Do Disabled Characters Belong in Fantasy?
Photo by Jakub Pabis / Unsplash.
Every so often I'll see an argument circulating the internet that disabled characters shouldn't exist in fantasy stories because of healing magic.
Here are five reasons why this is nonsense.
1. Healing magic doesn't exist in every fantasy world.
For example, in Game of Thrones, it's not super clear what magic can do, as it's pretty scarce; I'm not sure healing magic even exists in that world. Bran Stark is pushed out a window and becomes a paraplegic. Many other characters are wounded and disabled.
2. Healing magic doesn't necessarily work on everything.
For example, the elves heal Frodo in The Lord of the Rings, but they can't grow his fingers back or fix his chronic pain from the Nazgul wound.
3. Not everyone would necessarily have access to healing magic.
Treatments for a wide variety of health problems exist in the real world, yet disabled and chronically ill people face barriers in getting them. For a fictional example—healing magic exists in The Wheel of Time, but a town may not necessarily have a healer, so having to travel to a city that does would be one barrier. Healers would often require payment, so needing money would be another barrier.
4. Healing magic may be rare and/or have a high cost.
Off the top of my head, what if you had to break your own leg to heal someone else's? Not every mage would be willing to do that. In D&D, health potions are expensive, and they can’t heal something like a broken leg. Reviving someone requires a character of a specific class with a specific spell to be nearby within a minute of death; there are other resurrection methods that are even more costly.
5. Dragons.
Even if none of the above were true, if you can set aside your disbelief about a giant, talking, fire-breathing, winged lizard existing in a fantasy world, you can set aside any disbelief you might feel about disabled people existing in a fantasy world.
All the stories I listed above (and many, many more) are greater for their disability representation, not lesser or any more unbelievable than other stories. Disabled characters deserve to be there and should be celebrated!
The header for my Bookshop list of sci-fi and fantasy novels featuring disabled characters.
For some lovely fantasy books that feature disabled characters (currently on sale for 20% off!), check out my bookshop.org list. Go forth, read and write fantasy stories that include disabled characters!
