Disability Superpower - Television Tropes & Idioms

Shishio from Rurouni Kenshin was covered in oil and set on fire. He did not die, but the fire destroyed all the sweat glands in his skin, meaning his body heat is constantly above normal. This apparently acts as a fuel to give him more strength, but also leads to his own demise from spontaneous combustion.
Shigurui The two protagonists. Irako Seigen, a blind Samurai, and Fujiki Gennosuke, a one-armed Samurai.
In the anime Bleach, the blind character Tosen, while not having any exceptional senses, does have a power that deprives all other people within a certain area of all of their senses. This is used for fights, which gives him a notable advantage, as he is used to fighting while sightless, unlike most of his opponents. He's also immune to Aizen's hypnosis, because you have to see his Zanpakuto to be affected. Unfortunately, Aizen hit him with a Hannibal Lecture and got him to join up voluntarily.
- That's not the only reason it gives him an advantage. Only he and people in physical contact with his sword can sense anything in the affected zone.
  - They lose 4 out of 5 senses. Touch, and by extension, pain, remains.
  - This is, in fact, the downside to his bankai. If you can touch the hilt of his zanpakuto while he's using his bankai, then you cancel it. Only Badasses, like Zaraki Kenpachi can achieve this.
Mr. Fujisawa in El Hazard The Magnificent World has Superman levels of overall physical ability but his powers only work only when he's sober. Considering the character is a raging drunk, he considers this a grave disability, but he's willing to endure being sober as the situation demands.
- It is eventually revealed in the second OVA of the 1st continuity that he becomes even more powerful when he doesn't smoke as well. His full power level is reached in a Crowning Moment Of Awesome when, finally fully free of the effects of either liquor and/or cigarettes for the first time since arriving in Rostaria, he singlehandedly defeats the entire Bugrom army, even after they have already combined into a Godzilla-size superbugrom.
Apparently, in the latest chapter of the manga version of Claymore, Galatea, who has gone renegade, is blinded by some sort of attack. This increases her already impressive ability to sense Yoki (demon) energy from great distances to near untold levels, letting her hold off 2 other high-ranked Claymores
- To be fair, she blinded herself, so she wouldn't have to disguise the color of her eyes when she went into hiding in the only known town that outlaws Claymores. Also, only one of the Claymores that was sent after her was of a high rank, the other was the absolute lowest.
In Basilisk, after Chikuma Koshirou (Dragon to Yakushiji Tenzen) becomes blinded to protect his lady of liege Oboro, he soon learns to compensate his lack of sight by using his senses of hearing and touch as replacement. Too bad he gets killed when Femme Fatale Kagerou and Master Of Disguise Saemon use that to their advantage and fool him, with Saemon imitating Akeginu's voice to distract him and Kagerou using that to kill Koushirou with her Kiss Of Death.
- Muroga Hyouma, Gennosuke's mentor and uncle, has been already doing that for years. Since his powers are permanently activated through his eyes, he must keep them perpetually closed, but his hearing is so acute after so long that it's impossible to try ganging up on him. On the other hand, it took a blind fighter like Koshirou to defeat him, since Hyouma's tricks didn't work on him.
- Bah. Hyouma and Koshirou are nothing compared to Jimushi Juubei. He has no arms and legs, but can slither on his belly as fast as any other ninja can run. He wields a dagger with his long tongue, and this attack is so fast and deadly that no opponent has ever lived to tell the tale when Juubei unleashed it.
Naruto has the Taijutsu specialist Rock Lee, who can't do any of the normal "jutsu" techniques, but is so good at Taijutsu (martial arts, basically), he's able to best the uber-talented Sasuke early in the series.
- Qualified by dint of several long and painful rehab sessions after injuries, but as a baseline he has all regular human capabilities, which in an 'verse where most have superpowers makes you a Badass Normal.
- His determination is practically a superpower in and of itself.
Yin from Darker Than Black is blind, but through her observer apparitions she's able to see, as long as both she and what she's observing is close to water. There appears to be little, if any, limit to the range of these apparitions.
- In fact, she compensates for it so well that this troper didn't realize she was blind until a flashback 13 episodes in.
Yu Yu Hakusho: Yomi, after he was blinded by his old thieving partner Yoko Kurama, has grown two more sets of ears, which allow him to sense things a long distance away.
The character Sasaki Kojiro in Takehiko Inoue's Vagabond is born deaf. A character muses on the possibility that only being able to listen his "interior voice" is what gives Kojiro his remarkable ability in swordsmanship. Kojiro also develops a preternatural ability to sense people sneaking up behind him, much to the surprise of many a would-be attacker.
- Vagabond's Sasaki Kojirou is very different from the basis for the manga (Eiji Yoshikawa's Musashi) in that he's deaf, with multiple character interactions and even fights riding on this. Two separate characters even theorize that his swordsmanship has improved because of his deafness: one hypothesizing that his eyesight improved to compensate, while another thought that without sound to distract him he could better listen to his own body which already knew the techniques. Subverted by Kanemaki Jisai, who tried to dissuade him from a life of swordsmanship by repeatedly taking advantage of Kojirou's deafness to defeat him multiple times over the years.
Elfen Lied: Nana's new prosthetic limbs turn out to be even more useful than her original natural ones. After all, a diclonius becomes that much more dangerous when she can literally throw her own arms at you.
Berserk's main character Guts loses an arm in the Eclipse, but it is replaced by a metal hand with a cannon in it.

