History Main / SorryBillyButYouJustDontHaveLegs

[[quoteright:239:[[WebAnimation/HomestarRunner http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lb.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:239:"I'm gonna be a quarterback when I grow up! I'm gonna throw for 2,000 yards!"]]

The stock drama in which someone's aspirations are impossible because of a physical defect. Used for comedy and dark comedy just as much as it is for drama. This is often a crucial turning point in a story, so be warned that there are spoilers below.

Related to ICouldaBeenAContender. Subversions and aversions can lead to a HandicappedBadass. Inversions can be InspirationallyDisadvantaged or have a DisabilitySuperpower. If the character gains the defect during their life, then it's a CareerEndingInjury.

SisterTrope to TragicDream, where the aspiration is impossible due to any of a number of things.

Not to be confused with AllOfTheOtherReindeer.
----
!!Examples

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* ''Manga/FullMoonOSagashite'' Mitsuki wants to become an IdolSinger but can't because she has throat cancer and to live she'll have to have her larynx removed... she puts this off so she can still sing, but it means she'll die before she's really going to be old enough to achieve her dream. But then she gets to do it via magic.
* Rock Lee from ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' wants to continue his career and become a successful ninja. He faces not being able to perform any ninjutsu or genjutsu, but gets around it by solely focusing on Taijutsu with TrainingFromHell. Later on, he suffers a GameBreakingInjury during his fight with Gaara from using his DangerousForbiddenTechnique and having one of his arms and legs crushed, but a surgery manages to restore him to fighting condition.
** Cranked UpToEleven in the parody {{Raruto}}, where Ron Li had as a life-long dream to "keep his arms and legs". Later it turns out he had nothing serious, since Sumadre [Tsunade] had misdiagnosed him while drunk, and she wouldn't risk performing a surgery on him with 99% chance of success.
** Filler character Yakumo wants to become a ninja, but [[IllGirl tires easily after routine exercises]]. She says she wants to become a ninja who can use genjutsu, but Kurenai refuses to let her, as she would have to rely on the Id within her, and seals away her ability to use genjutsu. After Yakumo's Id kills her parents when they try to console her that there are other paths to take in life, she seeks revenge on Kurenai, believing her to be responsible, but the two eventually reconcile.
* Subverted with Kyousuke in ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica''; at first he was a crippled violinist whose right hand couldn't be used anymore but thanks to Sayaka's wish, he is able to soon make a full recovery. [[spoiler:Played straight for Sayaka, who just isn't sufficiently powerful or levelheaded to survive as a magical girl, especially since she tries to be extra-heroic like Mami. She crashes and burns and becomes a witch in ''every single timeline''.]]
* Viral from ''TengenToppaGurrenLagann''. His dream is to have a family, which we actually get to see in the [[LotusEaterMachine alternate universe]] dream sequence, but it is also the one thing that he cannot have because he is a beastman and thus incapable of reproduction, and even if he settles down with a wife, he will eventually outlive her due to his immortal body.
* In ''VisualNovel/{{CLANNAD}}'', Tomoya was forced to quit basketball because an injury made him unable to lift his right arm above shoulder level.
* In ''Bleach'', a substantial part of the humor about Kon is that regardless of his lechery or bravado, he's still a candy in a small stuffed toy lion.
* ''Manga/GalaxyExpress999'' occasionally runs into characters who desperately want to leave their home planet but physically can't, including one couple from the Fog Capital who are so frail they suffer cardiac arrests on takeoff after stealing Maetel and Tetsuro's passes. This is stated to be a trait of people from that planet; their guns barely tickle Tetsuro and he easily breaks floors by jumping around.
* Anime/{{Free}} has [[spoiler:Sousuke]], who is unable to become a professional swimmer because of his wrecked shoulder.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comics]]
* One pre-Popeye ''ThimbleTheater'' strip played this for laughs. Ham Gravy, running a shoe store, hires and fires a few assistants because they keep stealing shoes. Eventually, he hires a man with two peg legs on the grounds that since he doesn't have feet, he won't steal shoes. Castor Oyl, hearing this, decides to apply the same logic at hiring an assistant at a ''hat store''.
* Creator/MarvelComics's Steve Rogers was classified as a 4-F and denied entry into the US Army because he suffered from various (unspecified) health problems which ultimately left him physically frail. Thankfully, [[ComicBook/CaptainAmerica he got better.]]
* TheFlash villain Rainbow Raider, was a gifted painter, but was also, unfortunately, colorblind. This isn't in itself a huge handicap that one could get around in any number of ways, but evidently his paintings look gaudy at best no matter what he does.
* {{Franchise/Batman}} villain Crazy Quilt was a great artist (and forger) till a bullet wound to the head left him unable to see anything but blindingly vivid and disorienting colours.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:FanFic]]
* It's fairly popular in MLP fanfics for Ditzy/Derpy's ambitions of being a good mother to Dinky to be ruined because of her eye (and sometimes mental) disability. See for example Fanfic/{{Bubbles}}.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film]]
