The one on the left.
Whatever lucky man becomes my husband shall see far worse than that.
—Kushana invoking this trope in reference to her Artificial Limbs, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
Disability has long since been associated with tragedy in the collective consciousness; be it because it tends to originate in tragic accidents or because they just generally make your life way harder. That's why, in media, disabled characters are ripe for conflict and/or tragedy.
Unfortunately, before the Anti-Ableism movement arose to demand proper representation, disabled characters only ever fell into three roles: as temporary Love Interests, patronized Inspirationally Disadvantaged people, or infantilized tokens. This trope pertains to the former case.
Why temporary, though? The answer is in the first paragraph. Whenever a disabled character enters a relationship or becomes romantically interested in someone, chances are that the couple is doomed to experience tragedy and disability-related conflict.
Maybe the disabled lover dies, perhaps by succumbing to a chronic illness. Maybe they are denied adequate accommodations, resulting in job/study opportunities being denied. Maybe their parents are ashamed and abuse them, leaving the abled love interest to pick up the pieces.
Do note that incapacitating mental illnesses also count here. In fact, physical and mental disabilities tend to be comorbid due to the trauma caused by the former leading to the latter, so they can pop up in tandem too.
It doesn't matter whether the disabled character is Delicate and Sickly or a Handicapped Badass, what matters is that their disability leads to tragedy or conflict.
Now, Tropes Are Tools, so while most early portrayals of such characters abound with Unfortunate Implications, some works use them to draw attention to the many challenges brought by disability and how society doesn't do enough to accommodate them.
Contrast Blind and the Beast (someone with a freakish appearance befriends a blind person) and Speech-Impeded Love Interest (a character's love interest can't speak properly, making them endearing through vulnerability). Might involve Florence Nightingale Effect (someone nursed another back to health; romance ensues).
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Shouko Nishimiya of A Silent Voice, who goes through a lot of misfortune because of her deafness, especially from bullies in her elementary school years. However, later in life, she becomes a potential love interest for one of her former tormentors, Shouya Ishida, who wants to make up for everything he's done to her.
Comic Books
- Batgirl: Barbara Gordon is a wheelchair user, but she can still kick your ass. She is one of the main love interests to Dick Grayson, the first Robin and currently Nightwing. After the Flashpoint Cosmic Retcon puts her back on her feet. However, in the new continuity, she was in a wheelchair for at least three years, and her status as a Tragically Disabled Love Interest is hardwired in her character, as almost everything reminding her of her past handicap (getting a gun pointed to her belly, seeing a wheelchair lift...) acts as a Trauma Button for her post-traumatic stress disorder.
Comic Strips
- Denise Russo in FoxTrot, who is blind. It's not often brought up, but making fun of her blindness is a Berserk Button for Peter. The temporary aspect is averted; they've apparently been at it for years, although Denise has not been seen for a while despite not breaking up with Peter.
Films — Live-Action
- He Was a Quiet Man: Venessa becomes one for Maconel after she loses the use of her legs as a result of the office shooting and is confined to a wheelchair, in part because he feels guilty first that he didn't save her from being shot and later that he couldn't finish the job.
Literature
- In Red Dragon (and both of the movies based on it), Francis Dolarhyde is infatuated with a woman at work who is blind. She happens to mention she always wanted to "see" (by touching) a Bengal tiger. Dolarhyde knows about a nearby zoo where a tiger is having some dental work, requiring it to be sedated. He takes her along, she really touches the tiger quite closely, noticing everything about it, whereupon she is so happy by what he has done, that she goes home with him and screws his brains out. She is clearly blind, but she's got no problem doing vigorous woman-on-top-sex with the essentially clueless Dolarhyde. Sadly, she doesn't realize he's a Serial Killer.
- In The Giver Quartet, Kira becomes this to Jonas. She was born with a deformed leg and uses a cane to walk, and he calls her "beautiful" when he first meets her at the end of Messenger. The "temporary" part is pleasantly averted, as they're married and have two children by the time of Son. Even more fascinatingly, when her friend Matty discovered her power of Healing Hands, he offered her to heal her leg, but she refused because her disability is intrinsic to who she is.
- Jetamio is a downplayed one to Thonolan in Earth's Children. She suffered seizures, one of which caused her to have partial paralysis that gives her a limp. However, she doesn't let it interfere with her life and is quite independent now she's recovered, nor does it have any bearing on how Thonolan feels about her. Sadly, her paralysis results in childbirth complications, and both she and her baby son die, leaving Thonolan devastated.
