Fantastic Racism is common in fiction when different groups hate each other, be it cats and dogs or elves and dwarves. However, what is also common is when members of the same group have a disability that limits their ability to function, which they are looked down upon even though said disability may not exist in real life. Frequently, characters part of superpowered groups or species may lack powers and effectively be regular people by real-world standards, but are nonetheless treated as lesser. Fictional societies where this trope is in play are often built around whatever the disabled characters have trouble with or don't have, making life unfairly rigged against them. A Muggle Born of Mages will often face this trope. Another common way for this trope to be done is an animal lacking the ability to do something what kind of animal they are is known to be able to do.
Of course, the ableism in question does not need to be merely hatred and mockery towards a disabled group, but it can also take the form of patronization or a belief that the disabled need to be protected.
To qualify for this trope, characters part of the discriminated group must have a disability of some sort. Merely being bad at performing a task or lacking a talent is not enough. If they cannot do an action because they do not know how to do it, it also does not count. Furthermore, characters must be discriminated against in some fashion by other characters.
Having uncontrollable superpowers may qualify as a disability, though it must be treated as a disability. The powers must interfere with a person's life in some way, and issues with them cannot be gotten rid of solely through positive thinking, training, etc.
Characters who are hybrids between species may count if their mixed heritage results in them being unable to do certain things that members within the groups they come from are expected to do and are looked down on by said members. Also, it still counts if the disabled character is assumed to be a part of a certain species even if it turns out later that they are not.
People with real-world disabilities being discriminated against in a fantasy setting do not count. However, animals or imaginary creatures with disabilities that exist in real life can qualify as this trope.
For characters being individually targeted and mistreated for their handicaps, All of the Other Reindeer is often in effect.
It's important to note that this trope only covers characters within the same group being treated badly for a disability. Characters from a different group or species being looked down upon is Fantastic Racism. Supertrope to Super Supremacist. Overlaps with Fictional Disability. Frequently has associated Fantastic Slurs.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Black Clover: All humans have Mana to varying degrees, with those who have a higher natural reserve of Mana being regarded as the best-of-the-best and those with low amounts (or none, as with Asta) are seen as subhuman and relegated to a life of misery, with a family's Mana quality determining their social status. This even extends into those families, with Noelle and Finral among others being seen as black sheep for their relatively low magic power. The nobles openly despise those with low Mana and resent the Clover Kingdom's Wizard King Julius for daring to treat them as human beings.
- Cross Ange: Most of the world lives in a utopian society provided by the Light of Mana, a seeming magic field available to all. However, there exist Normas, rare girls who are born without the ability to use the Light of Mana, and in fact will instantly destroy it upon touching it. Normas are looked down on as subhuman abominations and are quarantined on a prison island far away from any of the nations, forced to do battle against Dragon-like creatures from another world. Naturally, the Normas don't think too highly of the Mana-using peoples who quarantined them either.
- My Hero Academia: The majority of the population have Quirks, giving them each superpowers. Those without powers, called Quirkless, are shown having a hard time in life, with Izuku being bullied for his lack of a Quirk and Aoyama's parents even going to All For One to get him a Quirk. That being said, while accommodations are made for people with quirks that make daily difficult, it's a recurring plot point that this may not always be the case and quirks such as having a big tail make it difficult to find seating or clothing.
- Fantastic Racism for the visibly mutated has always been given attention, but My Hero Academia: Vigilantes also shows someone rendered permanently larger than the average human would have problems finding jobs and housing that is practical for them.
Comic Books
- The Mighty Thor: Before being adopted by Odin, Loki was treated badly by the other frost giants for his small size in comparison to them.
- Teen Titans: Part of Blackfire's backstory is that she suffered a childhood illness that made it difficult for her to absorb ultraviolet radiation that grant her people, the Tamaraneans, their powers; this meant she couldn't do things that came easily to most of her people, such as flying. As a result of this, Blackfire was looked down upon by many Tamaraneans and was passed over in the line of succession in favor of her sister Starfire, causing her immense hatred for her family.
- Since the entire Transformers franchise is based around Transforming Mecha, a Transformer who can't transform can suffer from discrimination depending on the particular piece of media.
- In The Transformers (Marvel), Grimlock learns of a "miracle cure" called Nucleon that is so potent it can supposedly even bring the dead back to life. After testing it on himself, he then uses it to revive his fellow Dinobots after their deaths at the hands of Starscream, as well as other Autobots who shared their fate. However, much later, he discovers that he's undergone a metamorphosis that has greatly increased his strength and power but also robbed him of his ability to transform. Feeling neutered by the loss of his transformation ability, Grimlock begins to fear he'd also condemned his fellow Dinobots to the same fate. It doesn't help that the Dinobots are traditionally actually stronger in their dinosaur modes, so not being able to transform is detrimental to their fighting style.
