Do Disabled People Belong in Sci-Fi/Fantasy?
Вставка
- Опубліковано 24 бер 2024
- ▶Join this channel to get access to perks:
ua-cam.com/users/steveshivesjoin
▶Kate Orman’s Black Vulcan FAQ from rec.arts.startrek: groups.google.com/g/rec.arts....
▶Patreon: / steveshives
▶PayPal: www.paypal.me/SteveShives
▶Venmo: venmo.com/thatguysteveshives
▶Twitter: / steve_shives
▶Facebook: / thatguysteveshives
▶Instagram: / steve.shives
Listen to the Late Seating podcast:
▶RSS: / sounds.rss
▶Soundcloud: / late-seating
Listen to The Ensign's Log podcast:
▶RSS: / sounds.rss
▶Soundcloud: / the-ensigns-log-podcast
#representationmatters #scifi #fantasy #disability - Розваги
Some people talk like they think storytellers should be writing wikis instead of stories.
What a perfect way to say it. Yes, absolutely this.
As one writer put it, some people act like this is a math test or a roleplaying game where all that matters is that the numbers add up the same every time and they could care less that this is a story.
'Crude Dwarven technology'
Call a dwarfwork wheelchair crude to his face and you'll be counting your kidneys on your now-missing hand.
I was gonna say, you can make a wheelchair have cool esthetics to fit a setting if you like, honestly a wheelchair could be a really cool opportunity for characterization too! How have they personalized it, perhaps they've imbued it with magic of their own or they have scifi gadgets rigged up if they're an inventor, maybe it's sparse because they don't much in the way of means - and the world doesn't help them enough, or maybe they come from luxury and their chair is nigh unto a throne!
Just as people use clothing for identity and characterization I could totally see disability having similar story telling possibilities :)
It would certainly be sturdier and more comfortable than the one I've got now (built with Capitalist technology, and designed to be a money pit)
Noc, you won't.
Because dwarves are imaginary.
Fandom would be great if not for the fucking fans.
@@FawstahI know that the ending of Game of Thrones sucked, but just saying, in that case a wheelchair ended up *being* the throne because the new king was disabled!
And in the books, that character's plot, from a child who can't use his legs, to a seer who can travel through the past and future, and communicate with animals with his mind, is pretty incredible so far.
More High Elven bias I see.
It's still wild to me that for a lot of people, a giant fire-breathing dragon is more believable than a disabled person in combat
One of my favourite sagas (The Alchemist Who Survived Now Dreams of a Quiet City Life) has a character who becomes disable due to being attacked by a giant fire-breathing dragon.
Now I want to write a story about a dragon in a wheelchair to really mess with that kind of person.
Whats a disabled person gonna do against a dragon, run it over ith his wheelchair?
@@andrewholdaway813 > I suppose it depends on the disability and the form of combat.
How about blind people in hand-to-hand combat? Or people in wheelchairs doing logistics while employing futuristic energy rifles.
Because those are tropes in anime and superhero comics.
@@andrewholdaway813 Does it really? There is no way "scientifically" that a multi-ton heavy firebreathing flying reptile could exist. None. So, there cannot be a _less_ "scientific" way for _anything_ . A blind peasant lady in a wheelchair beating up said multi-ton heavy firebreathing flying reptile? Not _less_ believable. A lesbian black-skinned quadriplegic Elf destroying a Nazgul and his fell beast with nothing but her razor-sharp wit. No less believable than Gandalf beating a Balrog. A kid in a rocket-propelled iron lung joining the knights of the round table? No less believable than strange women lying in ponds conferring supreme executive government power via sword-giving in some farcical aquatic ceremony. None of it is real. None of it is "scientifically" possible. You may personally prefer one story to the other and enjoy it more, but neither the disability nor the form of combat have anything to do with believability in a setting that includes dragons. Or light sabres and the force. Or mutants with superpowers. Or desert planets with giant worms that excrete a substance that makes you immortal and able to see through space and time. It's all exactly equally made up and "scientifically" impossible.
Imagine thinking "If we lived in a world where we had the technology to 'fix' disabilities, we would." as if we don't actively let people die from preventable illness~
The fact that some people think a trillion dollar military budget is ok and that Medicare is communism is an example of this...
Exactly. The idea that no one would use a non-magical mobility aid in a fantasy world is SO far removed from our reality. If we're talking about a world with any kind of class system at all (much less the type of highly defined class system of many fantasy settings) where everyone has equal access to magical healthcare - that's what's unrealistic.
I mean, fair enough, but there are also plenty of historically serious ailments that are effectively non-existent in wealthy countries. So demonstrably this is exactly what we do once it's cheap enough.
Or that there wouldn't be crazy elements of that future / fantasy society that wouldn't allow the 'fix' or would actively disregard guidelines/vaccines causing those disabilities or illnesses that cause disabilities... Especially in a fantasy setting were there is usually proof of 'Gods', I can certainly see those saying it is 'X God's will'.
@@normative Yeah, and tuberculosis is coming back to bite us Westerners in the @ss, because we ignored an illness "of the poor global south."
If even a fraction of the money had been put in studying TB that has gone into developing things like the umpteenth slightly tweaked versions of the in practice same medicines just so those can be patented and the prices kept high, we would not have to fear so many multiresistent variants of a bug that is hiding in two billion people - one in four of us - and steadily infecting more.
A while ago my nephew and his friends were playing "superheroes" and dividing roles. My nephew is half blind. As someone who's half blind, he wasn't allowed to pick a superhero because blind people can't be superheroes.
So I bought him a few Daredevils.
To hell with people who think disabilities should exclude people from any type of media.
Isn't a definition of hero someone who prevails against difficult situations. Would I want a story where a disabled person overcomes their limitations to save others? YES!
Not to mention OG Clint Barton/Hawkeye is deaf/hard of hearing; Echo is deaf. Technically Deadpool has mutant cancer. Forge I believe had a prosthetic leg. Charles Xavier for the longest time was wheelchair bound.
I don't recall too many disabled DC heroes though. Someone can probably correct me on that point.
But yes, disabled people can be superheroes.
@@SimpleGeekReviews Oracle used to be wheelchair bound on the DC side, but she's back to being batgirl nowadays after her legs got fixed.
@@SimpleGeekReviewsBarbara Gordon was Oracle, the JL's information broker, back before the whole new 52 stuff. Even though she used a wheelchair, she could still defend herself physically thanks to learning escrima. Then they made her Batgirl again, and there was grumbling from the fans who appreciated the representation.
Anyone who thinks people with disabilities can't be "super" has clearly never watched the Paralympics
The question we should be asking ourselves is, do white Vulcans make sense? It's a freakin' desert planet.
Now this, this is the correct question!
Then all of a sudden it ends up being "just a fantasy, it's not supposed to make sense."
See also
“If Superman gets his power by absorbing sunlight, shouldn’t he be darker skinned?”
And
“If Kara’s superstrength doesn’t require her to bulky and ripped, why does Clark’s take that form? Shouldn’t they either both bulk up from the yellow sun of earth, or both be slim or soft while still displaying superstrength?”
If there's a race that should be white and isn't, it's the Drow.
I'm old enough to remember Tuvok being controversial.
You're exactly right. If Vulcan skin works in any way like human skin, all Vulcans should be black.
Wait, youre telling me a world where some people can blow off your limbs by snapping their fingers could have people missing some limbs?
Inconceivable!
I do not think that word means what you think it means.😉
Well, he's actually responding to the argument that in a world where you can easily regrow limbs, nobody should be missing any limbs.
Shives uses many good arguments. Mine would be that people need to lose limbs before they can regrow them. If nobody had missing limbs first, there would be no tech to regrow them.
For thise who are educated on Logic: "missing limbs" is a necessary condition to "regrow limbs"; "regrowing limbs" is not a sufficient condition for "no missing limbs"
in an ideal world, disability still exists, it's the ableism that doesn't
Touche'!
That’s really eloquent. I’m going to use that.
so much this
The character Toph in Avatar: the Last Airbender did not need sight to become one of the most powerful Earthbenders in that universe…
Speaking of ATLA, you also have Teo, a kid in a flying wheelchair who can’t even bend at all. Not only is he the one who comes up with the idea to drop bombs on the fire nation, but he’s right on the front lines dropping them with Aang and the rest of the flying earth tribe.
In old age her power to "see" through earth becomes so powerful that she can see everyone everywhere in the world.
Ive just finished watching a video about a blind Jedi just this morning titled Hiroshi, who is a total bada**!
Toph didn't become so powerful despite being blind, she became so powerful because she was blind. Her disability caused her to see the world differently, literally. It was that difference that allowed her to learn seismic sense from the Badgermoles, and later to develop metalbending.
Toph is my favorite character, she's so cool.
@@Firazoid Buff Toph: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! There, I got a pretty good look at you.
CAPTAIN PIKE IN A FUCKING BEEP CHAIR
Their argument is invalid!!!!!!
ETA: Oh yeah. VISORS! FUCKING VISORS!!!!!!
The Beep chair kinda sucked, it limits communication to one or two beeps. Stephen Hawking had a better set up than that
Star Trek clearly has limits in its medical technology. And even if it didnt we have a bald captain. Like Picard either refused to fix the baldness or they lack the means to do anything about it.
@@sodadrinker89That's been my beef with Pike's Beep Chair. Couldn't they at least get him a good Hawking setup that far in the future?