- Grace to Jonathan in Let Me Call You Sweetheart. She didn't start out as disabled but suffered early on-set arthritis, which has steadily worsened over the years. She's now in her early sixties and can barely walk at all, relying on a wheelchair to get around and being mostly housebound as she finds it too difficult to go out. Jonathan still stands by his wife and does what he can to support her physically and emotionally; they clearly love each other very much. It ends up being Played for Drama in the ending; it's revealed that eleven years ago Jonathan had difficulty coming to terms with his wife's deteriorating health, compelling him to conduct an affair with Suzanne, whom he later killed. Part of the reason Jonathan is desperate to keep this from coming out is because he feels he must protect Grace, to the point he's willing to kill again.
- Tariq to Laila in A Thousand Splendid Suns; he lost one of his legs to a landmine as a child and wears a prothesis. It doesn't bother Laila at all, though at one point she gets upset when he talks about the occasional physical discomfort it causes. She also hates it when people refer to Tariq as a "cripple" and fiercely defends him. When Tariq finds out Laila has been bullied by a local boy, he removes his prosthetic leg and uses it to beat up the bully to defend her honor. After they're reunited, he also starts getting migraines (possibly as a side effect of PTSD), and Laila stays up with him at night when they strike, holding him and trying to comfort him.
Live-Action TV
- Roswell, New Mexico has Alex Manes, a soldier who lost a leg during deployment and uses a prosthetic leg and sometimes crutches. He's got a complicated relationship with Michael Guerin and is never treated as less desirable due to his disability. In season 2 he has a threesome with Michael and Maria and then starts a relationship with Forrest Long
- There was an episode of Saved by the Bell where Zach pursued a girl in a wheelchair. Instead of it being an obstacle, though, he goes out of his way to be good about it, and even organizes a wheelchair basketball game. Turns out she hates having all the attention cast on her, and wants to be treated like anyone else.
- In The A-Team episode "Waste 'Em!", Face starts putting the moves on Lisa, only to realize that she's blind. This makes him a little hesitant to kiss her, but once she points out that blind people kiss too it doesn't stop him.
- Days of Our Lives:
- The "supercouple" Kayla and Steve used to have both of its members like this. Steve was (and, to date, is) still half-blind, wearing an Eyepatch of Power, and Kayla, after a (then) unknown assailant gets her into a gas explosion, loses her voice and hearing due to an odd combination of physical and psychological damage. After Kayla wakes up, Steve starts to woo her more eagerly, until they eventually elope. However, shortly before the marriage, Kayla gets a nigh-impossible recovery, regaining both voice and hearing.
- While Kayla's recovery is suspiciously complete, even after a whole story-arc as a tragically disabled love interest, her knowledge of sign language isn't forgotten. Instead, becomes a plot point in every other occasion where the cast is meant to interact with deaf individuals.
Music
- At the beginning of Bush's video for "Letting the Cables Sleep"
, we see Gavin having some sort of melancholy-tinged meeting with a woman in a vacant apartment. They wind up having (implied) sex, then going their separate ways. At the end of the video, they meet on the street and it turns out the woman is deaf, communicating in sign language. The whole song is about a need for communication.
Video Games
- Dragon Age: Inquisition: Cullen, who can be romanced by female Inquisitors who are human or elven, is struggling with PTSD from his years as a Templar and withdrawal as he weans himself off of lyrium. The former condition leaves him exhausted from nightmares and poor sleep, while the latter is indicated in the game to cause him chronic pain.
- Potion Permit: Several years ago, Garret suffered an accident that permanently placed him in a wheelchair, and his wife Mercy is desperately doing everything she can to treat him. However, Garret had long accepted the fact that he'll never walk again, and after playing along to Mercy's wishes, he finally lashes out at her for trying to "cure" him. He's at least grateful that he's alive and that he still has his family, and Mercy learns to accept that his disability has become a part of him.
Web Comics
- Always Human: Sunati builds a relationship with Austen, who has "Egan's Syndrome", a Fictional Disability that makes her ineligible for the setting's ubiquitous Bio-Augmentation mods. She makes several missteps since Austen loathes being seen as "brave" or Inspirationally Disadvantaged and makes clear that she would use mods if she could, but the two have a happy ending together.
Western Animation
- An episode of The Proud Family had Penny briefly date a secret admirer who used a wheelchair. She ditched him soon after realizing he was actually a mean-spirited jerk who used his disability to take advantage of people's emotions.
- The Owl House:
- Luz Noceda is a neurological variant as she's described as neurodivergent, later specified via Ascended Fanon as her having ADHD and is implied to have some form of Social Anxiety Disorder, but it doesn't really interfere in her relationship with Amity who's fully aware that Luz struggles with her mental health and happily serves as a much needed Living Emotional Crutch for her.
- Deconstructed with Eda. She suffers from a curse that is treated as a Fictional Disability, and her refusal to open up to others about it put so much strain on her relationship with Raine that they couldn't handle it and broke up with her. The two eventually have a Maybe Ever After that comes after Eda has learned to trust her friends and loved ones with her curse, which is actually also after she has to start using a prosthetic hand.