Close Anime and Manga

Daredevil, from the Marvel Universe, was hit in the face by a radioactive canister and went blind. His other senses became super-powerful, and he acquired a "radar sense" that let him "see" objects, much like echolocation. (Frank Miller's influential run took him closer to this trope, partially explaining the radar sense as a Charles Atlas Superpower resulting from training with his enhanced senses.) He can also read normal books by feeling the ink, because his touch is so sensitive.
- Interestingly, late in Miller's run, Daredevil's mentor tells him that EVERY human has the potential to experience sense the way he does, it's just an ability that's become dormant. The radiation didn't give him his powers, it just unlocked them. Sadly, Stick is killed soon afterward, and this plot point was never brought up again.
Also of note is Daredevil's Femme Fatale ex-girlfriend (he's had quite a few of those) Echo, who's deaf but possesses perfect photographic memory (whether or not she's a mutant has never been made clear). She has gone on to be an effective entertainer and member of the Avengers. Her condition is played more realistically than DD, however. She relies entirely on visual cues and is at a disadvantage if she can't see her opponent. She also has trouble speaking to heroes like Iron Man or Spider-Man, whose costumes cover their mouths, making their lips unreadable.
The DC Comics villain Count Vertigo has a mental disease that constantly disorients him and confuses his senses, and that requires him to wear a device that sets his senses right, but is specifically made so that he can project that confusion onto others.
Similarly, Golden Ager Dr. Mid-Nite from The DCU was blinded by a grenade. However, when he took the bandages off in total darkness, he could see perfectly.
When introduced in the Marvel Universe title Generation X, the mutant Chamber had actually lost his entire lower jaw and part of his chest as a result of his powers' literally explosive manifestation. However, the same powers seem to remove his need to eat or breathe, and he can "talk" telepathically.
- Didn't go so well for him after Decimation occurred...
The original Iron Man armor was, in a sense, a glorified pacemaker, designed to counteract a potentially fatal heart injury. Of course, as long as you're going to be practically wearing a humanoid life support capsule, it might as well be superhumanly strong and armed to the teeth, right?
- In the recent movie it was only the power source that kept him alive. The rest of it, however, was quite useful for escaping from terrorists.
  - Similarly, in the original comic, he only needed the magnetic chestplate to keep the shrapnel from worming into his heart, but the suit helped him escape the terrorists that caused him to have shrapnel there.
  - (At least) One time in the comic, he was hospitalized and barely able to move without the suit.
Cliff Steele, in the Doom Patrol comics, gains his powers from the fact that he's just a brain installed in a robot body. Later versions of Doom Patrol played up this "super disability" concept and included Crazy Jane, whose 64 multiple personalities each have a unique superpower, and Dorothy, whose overactive imagination conjures up creatures from her subconscious. Averted by the Doom Patrol's Chief, who is paralyzed from the waist down. And that's it. The entire Doom Patrol is made up of people whose powers don't make up for their disabilities at all.
- Well, there is Beast Boy, who got his animorphism powers from a disease that also made him immune to all other diseases; but that's a fairly recent development.
Pied Piper, an enemy and later friend of The Flash. He was born deaf, but his rich family had a scientist (the same guy who made the Metal Men) implant a cybernetic hearing aid in his head. It worked a little too well, as his hearing became so sensitive that he was able to design sonic weapons that could control the minds and actions of others, but won't effect him.
In Marvel Comics, Cyclops must always wear a special visor or pair of glasses to contain his optic blasts. When these devices are removed, he keeps his eyes shut, rendering him blind. Due to an important instance of this, he has since learned how to fight blind by using his hearing to pinpoint opponents and simply always scrutinizing his surroundings to know the lay of the land. One side story shows that he also counts his steps and memorizes which way he turns so that he can retrace his path and find his eyewear.
- Even with the visor/glasses, he's still colorblind, only able to see in shades of red. He technically shouldn't be able to pilot an aircraft such as the Blackbird, but this is probably Handwaved these days.
His abilities don't come from being unable to see, but it's worth mentioning Rot Lop Fan, a Green Lantern from a species that has no sight (and thus incidentally no concept of color or light...or lanterns, for that matter). His Green Lantern Oath goes:
In loudest din or hush profound
My ears catch evil's slightest sound
Let those who toll out evil's knell
Beware my power, the F-Sharp Bell!
- So ... if he can't see the colour yellow, does it still affect his ring?
- Since it's a manifestation of fear, it arguably shouldn't work. Although the fear of the unknown is still pretty potent...
- "F-Sharp Bell"? Seemingly, for him, it's not colours/electromagnetic frequencies, but sounds/acoustic frequencies. He probably has a sound that affects him like the colour yellow.
  - Some sort of Brown Note?
The character Mr. Sensitive from the X-Force and X-Statix comics had an interesting variation on this: all of his senses were enhanced, to the degree that he had to wear a special suit to block out most of what he felt, or else he'd go nuts from the sensory overload. He could hear people's heartbeats through walls, but even a light breeze on his exposed skin could cause him incredible pain. At one point, his powers were even used against him: a villain (who knew about his powers) tortured him simply by making a shallow cut on his skin with a Swiss army knife. The pain from this relatively minor wound almost caused him to black out.
During the series 52, Adam Strange lost his eyes in a freak teleportation accident. However, he quickly compensated by connecting his ship's sensor array to his visual cortex, allowing him sight as long as he was piloting.
Ever since an incident with a villain using sound-based mind control and one of his own ultrasonic arrowheads, Marvel's Hawkeye needs a hearing aid. This doesn't come up often, but occasionally it protects him against the subtler sonic attacks as a plot point. (Perhaps less plausibly, once he's also shown unmasking an android as such by, apparently, turning his hearing aid all the way up and hearing the imposter's internal mechanisms.)
Many wheelchair-bound people have Psychic Powers or their wheelchair is a Cool Car / Powered Armor hybrid. The uber-example is Charles Xavier aka Professor X, a man contained in a wheelchair who is also one of the most powerful telepaths in the whole Marvel world.
Nävis, heroine of the French comic Sillage (aka Wake) is one of the few sentient beings in the universe with no telepathic abilities. The upside is that her mind can't be read or controlled, which makes her a valuable agent.
In the Transformers comics from Marvel, there was a perfect example of this in Circuit Breaker. All but one hand paralyzed, and she used the hand to build herself an outer skinsuit to transmit the neural signals. Oh, and also let her fly and barbecue Transformers as an act of revenge, on top of it. And looks very much like a quite revealing tinfoil bikini as well.
Cassandra Cain, the current Batgirl, was raised in a modified language deprivation experiment, the intent being for her brain to orient itself to interpreting body movement as a first language. As a result she's functionally illiterate and barely able to communicate verbally. However, as a trade-off, she's able to accurately predict the thought process of an opponent based on subtle body language and predict their strategies and even individual moves before they make them.
Barabara Gordon had some skill with criminology and computers when she was Batgirl, but when the Joker put her in a wheelchair she focused on her detective and computer skills and became the world's foremost hacker/information gatherer. Somewhat justified in that, not being Batgirl anymore, she had more time to focus and plenty of motivation.

