{"id":787,"date":"2014-08-01T11:00:12","date_gmt":"2014-08-01T16:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.wordpress.com\/?p=787"},"modified":"2020-12-09T22:46:40","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T22:46:40","slug":"corinne-duyvis-the-mystical-disability-trope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/2014\/08\/01\/corinne-duyvis-the-mystical-disability-trope\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mystical Disability Trope"},"content":{"rendered":"

The trope of the mystical disabled person is varied, flexible, and very common.<\/p>\n

At its core, it\u2019s about a disabled character \u2014 frequently mentally ill, developmentally disabled, and\/or blind \u2014 with an unusual ability. While this trope is related to that of the \u201cdisability superpower<\/a>\u201d and often overlaps, I feel like it has a unique status of its own. Rather than just any superpower, these abilities are often unexplained and mysterious; the characters either hold or are<\/em> the clue to saving the day, giving them a unique, mystical role in the plot.<\/p>\n

A blind girl who\u2019s the only one to see the ghosts haunting the main characters.<\/p>\n

A little kid with Down\u2019s syndrome who solves the riddle everyone is struggling with.<\/p>\n

A schizophrenic person whose seemingly nonsensical ramblings hold the clue to the mystery.<\/p>\n

An autistic boy with world-altering powers beyond anyone\u2019s comprehension.<\/p>\n

(And on and on.)<\/p>\n

All of these characters are ridiculously easy to imagine because we see them so often. They\u2019re most common in SFF settings, where either they\u2019ll be the only person with a magical ability, or \u2014 in a world where these abilities are commonplace \u2014 theirs will be the rarest, strongest, or most important. They also appear in settings without any supernatural aspects, in which case the character often has savant-like abilities or unusual insight.<\/p>\n

One of the typical things about this trope is that the characters usually aren\u2019t well-rounded, realistic, grounded characters. They\u2019re Othered<\/em>. They\u2019re ooh-ed and aah-ed over, feared or worshiped, set apart. They\u2019re unusual. They\u2019re mystical. They\u2019re mysterious. They\u2019re different. They\u2019re unexplained.<\/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>They\u2019re rarely just a regular person dealing with their own crap alongside the rest of the cast. Instead, their disability and their ability \u2014 and the seeming contradiction thereof \u2014 are defining aspects of their characters.<\/p>\n

Dinah Bellman from The Langoliers<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Little Pete from Gone<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Kazan from The Cube<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Gabriel from FlashForward.<\/em><\/p>\n

Kevin Blake from Eureka<\/em>.<\/p>\n

(And on and on.)<\/p>\n

Writers are often intrigued by the unusual. We see something interesting and our mind starts working overtime, thinking of how to integrate this into a story. This results in seeing a disabled person and thinking of how differently that person must perceive the world, and how that could be used for plot purposes. Or we\u2019ll need a character to perform a certain task for story reasons, but putting that ability in the hands of a non-disabled character would ruin the plot. Instead, we hand that ability to a disabled character. That way we have a great excuse to only trot out the ability when it\u2019s convenient to the story. Or maybe we don\u2019t want to explain the reason for the ability, so we just give it to a disabled person. They\u2019re different<\/em> as is! It\u2019ll be all mysterious and creepy!<\/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>There are all kinds of reasons for writers to fall back on this trope, but that doesn\u2019t make it OK. It\u2019s based on existing prejudices and misinformation. Just give disabled characters roles like any other character in the book rather than setting us apart.<\/p>\n

John Coffey from The Green Mile<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Jake Bohm from Touch<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Lil\u2019 Bro from NYX<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Duddits from Dreamcatcher.<\/em><\/p>\n

River Tam from Firefly.<\/em><\/p>\n

(And on and on.)<\/p>\n

I want to encourage writers to start recognizing these characters when they occur, and to steer clear from them in their own fiction. We don\u2019t need some mystical ability to make up for our disabilities. We should not only exist to impart meaningful advice. And we\u2019re not<\/em> prophets or plot devices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At its core, the Mystical Disabled Person trope is about a disabled character \u2014 frequently mentally ill, developmentally disabled, and\/or blind \u2014 with some sort of unusual ability. This trope is varied, flexible, and depressingly common.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_generate-full-width-content":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[126,127,128,129,66,130,131,132,133,134,70],"genre":[9,35],"age_category":[],"disability":[7,68,135,18],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787"}],"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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=787"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7086,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787\/revisions\/7086"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=787"},{"taxonomy":"age_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/age_category?post=787"},{"taxonomy":"disability","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disability?post=787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}