Exactly - it's up to the writer how far tech has progressed. Also, not all disability tech is the same - I've learned from various vloggers that some ability tech is difficult to use 100% of the time - prosthetic legs require use of wheelchairs from time to time due to neuropathy or allergic reactions, etc.
In the end as Steve mentions it's a story for entertainment, here to serve all fans, not to exist for it's own sake.
And Nog of DS9 also exists! He's right there!
As a disabled person, we belong wherever the fuck we want.
As a disabled person I was really worried for like 30 seconds, I think that disability should exist in fantasy and science fiction and could easily be used to heighten a story or alternatively, if you don’t want to use a disability directly you could use an allegorical representation great video as always, Steve
I too am a disabled person from birth. And gotta be honest, *at first* I mildly disagreed with Steve. I would like to think that in the future, most if not all debilitating diseases and disorders would be cured. That the need for wheelchairs and crutches and canes would be at worst a temporary situation: person has a spinal injury and are wheelchair bound while the doctors work out the solution.
But then Steve made his most relevant point: that any Sci-Fi/fantasy setting is usually a reflection of today, and today we have disabled persons therefore those settings can also have disabled persons no explanation required.
Read Lois McMaster Bujold's "Vorkosigan" series of sci-fi books. Main character is Miles Naismith Vorkosigan, a guy with severe birth defects, who achieves great things. I LOVE THE SERIES
@@clairenollet2389 ... gen x feels bad... I forgot that one. it only took 8 kids and a gold choke-chain to tie the hyperactive little git down.
Only 30 seconds? As a disabled person, myself, I get really worried any time a non-disabled starts talking about us -- and I don't stop worrying until they stop talking. Doesn't matter who they are, these things have a habit of turning ugly/gross fast, even from well-meaning folks.
@@clairenollet2389 That's what I love about Bujold - for her, the sci/fi elements are there to serve the story, and not the other way around. I haven't tried her fantasy series (I'm not as much into fantasy in general), but I assume those are the same way.
I was gonna write my own long comment (I'm disabled and a fantasy author) but you nailed it Steve.
That commenter was at best ignorant and at worst actively trying to erase me. Thanks for sticking up for me, and I know you're not just sticking up for me alone, but thank you.
I have some disablities. I'm not a fantasy writer, but I love it as a genre. I feel the same. I'm also Queer and so I also appreciate it when he does the same for that part of me. Too many just say things like "kill them with kindness" or "you still need to be nice." I appreciate the explicit "you suck" that he directs at them.
@@dipperjc Not all disabilities are inherently bad. Under the social model of disability: many disabled people have difficulty navigating society only due to a lack of accommodation.
Don't know what disabilities the OP has: but I can still be considered disabled, despite being able-bodied. I have autism, which is is a neurotype that typically involves very high attention to detail. Being unable to block out extra detail can be disabling in our Capitalist society.
The second writer said, “It takes greater imagination to justify disabled people, rather than just include disabled people." He's not trying to erase disabled people - in fact, he's giving us a roadmap to creating meaningful disabled characters. He's telling us that our stories need to explain WHY these people exist in a universe where they otherwise don't make sense. This was done effectively in Star Trek: TNG (Geordi La Forge) and many other science fiction stories. This isn't a call to get rid of disabled characters - it's a call for good storytelling.
@@ljhcmh614I can assure you, from things they were saying outside of that screenshot, they were arguing it was an unrealistic burden on a writer (or games master in a TTRPG).
Unfortunately it wasn’t just that author.
A whole horde of the fash and fash-adjacent twats on that platform we’re making horrifically ableist memes and shit (including one cartoon with a D&D fighter screaming at a wizard girl in a wheelchair… which they thought made their argument look good rather than insane somehow)
I think able-bodied people are ashamed, somewhat scared, of people with disabilities.
Disabilities have been shown in various sci-fi and fantasy throughout the years.
In Star Trek, Geordi is blind.
In the TNG episode The Enemy, the Romulan Centurian Bochra mentions that if Geordi were born in the Empire, he wouldve been aborted or terminated.
In Game of Thrones, Tyrion Lannister is a dwarf which is considered a disability per SSA.
In Alien Resurrection, Vriess was a paraplegic due to shrapnel and had a badass chair.
In X-Men, Professor Xavier is a paraplegic.
Same as Dr Niles Caulder in DC Comics Doom Patrol.
In Highlander the TV Series, Joe Dawson is a double amputee.
Then there are all the disabilities in Star Wars.
Luke lost a hand, Anakin lost part of an arm and the as Vader became a quadruple amputee.
Thats just off the top of my head before the 6 minute mark of the video lol.
And no, magic isn't shown to have healing properties in fantasy.
Those who can heal are typically clerics and even they can't heal every injury or ailment.
My older brother has severe Myelomeningocele Spina Bifida.
He has acted like a cantankerous old fart since he became a teen.
The oldest young person you have ever met.
I am a tall, well built guy who suffered a serious spinal cord injury a few years ago.
I have limited mobility on my left side.
I use a cane or wheelchair to get around these days.
There are some days where I don't need either, but it's very rare.
There is a HUGE difference in the way I was treated before and after my accident.
Science as we know it currently can't eliminate most forms of severe birth defects.
Because of the complexities of the human genome, sometimes we arent formed 100%.
That ranges from mental health issues, growth issues, and mild to severe birth defects.
I'll never understand people that don't like full representation in any and all media.
Stop being afraid or ashamed and start being accepting.
I love when Steve goes off like this.
It's almost like a sermon, only not boring and causing me to fall asleep.
Add another one for fun Jake Sully from Avatar.
They’re definitely ashamed and scared of the idea it might happen to them. Most reactions against other disabled people are usually traceable to this type of projection.
Charles Xavier is one of the most awesome characters.
I guess one could argue that X men is set in the present day so it makes sense that his spinal injury cannot be fixed
@@katakisLives But he could be injected some weird shit, or experimenting with mutants like they did with Dead Pool when they gave him a bunch of powers like the ability to heal himself.
@@katakisLives I remember reading some star wars fan fiction explaining why Darth Vader didn't bother using the "force" to fix his limp.
TL;DR: he had more pressing concerns to worry about.
He was also a character that made sense in the universe he occupied. Which is all the original posters were calling for, really. I'm not sure this video was Steve's best work.
@@dr.napoleon3956There's mr fantastic, ironman, dr strange, black panther and black bolt if Xavier can't fix his spine one of his illuminati friends could make like six fixes each.
We are literally living in a time with space-age tech, and we still have people with disabilities. We have robots that assist with orthopedic surgery, durable medical equipment developed thanks to the space race, and an ICU isn't an ICU without patient telemetry. This would all be incredible to, say, a Victorian doctor. But people still get sick or injured.
We have known how to build houses for millennia, but we still have homeless people.
We have _more_ people with disabilities now. Cancers that render a person blind are now survivable (with blindness), where they used to just be dead. We have people currently disabled due to long COVID. Not something that existed 5 years ago.
Humanity will always be dealing with disability in some form. If for world building consistency you need new reasons, fine. But humanity can be defined by its drive to care and support each other and how we collectively do that.
@@CorwinFound This is actually a really good point. In a world with super advanced magic or medical technology, it actually would make sense that more disabled people would exist, because even if people who are disabled in our world would not be disabled in the fantasy world, that world would also have disabled people who would be dead in our world. A prime example is Joker from the Mass Effect series. He's disabled because in the Mass Effect setting, medical science is advanced enough to allow him to survive with his condition, and he even says explicitly in the first game that he would not have survived past infancy if he was born on 20th or 21st century Earth.
I don't get how people can use the phrase "in a world with magical healing powers, it's unrealistic to have disabled people" and not feel like a colossal twat.
I know some excellent fantasy sagas in which a chunk of the plot is about a people becoming disabled.
"Magic can only heal recent wounds and has no impact on genetically derived ailments" done. Magic can't fix cancer or grant sight to people born without it, and so on. It can reattach your arm you lost, if you manage to find a wizard who specializes in reattaching limbs, within 3 hours.
In a world with magical healing powers there are propably also magical murdering, wounding, blinding etc. powers/curses that can't be healed. It is as easy as that. Also just some magic illnesses. It is that easy to explain it.
@@dawoifee My god, such boundless imagination you have! /s
Seriously the "it takes greater imagination to justify disabled people" thing betrays how little imagination the people who think that way have, and you just proved that.
Oh, I think I can clear that up for ya'. As a disabled person, let me assure you: some folks find it very easy to treat us like shit. It doesn't even occur to them that they could act otherwise. Our very existence offends them. They cannot perceive that there's anything even slightly amiss with their way of thinking, and can even pull that shit while smiling and being (in their minds, at least) friendly.
When TNG was first coming out and Patrick Stewart was revealed as the new captain of the Enterprise, somebody asked Gene Roddenberry why, by the 24th century, they hadn't cured baldness. Gene replied, "By the 24th century, they wouldn't care."
Obviously baldness is not comparable to a disability but the same lesson applies. If you must have an explanation for the presence of people with disabilities, let it be this: those who want to be cured are cured, those who don't aren't, and nobody gives a shit either way, because everyone belongs and everyone is welcome just as much as everyone else.
I agree to a certain point. If it's a severely debilitating issue I think it's inhumane to go "oh you shouldn't care about that. It's just who you are."
The decision should ultimately belong to the individual in question- no one else@@luske2
This feels like it's the same line of thinking that brought us bangers like "why are there women in my WWII game" and "why isn't everyone in my European-esque fantasy setting white?"
