Mentally Handicapped in SF/F?

[abracanabra]

So, there was some discussion in MinnSpec's last critique session of creating sympathetic characters and techniques to do so. Although I'm not going to remove my main character detective's mentally handicapped daughter from the story line, despite an arguable case* for it being a cheap trick to gain sympathy, it did make me realize something interesting. It's not a cliche. It's not at all common. I can't actually think of any mentally handicapped** supporting characters in SF/F (setting aside evil malformed minions that may or may not be mentally handicapped). And that I find pretty interesting. It's an underrepresented minority that I just hadn't seen before.

Wait. I thought of one. Fezzik. Who is made of awesome, but is still the only one I can think of.

Of course, now that I've said that, I'm sure y'all will come up with excellent counter-examples!

Edited to note: And so you did! Not tons and tons, but they are out there.


* More than one person has argued for it, but without her, he would be an entirely different character and I'm not sure what his motivation would be. Extensive rewrite would be required for a not necessarily better book.

** Mentally ill is entirely different. There's a whole lot of mentally ill characters.

Comments

[jongibbs.livejournal.com]

I think the cliche with detectives (if it qualifies as a cliche) is the 'something about their lives that makes them more of a tortured soul than you first think' sub-plot/minor character.

Whether it's a physically handicapped wife 'Taggart', addiction to opiates 'Holmes', ADD 'Monk', alcaholic relative and/or alcoholism (plenty of those) etc.

Personally, I don't think it helps me appreciate a character unless the 'something about their lives' provides a noticable problem throughout the story. That is, the problem affects how they work as well as how they think eg: if someone has a mentally handicapped daughter (disclaimer here, I have two), it has a physical impact as well as a mental one, so making the MC a little sad, or over-sensitive about 'retard' jokes isn't enough.

Just my opinion :)

[cloudscudding.livejournal.com]

Now I'm thinking about happy detectives. Maybe that's one of the main differences in the cozy novel genre, that the detective is usually happy? Because that's really not standard in most mysteries.