Re: blind characters in games of any media, present and discuss.
@Bookrage I'll have to check that 19th century author.
I actually did rather like the clairvoient character Tsubaki in the anime future diary. This is basically a program about how various people, all with diaries (or mobile phones or other devices), that predict the future are on a contest to try and kill each other off for the rule of the universe.
Each diary had its own quirk, for example one diary only ever predicts future crimes, another only the events in one small location.
the clairvoyant character was a priestess who's diary came in the form of a scroll. The catch was her diary could only tell her what happened to her as her followers saw her, meaning that when her followers were hypnotised, or saboutaged she couldn't see the problem. Also she had to have someone read the diary since it was in the form of a scroll.
Despite this she was amazingly fun, pretending to be a helpless damsel, and actually luring in three other contestants planning to kill them in the temple where she not only had her diary to predict events, but also knew the layout.
She turned out to be a really vile villain, but a distinctly fun one, especially with how she played with the blindness stereotypes.
@Jase K, the problem with "its just escapist" as when applied to things like sterriotypes is that you end up in a loop. people see the stereotype or unrealistic view and just accept it because "its just escapist" without actually considering how it stacks up in real life or reflects upon people they know.
This is why people can go "ooooh! dare devil is so awesome because he does all this cool stuff and is blind!" and yet not notice that Dare devil isn't actually blind at all. When they run into a blind person in real life, they will still see that person as alien since that person is so divorced from the idea of blindness in literature and film.
Either that or they'll assume the person is just incompetent since after all "if daredevil isn't bothered by being blind, why is this real blind person!"
The helplessness stereotype is even worse.
after all you wouldn't watch a 1960's style damsel film now where the helpless little woman does nothing but look after the house and get kidnapped and say "Well that is okay because it is just escapist!" You'd probably say "my god she's a really shallow character!"
not only that, but the best games, films, literature etc, tends to be those that can at least impart a feeling of reality.
Lord of the rings was such a major departure from the likes of Conan the barbarian that had preceeded it because tolkien based the hobbits on real characters, and the idea of people struggling under burdens.
Personally, the reason I hate most superheroes, is that they are nothing but! their powers, their identity, conflicts, morality etc is based on the idea they fly and punch things and are trying to nebulously save the world from some sort of threat, or are dark and broody but somehow still knock out the even nastier bad guys.
yes, you can have a flashy action sequence, and that is fair enough, but its not the flashy action sequences that tend to make long lasting stories or ones that people care about, its the complexity of the characters and the world, and as part of that complexity, characters should deal problems that have at least some sort of grounding in reality.
For example, nobody in reality has a magic ring that makes them invisible and threatens to consume their mind, but lots of people know about addiction, loneliness and persistance under horrible, horrible pressure.
If you asked me what the bare essence of speculative fiction is, and why i spend so much of my time reading, debating and discussing it, I would say its seeing ordinary characters in extraordinary situations.
Its throwing someone out into the dark who does not have super strength or awesome fighting skills and does not know what to do, but who tries anyway because that is where they are.
Those are the stories that tend to matter, and those are the stories that tend to rneed realistic depictions of disability, because as we are all aware, disability is a pain in the arse to deal with, and you get a much better story out of someone trying to deal with a real pain in the arse then someone who is just successful all the time and shrugs everything off like it is nothing.
I actually discussed a lot of this in This article I wrote on formulae in fiction for fantasybookreview.co.uk.
they also had This article on disability in fantasy with a couple of extra comments by muggins, which was a good read, albeit I don't exactly agree for the points I've raised here.
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