Women on the front lines in WW2 does not make sense. Back lines, and rebellion groups, and spies, sure, but not frontline soldiers. The culture of the time would not allow it.
In europe, there were plenty of traders from africa and the middle east in those times, but I would expect that to be the exception and not the rule. If I see a town full of black people in a medieval european fantasy, I will immediately think, that does not belong. I would similarly think running into towns full of white people in games set in central africa, the middle east, or asian countries to be equally wrong. Internal consistancy is important. If i's meant to occur on earth, then make it earth-like or provide an explanation for the discrepancy even if it's jist a throwaway line.
@@Acaykath Two words: Lyudmila Pavlichenko. Around 1 million women served in the Red Army during WW2 (including in the frontlines). Though not WW2, they also served in the frontlines on the Spanish Republican side of the Spanish Civil War.
@@AcaykathTell me you haven't researched the Auxiliary force without telling me you haven't researched the auxiliary force...
I'm incredibly confused as I think a majority of major SciFi fantasy stories have disabled characters.
Geordi from Star Trek, Darth Vader from Star Wars is in a full body prosthetic, Dr. Strange and Tony Stark in Marvel Universe have compensation for their conditions but are not fully healed by technology or magic in universe, so many in comic books in DC and Marvel that I can't begin to list. Full Metal Alchemist has both Elric brothers for most of the story. Lord of Rings: Bilbo and Frodo both have PTSD by the end and this is written by a veteran.
On the topic of disabled people that would not want to be "fixed", the deaf community has a very complicated history. They currently as individuals and some groups push back from the technology that people think would cure them because of how they are treated (historically institutionalized as developmentally impaired rather than raised or cared for) and the fact that their development of language and culture raises real questions of what treating all deaf people would mean ethically. The deaf community's response to cochlear implants also displays how an advanced society might find a treatment that those with the condition do not find comfortable, worth it, or functional.
Thank you for covering this topic. The tweets discussed sound like people that don't know what disability is and don't talk to disabled people.
Yeah, the Deaf community always comes to mind when this comes up because while those of us who can hear are horrified by the prospect of losing one of our senses, from what I gather from talking to Deaf people, from their perspective you can't miss what you never had. Same goes for the blind. If you are born without, it's not so much a disability as it is a barrier to getting people who have hearing or sight to understand you, both literally and metaphorically.
Recently Wizards of the Coast showed off the newest artwork for the Wizard class that will be featured in the next release of the revised rules, and grognards complained about basically everything about the art including the fact that she wears glasses. The claim, which has never been demonstrated in the game's world or rules, is that she should have been able to fix her eyes. Never mind that there have always been magical glasses that a person in D&D might seek out even if their eyesight is perfectly fine and her eyes glow with power. Never mind that some of us think glasses look cool. I think part of the reason people nit-pick the art is one none of them want to admit: the character is black and they are racist dicks.
Geordi's condition was beyond the ability of the federation to heal, but eventually got healed when the tech became available, but until then he had that visor which was actually better than biological eyes.
Dr. Strange could not be healed with the magic/technology available to him, but he could still use his hands normally with the treatment he received, they were just not stable enough to do surgery any more. By the time anything could be done, he was the sorcerer supreme not a surgeon, so it didn't hinder him.
Tony stark could have been healed immediately, but was suffering from PTSD which affected his decision making. He eventually gets healed.
Darth vader was mostly because Darth Sidious kept him miserable to enhance his anger and thus the power of the dark side, he could have easily been healed if Sidious allowed it.
FMA - Human transmutation is forbidden.
LoTR - Magic is so rare that it is basically a non-factor most of the time. Never even seen it used for healing. Also, medieval setting, not exactly expecting a strong understanding of mental issues.
The deaf community was the very first thing I thought of when the subject of people choosing to be or remain disabled came up in the video.
Worth adding here that coclear implants are hardly a cure. Much like hearing aids they're often more a hindrance then a help.
There are days when I like you Steve, and then there are days when I really like you. Today appears to be the latter.
I can understand the intuitive assumption that "if we could heal people perfecly we should" but it's also important to remember not to remove the autonomy of people with disabilities. We should work to support everyone, in what ever capacity they personally want.
I'm sorry but Steve is being insanely intellectually dishonest in this video. The question isn't about inclusivity of disabled people in these stories. People are talking it not making sense. In Star Trek, the medical technology borders on near magical healing capabilities. They've cured most diseases & can grow replacement limbs, vital organs & even regrown an entire spinal cord. Most people in our modern world aren't disabled. Given the level medical technology in Star Trek. A disabled person would likely be rarer than getting struck by lightning.
True, at times consent seems to be ignored. As if it was just a new shape of eugenics rather than compassion.
I mean, if we're going to use Star Trek as a reference point for this, they're already a society that removes most if not all inclination towards criminal behavior from its citizens at birth through some unspecified method, and then relies on the social conditioning of the society itself to handle whatever remains. It's not unthinkable that they'd adopt a similar attitude towards physical disabilities, but I'm glad they didn't.
@@Duchess_Van_Hoof But you have put yourself in that world. The humans in Star Trek have lived in a world with this level of medical technology for at least 2 centuries. So using this advanced medical technology to correct serious birth defects that could correct that would be the norm.
There’s a book called “Six Wakes” by Mur Lafferty. It’s a murder mystery on a spaceship where the twist is that the victims are investigating their own murders because this is a setting where some people choose to use cloning to live forever.
Anyway, one of the characters has a disability. She was born without legs, so she uses prosthetic robot legs. In the past, she had “corrected” her disability but she found that it felt unnatural to her, so afterwards she went back to using prostheses. At one point in the story, her legs are damaged so she has to fall back on using a wheelchair.
Another example from Becky Chambers’ “The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet” - one character has dwarfism. When he was born, his mother was living with a “back to basics” type survivalist group that would’ve left a disabled child to die. She left the group to protect her child & he grows up to become the engineer on the crew of the ship that is the setting of the novel.
Including disabled characters in stories isn’t a chore, it’s part of writing relatable, interesting characters & engaging stories.
Wasn't expecting the UA-cam comments section to add more books to my To Read list. 😁
Bran in GoT
Toph in Avatar
The main character from the lesser Avater, whatever his name was
Professor X from Xmen
There are so many I didn't even have to think about this
The problem is not disabled people in sci-fi and fantasy. The problem is disabled people in sci-fi and fantasy where the cure is cannonically common-place and easily available for cheap or even free. It sounds like the books you mentioned had good reasons for the diabilities to exist, thus are not problems.
If everyone is perfect, no one is interesting. If everyone has the same worldview, then they aren't different characters. if you don't have different characters, then you don't really have a group story.
Even keeping it in _Trek,_ Jankom Pog is a "runt" with a prosthetic arm. And it's his -raccon-like fingers- small stature and re-configurable limb that allows him to become _the greatest technician that's ever lived._
Joker was one of the best Mass Effect characters.
Hell, I forgot he was even disabled. Yeah, they go over it in the story, but it never becomes who the character is. Perfect writing.
@@NightenstaffIf I remember correct, doesn't he even address fixing his disability but he says the procedure would likely compromise his pilot skills?
I loved how Mass Effect let you play as Joker so he can have his heroic moment.
@@Eleglas He could get an exo skelleton, but he wouldn't be able to "feel" the ship right.
And the medicine of the ME Universe seems to accomodate him enough to walk around alright.
He also is a perfect example as to why it makes perfect sense for disabled people to exist in a setting with magic or advanced medical technology without requiring any additional explanation. Mass Effect's medical tech is so advanced that Joker is a disabled adult instead of a dead infant. Perhaps people who would be disabled in our world would not be disabled in a sci-fi/fantasy world, but that could also mean people who would be dead in our world would be merely disabled in that sci-fi/fantasy world.
Lol that tweet. When i was first diagnosed with my chronic illness over a decade ago i wrote a whole fantasy series where magic itself took such a toll on the body that mages all became heavily disabled because of it. It was crude because i was a kid, but i loved it and i needed it.
I do that in my D&D game. Wizards all get scoliosis like me and arthritis. Their towers all started out as normal ranch style homes on the ground. Their physical reality gets warped as a consequence of using reality warping magic.
Honestly, I like that. I play alot of TTRPGS, and it's a common theme that really powerful magic takes a toll. Heck, sometimes even just getting a spell wrong can have some serious reprecussions because an ill formed spell can essentially cause a whiplash effect.
@@MichaelRaineydark sun had those rules in 2.0 in DND
Defilers mages ate life around them it confused themselves to cast
Conserve mages tried to carefully not take life but wound up taking more of themselves.
Saying we'd eliminate those things if we had the magic or technology is a bit like saying that we'd eliminate world hunger if we had the means. Except those means do exist and yet hungry people still exist.
and the "means" to eliminate disability is just eugenics.
@@twinsgardening896yeah but i think even if we had the means in a non eugenic way, we likely still wouldn't considering we have the means to eliminate world hunger and haven't
Was eliminating polio eugenics?@@twinsgardening896
In The Star Trek universe, we have eliminated hunger, sickness, hopelessness & despair. They absolutely would cure people of disabilities in the Star Trek world. They literally have. They regrow limbs, vital organs & damaged spinal cords for someone who was paralyzed. Despite the ban on DNA augmentation, there's an exception to correct severe birth defects. So yes, with improved medical technology & people not being denied access like in Star Trek. The vast majority of disabilities would be eliminated.