Close Comic Books

In Sneakers, the blind character Whistler overhears his own name spoken in conversational tones — thirty feet away, on the other side of thick plate glass. Later he listens through a powerful microphone aimed at a distant building, and deduces what rooms are which behind sealed windows — even identifying one as an emergency exit ("I can hear the emergency floodlight batteries recharging"). He also deduces what road Robert Redford's character was driven on, while tied up in the trunk, based solely on what he heard.
- It's worth noting that Whistler is based off of a Real Life hacker who could actually communicate with modems at low speeds sans device due to his ability to recognize and replicate the signals.
In Once Upon A Time In Mexico Agent Sands becomes a badass blind gunfighter after getting his eyes gouged out by the sick Dr. Guevara. He'd only been blinded for about half an hour, and had to have a kid assist him in taking on several of the cartel by telling him where to shoot. But his final shootout had him taking down two guys all by himself, using sound in order to pinpoint their location and kill them.
Near the end of The Matrix Revolutions Neo is blinded by Bane, a human who has been taken over by Neo's rival Agent Smith. However he still manages to overpower and kill him due to his powers as the One: he can see data and machinery as glowing yellow light. This appears to also include humans who have been possessed by programs... this editor certainly can't work out how that works, especially since Neo doesn't just see the Smith program controlling Bane, but actually sees Smith himself shaped out of the fiery yellow light.
- The last part might just be for the viewer's benefit.
Zatoichi, the blind masseur from the eponymous Japanese film series, who possesses a skill with a sword equal to the greatest samurai. In his first film, he tosses a candle into the air and slices it vertically, from a sitting position, in a single iaido draw. And, again, totally blind.
- In the more recent Beat Takeshi version, Zatoichi defeats a sword-bearing mook by slicing between his hands. The mook is left standing with two portions of a useless (and worthless) sword.
  - His rival in said film planned to strike him down by exploiting the usual way Zatoichi draws his sword. There's even a moment where he imagines it working. When he applies it real life however, he's cut down as the blind masseuse heard the difference in his posture and changed his sword-drawing stance.
  - Who ever said he was blind?
  - He does. It's essentially the last line in the film. "Even with my eeyes wide open, I can't see a thing!
- Zatoichi was specifically parodied and Shouted Out in Yellowbeard in the form of Harold "Blind" Pew, a keen sightless informant who also conceals a deadly surprise in his walking stick.
- And, of course, there's Zato-Ino of Usagi Yojimbo, a blind pig who uses his nose to compensate.
- Yet another Zatoichi Shout Out comes from Zato-One (ichi = one) from Guilty Gear. He was blinded when he accepted a demon named Eddie. As a trade-off, he is now extremely powerful and can control shadows. It's never explained how exactly Zato sees, though ostensibly Eddie sees for him.
In Blind Fury, Rutger Hauer plays a blind Vietnam vet who is a Shout Out to Zatoichi. After getting blinded by a grenade, he stumbles across a Vietnamese tribe that, for some reason, decides to teach him how to use his other senses to become a master with a katana of all things. Years later, he returns to America with a sword hidden in his walking stick and uses his moves to protect a bratty kid from drug dealers.
A number of films have featured blind protagonists who turn the tables on murderous villains by dousing all the lights; they still aren't superpowered, but the blind folks gain an advantage because they're used to not being able to see their surroundings and, since it usually happens in their own homes, they know their surroundings vastly better. Wait Until Dark is the classic, but hardly only, example.
- Of course, in Wait Until Dark, the main character forgets to smash the light in the fridge. D'oh!
- Also, this trope was inverted in A Maiden's Grave by Jeffry Deaver, in a scene where the villain gets the drop on a deaf character by turning out the lights.
Possible film example: The Lookout has the protagonist rendered psychologically scarred and has trouble remembering things. Not too much of a superpower, but he uses a technique that he learned from his blind friend of "Start from the end" which enables him to plan which eliminates the Big Bad and The Dragon. Though, this is more to the point that the aforementioned villains fail to recognize the protagonist as a true threat.
Parodied by the blind character Blinkin in Robin Hood Men In Tights. In one scene he snatches an arrow right out of the air, remarking "'Eard it comin' a mile away" to the shocked Merry Men. Immediately afterwards, of course, Robin compliments him, to which he responds "Who said that?"
- An earlier scene has him standing in a look out tower. Robin asks what he's doing up there, and he replies, "Guessing? I guess nobody's coming?"
In House Of The Flying Daggers, the blind Mei is capable of insane and technically physically impossible combat feats despite her disability. Except...not really. It's all a ruse—she's impersonating the old revolutionary leader's blind daughter, who doesn't know martial arts—and she actually can see.
- On the other hand, she's clearly not visually focusing on what's happening around her, meaning all her feats are done strictly using peripheral vision, which in itself is a minor miracle - ignoring how difficult it is to keep one's eyes open and not automatically focus on fast-moving things around you.
Not quite a super-power, but the title character of Rookie Of The Year breaks his arm, and it heals in such a way as to make him a super-fast baseball pitcher.
Leonard, the amnesiac from the 2000 film Memento is described by another character as the perfect assassin - since he can't remember ever having killed anyone, he doesn't act like his targets expect an assassin to act - his partner keeps setting him up to kill people and they never see him coming.
In Thunderpants, Patrick has the disability of excessive farting. It is later discovered however that this can be used to power a rocket into space because his twin stomachs resemble the rocket's engine.
Robo Cop. Most of his damaged body is replaced by cybernetics, even parts that didn't need to be removed.
In the Thai movie Chocolate, the main character suffers from severe autism with the attendant social difficulties and learning disabilities. Her autism however enables her to naturally absorb martial arts from Bruce Lee and Tony Jaa movies on television. She then progresses through the entire movie, beating up trained fighters and men twice her size. Near the end, she fights another kid with autism aided martial arts.
That's nothing. The title character in The Boy who Could Fly uses the Power of Autism to... well, the title says it all. Really.
- He didn't, happen to throw himself at the ground and miss, did he?
Jimmy in The Wizard is stricken with grief over the death of his twin sister, but his mental state also grants him amazing abilities with video games. Not like Lucas, but hey, nobody can match his godlike skills.

