is crippled character narrative justification ablest? | #steelballrun #avatarthelastairbender — Transcript

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1. 0:00Are crippled characters ableist? Let's
2. 0:01talk about ableism. Now, a lot of people
3. 0:02argue that the need for a crippled
4. 0:03character to have a narrative
5. 0:04justification in regards to their
6. 0:06disability is ableist because it
7. 0:07implicitly treats able-bodiedness as the
8. 0:09default human state while viewing
9. 0:10disability as a deviation that requires
10. 0:12a reason to exist. And I feel like the
11. 0:13conversation about Steel Ball Run and
12. 0:14Avatar: The Last Airbender perfectly
13. 0:16encapsulates both sides of the dilemma.
14. 0:17Walk with me.
15. 0:19Upon her reveal, a lot of people
16. 0:20downplay Pavi as a protagonist because
17. 0:22she had a missing leg. Not only that,
18. 0:23but a vocal amount of people felt like
19. 0:24it needed to be meaningful in order for
20. 0:26her to not have a leg. Others complained
21. 0:27that stacking her disability on top of
22. 0:29other traits like memory loss or
23. 0:30neurodivergency came across too much. As
24. 0:32if characters have some sort of maximum
25. 0:33capacity for traits that aren't
26. 0:34typically default. And besides being the
27. 0:36Avatar, because Pavi doesn't have any
28. 0:37extraordinary ability to compensate for
29. 0:39her disability like characters like Toph
30. 0:40from Avatar, some fans argue that Pavi's
31. 0:42prosthetic leg comes across like it
32. 0:43lacks narrative justification. But
33. 0:45opposed to that, crippled characters
34. 0:46like Johnny Joestar are aggressively
35. 0:47justified by the narrative. Essentially,
36. 0:48his paralysis is a kind of cosmic
37. 0:50punishment for his hubris, but a lot of
38. 0:51fans are critical of these kind of
39. 0:52storylines because it fits the exact
40. 0:53trope of treating a disability as a
41. 0:55punishment or something to be learned
42. 0:56from. Essentially, using it as a moral
43. 0:57tool for a redemption arc. For the
44. 0:59longest time, media has treated physical
45. 1:00disabilities or differentiators more
46. 1:02than a shortcut for character traits
47. 1:03instead of neutral human existence.
48. 1:05Writers frequently use disability as a
49. 1:06sign for a moral failure, moral pity, or
50. 1:08force a protagonist to grow as a person.
51. 1:09And that coupled with the fact that
52. 1:10fantasy fans often expect a crippled
53. 1:12character to have some sort of
54. 1:13compensation for their disability. So,
55. 1:14the implication of looking at disability
56. 1:16through this lens is that disabled
57. 1:17people are inherently less valuable
58. 1:18unless they have an extraordinary
59. 1:20ability to justify their existence. When
60. 1:21the [music] truth is disabled people
61. 1:22simply just exist and don't inherently
62. 1:24need a narrative justification to
63. 1:25justify their existence. Nevertheless, a
64. 1:27lot of disabled people like to see
65. 1:28themselves being disabled in media
66. 1:29without it being a focal point of the
67. 1:31story. And the constant need for
68. 1:32narrative justification to explain why
69. 1:33character is crippled often takes away
70. 1:35from any nuance that could possibly be
71. 1:36explored from just a character's
72. 1:37existence. Or at the very least,
73. 1:39depicting an incidental amount of
74. 1:40representation.