Disabled , non superpowered characters are basically non existent in fantasy. They are much more likely to appear in more realistic works, although even then, it's somewhat rare.NoOne3 wrote:It really tells much about contemporary gaming industry, and by some analogy to popular culture as a whole. The only found main game character, that doesn't have it's disability turned into some wicked, laser-firing grapling-hook advantage, is Snake, who really only get's it's peripheral vision somewhat obscured from one side, and only in "first person wiev", which is not even the main wiev mode in this game.
And, to think of it, the last notable movie/tv character I can remember, who is disabled is Mike, from Twin Peaks. There is of course Ash, and "one legged stripper" from Planet Terror and then there is Zatoichi, with it's american spin-off, played by Rutger Hauer, but I don't think that really counts. Disability not turned into a superpower is a rare thing, not only in video games.
So, willingly, or not (or at least not as purpousfully, some might say) the developers are making a good thing to change it.
PS. I can't remember a disabled characters in a book either, since the only one I recall was a deaf-mute illusionist mage, from a fantasy novel I once read, and still he could "borrow" someone else's (for example, his pet dragon's) hearing sense through telepathy.
Also, disabilities have a curious way of being fixed by the end of the episode or book or whatever, especially if it's a main character.
The only example of a non superpowered disabled character in fantasy that I can think of is Eugenides from The Queen's Thief series. He gets his right hand chopped off in the second book and mopes around for a while but is otherwise pretty much unaffected. It does make his obfuscating stupidity shtick a lot easier though.