@@rishabhanand4973 Perhaps we don't have the means to eliminate world hunger socially if we do technically. We can grow enough food to feed everybody on all continents equally but have various rival governments and failed states with bandits, terrorists, corrupt soldiers, and dictators stealing food from aid workers. Fixing world hunger would also require world government.
I mean Geordie himself demonstrated that the disability accomodations sometimes provide a benefit that can satisfy the internal consistency argument. Sometimes the increased creativity to accommodate disability leads to actual progress in dealing with disabilities in the real world
The Masterpiece Society demonstrated this idea beautifully
I’d go as far as to say almost every time, it benefits the wider world. I really like “The Masterpiece Society” for how the visor tech saves their ecosphere.
I love how Geordie states he wouldn't give up his visor for "normal" organic eyes. That was the first time I've heard someone being proud to be disabled.
I’m writing a Trek story that includes amongst others a first officer who is completely Deaf and speaks only Martian Sign Language. He comes from a community on Mars in which congenital deafness is the majority. The reason for this is that the community was founded by refugees of the Eugenics War, and therefore, they are culturally against any kind of ‘cure’. The universal translator means that he does not need an interpreter. People saying this have evidently not thought about the many different kinds of disabilities there are - autistic people, if anything, would flourish in the Federation.
The deaf community is a bit of an outlier as those living within the community experience no hindrance at all.
There’s even a resistance to being “cured” in that it often means leaving the community.
I wonder if people ever get angry if a sci-fi character wears glasses?
Depends if the cure for their eye condition is readily and cheaply available or not.
@@AcaykathCaptain Kirk had eye problems because the readily available cure did not work on him ...
McCoy asked about it, accepted the explanation readily. and bought him a pair of antique glasses
People did question sometimes why Harry Potter (and a few others) needed glasses in a world where most such problems were easily treatable by magic (witches and wizards in the HP universe seem to suffer almost exclusively from uniquely-magical ailments, whereas standard Muggle problems hardly affect them)
“…we would eliminate these kinds of problems.”
We have the tech to eliminate a ton of problems RIGHT NOW and we don’t, so why would anyone presume differently in a fantasy setting?
Whether these conditions can be fixed depends on the rules set out by the premise of the fictional universe.
Cataracts are the most common cause of blindness worldwide. They are completely curable with a simple outpatient surgery, yet people live with cataracts for years because they don't have access to it or they can't afford it.
& who determines what needs “fixing” & what doesn’t?
And what does "fixing" mean? Let's say you have a character missing a limb. There's a new tech that can regrow limbs; even using the person's own DNA. But our character has a really good prosthetic; heck; it even has advantages over a "real" leg... maybe they hide weapons in it (shout out to Suzuya from "Tokyo Ghoul:Re"!)... So, do they need "fixing"? Would they want to be?
Two things: 1. If someone ever offers me to exchange my wheelchair for a dwarven wheelchair, you know I’m taking that! 2. “Eliminating disability” always reminds me of how they tried to do that in 1930’s Germany; didn’t work out well for people like me.
thank you for bringing up Tuvok, crushes instantly 98% of what people were gonna type in response because all of those syllogisms don’t remove are separate, or are in a vacuum from how this shit plays out in praxis
That is a self-defeating tweet if I ever saw one:
Points 1-3 are just the same thing said differently. And the answer to all three is... because they haven't. Maybe it doesn't exist, maybe it's too impractical, but the end result is that they haven't done it.
4) Because wheelchairs of different build quality exist even in our real world. Some are simple and some are motorized so who cares if one looks unusually fancy?
There you go. That's exactly why. Just make the magic that can "fix" disabilities one of those things (you know, like how in the real world there's no magic wand to cure everything). Since most high fantasy takes place in a warrior culture, just say that no one's really researched this field of the arcane. Much more profitable to research new ways to summon demons to kill your enemies.
No, you just have to be smarter than you. *Super* low bar.
If only it were stupidity, but it ain't. As Steve points out at the end, it isn't that the person genuinely can't imagine an explanation... they don't want to. They want their scifi/fantasy stories to exclude everything they don't like, because it is their fantasy that they live in a world that caters to them and does not include anyone else. They retroactively invent the explanations that lead to their preferred outcome. It isn't stupidity, it's bigotry.
@@orvilpymNo, it's about plausibility. Fear the walking dead has a guy stuck in wheelchair on the show. When he's introduced in the show, they're several years into the zombie outbreak. It's practically impossible that someone wheelchair bound would've survived this long without the most ideal circumstances of being in a walled off compound from the initial outbreak. But they have him out on the road traveling in a wheelchair with spikes coming out the back of it. It's cartoonishly stupid.
...Are...are you saying that Restoration is a perfectly valid school of magic?
On the "nobody wants to be disabled" point. I'm disabled and going through the process and struggle of finding out and getting treatment, I changed into the person I am now. If I were to lose or prevent my disabilty, I'd be an entirely different person and THAT is what I object to.
"You are paying attention to the wrong thing " seems to be the cause of so much goddamn fucking strife in this world. I include myself in that assessment as well. We all get hung up on some dumb thing some where at some point in time and we just see things that aren't actually there. Then we cause problems for others with our rantings and ravings. Humanity and confirmation bias, fucking hell.
And a lot of that's intentional. "Keep people distracted and fighting over stupid, inconsequential stuff so they won't notice what we're up to or organize to stop us."
A big problem is how we teach reading comprehension now. When I was in school, took a class called "Power Reading Through Literature". They don't have it in the school I went to anymore. The purpose was to read stories, and discuss characters, their intent and motivations, and what their actions meant. Discuss symbolism, foreshadowing and the like. Now, we teach kids to read something and pick out a specific detail to try and remember so you can answer a question about it on a quiz. They literally "miss the point" because they aren't taught what the point is or how to look for it. So, people watch or consume media where their only objective is to focus on the "canon" or "world building" aspects of it. They like to look for "easter eggs" and references to things they recognize because it offers them the same gratification as getting the answer on the quiz correct.
If the point of a sci-fi story is how we used technology (or magic) to overcome disabilities for example, and how that effected the character's world, then obviously it wouldn't make sense to have a disabled person in that story. But that is NOT the point the storyteller is trying to make in the vast majority of science fiction. But, because of how we teach people to consume media and information today, there are a lot of people who simply see the "inconsistency" between the world in the story and something like a disability existing in it. They focus on that and criticize the story because they "caught" the problem even though they have missed the entire point.
Do Disabled People Belong in SciFi/Fantasy?
Darth FUCKING Vader! I'll even double down, General GODDAMN Grievous! Both of these characters are disabled as hell, required massive cybernetic augmentations and still don't have their disabilities fully 'fixed'. Darth Vader needs to wear a life support system that he can only remove safely in special pressured areas and General Grievous is even more cybernetically replaced, basically being a series of canopic jars hooked up to a custom droid chassis.
It's only inconsistant if the magic or technology in the setting has already been shown to be able to heal a certain condition, then doesn't later without explanation. It's perfectly reasonable for some things to be unable to be treated, just like there are things we can't treat in the real world.
Yeah. Just because you can treat a paper cut or a severed limb doesn't necessarily mean you can treat congenital paralysis or epilepsy.
Favorite disabled character in sci-fi:
Major Motoko Kusanagi - Ghost in the Shell.
Full body prosthesis
YES!
It is even a significant part of her character and the plot of the first movie.
So many amazing examples of neurodiversity and physical differences in _Stand Alone Complex,_ from the home for autistically-coded genius coders to the CEO who decided he was more at home in a non-humanoid robot body. Aramaki walks with a cane, Saito only has one eye, and for the first two gigs the main "weirdo" is Togusa, the guy with no prosthetics and who shoots with a friggin' revolver.
3:20 Geordi La Forge. SERIOUSLY, man was born with no eyesight and wears a visor to fix the problem. He's still disabled, the technology couldn't fix his sight until later he's stuck wearing that nifty looking visor the entire time in TNG.
Add to that, Dr Pulaski offers to replace his visor with more 'normal' looking implants or regrowing/replicating new eyes in Season 2. Georgi chooses not to do so.
whenever I hear someone talking about "eliminating disabilities" it feels an awful lot like "eliminating disabled people". They might not be thinking about it that way, I imagine many probably aren't. But the ones that are thinking that way are hiding in that crowd.
That whole mode of thinking is the kind of thing that leads to societies willing to accept stuff like mass sterilization and, you know, genocide.
Remember when Worf had a broken spine in one episode when some future barrels fell on him? its interesting that they were able to fix him but it was not a straight forward procedure so it would appear that maybe some handicaps are tougher to fix than others.
The Germans (and, to be fair, most European nations) had some ideas in that direction: It wasn't just Jewish people in those camps! I'm Danish, and we chemically castrated Downs syndrome people up into the seventies (!) -we are not proud of that fact!
I read that more as him being the only Klingon in Starfleet, and Klingons just societally didn’t advance their medical science up to Federation standards so there were no Cliffs Notes to cheat off of. But Star Trek is if anything inconsistent where they can regrow kidneys with pills but need mechanical hearts to deal with an injury.@@katakisLives
The funniest thing about people getting bent out of shape about Tuvok being a black Vulcan, is that he's probably (imo) the best, most-consistent portrayal of a Vulcan in any series or film. He typifies what a Vulcan is.
