high school is soo funny in hindsight. the entire time you’re there thinking it’s the most important period of your life and then the second you’re out you’re like well that was fucking stupid
“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.
Disability isn’t defined by” struggle” or suffering. Having a useful prosthetic doesn’t make them not disabled. Get the fuck out of here with that.
Cyborg is a superhero who lost so much of his body that he became a cyborg. He suffers from the pain of it and the emotional toll but he is a superhero because of it.
Roy Harper lost his arm and the end is corrupted causing him pain and the prosthetic is imperfect and if put on wrong causes even more pain. He is still an archer.
Jessica Cruz has debilitating anxiety and PTSS to the point that she was too afraid to leave her house for three years until a macguffin gave her no choice in the matter. She is a green lantern, the superheroes chosen for their extraordinary will power.
Oracle or Barbara Gordon, lost the use of her legs after being attacked by the joker and then went on to be the most connected and most trusted member of the entire justice league. (See here, the titans being asked who leads the justice league as proof that they don’t need a leader, and them all offering different options before Lian, Roy’s daughter, pipes up with “Owacle” as the leader of the justice league.)
Daredevil who is very blind.
Clint Barton, ie Hawkeye, who is deaf.
Bucky Barnes who is missing an arm.
Charles Xavier who is paraplegic.
Jericho who is mute.
Captain Marvel Jr. who needs crutches.
Eddie McDonough or Hornet who has cerebral palsy.
Doctor Strange who lost a significant portion of his fine motor control on his hands.
Misty Knight, missing an arm.
Nick Fury, blind in one eye.
Cable, missing an arm and an eye.
And this is just scratching the surface. Not all who suffer are disabled and not all disabled suffer. Some of these people only become heroes because of their disabilities and it doesn’t stop them from being incredible characters that the audience cares for.
My favourite disabled hero- My mom. Blind. It’s inconvenient for her, and it’s a pain to get places because of the no license, but she regularly volunteers and does pretty much anything else she wants to do.
I want to add that for a lot of these characters their disabilities are inextricably tied to their identities as heroes. Obviously you can’t have Cyborg without his prosthetics, but for Captain Marvel Jr, Jericho, Daredevil, and to some extent Oracle, that’s true as well. Having a Jericho who talks is like having a Spiderman with a living uncle.
“the colony can regenerate injured parts or continue growing after being broken apart. Unless all individual clones are killed at the same time, a colony can theoretically live forever”