Close Film

Montolio in R.A. Salvatore's Sojourn is a blind ranger who is sufficiently badass at hand-to-hand combat to scare off a whole dungeon's worth of orcs. His familiarity with his surroundings helps, though.
- He also uses his owl to target his enemies with his bow. Don't ask how.
The Miraluka of the Star Wars Expanded Universe are a race of beings who evolved the ability to "see" through the Force, but at the same time lost use of their eyes, then lost their eyes entirely. Kreia from Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords displays a similar ability, which the main character of that game can learn.
- A character in the Expanded Universe, a Wookiee named Ralrra, has a "speech impediment" — which removes enough of his "accent" for Leia to understand him perfectly.
In Generation Dead, arguably every single zombie in the entire book falls under this trope, since they're not only legally dead, but get seemingly superhuman strength, endurance, speed and toughness; all while not needing to eat, sleep or drink and being practically unkillable without being either set on fire or bashed in the head... but on the other hand? Most of their organs no longer function; they can't heal themselves if injured; and their brain is generally much slower-functioning, to the point where they're almost all slow-moving klutzes even if they were dancers or athletes before they died, and a previously brilliant teen gets stuffed into remedial classes. Then there's also the thing where they tend to have all or most senses (taste, touch, you name it) dulled, assuming they work at all. Not Quite Dead? You betcha! Better off? Er... good question.
A couple side characters in the Discworld novels (both witches) are described to have developed some combination of blindness or deafness due to old age but use their magic to compensate - one sees and hears through her animal companions, and another has trained her second sight to work in the present.
- However, in Small Gods, the blind philosopher Didactylos says that the whole "blind people's other senses are superhuman" thing was made up by sighted people so they can feel better.
Zephyr the oracle from Silverwing is albino and, due to his old age, also blind, and so has developed a sense of hearing so acute he can hear the echos of anything, anywhere. He can also see into the future and past using his ears (or something).
One of the most extreme examples of this trope would have to be the case of Dan Abnett's Inquisitor Gideon Ravenor, main character of the eponymous series of Warhammer 40000 novels. A Chaos-engineered disaster during an Imperial triumphal procession nearly killed him and left his body entirely broken, confining him permanently to a mobile life support chamber. On the other hand, it gave him considerable time to further develop his innate Psychic Powers.
- It should also be noted that said life-support pod is fitted with armour comparable to that of a Leman Russ Main Battle Tank, contains powerful psychic amplifiers (partially accounting for Ravenor's power increase), and has mounted upon it two fully automatic, rocket-propelled grenade launchers loaded with daemon-killing Depleted Phlebotinum Shells.
- 40k is filled with examples of this trope, most of them less extreme than Ravenor: Colonel 'Iron-hand' Straken, who has a much stronger replacement arm thanks to the original being bitten off by a Miral Land Shark; Commissar Yarrick, bionic eye with a laser built in, robot arm made from the Battle Klaw of an enemy; Lord Militant Commander Drang, whose replacement bionic eye lets him spot an enemy warship up to half a light-year away; astropaths get a power boost from hooking their soul to the God-Emperor, at the cost of serious damage to (if not the destruction of) their eyes and optic nerves; Dreadnoughts are Humongous Mecha piloted by crippled Astartes heroes, for whom they also act as life-support machines (much like Ravenor, in fact)
She-Bot in the Whateley Universe. Born without limbs, it turned out she has an unnatural ability to interface with machinery, so she now has cybernetic limbs. That she built herself.
Peter Reidinger I of the Talents series (specifically the Pegasus sub-series), who becomes totally paralyzed from the neck down in adolescence due to a wall collapsing on top of him. However, it is soon discovered that he is the most powerful psychic Talent in the world: he proves so adept at telekinesis that he actually fakes normal movement by levitating his body (it's not perfect: he has a difficult time making complex movements with his fingers, and occasionally forgets to keep his feet on the ground).
The title character in A Wizard Alone, the sixth Young Wizards book, is an autistic kid who happens to be one of the "Pillars of Creation", through which a lot of positive energy is dumped into the universe. By the end, he's no longer autistic, but he's still a Pillar.
Rowan from Lords of the Sky is physically blind, but can still see her surroundings due to her innate magic abilities. Not only is she an accomplished sorceress, but she's also a Dragon Master, meaning she has a very special affinity to Dragons.
Bran Stark from A Song Of Ice And Fire gets crippled from a fall and lapses into a coma. When he awakens, he gainsprophetic "green dreams" and the ability to consciously control animals in his dreams. These powers match those attributed to the greenseers of the children of the forest.
Ng in Snow Crash lost all of his limbs in Viet Nam and has the ultimate Cool Car of a wheelchair: a heavily-customized and heavily-armed airport firetruck. Given the heavily-commercialized nature of the world, he can get anything he needs via drive-thru. Not only is he permanently jacked into The Metaverse, where his Digital Avatar has limbs, but his body is suspended in a gel that gives him force feedback, making him the only known character in the story to be able to actually feel massages given to his Digital Avatar.
In Jose Saramago's Blindness, all of humanity becomes blind with the exception of one person. People who were previously blind are accustomed to their condition, and have enough of an advantage that at least one becomes a gang leader of sorts.