Sort answer, yes, even before I watch your video. Now, time to hear what you have to say and I will edit this later. EDIT: I couldn't agree with you more Steve. Everything you said was right on the money. I mean, lets give an example: in a D&D game, you encounter a pirate with a hook for a hand. Is that immersion breaking when a spell like Regenerate (which can regrow body parts) exists? No, mostly because it would require finding a magic user at least at level 13 that chose to learn the spell. Is it possible the pirate could find that person? Yes, but that doesn't mean he did, or, if he did, the price for casting the spell was too high for the pirate to afford. You could also work it into the story that the pirate only resorted to piracy because he was trying to earn enough money to afford to pay magic user for that spell.
I still have to watch it, but agreed.
I'm going in with: "The correct answer is yes, and it would seriously surprise me if Steve were to conclude otherwise"
to add to the examples:
I've been in a game where my character got overconfident and was lucky enough to survive his first battle, only losing an eye.
Was very averse to joining the fight since and rejected every chance to have that eye restored (several people offered).
"You want to take my reminder to not charge head-first into battle? Are you trying to get me killed?"
also after years with a prostetic hand they got used to it and forgot they want a new hand
@@user-jn4sw3iw4hMartok didn’t want a new eye either 😊
Yes, but the real question is "Do the Abled Belong in Fantasy?".
NO! Fantasy is for dragons only! :D
@@graydanerasmussen4071,
Disabled dragons?
How about the Cained?
I can imagine in some sci fi, eugenics could be part of the reason.
Representation is very important, especially if it's something that is consumed by kids. My friend's kid loved the old Transformers cartoon. His favourite character was the kid who was in the wheelchair just like he was. Melted my heart.
The eugenics explanation would certainly explain quite a few things in Star Trek.
a lot of conditions could have been fixed if the Federation hadn't banned genetic manipulation as a result of the eugenics wars of the 1990s
Would disabilities exist in fantasy and sci fi settings exist? Yes, absolutely. The disabilities would be different than what we see in the modern day, but there would absolutely be devastating disabilities within the setting. Imagine being in a high magic setting and having an allergy to magic, or like a LOT of the sci fi issues that Charles Barclay has in TNG - these would be just as devastating to characters in these settings as having a severe gluten allergy or crippling anxiety in the modern day.
Though, you did give me an idea for a character. A "mediocre" mage who has a severe neurological condition which they cannot cure, but they can use their magic to work around. They're a LOT more powerful than they appear because so much of their magic goes towards being able to lead a normal life - and when they drop those spells, they can bring some serious magical might to the situation. In exchange for being almost completely physically incapacitated when they do so.
I dunno, I think this would be an interesting character to read about and/or run in a game (using a system that allowed for this sort of chicanery, of course). A view of disability through a lens we're not used to looking at it through - and giving the character some great character moments throughout the story (what does it take to put themselves in such physical jeopardy?).
But, at the end of the day, it is simple enough to answer, "Why is this person disabled?" with, "Because the solutions available in the setting don't work with them." And, at the end of the day, that's all the explanation that you need. Not everything can be cured by magic or (super) science. That's true today, and it's true in both fantasy and sci fi settings.
So this mage is neurodivergent and constantly masking? 😉
@@thing_under_the_stairs You know, now that you mention it, that might explain some of my interest in the idea!
Anne McCaffery's "Ship Who Sang" series comes to mind.
That mage being able to exchange incapacitation for magic power has the potential to be "inspiration porn" if not handled carefully.
I mentioned in another comment a Star Wars fan fic about Darth Vadar that used similar themes to a lesser degree. It was explained that he did not correct his limp (using "the force") because he had more urgent things to do.
I like the idea of a “berserk mode” power unlock for disabled characters, especially wizards, as someone who can sometimes walk again with incredible painkillers but still needs to be wary of injury. It’s just gotta be balanced right to avoid being “inspo” stuff. But a disabled writer would know the nuances enough to avoid that I think.
This is such a cool video concept, that shamefully used to apply to me. I remember being confused as a kid when Black and Asian characters started to appear in the newer Star Wars trilogy, and subscribing to the idea that "there must be a reason as to why they're here" but never with White characters. And in growing up, I realizing my mistake. I never asked about the White characters because it was my first instinct to see them as natural, they were the abundant majority and also shared my race. Why are there White people in space? Just as silly a question when I got around to asking it. Suffice it to say I've gained a higher appreciation of such fantasy stories when they are more concerned with telling stories that parallel real life, rather than simply some elitist escapsim.
p.s. Have these online geeks never heard of Professor X somehow?
A blind man was the pilot of the Starship Enterprise. I couldn't think of a more thought-provoking way to include a disability in sci-fi.
He was chief engineer.
@@aralornwolf3140He started out at helm in season 1. Thankfully they made him chief engineer in Season 2.
@@aralornwolf3140 Not in season 1
@@aralornwolf3140he was both. 😊
Considering he could see better than anyone else on the ship, I am not sure his blindness is a valid concern.
"With future technology, we would eliminate disabilities when our technology makes it possible". Tuberculosis kills over one million people per year. Tuberculosis is completely curable with current treatments. Why would we think that the future is going to be any different? It COULD be different (and I hope it will be), but the current evidence does not fill me with a lot of hope. Cures for blindness, paralysis, or anything else are unlikely to be universally available.
First, Steve is absolutely right that you are not obligated to explain the existence of disabled people in your genre fiction.
However, even taking the tweet's argument in good faith as a thought experiment, this is a laughably broad assertion. You could maybe make this argument for some specific examples, like Star Trek's utopian, if imperfect, Federation. But all of science fiction and fantasy? No. These are INCREDIBLY diverse genres.
First, even in high magic worlds, typically not every one is a magic user. And what magic can do tends to have limits. The idea that magic even 'can' solve every single disability is a HUGE assumption. Having magic in your world doesn't automatically mean magic users can just do whatever the flip they want at any time.
Second, the existence of advanced technology or magic does not solve all societal issues. Poverty/wealth inequality, oppression etc, these often do exist in sci fi and fantasy worlds too. The idea that any magical or high tech society would automatically apply those resources to addressing everyone's disabilities, even IF the tech/magic actually IS capable of doing that in a given setting, is another huge leap in logic. Take the Cyberpunk setting for example. The megacorps and their super wealthy executives could solve things like poverty and other societal woes, but like in real life, they're more concerned with maintaining or expanding their own power and wealth.
Even if we are charitable and take this argument in good faith it falls flat on its face and could only ever apply to the most utopian of fictional societies. And that's if we even humor the premise in the first place, because as said in the video, you don't have to justify disabled people. Or black vulcans/elves. Or any other representation.
The argument that we don’t belong in fantasy and sci fi falls apart once people recognize that paralysis is not the only disability. I have a genetic disability. What is magic gonna do, rewrite my genetic code? That’s some pretty goddamn powerful magic, and I’m sure we can think of some other applications that would raise serious ethical questions!
I’ve written eugenics into my sci fi story and included a character with a genetic disability to be the representation of how that impacts the world. I’ve written a blind character into one of my fantasy stories because even though there’s healing magic, it can’t fix anything and everything. Having limitations on magic systems is one of the best ways to make a magic system interesting, so I would argue it’s bad writing to claim that disabled people do not belong for the reason that “Magic fixes everything”. Oh, and also really fcking ableist!
There seems to be a threshold where utopian medical care turns into dystopian classism. It's fine to say that some things are now curable or fixable or preventable but when you end up with everyone being totally free of ailments, disability, and physical challenges it quickly turns into a have\have not situation. One group of folks who have the resources for gene editing or whatever and another group that wants it but can't afford it. Ya know, like our current real world healthcare system.
Gattaca
My favorite example of this is the plotline in Schlock Mercenary where someone loses a hand, and the tech to clone a new one exists, but their insurance only covers a prosthetic: Specifically, an eggbeater. Then they get in trouble with a health inspector, because he's using the eggbeater prosthetic to touch food, which means that technically he's touching the food with his bare hand.
@@MichaelRainey That was my first thought, too. Such a great movie.
Agreed though if it’s genuinely utopian there really wouldn’t be have nots. There might be conscious choice, but that’s a different thing. Also no way to predict how society and thus the people in it adapt to radical medical advance. If everyone can be free of ailment easily and cheaply, almost everyone would be, at which point, what frame of reference would any individual have not to be? It would likely have to be an iconoclastic choice not to do it. At least not assuming some esoteric fantasy/sci if reason some condition is permanent.
@@rubaiyat300even in Star Trek, the kind of medicine available to the core worlds is harder to come by for far-flung colonists. That’s why there’s so many plots about the Enterprise having to make emergency supply runs of basic medical supplies.
I would take a gander, and say that most peoples’ want to not be disabled comes from the fact that we live in the world that refuses to accommodate them, and if we lived in the world that accommodated people with disabilities, there would be a far smaller percentage who would still choose to not have their disability
How would magic cure a disease caused by genetics anyway? Would the wizard rewrite the DNA? Does the Wizard know what DNA is and how to rewrite it?
Exactly. I headcanon most magic healing to use the body’s own “blueprints”; so all the healing spells in the world wouldn’t change my bendy collagen.
"I want to drown you in a toilet".
That was so heartfelt, I'm still laughing!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
The viciousness of the delivery
I always love the fire you bring to your videos about representation or anything else in regards to diversity. Thank you Steve, you're an absolute gem of a man.
