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

I don't know if Fezzik is mentally handicapped

[ladylaurel.livejournal.com]

Is being slow the same as handicapped? How slow does one have to be to be handicapped? Just noodlin'.

Re: I don't know if Fezzik is mentally handicapped

[cloudscudding.livejournal.com]

He's definitely slow...and I think the sliding scale for where one is handicapped vs. slow shifts around from decade to decade?