Close Literature

Hawkeye in M*A*S*H temporarily received a boost to his other senses — including hearing that rivalled Radar's ability to detect incoming helicopters — when he was blinded by an exploding heater.
- It has been suggested that Radar's super-hearing is a compensation for his incredibly poor eyesight. (also in M*A*S*H)
Master Po (and to a lesser extent Serenity Johnson) from Kung Fu.
In Heroes, Isaac's clairvoyance-painting seems (at first) to only work when he's high on heroin. Later, though, he learns to do it without the drugs.
- And let's not forget Niki Sanders whose power appears to be "being insane". Oh, and superstrong.
  - Technically, yes, but in nicer terms she would be a dissociative identity disorder sufferer with a superhuman alter-ego, not unlike The Hulk, Thorn or Typhoid Mary. She is, however, able to use the super-strength on the "Niki" side now that she's learning to control "Jessica". Unfortunately, there's more than just Niki and Jessica in there.
- Played straight with third season character Daphne, introduced as a superspeeding thief ... who has to hobble on leg braces and crutches when the eclipse takes her powers away.
- No, not played straight. People with disability superpowers have both a disability and a superpower that helps them out. Niki/Jessica qualifies, but Daphne does not because her superpower, super speed, also makes it so she is not disabled anymore.
River Tam from Firefly (and its follow up movie, Serenity) winds up with eerie Psychic Powers - mind-reading abilities that apparently extend from emotions to actual thoughts (both of which were shown surprisingly clearly in the episode "Objects in Space") - and some surprising WaifFu abilities, which combined with her "extraordinary grace" (ostensibly from years of studying dance), essentially turn her into a psychic ninja ballerina. At one point she picks up a gun as if it's a toy, closes her eyes, fires three shots, and kills three bad guys. All of which would be awful nice, if they didn't almost all seem to result from brutal experiments that cut out a chunk of her brain, and left her literally — and sometimes dangerously — psychotic. Not to mention that even when she does actually perceive things through some sort of seemingly psychic intuition, her cryptic comments sound just as flat-out crazy as everything else she says, and it's not until late in the story that anybody who knows her really comes to believe she even might be psychic.
- Well, excepting Simon, though in his case he had damn good reasons to hide any suspicions he had relating to River's abilities.
Geordi LaForge of Star Trek The Next Generation was born blind, but given synaptic implants that allow a device he wears to translate large portions of the EM spectrum into visual impressions, allowing him at various points to detect by sight things which normally require scanners or tricorders to detect. These impressions are often cited as not being sufficiently "real" when the writers want to play up the disability aspect, though they certainly don't seem to be lacking in detail. In one episode the audience and his crewmates even get to see a visual-frequency representation of what he sees—and its a psychedelic jumble of colors and lights. No wonder he gets a headache. Geordi's vision has also been subject to the occasional Phlebotinum Breakdown or Dropped Glasses moment. The later movies acknowledged that Science Marches On by giving him bionic eyes.
The show MANTIS had the main character create an exoskeleton so that he could walk again. It just happened the prototype suit was entirely bulletproof. Which he didn't find out until after being shot in the first episode.
In an episode of Angel, "Blind Date", Angel comes up against one of the most skilled human assassins he has encountered, and she happens to be blind. She blinded herself, then learned to see outside the spectrum of normal human sight—effectively seeing the move you make before you make it. However, he can actually move faster than her; he overcomes her by moving in lightning-fast-spurts; if he doesn't move, she can't see him, because vampires don't breathe or have a heartbeat.
The character played by Michael J. Fox in Scrubs has such encyclopedic medical knowledge because his OCD lead him to reading the medical books over and over again.
Xena Warrior Princess was blinded for one episode, but considering who we're talking about here, she picked up a staff and went right on with the ass-kicking. She even managed to catch her chakram based solely on hearing, millimeters from an ally's face.
Monk's title character has, among other mental problems, a serious case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder - which allows him to perceive details of crime scenes and other clues, making him a champion sleuth.
Parodied in a sketch in A Bit of Fry and Laurie where Hugh Laurie reveals to Stephen Fry that his deafness has caused him to develop his eyesight, whilst his blindness has caused his hearing to improve to compensate. "So in other words, you can hear and see perfectly?". "Yes, that's right"
UFO ("The Man Who Came Back"). A blind man senses that there's something wrong with a SHADO operative who's had his personality removed and is being remote-operated by the aliens.
In "Whisper", an episode of Smallville, Clark is temporarily blinded by his own heat vision bouncing off Kryptonite. Luckily, his super-hearing develops at the same time to compensate.

Close Live Action TV

Role Playing Games where players build characters on a point system that assigns negative point values for physical disadvantages (effectively freeing up extra points to buy additional abilities) invite the use (and abuse) of this trope.
- GURPS, for instance. The "Blindness" disadvantage (just as an example), while giving characters a distinct penalty to combat skills, makes it less than that suffered by people who have been suddenly blinded (thus, a person with Blindness has an advantage over a sighted person when the lights go out). No specific bonus to other senses is given. It is, however, stressed that vision-based abilities are not available to someone with this disability (yes, some people do need to be told).
  - GURPS: Supers notes that you can give Blindness and Microscopic Vision to a hero who can only see tiny nearby things, playing this straighter.
- Mutants And Masterminds notes the trend and devotes a paragraph to explaining that, for example, if a character takes Blindness as a flaw and Tremorsense as a super-ability, they shouldn't get any points for the Blindness flaw since it's covered, only possibly a Hero Point for a Complication should their Tremorsense get removed or nullified. Common sense, really...
  - A concept introduced in Champions: The Super Roleplaying Game (aka the Hero System) two decades before M & M came into existance.
- Big Eyes Small Mouth's Defect system is ripe for the abuse of this trope; all of the "impairment" defects are Major ones, and can give back enough points to buy up abilities that render the impairments moot in addition to game-breakingly powerful secondary attributes. Of course, that does assume that you're okay with playing a flying, psychic paraplegic.