- The later phases of IDW Publishing's Transformers comics (e.g., The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye) introduce the concept of Monoformers, Cybertronians who believe it heresy to have more than one form.note Monoformers are described as being victims of "shapism" — shape-hate crimes — since among other things, they no longer fit into the Grand Taxonomy (a pseudo-religious concept where "rare" alternate modes like microscopes belong to higher castes than "common" alternate modes like tanks or memory sticks). While shapism is supposedly rare in the modern era, when a couple of Decepticons arrive at the Autobot facility at Delphi pleading for sanctuary because they've been targeted for death by the Decepticon Justice Division, the Autobots take them in, as there'd been previous examples of Monoformers being executed by the DJD.
- In Transformers (2019), some Transformers known as the "Iron Hope Hundred" were forced to subsist on the energy source Nucleon after they were marooned. By the time they were rescued, they'd lost the ability to transform thanks to their repeated consumption of Nucleon. They had trouble resettling into life due to their mode-locked status,note with at least two of them becoming violent outlaws just to survive since they couldn't find any other jobs. The Autobot Jumpstream expressed fear of being mode-locked when an experiment she participated in involved Nucleon, though Perceptor assured her that both high doses and long-term exposure were needed to induce such a condition.
Fan Works
- As with its original source, it's a common enough feature in My Hero Academia fics:
- Anyone shows the discrimination against the quirkless to go far beyond just bullied. The quirkless are denied job opportunities at every level, and most of them commit suicide. This is despite public use of quirks being illegal. At one point a family who suspects their daughter may be quirkless asks Izuku what to do, and he tells them that while a lack of quirk won't affect her capabilities, it's best if they fake her having a quirk that can't be proven and blame it on a distant relative, because the discrimination is that bad. It's to the point that an organization that fights for the rights of mutant quirks (another target of Fantastic Racism) had to be told to fight or the quirkless too, with one member not even knowing they're a thing. All Might notes that the situation was much better in his youth.
- The prejudice that the Quirkless face in MHA - An Asura is Born is nuanced, zig-zagging this trope. Izuku fled into the streets and fended for himself for a year, and when Niko went to formally adopt him, the caretaker brought up Izuku's Quirklessness as a reason not to adopt him. Akoya's reaction to learning that Izuku is Quirkless is to ask more fervently if he had any signs of abuse from Niko, implying that Quirkless children are more likely to be abused. However, he also notes that there are Quirkless officers on the force, implying that the Quirkless can still find honest work.
- In the crossover fic My Driver Academia, the discrimination against the Quirkless is so bad that very few Quirkless reach high-school age, much less adulthood. Quirkless are forced to wear red shoes unless they are rich enough to afford otherwise, and all build up exceptional pain tolerance due to being beaten so much. Izuku in particular barely feels levels of pain that make Blades flinch. There are also unique slurs against the Quirkless like "baseline", and quite a few people in the story are openly racist. The fact that the Quirkless have an easier time harmonizing with Blades that Quirked people is nooted In-Universe to be deliciously ironic.
- Rise of the Last Villain: Izuku suffers plenty of discrimination on account of being Quirkless.
- He's rejected from UA despite his high scores on the practical exam on the grounds that without a quirk, he can't be a hero. While All Might is the first to suggest this, the other teachers are shown to agree.
- The MLA, as in most fics, also suffer from quirkism, refusing to accept Izuku's importance to the League's continued plans.
- The Scorpion Jar: The Quirkless Protection laws in Japan aren't worth the paper they're written on; many non-hero jobs illegally require applicants to have a Quirk. As a result, many Quirkless graduates have to move to other countries where the protection laws are actually enforced, contributing to Japan's declining population.
- Statistic: Toshinori goes undercover at Aldera as a Quirkless teacher. Katsuki and most of the students immediately decide that his Quirklessness means he's not worth listening to, his coworkers dismiss and demean him, and turn a blind eye towards all the Barbaric Bullying going on while smugly insisting that nobody will ever believe him.
- What it Means to Be a Hero: The Fandom-Specific Plot of Quirkless discrimination is subverted — ableism against Quirkless is both uncommon and illegal, so the fact that Izuku has been dealing with this daily is a sign that something is very, very wrong. Turns out his entire school district was founded by the Super Supremacist Meta Liberation Army to indoctrinate youths to their ideology. Izuku, as a Quirkless, was the school's punching bag because all the staff were part of an ableist cult.
