{"id":3284,"date":"2016-03-19T09:00:26","date_gmt":"2016-03-19T13:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/?p=3284"},"modified":"2020-12-08T10:06:02","modified_gmt":"2020-12-08T10:06:02","slug":"overcompensating-magical-erasure-of-blindness-in-sff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/2016\/03\/19\/overcompensating-magical-erasure-of-blindness-in-sff\/","title":{"rendered":"Overcompensating: Magical Erasure of Blindness in SFF"},"content":{"rendered":"

The trope of a superpower for a blind person to \u201ctranscend\u201d their disability with an alternative form of sight is one I have seen (apologies for the pun) one too many times. Whether it\u2019s Scott Westerfeld\u2019s Zeroes<\/a> <\/em>where a blind character sees through other people\u2019s eyes, or Daredevil<\/a>, the well-known comic book hero whose superpower essentially reads as superpowered extrasensory awareness, these forms of blindness effectively erase the experiences of real-life blind people, like me.<\/p>\n

While these characters have the outer appearance of blindness, very few of them behave as though as they are<\/em> blind. It\u2019s one thing to have great orientation and mobility training, to have the ability to navigate the world with your disabilities intact; it\u2019s quite something else to have an adaptive device that\u2019s just there for show, which is the case with Daredevil most certainly. Instead of a needed tool, his white cane is a prop that becomes a useless item in his hand before a fight. On more than one occasion, he simply flings his cane aside.<\/p>\n

Conveniently ideal assistive devices also often exist as \u201ccures.\u201d For instance, Mad-Eye Moody in the Harry Potter series<\/a>, who was injured in the line of duty as an Auror, has a replacement eye that not only lets him see, but that gives him X-Ray vision, making him a better Auror in many ways.<\/p>\n

\"Cover<\/a>\t\n\t
\n\t\t\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tBUY ON BOOKSHOP<\/span>\n\t\t\t\tBOOKSHOP<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t& support independent bookstores\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/article> \n\n\t<\/center><\/div>Another example of how the trope can manifest is in Because You\u2019ll Never Meet Me<\/a> <\/em>in which a character with blindness has such powerful echolocation that he can do such things as count eyelashes. What\u2019s interesting about that particular \u201cpower\u201d is that there are<\/em> blind people out there who can echolocate, such as Daniel Kish. While it\u2019s a real-world ability, in this case it\u2019s so overpowered that blindness becomes a non-issue \u2014 and the character can do things neither a sighted nor blind person could pull off in real life, echolocation or not.<\/p>\n

A character whose superpower stands out as actually thoughtfully approached is Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender<\/a>. <\/em>Perhaps it is a little convenient that Toph is born with the ability to bend the earth \u2014 making it possible for her to sense her surroundings via the earth\u2019s vibrations \u2014 but at least it doesn\u2019t completely erase that she is disabled. Toph still can\u2019t read, sense anything that isn\u2019t connected to the ground, or identify two-dimensional images, and she has a hard time \u201cseeing\u201d in water or sand. In addition, she still experiences disability and the experience of being blind through social cues with her peers. One of the examples which I think is particularly poignant is what Toph says about beauty standards: “One of the good things about being blind is that I don’t have to waste my time worrying about appearances. I don’t care what I look like. I’m not looking for anyone’s approval. … I know who I am.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\"TophWhat makes Toph a great example of a good use of this trope is that other characters in her world have the same Earthbending power she does. That makes this not a \u201cspecial blind power,\u201d but one which anyone regardless of disability can have. Toph simply uses it as an adaptive device or skill in some places. If you cannot see the path ahead of you, being able to sense the earth underneath you to get where you\u2019re going seems awfully like an adaptive skill.<\/p>\n

(Toph is also blind from birth, which is an important factor, because in most stories about blind characters, the blindness comes from a tragic accident. Daredevil loses his to a chemical spill when he is a young child, and much of the mythology about his upbringing is about readjusting to his sight, whereas Toph has no need for that kind of training.)<\/p>\n

The problem with this trope boils down to a single issue: Blindness never gets to simply exist<\/em> in SFF. It\u2019s always painted as something to overcome and\/or to reinvent in order to move forward. \u00a0When writers give blind characters superpowers to divest them of disability, they aren\u2019t just doing a disservice to their writing but also to the blind people reading or watching their work. This trope is not a \u201ccool\u201d or \u201cinventive\u201d way to look at disability.<\/p>\n

What would be truly inventive would be to address blindness as it is: without the bells and whistles of magic or science bringing the character closer to the non-disabled norm.<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t mean we can\u2019t write about disability in sci-fi or fantasy settings. A witch can be a witch even without sight. Supernatural characters can be blind without having superpowers that negate their disability. Magic or superpowers don\u2019t have to fix everything \u2014 and not everyone wishes to be fixed.<\/p>\n

In science fiction and fantasy, there\u2019s no reason to make the world devoid of differences or \u201cperfect.\u201d Each place and setting we create as writers should be able to include all kinds of characters. As a writer with a disability, I often try to look at how disability both influences the characters\u2019 experiences and fits into their world.<\/p>\n

For instance, in our world, blind people typically aren\u2019t able to drive, making personal transportation tricky. What could that look like in a fantasy world? Would a character still need sight to be able to ride and direct a dragon? Or is the character perhaps lucky enough to live in a world where dragons can navigate independently and function as guide dragons?<\/p>\n

\"Cover<\/a>\t\n\t
\n\t\t\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tBUY ON BOOKSHOP<\/span>\n\t\t\t\tBOOKSHOP<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t& support independent bookstores\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/article> \n\n\t<\/center><\/div>As I read Zeroes<\/em> by Scott Westerfeld, I could only think how amazing it would be if Flicker had a superpower which didn\u2019t render her not disabled. I love that she carries a white cane despite her superpower, but it would be lovely if the white cane weren\u2019t an empty gesture for her \u2014 or Daredevil \u2014 but an actual tool.<\/p>\n

These magical or futuristic fixes seem rooted in a discomfort with disability: many writers cannot (or don\u2019t want to) imagine a life without sight and therefore create excuses to give their character equivalent sighted experiences. The author\u2019s discomfort with disability bleeds through the page to foster discomfort with disability in readers. By portraying disability as a minimal quirk, rather than a powerful part of a character\u2019s lived experience, writers aren\u2019t giving readers a chance to familiarize themselves with disability. Readers might not know how to address being around people who are actually disabled full-time, their physical manifestations of disability being so different from their fictional counterparts. If the only experience with a disabled person that a reader has is with a character like Daredevil who never needs their cane, or who can echolocate the number of eyelashes a person has, we can\u2019t expect them to understand how complex blindness really is.<\/p>\n

If, instead of erasing characters\u2019 blindness, characters are seen negotiating with disability honestly no matter the setting, we\u2019ll be getting somewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These magical or futuristic “fixes” seem rooted in a discomfort with disability: many writers cannot (or don\u2019t want to) imagine a life without sight and therefore create excuses to give their character equivalent sighted experiences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":3327,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_generate-full-width-content":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":""},"categories":[57,527],"tags":[226,276,221,286],"genre":[9,35],"age_category":[],"disability":[68],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3284"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3284"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7002,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3284\/revisions\/7002"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3284"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=3284"},{"taxonomy":"age_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/age_category?post=3284"},{"taxonomy":"disability","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disability?post=3284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}