“What? Like, a disabled protagonist? How would that even work? How could someone with a disability be the hero in an action show?” local anime trash boy wonders while sitting next to his box sets of Full Metal Alchemist, showing no hint of irony or self awareness.
but is Ed really disabled? sure I get he lost his arm and leg
but he’s still able to move and do things perfectly
He has prosthetics. Having prosthetic limbs (that more than once break amd need repair) doesnt make him not disabled
It should also be noted that Ed:
-had to undergo very painful surgery to get automail
-had to relearn how to write because of his prosthesis (there’s a post going around showing he had to switch hands etc) and his handwriting is likely a lot worse due to that. This means automail isn’t super good for delicate work, unsurprising, considering what it’s made of.
-experiences phantom limb pain and therefore other associated stuff (this was only really shown in the manga)
-cannot go anywhere too cold without changing his automail or he’ll get really bad frost bite and it will stop working
-cannot go anywhere too hot, period, because the metal attached and under his skin will overheat and he will be badly burned
-Reattachment is painful, but needs to be done frequently if he breaks or outgrows his automail
– it’s HEAVY so much so that the strain has the potential to cause stress on his body, enough that it’s even theorized as possibly stunting his growth.
-it requires regular maintenance or it will break down, as shown when he forgets to do that and it…breaks down
-when it does need to be repaired, it takes time to do that, during which Ed uses regular prosthetics (that usually don’t quite fit him).
-costs a lot of money (not a problem for Ed due to high state alchemist salary/having mechanics as surrogate family, but explicitly noted to being the reason why most people in the fmaverse stick to regular prosthetics along with the painful surgery)
So Ed can’t actually do everything perfectly and experiences a lot of extra hassle, problems and pain people without automail don’t have to deal with! And any advantages he does have are more suited to fighting than day to day life (being able to incorporate weapons/fake out people who want to blow up his arm).
Arakawa did her research and thought it through. Automail is by no means a magic cure that solves all problems associated with losing a limb.
This is barely an addition, but I’m pretty sure it was proven that it stunted his growth. It was mentioned in Dublith, and then Winry made him lighter automail in Briggs. Now, after a couple of days of being together, the two of them don’t meet up again for months.
When they finally meet up again:
You could argue something about angles here, but at the end of the series?
In conclusion, the original automail did stunt his growth.
As a writer, creating a disabled character can often be difficult. Ed only worked because the world he was created in has very advanced prosthetics which (despite some draw backs) move and acts exactly like real limbs. It’s a very particular case and required some additional write-arounds to make work. And plus the disability factored into the story which is good.
In many scenarios a disabled character simply wouldn’t work. And a writer isn’t obligated to make their character disabled.
Give an example of a story in which none of the characters truly and honestly could not be disabled in some form or fashion. Explain how it “simply wouldnt work.”
Because Im a writer, and that sounds like unimaginative laziness.
Yeah I have no idea how disabled people could possibly be heroes, that’s why Luke Skywalker had all his limbs and appendages through every Star Wars movie, cause if he had a prosthetic he wouldn’t work. And that’s why Tony Stark is never written as having a life threatening heart condition and being on 24/7 life support surgically implanted into his body, then it just wouldn’t make sense for him to be Iron Man. And it’s why Bucky Barnes has all his limbs too, and why Daredevil’s known for having eyes that definitely work. And who could forget that memorable scene at the end of the first How To Train Your Dragon movie where Hiccup slays the Red Death, and then immediately jumps up and talks about how great it is he didn’t lose a foot in the process, before going on to be the lead in six TV seasons and another two movies, while definitely having both feet. God knows people are helpless the second they aren’t completely abled.
Like… the thing about disabilities is that there is always going to be a work around. That’s kind of how it works. If someone is born disabled, or suddenly becomes disabled, they don’t just shrug and go “oh well guess i’m never doing things ever again”. This may shock you, but disabled people actively work to adapt to their situation and find ways to lead the life they want to lead. So people missing limbs are going to have prosthetics, and they’re going to know what they’re doing with them, because that’s kind of the point of having a prosthetic in the first place. People missing senses will find ways to fill in the blanks that leaves behind, cause they still have lives to lead and they figure it out as they go.
Believe it or not, disabled people don’t magically stop being disabled when they’re not completely helpless.
Just nudging in to remind everyone that a lot of us are adapted to living in conditions abled people would struggle with a lot more. Like post-apocalyptic wasteland that isn’t suitable for human travel? I call that going to Tesco. World full of people who randomly hate you and wish you ill? That’s being visibly neurodivergent. We spend more time than you ever will, thinking about unconventional travel hacks and ways to avoid potentially dangerous conflict with others. You think in the event of some cataclysmic event, you’re just suddenly going to learn those skills? Go roll a manual wheelchair across 10 metres of pavement with a gentle camber and come back to me.
The idea that in most cases a disabled character “simply wouldn’t work” is baffling to me. I mean, you’re not gonna make a blind sharpshooter without superpowers or extremely advanced equipment, but you can make a legless sharpshooter. You can make a blind romcom protagonist. You can make a mute military general, a one-armed assassin, and the neurodivergent detective is its own tired cliche at this point. There’s nothing about disability that straightup makes a character “not work” without advanced tech or magic. It isn’t even hard. Writers will spend three hours learning about the history of cheesemaking to write a dinner scene, it’s not hard to learn about disabled people. It’s just lazy.
In fact, just writing the sharpshooter example reminded me of Juno Steel. Juno Steel (from The Penumbra Podcast) is a private eye on Mars whose main marketable skill is his excellent sharpshooting abilities. His need (and ability) to perfectly hit a target comes up a LOT. Partway through the podcast, he loses an eye, and becomes unable to shoot anything (which, given the large amount of somewhat ridiculous shootouts he ends up in, is a serious problem). He compensates for this via the “superpower” route, getting a cutting edge bionic eye that can do all sorts of cool things for him, including making him an even better sharpshooter, AKA Toph or Daredevil or… a lot of blind characters, actually. (Why is it so common to give blind characters superpowers that just come out as ‘a different kind of sight that’s EVEN COOLER?’) The new eye goes great, saves his life many times, he’s a cool private eye with a cool implant that makes his sight even better, yeah! Until… it turns out that the technology can’t be trusted. And he goes through a painful and extremely dangerous process to get it removed again.
He’s a sharpshooter, without any superpowers, and one eye. Who can’t shoot. So, what does he do?
He trains under another sharpshooter. (Who’s also disabled, by the by.) He trains under her every single day, for a really long time, putting in the hours to compensate for the lack of depth perception he once relied on so heavily. Until he can hit a target again. Until he can hit a target reliably again. Until he can hit a target reliably and, faced with a near-impossible shot, still evaluate the risks and take the shot without being paralysed by his own insecurity.
Juno Steel is a sharpshooter with one eye. So… I guess I was wrong, in the first paragraph. You CAN make a (partially) blind sharpshooter who doesn’t use magic or extremely advanced equipment, and make it one of the most interesting podcasts on the internet.
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