As someone with a disability, I appreciate when disabled characters are naturally integrated into the story of whatever show or movie I’m watching without any special attention being drawn to them… They simply are the way they are and everyone understands that and continues on with their life. However, even though disabled characters aren’t necessarily seen or treated as special by the other characters in the world, I do feel the need to point out that Daredevil and Geordi La Forge are two of my favorite fictional characters, not just because they share my own disability, but because they share my own disability AND they are both awesome, so they are special to me.
Also, does anyone remember the Burger King Kids Club from back in the 90s? It was made up of a handful of characters, one of which was named “Wheels” (because she was in a wheelchair). Nickname aside, she was a pretty cool character, with her unique ability being that she was a master mechanic. The Kids Club Universe always seemed to be somewhat futuristic, so I’m guessing the OP of that Tweet would have had a real problem with her.
Something else to consider, disabled people who say they wouldn’t want to change anything about themselves are usually those who have been disabled from birth, so being blind or deaf or whatever the case may be is all they’ve ever known, so living with their disability is completely normal from their perspective. On the other hand, able-bodied people who become disabled later in life are usually the ones who are always looking for a way to get back whatever they lost. those people know what it’s like to be able bodied, so when they become disabled, they are actively losing something about themselves; they can no longer do something they used to be able to do, so they want to get that back. Comparatively, people who are disabled from birth have nothing else to compare their life experience to, so they rarely if ever feel as though they’ve lost something or that there’s a better/different way to live because they’ve never experienced it for themselves.
I remember an argument i had with a rando in a ttrpg group because i play an autistic character with basically no charisma since im extremely socially awkward and wanted to relate to my character. The argument centered around the fact there was a moment in the game where my character was offered a "cure" and refused because she liked who she was and felt it would be stripping part of herself
Having people with disabilities in sci-fi/fantasy settings of course makes sense - good writing means that you think about how the improved technology/magic would affect the adaptions. Like Jordi with his visor or Riva with his chorus.
Example of people who want to be "disabled:" a lot of autistic people I know would not become neurotypical if they could because they look at the bizarre ways neurotypical people behave and find it exhausting.
(Disclaimer, I know autism is not inherently a disability and don't mean to imply it is; hence the quotes. I bet the kind of person who says no one wants to be disabled would argue that point, though.)
Autistic elder here. Thank you for pointing this out. Also, I just wrote a novel length comment about why I don't want to be cured.
As an autistic person, I can confirm, that the very idea that I would need or want to be "fixed" is offensive to me - what I want is simply to have the tools and means to navigate a neurotypical world confidently and conveniently (perhaps some kind of technology that allows for easier communication between neurotypical and non-neurotypical individuals?).
Though I believe the conversation was primarily focused on physical disabilities, I'd imagine the same could apply to at least some physical disabilities.
If I can elaborate as someone with autism. Autism is primarily a variant in thinking. Our disability isn't from how we think but rather from how society can't cater to anything that's not strictly normal. I can't lie, society demands white lies all the time. That's the exhausting part and IMHO being unable to lie is superior to this societal expectation to lie all the time.
For what it's worth, I don't consider autism a disability until and unless it causes the autistic person intrinsic distress, as can happen in particularly severe instances. If the distress comes from an external source, like people treating you badly, then I don't think that's a disability; that's just people being cruel and clannish.
This is an important point because what are the tweets counting as disabled is an important question. Autism, PTSD, and other physical and mental conditions can qualify for disability in countries that have services for that population.
There is a great tumblr post talking about X men as a metaphor for the disabled and how you have an incredibly diverse group that have very different needs that are grouped together and often do not understand the accommodation needs of others in the group.
I'm a writer who is disabled. I have been working on a novel with a disabled protagonist in a setting where vampires, magic and the supernatural exist. Now, I created the character initially ecause I was tired of seeing how disabled people were treated in horror films. (See Tobe Hooper's TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and Wes Craven's MY SOUL TO TAKE for examples.) However, after writing an article on diabled superheroes for a recent BACK ISSUE magazine, I came to the revelation that the character can have an impact on any ther person with a disability the way Professor Xavier and others have had on me over the years. Every type of person belongs in every genre regardless of age, gender, sexual orientation, race or ability.
All The Best,
James Heath Lantz
Freelance Writer
Staff Writer for Back Issue magazine
2021 Eisner Award nominee, 2019 winner, "Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism"
As a person with multiple disabilities I can tell you that there are some disabilities that I wish I didn’t have, mainly my physical disabilities, but others, like being neurodivergent, that I wouldn’t change for the world. In addition I can think of a few different ways to easily explain disabilities in your fantasy/sci-fi world: an unbreakable curse, a new illness caused by new technology for which a cure hasn’t been found, a disability caused by a rare interaction of magics that’s difficult or impossible to fix and so on. Also if magic or science fixes anything and everything WHERE THE FUCK IS THE CONFLICT??? Oh is there a dark lord. Just use magic to kill him from a distance. Is the sun dying? Just use science to make a new one. Sure are there other story options that could work? Yes. But you’ve drastically limited your world-building options this way, at least if you were to remain logically consistent. Ultimately his kind of nonsense is unimaginative at best and ableist at worst.
I know a lot of disabled people who given the chance to "fix" their disability wouldn't. Science fiction and fantasy having people who could "fix" their disability but don't makes complete sense and is 100% realistic.
I know deaf people adamantly opposed to getting cochlear implants that would 'fix' them.
I myself have Cystic Fibrosis and will need a double lung transplant to survive >10 years. I'm still exceptionally leery about going ahead with the process and it will take a lot of counseling before I'm ready to decide yes or no.
Both of these treatments are scientific marvels that were science fiction when the original Star Trek came out.
yes. I have a physical one and a developmental one. The only reason I would fix the physical one is that as it progresses, the pain will increase and it will shorten my life. For my developmental one. (It's adhd), the only reason it is miserable to have is society. If I had resources and social and job expectations were not based on being neurotypical, I'd be thriving. Society is the only reason I have a difficult time.
I've also seen deaf people object to the idea of giving cochlear implants to an infant, on the grounds that being deaf isn't a problem, so why would you fix it?
@@heidihansen5793I don't agree with that tbh. Developmental / mental disorders are difficult for the person regardless of any expectation placed on them. It creates frustration with fundamental things that you have to do in life whether you're NT or expected to mask and appear NT or not. Difficulty focusing, difficulty thinking rationally, keeping track of things (whether they're objects or tasks), difficulty empathizing, being able to carry oneself, etc. I don't think society is the only reason these disorders are difficult. Clearly it makes it more difficult, but it would be hard regardless.
@@heidihansen5793That was one of the things I was thinking about. I also think that since adhd and other mental variations represent real diversity of thought that in a "sane" society variations would be valued for their contributions to problem solving. I suppose I could wave a hand in Temple Grandin's direction here. And what if these miracle cures haven't been discovered yet. Anyway, someone's pretty stupid, and the rest of us do our best.
As a person with bipolar disorder I sort of feel like a combination of Oz from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (have the disorder feels like being being a werewolf who as to prepare for when the "full moon" comes around and safeguarding myself and others) and also like Cyclops from The X-Men (where bipolar disorder can be a source of great strength when *properly* harnessed and contained). Also, I prefer the term, neurodivergent to "mentally ill": it's more empowering and it makes me feel like a part of an X-Men-like group of superpowered misfits. (I like being a misfit.)
14th well isn't Captain Pike disabled in StarTrek.....even with the 23-24th century tech.....he's still in a Tech Wheel chair ....right?
The technical term is “beep chair”, BTW.
And DS9 had the episode Melora were the titled name character needed a wheelchair because her species, the Elaysian, were adapted to living on a planet with gravity far lower than 1g.
@@amazedsatsuma I remember that episode! they were able to turn the gravity plating down in her quarters so she could move about more freely!
@@amazedsatsumawhich had some mixed metaphors after a Writers Room rewrite, but the original story (and writer credit) is by a wheelchair user. He based Melora’s difficulty navigating the station based on his own difficulties navigating the sets.
TBF A Dwarven-esque looking wheelchair would look cool AF. Also, one of my favourite fantasy sagas (The Alchemist Who Survived Now Dreams of a Quiet City Life) features a main character (Sieg) who has a disability. Sieg is a former adventurer who had to retire due to extremely serious injuries, and ends becoming a slave due to debt servitude. His character arc is him being saved by the main protagonist (Mariela, a young but very talented alchemist) and overcoming the flaws that led to him sustaining those injuries in the first place (he was extremely arrogant and got careless due to being talented). A cure for his main injury (he lost an eye in a curse) exists, but it's extremely hard to get, and the protagonist is working hard in order to prepare it. Another great fantasy saga I know (My Daughter Left the Nest and Returned as an S-Rank Adventurer) stars a swordsman called Belgrieve with a peg leg: he's a farmer who lost his leg protecting his friends from a monster when they were novice adventures. A cure for that doesn't exist, but it turns out that he's one of the best swordsmen around even while having a peg leg.
The statement remind me of "Yagrum Bagarn" During the 3rd Elder Scrolls game, Morrowind, he was the last living Dwemer (the dwarves of Elder Scrolls) and because he was suffering from a disease...he had to replace his lower body with Dwarven technology
~Raises Hand~ I'm someone who was born with my physical disability, and though it doesn't *define* me, it has *influenced* who I've become as a person. And as a fan (and writer) of both sci-fi and fantasy, I've often contemplated what it would be like if my disability were removed by someone wanting to "fix" me. And I think it would cause me to spiral into severe body dysphoria -- which would just be a different disability.
