When I was writing my last blog post (regarding my theory that Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games is an accurate depiction of a person with PTSD and thus a mentally ill fictional protagonist), I asked some people I knew if they could give me some examples of fictional characters with mental illnesses. (This was, incidentally, why, at the beginning of that entry, I listed the characters I listed.)
One person provided some specific characters, whom I did not list because they are not commonly perceived as being mentally ill and the status of one of them as "mentally ill" is largely speculation based on actions and patterns of thought that aren't much explored in the work said character is from. However, this person also cited obsessive-compulsive disorder as a (canonical or speculated) trait of many fictional detectives "because they're so detail oriented."
The deduction that many fictional detective have OCD because of their eye for detail (which is pretty much a requirement to be a successful detective) sounds at first like a stereotypical generalization, but, like many stereotypical generalizations, it really does appear in fiction. The title character of the television program Monk (a detective drama) has obsessive-compulsive disorder, which is alternately treated as an actual illness, a source of comedy, and a veritable superpower. And if speculations on TV Tropes * (a website dedicated to cataloging patterns of characterization and storytelling that appear in fiction) is to be believed, Hercule Poirot (in some depictions) has it as well. Even the great Sherlock Holmes (in adaptations and in the original canon) displays some leanings towards disorders such as Asperger's Syndrome or ADD (though different adaptations may emphasize certain traits over others, and some adaptations may characterize him as having different disorders, or perhaps as having no disorder at all).
However, mental illnesses are not the only disorders whose fictional representations often "compensate" with incredible powers. How many fantasy tales have blind characters whose lack of sight gives them other abilities, like precognition or mind-reading? How many science fiction stories feature someone who loses a limb only to receive a prosthetic replacement that makes them amazingly stronger? How many fictional wheelchair-users have incredible minds to make up for their lack of mobility?
TV Tropes has another page dedicated to examples of this characterization tool. The article is titled "Disability Superpower"** , and that's a pretty accurate description of what these characters have.
I'm not sure if I wish writers would just give more realistic examples of this trope or if I wish they'd just stop writing it altogether. In some cases, it makes sense. Many real-life people who lack one sense will, as a matter of functioning in life, have to strengthen their other senses, to the point where their abilities may seem superhuman in comparison to those who have all their senses. And, for whatever reason, there does seem to be an actual connection between mental illness and creativity (thus perhaps justifying the existence of all those fictional artists whose ambiguous disorder allows them to become creative geniuses). At least those make sense.
Characters whose "superpower" have nothing to do with their disability are, in my opinion, also acceptable if their skill doesn't negate their disability. Even better if their "superpower" is something a person might realistically be able to do Forrest Gump, for example, is an extremely good runner and athlete, and he's extremely obedient. Both of these things get him very far in life (with his athletic ability getting him into college and garnering him fame as a runner and his obedience serving him well in the military), to the point where they may be equivalent to other characters' superpowers, but they do nothing to affect his lack of mental capacity.
Disabled characters whose "superpower" has nothing to do with their disability (or is only tangentially-related), however, need to be very well-written or otherwise written "differently" than normal for me to feel comfortable with them. The popular webcomic Homestuck has a character (Terezi Pyrope) who, for much of the comic, was "blind", but she had synesthetic powers that compensated for her lack of sight. If it weren't for the fact that I enjoy her personality and like her as a character, I would probably dislike her depiction, as her extrasensory abilities are such so that she may as well not be blind at all. (In fact, Homestuck deals similarly with disability so frequently, I may well end up writing another blog entry about this.)
How, then, should writers go about writing disabled characters "differently" while still giving them "superpowers"? Well, if you're writing a realistic fiction novel, where "superpowers" are really just extremely honed skills that any normal human could have, write them exactly like that - extremely honed skills that any normal human could have. After all, people with disabilities, physical, mental, or otherwise, are normal. They're just different in regards to some of the things they can do or what they have difficulty doing. It's entirely possible to have a blind character with amazing oratory abilities and write them the same way you'd write a sighted character with amazing oratory abilities. The only real difference is that the blind character wouldn't be able to see their audience. (Hey, maybe their blindness could help them in that regard. In which case that would be an example of disability bolstering one's other abilities in an entirely realistic manner. If you wrote a story featuring such a character, you could probably get a fair bit of mileage out of that fact.)
The reason this sort of thing is problematic is because it gives non-disabled readers an unrealistic expectation of what people with disabilities are like, and it gives disabled readers a somewhat insulting picture of their demographic. While seldom explicitly-stated, there are usually troubling undertones to the "disability superpower". Some of these suggestions include the ideas that disabled people are only valuable if they have something to "make up for" their disability (thus devaluing the person themself), disability automatically comes with some kind of power (thus making real disabled people without any "superpowers" feel inferior to fictional characters), and powers like these not only make up for the disability but make it so that it may as well not exist (thus invalidating the difficulties of actual disabled people, whether they have any special skills or not, and providing a very cheap attempt at "representation").
I understand that most writers are not disabled, because most people are not disabled. However, if you are going to write about disabled characters and give them any kind of "powers", that's all well and good, but please write it realistically. Please write it in such a way so that it doesn't trivialize the disability, suggest that people with disabilities are all fabulously gifted, or devalue people with disabilities. People are people, and they're all valuable in some way. Please don't make non-disabled people think that the only disabled people who are valuable are those who have some kind of power that more than compensates for what they lack, and please don't make disabled people think they have to be twice as skilled as their non-disabled counterparts to be seen as half as good.
* The cited page can be found here.
** The cited page can be found here.
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