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Wu Zi Mu from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas embodies this to the point where he's a respected street racer, good enough to aim and fire a submachinegun and beat CJ at video games, all despite his complete blindnesss. Of course, there are limits to his abilities. His henchmen manipulate some of his pastimes (like golf) so that he wins. When they are not around, he is not always infallible, such as in this exchange during the 'You've Had Your Chips' mission: he's playing blackjack with CJ. Going for a five-card hand ...
CJ: What'cha got?
Wu Zi Mu: How would I know? You tell me.
CJ: Not good. You got ... uh, 47.
Wu Zi Mu: Damn it! You're bad luck! When I play with my men, I always win!
- Later on...
  Mook: Boss! Take a look at these two chips.
  Wu Zi Mu: One's a fake.
  CJ: That's amazing, you didn't even touch them.
  Wu Zi Mu: I took a guess. Why else would he come in with two chips and sound so worried? You take a look.
- This troper thought it was strongly implied that Wu Zi did not possess particularly sharp senses, and that his henchmen covered for him in order to prevent him from realizing that absolutely everyone was keenly aware of his "secret". Wu Zi runs into walls. He fires a submachine gun, but does so with about as much accuracy as one would expect from a blind man. He is unable to detect a smoldering pile of corpses and wreckage a few feet in front of him. He drives phenomenally well, but always does so with a female assistant in the driver's side seat (or the driver's seat, for all we know). And, as the first above quote establishes, he's not very good at blind Blackjack.
  - Wu Zi himself claims that he trains his other senses to compensate for his blindness. Apparently, he just doesn't train them enough.
  - His henchman also notes that he's profoundly lucky, which may be why he's in the situation that he's in; whether that's referring to his inability to not die in the amazingly dangerous things he sets his mind to doing, or his ability to endear himself to practically everyone around him, is up for debate.
In Heroes Of Might And Magic III, troglodytes are eyeless—and therefore are immune to any form of blinding.
The MMORPG Ragnarok Online plays rather brutally with this trope, by means of the Star Knight/Taekwon Master class. Their skill, 'Demon of the Sun, Moon, and Stars' (or 'Solar, Lunar, and Stellar Shadow'), grants its owner a +30% bonus to Attack Speed - note, this bonus is insanely large. In exchange? The character's sight. This isn't like the 'Blind' status effect, where a character takes a hit to their accuracy - accuracy is just fine. However the player's screen becomes black the moment this skill is learned, with a lighted area surrounding their character. As the skill is levelled up, and the attack speed bonus moves closer to +30%, the lighted area shrinks, until at level 10 and +30% ASPD, the tiles immediately surrounding a character can just be made out. These effects are permanent and utterly irrevocable.
Alma's incredible mental powers came at a rather nasty cost: extreme sensitivity to negative emotions, particularly those relating to her father, which often resulted her being rendered catatonic with empathic terror when he was angry. On top of that, she suffered hallucinations, debilitating nightmares, and the occasional bout of pyrokinesis, as well as inadvertently mindraping anyone who spent too much time around her.
Speaking of mental powers, in Psi Ops Jov Leonov was blinded during childhood by an accident. However, in exchange for his sight he ended up with formidable Mind Control powers that he used in a successful career as a KGB agent, and then as the Movement's Master of Mind Control and the man behind the Meat Puppet project.
Sly Cooper 3 has Bentley in a wheelchair (due to the results of a prequel). Being a genius, he tricks out the wheelchair quite well. He still has moments of envy, but apparently has settled with the fact he's in the chair. A rocket-assisted, explosive-armed, tranquiliser-dart-firing wheelchair.
Harman Smith, leader of Smith Syndicate in Killer7, is an old man in a wheelchair who wields a high-powered rifle and may be some kind of god...
- Not to mention Con, a blind teenage boy who can still fire Guns Akimbo and has great perception.
Though not actually a disability, Regal Bryant of Tales Of Symphonia learned to fight with his feet extremely well after his oath to keep his hands bound.
Koishi Komeiji from the Touhou series ended up sealing away her ability to read minds due to the fear it inspired in other people. This left her with the ability to read and manipulate people's subconscious, a much more powerful ability that places her as the extra stage boss, compared to her stage 4 boss sister.