Films — Animated
- In Barbie Fairytopia, Elina is a fairy who was born without wings. Although she's not hugely discriminated against, some people mock her for lacking wings and she finds it difficult to navigate several areas of Fairytopia as they're designed for the majority of the population who can fly. This actually gives Elina an advantage in some situations though, as she's unaffected by Laverna's magical sickness that causes fairies to lose the ability to fly. She also has an easier time walking long distances because she's been doing it all her life. In the climax Laverna tries to exploit Elina's desire for wings, saying she'll give her wings if she joins her and that she knows how it feels to be mistreated for being born different, which Elina finds very tempting, though she ultimately resists. She's later gifted wings with no strings attached by Enchantress.
- Encanto: The Madrigal family is known for all having special powers but only Mirabel does not have one. As a result, she is unintentionally treated as lesser by her family and suffers from feelings of inadequacy.
- In Finding Nemo, Nemo has an underdeveloped fin as a result of a barracuda attack on his parents' clutch of eggs, which damaged his egg. His father Marlin is overprotective of him because he thinks Nemo isn't as capable of doing things other fish-children do and is more likely to be hurt.
Marlin: You think you can do these things, but you just can't, Nemo!
- Happy Feet: Mumble is ostracized by the other penguins for not being able to sing.
- The Trumpet of the Swan: Louie is a young trumpeter swan born with muteness and is vying for the attention of a very beautiful female swan. He overcomes this by learning to play the trumpet. However, he is frequently mocked and ostracized by the other swans for his disability.
Literature
- One Animorphs book features an Andalite named Mertil who lost his tail. Ax contemptuously calls him a vecol and says that Andalites like him are isolated from society on their home planet, and speculates that Mertil is allergic to the morphing technology because if he could morph, he would've healed it by now. The other Andalite who lives with him is capable of morphing, but has a genetic disease that can't be morphed away.
- Codex Alera: The protagonist Tavi, being the only Un-Sorcerer in a species of elemental spirit summoners, faces prejudice from the "normal" people, starting with being called a "freak" and ostracized by a portion of his peers for not being bound to a fury at the age of 15. This mistreatment continues into his late teens when he enrolls in the Academy and becomes a frequent target of bullying by other students, who see his inability to defend against their own furycrafting as an invitation to abuse him. Fortunately, by that time, he also makes friends among less bigoted furycrafters who help him out whenever this bullying gets ugly.
- Earth Girl: In a future where humanity has spread out across over a thousand planets using portal technology, the one in a thousand people who have an immune system issue that only lets them survive on Earth are treated as second-class citizens. They're assumed to be ugly, smelly, and stupid, they don't have a vote and are usually abandoned by their parents soon after birth. They're often mocked in the media, with names including ape and nean (for Neanderthal), with even the official term of Handicapped having some negative connotations.
- In The Fifth Elephant, Angua says she has two siblings who were yennorks, werewolves with a permanent Shapeshifter Mode Lock. One (a human) was killed by her A Nazi by Any Other Name brother, and the other fled (and is now a prize-winning show dog).
- Gotrek & Felix: One of the Slayers met in the heroes' travels is a dwarf who hides his face. When unmasked, it turns out he has no beard after a skaven weapon blows up in his face (beards being Serious Business to dwarves). The others are sympathetic and make no attempt to stop him from getting himself killed.
- In Harry Potter, anyone born to a magical family who does not have magic of their own is known as a Squib, and Squibs tend to be discriminated against in magical society. From being disallowed at Hogwarts (although allowed to work there for some reason), killed or otherwise disowned by their families, to being abused in an effort to see them produce magic, Squibs are on the low rungs of their society.
- In Charles Sheffield's Heritage Universe, the Cecropians are a race communicating by pheromones. Any sapients incapable of the same are treated with scorn bordering on ignoring their existence.
- A Song of Ice and Fire has the Fictional Disability greyscale, a disease that causes flesh to become stiff and stonelike. It is usually fatal; if one survives it, the afflicted flesh does not recover. Stannis's daughter Shireen is looked down on for her extensive facial scarring, while in Essos, people who have greyscale are called "Stone Men" and relocated to ruined cities (à la leper colonies).
- In the Sword of Truth series, three thousand years ago, when wizards could wield both Additive and Subtractive Magic, there was some discrimination against the few who could only use the former.
- Wings of Fire:
- Chameleon is a Rainwing without the ability to change color and was ostracized by the other members of his tribe for this reason.
- Peril was born with firescales, a condition that causes her scales to be immensely hot, burning anything they touch and making her incapable of touching others without injuring or killing them. She's shunned and feared by most dragons because of this and was supposed to be killed as a hatchling.
