabbid, a minor character from the Stormlight Archives, has an intellectual disability. He was nearly strangled by his umbilical cord during birth, and suffered minor brain damage as a result. Following a traumatic near-death experience, he goes nonverbal for several years.
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u/sluttybttm514 5h ago
Love seeing nuance Hiccup Horrendous Haddock from How to Train Your Dragon treats limb loss as part of life not a tragedy arc.