I love you. But also, regarding if disabled folks want to be disabled or not? A friend of mine was learning ASL and followed a lot of deaf folks on Twitter and you had better BELIEVE a large percentage would rather stay deaf. It's an incredibly complex social dynamic, and they can be extremely touchy about other deaf folks getting cochlear implants and other devices that can restore a level of hearing. ASL especially has its own culture as it's also its own entire language (it's not a simple conversion of English to hand gestures, for example), and that carries a lot of social bonds with it.
Folks in wheelchairs have their own communities; there's a shipwright that's missing BOTH HIS LEGS below the knees and he builds massive wooden boats for a living and has "Stumped" tattooed on his fingers; there's a guy on UA-cam that's missing his four fingers on his left hand and has and continues to engineer a mechanical hand which is surely very satisfying and not something he'd have done otherwise. I can't speak to whether any of them would take a chance to be fully abled again, but it's important to remember that it's a very complex set of feelings they all carry with them.
But also, as for why there's disabled folks in sci-fi/fantasy? Fucking inequality. If it's not capitalistic it's social. Star Trek, in using planets as set pieces for whatever story it wants to tell, almost always makes the people living on the planets a monolith because they have 45 minutes. I feel that gives the illusion say the Federation is monolithic (though they usually do a good job of debusing the viewer of that). NOTHING IS A MONOLITH. No technology is perfect, no magic is omnipotent, and even if it were -that- would be boring as fuck.
Besides, as was pointed out in this video, everything in books are set pieces for stories about people. If you don't care about the people, fine, but then you need to limit yourself to reading worldbuilding documents. Read Gene Roddenberry's technical designs of how warp works and stay away from people.
I don’t know about many of the communities, but there are areas of the deaf community that would not choose to be hearing. It is a part of their identity.
Some people didn't understand TNG's The Masterpiece Society, and it shows.
One thing to keep in mind with conversations like this -- and I am speaking *as* a disabled person here -- is that the reason this is such a touchy subject, especially for *us*, is that we do NOT have the option, in reality, to magically fix our problems. So there's very little point in voicing things like, "Yeah, if I could walk normally, I'd really like that," when it's not an option for us and will very likely never be an option for us. It can also be very difficult to admit to any envy or bitterness (which absolutely does exist) because we're so often dismissed and dehumanized on account of our disability.
The real crux of the matter is, I think, that in today's world being disabled is effectively an identity, like race or sexual orientation, in that it's not something we have any power to change. But in these fantastical SF/F settings... that's no longer necessarily the case. So you have to walk this weird line between being respectful of the problematic present and the established character of the idealized future (or forgotten realm or whatever). And -- *obviously* -- we should always prioritize real people over imaginary people.
I think Star Trek offers us great examples of both how to handle disability exceptionally well... and terribly. You'll pardon me if I don't really feel like getting into the latter case (this comment is long enough already), but in the former... I really like how Geordi LaForge was handled. At least in the series -- the movies not so much. Yes, he's blind, but he's not broken up about it, and the magical high technology of the federation allows him to go out there into the universe and live his best life -- while *still being blind*. Further, the VISOR is a fantastic metaphor for the various technological shackles that so many of us are forced to live with, today, just to survive -- like insulin pumps or pacemakers. And using an advanced piece of technology to better ourselves at the physical level... that feels very *Star Trek* to me. (Whereas replacing the VISOR with artificial eyes that can "pass" as normal eyes for the most part completely undermines all of that IMO.)
Well, I think I've rambled long enough here. Clearly, there's a lot to say, and a lot more that could be said.
The comparison to an insulin pump is great! I’ve always thought of it as similar to how my wheelchair makes me literally see topology differently; where ambulatory people see “flat ground” I see hills and valleys. But that’s just my own context seeping in :)
The idea that fantasy and sci fi is only for the able bodied comes from people who have never heard the words Chronic Illness, and would try to reccomend you yoga after explaining you've been in moderate to severe pain your entire life.
I have met those folks. They don't want to think about it. Their desire to argue against disability in media comes from deep discomfort with the topic, and an assumption that They Can Tell and Disability Is Uncommon.
Try to tell an adult an assumption they've been operating under is incorrect, and watch how many paragraphs of explaining they jump into. Its panic chaining into a tantrum.
4:10 Would I want a "cure" for my autism and ADHD? I.e. would I want the person that I recognize as myself to stop existing, so that a different person - whose resemblance to current me is extremely hard to predict - could exist in a body free from mobility problems, several types of chronic pain, joint instability and subluxations, allergies, asthma, migraines, and digestive problems?
My personal answer is HELL NO! I like my agender, panromantic, and neuroqueer self, painful body included, and I do not want to stop existing so that a most likely neurotypical, able-bodied, cisgender, and heterosexual woman of unpredictable cognitive abilities and interests could take my place, even though she technically and legally probably still would count as "me."
My reasons: All my physical problems almost certainly stem from my genetics, the same genetics that made me queer, autistic with ADHD, and gave me a strong intellect, an interest in and empathy for my fellow humans and other animals, and the ability to learn multiple languages and various dynamic systems quickly and efficiently (I am an ex-nurse, translator, editor, and engineer).
Most (probably all) of my problems also relate to some extent to faulty connective tissue, which exists everywhere in the body. So the kind of cure that theoretically could fix everything that actually makes my life difficult (mainly pain) would need to be science fiction level, full body gene editing.
If I edited the genes in every cell of my body, or even in a substantial subset of my cells, would I be me anymore? Would I still love and share interests with my husband? Would I understand my neurodivergent, gender nonconforming kids? Would I fit in with my small group of close friends? Personally, because I like being me, I feel a "cure" like that would be way too risky to consider.
YMMV, of course.
Thank you, Steve, for asking! ❤ (heart)
Those are all deep, existential thoughts, explained and drawn out so concisely. Thank you for writing this comment. What makes you 'you', what makes me 'me'.....those are fundamental questions that don't have easy answers, but the complexity is what makes it all the more interesting. I wish more stories would examine these types of things, rather than defaulting to the usual generic, surface-level 'robots/androids contemplate and/or discover humanity' kind of stories.
It seems you beat me to writing the comment that I wanted to write myself, almost down to the exact cluster of medical conditions! And no, the only thing I would change or get rid of if I could would be the Long Covid that's been making life more difficult than previously for the last 4 yrs. Apart from that, I'd rather remain myself, as is.
@@thing_under_the_stairs *solidarity fist bump* The co-occurring conditions list is quite common. Of the eleven neurodivergent people I know best, every single one has at least some connective tissue problems, and the only one of us who doesn't have migraines has cluster headaches. The rest varies more, but everything I have at least two unrelated friends have, too.
I wish Modern Medicine (TM) wasn't so separated into speciality silos. It takes years and sometimes decades for some doctor to remember that they were taught "If you can't connect the issues, think: connective tissues."
Fuck that, if there were a cure for my ADHD, I'd take it in a heartbeat. I'd still be me, just without a debilitating disorder
@@Daltoni951 Did you read all of my comment? Please notice that I am only speaking for myself in my specific situation.
For Picard's British accent, I know that you want to forget Picard S2, but it's still there showing that his family is half-British... 😉😂
And that was 40 years after TNG
@@StuBotNYC Well, to be fair it took until the early 2000's to find out why the TOS Klingons did not have cranial ridges.
@@katakisLivesScience fiction is not immune from suspension of disbelief to tell a story well; especially SCI-FI if the stories get expanded there’s always a need to accept that cannon gets adjusted.
I'll never understand why they didn't just rewrite the character to be British after they cast the longtime Royal Shakespeare Company veteran Patrick Stewart to play him. Characters being tweaked depending on who they cast is pretty common in TV.
Let's get this out of the way, I am a gay Mexican paraplegic, so I, respectfully, would argue that I have a tad more authority on matters regarding the importance of representation and diversity than a large part of the audience. While my overall answer is "yes", I do not believe this question is one that should be deemed "hateful" or "bigoted", and I honestly don't even think it's a question worthy of derision. I think it can (keyword here, because it certainly does not always apply) depend on the rules of the universe being depicted
seems the three common conclusions from disabled people are "yes" "no let me have my escapism" and "ok please stop trying to tear out each others kidneys"
and considering I've seen lots of disabled people on the opposite side of the fence, I would agree that its not really fair to call it bigoted and hateful since it is an interesting topic of conversation and not one that needs to be this aggressive IMO
@@eg_manifest510but you have to realize in the super magic world as this the power with lesser people or no powers becomes the disabled.
In the sci Fi version the ones without the ability to seek the treatment or can not grasp the therapy cure are now the disabled.
@@eg_manifest510but when it’s abled people saying it, not other disabled people with intimate knowledge of the complexities and wrinkles, they usually veer into eugenicist rhetoric without even realising.
"You're paying attention to the wrong thing" is the answer to so many questions in fandom culture.
As a disabled person I was a tad worried but I felt so relieved and happy when Steve almost immediately just shut that shit down and started going off on behalf of us disabled people. Yet another reason you’re one of my favorite UA-camrs! Thank you Steve!