In Warcraft 3, Demon Hunters blind themselves to better see demons.
In Guild Wars, the members of the ritualist profession blind themselves to better sense spirits. One character even was born blind, and became a ritualist for partially this reason.

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Deconstructed in The Boondocks, in which Huey assumes that the blind Stinkmeaner was able to beat down Granddad thanks to super-human senses. He then trains Granddad on how to combat such an opponent, with one exercise involving watching old Zatoichi movies. It isn't until the rematch is well under way that Huey comes to realize that while Stinkmeaner had heightened senses, they were far from superhuman and he had just gotten lucky the first time. Before Huey can relay this to Granddad, Stinkmeaner's already lying dead on the ground.
- Unfortunately, this doesn't stick...though it appears to have little if anything to do with being blind, and more that he is practically hate-incarnate.
Fry from Futurama, due to an, ahem, interesting form of incest, lacks traditional intelligent thought, making him immune to psi attacks.
This troper is ashamed of himself for almost forgetting Lynx-o from Thundercats.
Cyborg of the Teen Titans had all his limbs and half his face burned off in a lab accident, and replaced with aesthetically unpleasing yet superhuman prosthetics.
- He's just following in the prosthetic-foot steps of The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman. Who in turn were preceded by Robotman (there was even a Golden Age Robotman predating the Doom Patrol's Cliff Steele). The idea of a brain in a robot body was a Pulp Sci-Fi staple, making this Older Than Television.
- While this does fit the trope, I think Cyborg uses it more like a Disability Superpower when A villain tries to trick him by showing that he can transform his body back to an ordinary human. Cyborg responds by betraying the villain midway through his plan. Later on, Cyborg says that the villain fooled his human brain, but not his robotic one.
  - Heck, you can call out Nick Chopper, the Tin Woodman in The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz. He got his current body because a witch cursed his ax to keep chopping off limbs. Each time he lost a limb, he replaced it with one made out of tin until there was nothing remaining of his original body.
Toph from Avatar The Last Airbender (pictured). She's a great Earthbender, because she's blind: She learned how to earthbend and how to sense surroundings by vibration, from the giant badgermoles, whom she played with, when she was young. She says that Earthbending is her way of "seeing" the world.
- Hilariously, it is revealed in "The Ember Island Players" that the Fire Nation attributes her sight to echolocation.
Actor portraying Toph: HOAAAAAAAARGH!!!! (beat) There. I just got a pretty good look at you.
- It makes some logical sense for them to think that since, you know, there are blind people who are able to get around using echolocation.
- The fact that Toph is also loud and rather mouthy probably helped to contribute such a notion.
Felix from Kim Possible, who thanks to his Cool Chair added with a collection of All Up To You, Compressed Vice, An Aesop (and Chickification) became the most competent hero of two out of episodes.
In one episode of Invader Zim, Zim invents a machine that lets him substitute anything he wants (in this case, a plush piggy) for any single object in the past. Of course, he uses this not to screw up the world history, but instead to mess up Dib's life. As the episode goes on, Dib gets gradually more and more disabled by the injuries sustained by piggies being inserted into important points in his life, until he's pretty much dead. Until his dad puts him in a life-sustaining, amazingly powerful robot suit, and he shows up on Zim's doorstep to tear his place apart.
Phantom Limb from Venture Bros was born with withered arms and legs. A laboratory accident replaced these with fully-developed but invisible ones, with which he can kill by touch.
- Subverted however with the Impossible family, a parody of the Fantastic Four. Other than the Reed Richards expy, they got the sucky aspects of the Four's superpowers without any of the benefits. Sally has to concentrate or else her skin (and only her skin) will turn invisible, Cody bursts into flames whenever he is exposed to oxygen (and feels pretty much the same way any of us would if we were on fire), and Ned is basically a walking callous.

