Giving characters debilitating injuries?

[CountVanBadger]

This is just something I've been mulling over for the past couple days. How does it make you feel when an author gives their main character a debilitating injury or condition midway through the story? I'm thinking about doing that to one of my characters, and I'm curious what people think about it.

I'm not a fan of Eragon. At all. But one thing I remember actually liking was how Eragon went through most of the second book with a curse that made him feel excruciating pain if he exerted himself too much. For someone who's supposed to lead an army and take down an immortal god king, not being able to swing a sword without falling to the ground screaming is a major setback, and seeing him deal with it was one of the only legitimately interesting things to happen in those books. It was so interesting that I was actually disappointed when he ended up getting magically healed toward the end of the book. Paoloni just hit the "undo" button on the only interesting thing his main character had going for him. If he'd actually kept his disability and found a unique and creative way to live with it while also doing what he had to do, it might have actually made the series worth reading.

What about you?

 

[Placeholder]

Vorkosigan!

 

[PancakesWitch]

Um, what the sigma

 

[Worthy39]

Well, it's tricky, and depends on the type of story you're doing. If the threats are escalating, then the protagonist being debilitated means they gotta be sidelined. No matter how you slice it, if the protagonist is injured and doesn't get healed, then an enemy stronger than the one who did that to them, or even the enemy that did that to them, is too great a threat for said protagonist. If the battles in the story are over, and they live out the rest of the story as a mentor or something, that would be fine. If the protagonist steps down and instead fights weaker enemies, that would also work. But fighting stronger enemies without recovering with a debilitating injury? That's just plot armor.

 

[Arkus86]

It'd good to see even the main character can receive such setbacks, but if the goal requires power, it also sets the plot back by making the MC weaker, further away from the goal. Whether that is good or bad depends solely on the execution. The MC needs to revert back to fighting something that was below his level while either healing up, or finding ways around the injury, or alternatively finding another way to achieve the goal.

 

[CinnaSloth]

Reminds me of How to train your dragon. Except Hiccup is a badass without a foot.

 

[LiteraryWho]

Probably a waste of time in 99.999% of the kinds of books/stories people read on this site. Either the debilitating injury is actually debilitating, in which case it has to be dispensed with so the story can happen, or the MC has to change, or else it's "debilitating" as in it changes nothing whatsoever about the story, but boy howdy does the author sure bring it up a lot.

It's roughly the same with death, imo. If the story isn't a story about dealing with death (or in this case, a debilitating injury), then there is no functional difference between having it happen or not. Authors often like to include them (I assume) because they're insecure about the "literary" value of their story. It's kind of like Elric's arm in Full Metal Alchemist (great story, ftr). He *seems* like he's a "disabled" character, but actually his cyborg arm is almost exclusively beneficial to him in the story.

In reality, losing your arm is a bad thing, and the best prosthetics in the world only diminish the loss. I'm in good health, so I can't really say, but I don't see how characters like that aren't purely insulting to people who've actually suffered a disability.

 

[just_darkjazz]

This is just something I've been mulling over for the past couple days. How does it make you feel when an author gives their main character a debilitating injury or condition midway through the story? I'm thinking about doing that to one of my characters, and I'm curious what people think about it.

I'm not a fan of Eragon. At all. But one thing I remember actually liking was how Eragon went through most of the second book with a curse that made him feel excruciating pain if he exerted himself too much. For someone who's supposed to lead an army and take down an immortal god king, not being able to swing a sword without falling to the ground screaming is a major setback, and seeing him deal with it was one of the only legitimately interesting things to happen in those books. It was so interesting that I was actually disappointed when he ended up getting magically healed toward the end of the book. Paoloni just hit the "undo" button on the only interesting thing his main character had going for him. If he'd actually kept his disability and found a unique and creative way to live with it while also doing what he had to do, it might have actually made the series worth reading.

What about you?

I personally love the idea, and have applied it to my own story. I think its an incredible source of conflict, both internal and external. I love arcs where the characters have to get used to a new way of life, especially if they are physical and their injury diminishes their physicality. Especially if you go for something permanent, such as a scar, which will remind the character of the mistakes that led to it throughout the story.

Also heyy, fellow Eragon not fan. I feel exactly the same as you do about the second book, the random healing was a slap in the face and if I wasn't a child when I read it I probably would have dropped the series over it

Reminds me of How to train your dragon. Except Hiccup is a badass without a foot.

Facts.

It's kind of like Elric's arm in Full Metal Alchemist (great story, ftr). He *seems* like he's a "disabled" character, but actually his cyborg arm is almost exclusively beneficial to him in the story.

In reality, losing your arm is a bad thing, and the best prosthetics in the world only diminish the loss. I'm in good health, so I can't really say, but I don't see how characters like that aren't purely insulting to people who've actually suffered a disability.

I dont want to defend FMA over this, its been close to a decade since i watched it and I dont remember how they did it. But having talked to disabled people, and having watched several videos by them on this (especially over the wheelchairs in magical settings kerfuffle on twitter, if anyone remembers), Im more of the idea that given the choice between a super awesome state of the art sci-fi bullshit prosthetic and their old limb back they'd probably still want their limb back. I don't want to speak for anyone, of course, but no matter how beneficial a prosthetic is still a prosthetic. It doesn't look like a real limb, it doesn't feel like a real limb (unless it does, in which case my argument is moot and I agree with you on it). And all of that discounting the internal toll losing a limb would carry with it, the trauma, the phantom pains and so on.

 

[Kay_Ship]

As long as it fits the story its fine but I propose you also consider other types of disability.
Mental issues could also be used like severe cases of PTSD or the character is now mute.

Example: character is thrown from horse and suffers head injury. He is mostly fine but now can't speak. Dichotomy of outward appearance and internal monolog ensues.

 

[Astrolust]

I broke all of my mc’s fingers once. I was nervous it would be hard to write with but it ended up being so easy. I think I did around 40ish chapters and then the story ended. Some readers got anxiety from it but everyone for the most part in the comments stuck around past that point

 

[CharlesEBrown]

I would generally prefer to see the character START with it and find a way to overcome it (even if it gets healed later) over the course of the story than to suddenly have it happen myself.