It's basically eugenics
👏👏👏 Oh, bravo, Steve! I am so sharing this. Your turn of phrase is a shot in the arm and no mistake. For the record, I happen to love being me; and that includes being totally blind probably autistic (I'm awaiting assessment), female, queer and of Celtic heritage. I see no difference in all these things and I pity anyone who wants to change me because they can't see past the end of their own noses. Do I love being disabled, though? No, I do not. Disability (at least among many of us) is caused by the way societies and cultures treat us and not by having impairments. After all, they come with life, either at birth, through illness or accidents so it's hard to avoid them really. I don't love being treated like I'm not fully human by ablist systems and individuals; but I don't need the two holes in the front of my head to have a great life and I don't especially want to think or process like most people with whom I interact. I like being me and that includes my impairments. Ngā mihi nui, from Aotearoa.
I am waving to you in autistic solidarity from Finland. May your assessment be competent and its results further strengthen your self-acceptance. And if you end up with "You have traits but not enough for diagnosis," you are still welcome to the community if you want.
‘What the hell is wrong with people?”…. I ask myself the same question just about every day, Steve!
Cheers for even arguing ^^
To be fair, I do think it's interesting when shows elaborates or simply shows how disability affects their characters according to the specificities of the setup. Like the earthbender who flies using an awesome machine, that was cool.
You can have a guy in a modern wheelchair in Discovery if you want to. Fan actor with LGD wanted to be on the show. Sure. That is perfectly fine. Just chalk it up to he likes that design in the future. Disco has enough tech that makes no sense. This is not one of those problems.
In TNG, Stephen Hawking wanted to be on the show on the holodeck, so they let him, in his motorized chair. He was the most brilliant scientist of our age.
Geordie La Forge was named for a disabled fan of Trek and the Visor device was made up for that.
Pike in the space chair.
Xavier in X Men. The most powerful telepath in that universe.
Toth from Avatar the Last Airbender.
“And over the last few years we have heard a lot about something called ‘family values’. And like many of you, I have struggled to figure out what that means. And since my accident, I've found a definition that seems to make sense. I think it means that we're all family. And that we all have value.”
Christopher Reeve, speaking at the Democratic National Convention in 1996.
What a Super Man.
Well said!
The whole point of Science Fiction and Fantasy is to stretch your awareness of possibility and imagination.
The world is bigger than you know.
Some of my favorite characters on Star Trek include the blind characters Dr. Miranda Jones escorting the Medusan and Chief Engineer Geordi LaForge, both using hi-tech prosthetics to help compensate for their "disability." In both cases, the prothesis did not eliminate their blindness, it only allowed them to better integrate within "normal " society. They still couldn't "see" in the common sense.
And the deaf girl who taught Kong American Sign Language in Godzilla vs. Kong.
"Deafness" has become an entire culture, with many members actually refusing cochlear implants that could allow them to "hear," thus forcing them out of deaf culture.
As a disabled person I always find it weird that disabilities exist in a worlds where there are highly advanced medical treatments or magic. Personally that's also part of the draw of those worlds.
Saying that I don't think that you can't have disabled characters in sci-fi and fantasy, so long as it doesn't conflict with the established level of technology or magic system. It does annoy me a bit when you have disabled characters when you have healing magic bit it just conveniently doesn't work on that disability (like how in Harry Potter they can regrow bones but not make it so that Harry doesn't need to wear glasses) or in universes like star trek where they can do many ridiculous medical feats bit not how to get rid of disabilities. I think it needs to make sense within the universe itself. If it makes sense then having disabled characters is great and can be used for great storytelling.
The Honorverse has nanites which repair the genetics of embryos/fetuses while they are in the womb. It has bio-sculpting which allows adults to redesign nearly every aspect of their body. It has regen, which allows people to regrow damaged/missing organs.
Yet, the issue is, access. Not everyone has access to nanites. Not everyone has access to bio-sculpting. Not everyone has access to regen. Not everyone who does have access to regen, can use regen due to their genetics (~30% of the population). Not everyone has access to top quality prosthetics. To top all of that off, not everyone who has access to the "cures" desire to be cured.
Star Trek isn't perfect. Not everyone has access to quality medical care. Not every illness has a cure been found either. Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge was born blind. However, the Federation medical establishment provided him with a prosthetics which bypass his useless eyes. So long as he wears his prosthetics, he has _better_ vision than any human.
Of course we do. Now let's watch the rest.
Discussions about the presence of people with disabilities is always - ALWAYS - a proxy conversation about whether or not some people are okay with eugenics. If you're not okay with people with disabilities in fiction, if you think their existence demands a special explanation, then you are pro-eugenics. It pretty much is that simple. And it always has been.
Star Trek actually brought this idea up with Jordie. I don’t remember the exact details (I’m sure someone will remember) but his visor was needed for a particular application.
Beyond that, any other character could feasibly “fix” an issue, but unless the issue affects someone in a life threatening way then sure. Otherwise it would probably just be a choice but the world can and should adapt to whatever instance.
This reminds me of when I watched ST Discovery and wondered about the trans characters and realized that it would simply be a choice, as it should be. That’s it, nothing would need to be done unless they were going to die from something. Although even then maybe that should be a choice based on sound mind.
What makes it worse is that a lot of SF has addressed why everything isn't perfect.
TNG even had an episode about _why_ Geordi was blind. Heck TOS had Pike in a wheelchair!
As said, at the end of the day most of these complaints aren't about disabled people being incongruous with the setting but about seeing them exist.
I’m pulling out the popcorn. From the ttrpg world, “Battle Wheelchairs”. Big debate over them.
I accidentally allowed myself to be dragged into a flamewar with some vile little choad on this topic (I offered the fairly good-natured suggestion that a mobility disability might offer interesting storytelling opportunities, and choad responded "WRONG LOL you'll never even make it to the dungeon!!1!"
I managed to extricate myself though, by accepting that I wouldn't get the last word in and just walking away. Like I should have done at the start :D
Gods but there are some utter turds in the discussion. Fuck, I'm getting pissed off just thinking about it.
That’s actually what started this thing on Twitter, hilariously. It spilled over into general discussion.
Maybe if Steve knew it was a TTRPG argument he wouldn’t have said anything though 😂
@@KristovMars I'm with you. Total failure of imaginations! My engineer brain immediately went to every problem. Then my writer brain kicked in and came up with at least 3 interesting story hooks in a few minutes.
Is not the arguably most famous Sci-Fi character of all time wearing a breathing machine, has to bathe regularly in a healing tank and hides his injured face behind a mask?
Professor X is in a wheelchair.
I don's remember the episode titles but there were disabled people on DS9.
Nog loses a leg in the war. There’s an episode dealing with his ptsd and coming to terms with it. There’s also the episode where a girl from a planet with less gravity comes to DS9. She’s in a wheelchair because the gravity of DS9 is too much for her to stand up in. Bashir “fixes” her, but she chooses to go back to her own self in the end. The consequences of being able to walk like everyone else meant she could never go home. It’s a good example of how yeah the tech can do the thing, but it would fundamentally changed the character so much that they wouldn’t want to do it.
Just read that FAQ post by Kate, and it is great :)
Yes, Yes and Yes, I come across this problem mostly in the DnD scene for a group of people that love Rp it seems they have a hard time grasping the fact that some of us are ok with our problems and disable people may want to play as they are because they accept themselves as they are.
One of the best DS9 episodes was about a low-grav alien federation officer, who could fly in her quarters under her normal gravitational field, but needed extensive mobility help in the normal 1G areas of DS9. What about a situational disability that if cured, prevents a person from doing the thing they love in their native habitat?
Bran Stark comes to mind when I think of disabled characters in fantasy. ASOIAF has a lot of viewpoint characters you could reasonably call disabled in the world they inhabit not all of them physical, many of which are disabled by the circumstances of their birth.
For the purposes of this conversation, ASOIAF is a ‘low fantasy’ setting
Yes, exactly! I was thinking of how he and Jaime Lannister have two of the most interesting character arcs in the series *because* of their disabilities. Instead of learning to fight like all the other boys, Bran ends up developing his psychic abilities to who knows what ends, while Jaime actually grows a personality and a conscience after losing his sword hand, which had previously made him nearly invulnerable. That's good writing. As for whether it's high or low fantasy, who cares? That's more pedantry. There are dragons, undead ice zombies, seers, and a fireproof princess. That's fantasy enough for me. The magic isn't frequent or highly visible, but neither is the magic in Lord of the Rings. I'm not sure what the point of differentiating is, since Gandalf couldn't grow back Frodo's lost finger either.
Edit: How did I forget Tyrion Lannister in this comment? Somehow I get the feeling that if you asked Peter Dinklage if he wanted to be "cured" of his dwarfism, he'd laugh in your face, and give you a Tyrionesque smartass comeback!
@@rorythomas9469 pedantically, it's not really a "fantasy" at all, at least not for anyone who can't relate to the characters.
I like the fact that it took less than 30 seconds to get to the point.Yes, sci-fi and fantasy is for everyone, including people with disabilties.
Thank You! That is all I have to say Steve, Thank You!
One of my favorite things ever was seeing Neil Gaiman give the roll of the archangel Saraqueal to an actress in a wheelchair. He even changed the sets to create space for her and made it look like the universe was bending to accommodate the character. As a neurodivergent person, I found this to be really powerful. We don't need to change or "fix" people with disabilities. They're already worthy of being any character in any story, including an archangel in heaven. We need to create space for them to exist as they are, even if their existence goes against everything we believe about the world.
😘 perfect! Thanks Steve; this disabled fan really appreciates the support and the fabulous rant… great way to start the morning!