#and they are fundamentally ambivalent bc i am always thinking about disability but from so many angles at once

[quixoticanarchy]

[This is incomplete and ambiguous, but while it’s still diverse Tolkien week I have a lot of thoughts about disability* in Tolkien and am trying to put some of them together. @diversetolkien]

There is ableism; there are portrayals that I think are harmful and I wish they were not there. There are also portrayals I am grateful for. There is space for disability to exist, to be central to a character’s arc or to be an incidental occurrence. I do observe that disability usually serves to add a negative flavor to a character’s life or arc: an obstacle, even a fatal one, which in some ways is the also-unsavory inverse of a superhero/cure trope. The portrayal is not uniform nor consistent, and while some of it is confining, reductive, or demeaning, I also appreciate the visibility and acknowledgment of disabled existence in fantasy - an existence that is fundamental to these stories of strife and survival in a certainly imperfect world.

(Which is not to say that disability is an inherent defect, nor that the world would be more perfect without us! but that in many cases, what is construed as disability in a given context is a reflection of how you relate to the world you’re in as well as the traces the world leaves on you. And it is always disingenuous to create a true-feeling fantasy world without us. Disability is both a universal and a contingent experience – we have always existed; and too, the world continues to produce experiences of disability, be it through physical effect or psychological.)

There’s a vast range of human experience in Tolkien – and yet of course always an incomplete and flawed reflection. How much we find may depend on our readings, and our personal relation to the text and the characters. There’s a lot of space to fit yourself into these stories, as well as to refuse ableist sentiments that certainly crop up. I am consistently struck by how present are narratives of disability, and so varied; although a lot of it is bleak, a lot also rings true to me. And what doesn’t is free for us to remake for ourselves. Since it’s not like Tolkien from beyond the grave is going to adjust or undo anything in his works, it’s on us (as readers, artists, writers) to recognize, reject, and not reproduce the ableism therein.

*I am using ‘disability’ here veeery broadly, both because experiences or definitions of disability are highly context-dependent, and also because there is a wide range of potentially relevant story and character elements within Tolkien’s work that I think we as disabled readers can read into, identifying certain insights as well as certain biases.

#also i am only one person and these are just my thoughts #and they are fundamentally ambivalent bc i am always thinking about disability but from so many angles at once #this isnt a manifesto it's observations #on things i care a lot about #i'll probably add more specific thoughts later #also im always down to talk disability in fantasy #tolkien meta #disability in arda #skravler #disability #diversetolkienweek #dvtw21