Live-Action Television
- Haven: Played with. In season one, the show hadn't yet determined whether to apply Fantastic Racism or Fantastic Ableism to Troubled people, and because Nathan's Trouble is that he can't feel anything, early episodes explore the idea that he somehow isn't "real" as a result. In "Harmony", Duke tries to get under Nathan's skin by asking if Audrey knows he isn't a "real boy" and miming elongating his nose like Pinocchio. In "Fur", Nathan commiserates with a man who has recently found out his mother taxidermied his body after his death in a fire. He's filled with sand and rags and agonizes over whether or not he even exists anymore, despite not feeling any different and going about his life as normal. Nathan slices open his palm and they have a discussion about how their Troubles don't make them less as people. The show ultimately goes the Fantastic Racism route, and thus any references to Nathan not being "real" also fade out of the storyline.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition: Gnomes who were incapable of casting the racial cantrips due to not having the minimum Intelligence (in 3.0 Edition) or Charisma (in 3.5 Edition) scores were noted as being looked down upon by other gnomes and often left to live among other races who didn't know or care about the stigma attached to their lack of ability.
- Hc Svnt Dracones: Instabilities in the genetic engineering that produced Vectors sometimes result in "morphisms" that are accepted to varying extents in wider Vector society, ranging from laterals and micro being looked down upon for their lack of hands or height, social pressure towards those with atypical patterning to cover it up, cutting off horns to fit helmets, and outright kidnapping and experimentation on the Followed.
Video Games
- I Was a Teenage Exocolonist: If the player chooses to have Sol born without a Bio-Augmentation, they start with more of the Good Behavior Points used as currency by the colony. They also earn more Kudos each time they work. The reason behind this is that at least one of the adults who doles them out expects Sol to be worse than other children at just about anything, resulting in her being impressed each time Sol does something well. For the record, the setting's augmentations are specific enough that everyone has more areas in which their augmentation doesn't help much than areas in which it makes things easier.
- In No Umbrellas Allowed, Fixies are people who have been injected with the Fixer drug, which erases all their emotions and desires, making them numb and mindless "zombies". Starting on Week 5, the Fixie Cloud is established to protect Fixies from discrimination by Floaties, or people who aren't Fixed. AVAC encourages you to treat Fixie and Floatie customers equally since the Fixie Cloud records all your interactions with Fixies, or else you will receive harsh punishment from the organization, even if they're the ones who are turning people into Fixies for their crimes.
Webcomics
- Always Human: Austen has Egan's Syndrome, an oversensitive immune system that prevents her from using mods like other people to change or improve her body. She really dislikes the fact that people see her as Inspirationally Disadvantaged for this.
- NEXT!!! Sound of the Future: Vocaloids who have issues with their voiceboxes not functioning correctly not only face a significant barrier to fulfilling their intended purpose as singing idols but are also largely barred from legally being able to fix them due to their voiceboxes being copyrighted. The protagonist, Shine, is an android who was ostracized by her classmates because they thought that she was disrupting the class by singing badly on purpose and refused to believe her when she told them she was physically unable to stay on pitch.
- Stand Still, Stay Silent: Reynir is treated this way by his family for being the only person who's not immune to the rash illness. Despite travel restrictions having been lifted for the non-immune, his parents lie and pretend he still isn't legally able to travel to keep him at home, even though he's an adult. Once he finds out they lied, he immediately runs off.
Western Animation
- Gargoyles: Due to the Fairy Queen Titania's half-human daughter Fox being raised as a human, she never learned to use magic. Oberon describes her as "regrettably human" and decides to kidnap her son, to raise on Avalon so that he doesn't turn out similarly disabled.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Scootaloo is a pegasus who is unable to fly.note The episode "Flight to the Finish" has schoolyard bullies Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon mock her for this, and Scootaloo learns to accept herself and celebrate what she can do, such as riding her scooter.
- The Owl House: Witches without magic don't tend to be treated well. "Half-a-witch" is a derogatory term for witches who either have trouble with or altogether lack magic.
- Once her curse takes away most of her power, people stop respecting Eda. Some don't even pay her correctly for the work she does, as they no longer fear her, making it harder for her to make a living.
- Hunter is a powerless witch who relies on a staff to use magic and is understandably not very forthcoming about this fact. He confesses that he wouldn't have a future if Belos hadn't taken him in.
- Steven Universe: Homeworld requires Gems to be perfect and if a Gem is formed incorrectly, they are usually shattered.
- Amethyst is abnormally small for her Gem type due to having been in the ground for too long before emerging. She's not as strong as Jasper, who was made perfectly and who loves belittling her about it, seeing Amethyst as a defect as do most other Homeworld Gems.
- Padparadscha is an Off Color Sapphire who can only see the recent past rather than the future like Sapphires are supposed to. This makes her defective in Homeworld's eyes and is thus cast out from society and hunted down by drones looking to shatter her and the other Off Colors.