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Last Resort codifies this in canon with the Light Children, who are born with just a little more or less soul than normal, but weren't born to Celeste parents. Since they often go undetected and lack the training that Celeste children receive for their extrasensory powers, this usually leads to them being diagnosed with various mental illnesses instead as these same extrasensory powers are often mistaken for hallucinations and other bad behavior.

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At the age of 17, Tony Iommi lost two fingertips in an accident while working at a sheet-metal factory. Having been encouraged by his boss not to give up his side job as guitarist in a pub band, he had to tune down his guitar strings in order not to hurt his cut-off fingertips even more. Thus, the signature sound of Black Sabbath (and heavy metal) was born.
The Who's Pinball Wizard is a "deaf, dumb and blind kid...sure plays a mean pinball." He can feel the table's features, and plays by sense of smell.
- His pinball ability is also attributed to the fact that he "ain't got no distractions, can't hear no buzzers and bells." Also because he "can't see no lights a flashin'." His lack of sight and hearing actually helps him stay focused, apparently.
Def Leppard's drummer has only one arm. That's right, the man who plays the instrument requiring the most coordination and skill, does it and rocks the house with one arm.

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The astonishing story of Ben Underwood from Sacramento, who was rendered blind at age three due to retinal cancer, but learned to see by echolocation by making clicking sounds with his tongue. He is able to judge distances, ride a skateboard, play football, and can even tell the difference between metal, wood and glass just by the quality of the echo. He's even able to play Pokemon because the Mons all have distinct voice effects that lets him differentiate between them.
- Sadly, Ben has since died of the cancer that caused his blindness in the first place.
Many people with Autism or Asperger's Syndrome are highly sensitive to touch, sound, smell, taste, and bright light. This is believed to be due to the autistic brain having more space devoted to sensory input, or because the filters in the frontal lobe are defective.
- Asperger's may or may not heighten senses. Instead it might just cause lowered pain thresholds.
Similarly, persons with bipolar disorder (formerly manic-depressive disorder) have extended periods of supernormal energy and drive, followed by bouts of crashing depression. Most sufferers say that they would not be cured of the disorder if it meant losing their "up" periods.
Sensory Integration Disorder. Like the above, but the autism isn't necessary, and it can result in a lack of sensitivity to other stimuli. Ironically enough, the unusually high sensitivity to stimuli is the disability as well as the super power. (If you don't think sensitive hearing is a disability, try listening to music at a volume so loud that you feel like your eardrums are going to bleed. Then imagine getting the same effect from a high pitched cell phone ring tone, or a pair of headphones). On the other hand, you can get some "superpowers" from the lack of sensitivity side—for example, a high resistance to pain or cold.
We can build enhanced prosthetic legs nowadays, specialising them for running, aesthetic appeal, and height. The social impact of this is slowly shifting parts of the technology world to the Disability Superpower point of view. Once cybernetic replacements become commonplace, this trope will be rendered absolute fact.
This Troper once heard an inspirational story of a young boy born without arms (by said boy, grown up) and how he learned to do everything with his legs and other body parts, such as playing guitar (spectacularly) and playing frisbee with his brother.
Being born without arms, Jessica Cox can do almost anything with just her feet. She's got a black belt in Taekwondo, plays the piano and gives motivational speaches. Oh, and she's also the first, and only licensed plane pilot who has no arms.
This guy might qualify for this section.
The Monk example might be truth in television - OCD researcher Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz has noted that the condition enables some people to function at a very high level because years of practicing these rituals can give sufferers great powers of recall and observation.

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