Other than the" refused to be defined by disability" (it's actually refusing to be defined by stigma and ableism), it's an interesting take....
It’s 2015. Things have changed.
I’m not as young anymore. It’s snowing outside; our backyard is covered in the stuff and I get pissed when I have to walk the dog through it. I’m a teacher now. I know what it is to be accidentally cruel when trying to teach someone a lesson. I know what it means to fear that your authority will be undermined and to wonder why it’s such a big deal if it is.
They have a name for my condition now: dysgraphia. A dysgraphic is someone who has trouble writing text, comprehending text, or both. In my case, I have nerve damage that causes my hands to shake, especially when I’m holding a pen. Over the years the shaking has gotten worse, and there’s practically no way to keep my hands still unless I’m laying them flat on a surface. Sometimes I drop objects I’m holding and don’t realize I’ve let go until they’ve hit the floor.
Indie developer Nina White recently started a Twitter hashtag called#disabledgameprotags that invited discussion about the portrayal of people with disabilities, both mental and physical, in videogames. It’s an interesting discussion worth taking a look at it if you have even a sliver of interest in disability or games. My biggest takeaway though, sadly, was the small number of examples, especially from big-budgeted titles, of games with disabled protagonists. Even now you usually have disabled characters serving as support for the main character (Bently from Sly Cooper) but rarely do you have them taking charge. The few times that that there are disabled protagonists their disabilities are often immediately replaced with high tech augmentations that transform them into badass soldiers, making their disabilities easily curable conditions. I don’t find this offensive, just disappointing and unsurprising.
Games that have incorporated fleshed-out disabled characters in meaningful ways often elevate themselves beyond the rote, all too familiar mechanics that nearly all of them lean on. Wolfenstein: The New Order is a great first-person shooter that becomes more than that thanks to a straightforward, painful story that treats its world like there are actually people from all walks of life in it, people like Caroline and Max, who refuse to be defined by their disabilities, and instead define themselves by fighting for freedom and to protect those they love.