* In ''Film/LittleMissSunshine'', [[spoiler:Dwayne discovers he's color-blind and can't become a pilot.]]
* Greg Kinnear and Matt Damon in ''Film/StuckOnYou''. Kinnear's character wants to be a movie star despite him and Damon being conjoined twins.
* From ''Film/MontyPythonsLifeOfBrian'':
-->'''Stan:''' I want to have babies.
-->'''Reg:''' You want to have babies?!
-->'''Stan:''' It's every man's right to have babies if he wants them.
-->'''Reg:''' But... you can't have babies.
-->'''Stan:''' Don't you oppress me.
-->'''Reg:''' I'm not oppressing you, Stan. You haven't got a womb! Where's the foetus going to gestate?! You going to keep it in a box?!
-->'''Stan:''' ''(sob)''
** PlayedForLaughs in the BlackKnight scene of ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail''.
-->'''Arthur''': You're indeed brave, Sir Knight, but the fight is mine!
-->'''Black Knight''': Oooh, had enough eh??
-->'''Arthur''': Look, you stupid bastard, you've got no arms left!
-->'''Black Knight''': Yes, I have!
-->'''Arthur''': ''Look!!''
-->'''Black Knight''': JustAFleshWound!
* The hunchbacked Ephialtes in ''Film/ThreeHundred'' gets told he can't join the Spartans because he'll weaken the phalanx, as he can't raise his shield high enough to protect the men next to him.-- Ironically, the movie then violates this premise by having the Spartans break up their phalanx and fight individually, and, in any case, it's never quite explained why they couldn't have used him as a messenger or positioned him on the cliff and let him chuck spears as long as he could. (In the comic book, he just refuses the king's offer to do anything other than stand on the front lines.)
* ''Film/{{Rudy}}'', you're too short to play football!
* ''Film/{{Everest}}'': one of the kids had braces, whose tendency to contract in extreme cold would become a problem on the high altitudes of Everest. As a result, he was sent home.
* Parodied in ''Film/TheOnionMovie''. Introduced is the "inspirational portrait of the week", which involves a man with no legs (and then no arms) first declaring that he wanted to do ballet since he was a child. After maybe 15 seconds, what he wanted to do all his life was hockey. A sequence of him follows being tackled harshly.
* In ''Film/FromRussiaWithLove'', Tatiana Romanova explains that she wanted to be a ballerina, but was rejected for being too tall. In fact, "Too Tall to be a Ballerina" could be a trope in its own right: in {{Real Life}}, aspiring dancers are more likely to be rejected for being too ''short''.
* The whole premise of ''Film/{{Gattaca}}''. Anyone who is an "invalid" (a human with inferior genes, often natural-born instead of a designer baby) can't get into a number of jobs that are subject to genetic discrimination. The protagonist is an invalid who wants to be an astronaut and passes himself off as "valid" by borrowing genetic material from a "valid" person who is wheelchair-bound.
* As in the comics, the first ''[[Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger Captain America]]'' movie. In this case the viewers get a laundry list. His father died from mustard gas; his mother was a nurse in a tuberculosis ward and caught it. Displayed on the screen, he has: asthma (enough to get him 4-F'd by itself), scarlet fever, rheumatic fever, sinusitis, chronic or frequent colds, high blood pressure, heart palpitations, heart trouble, nervous trouble, a relative with diabetes or cancer, and is easily fatigued. And that's not even with accounting how small and skinny he is/was. However, these get cured from his dosage of superserum.
* Leonard in ''{{Film/Memento}}'' has lost his capacity for short-term memory and is repeatedly told by the other characters that his going on a quest to avenge his wife's murder is a fool's errand since, even if he does manage to succeed, he won't remember it anyway and thus won't derive any emotional closure from it. As the ending reveals, [[spoiler: it's even worse than that. He already DID avenge his wife, failed to receive the closure he wanted but kept on hunting anyway until he mistakenly killed someone completely unrelated to his wife's murder. The film ends with him starting his investigation all over again, with the strong implication that he'll kill at least one more person before he's finished.]]
* In-universe example: in ''Film/RemoWilliamsTheAdventureBegins'', Chun follows a soap opera where the high school football player loses one of his legs:
-->'''Boy:''' But, I was going to be All-American!
-->'''Doctor:''' Well, now you can be All-American for courage!
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* ''ASongOfIceAndFire''
** Bran Stark suffers from this in having dreamed about being a knight prior to being crippled.
** Gender roles are a running source of vexation for a number of female characters. Brienne of Tarth is constantly ridiculed for living the lifestyle of a knight. Asha has difficulty being taken seriously as a leader of the Ironmen for being a woman. Arya is always getting into trouble for being a tomboy and must practice fencing under the guise of "dancing lessons." Cersei repeatedly curses being born a woman, which prevents her from ruling in her own right.
** Jaime Lannister experiences this after [[spoiler:losing his sword hand while a prisoner of Vargo Hoat.]]
* In ''Literature/HowToBeASuperhero'', Captain Eagle breaks into an orphanage to find a kid whose parents were killed by a mugger and might want revenge on crime. One boy seems promising, until one of the other orphans points out "But you've only got one leg, Bobby-Ray!"
* Done backwards in ''The Scarlet Ibis'', where Doodle's brother has his dreams of a sibling he could run/play with dashed when his brother is born disabled.
* ''No Arms, No Cookies'' is supposedly an autobiography by a woman who had, well, parents who [[CardCarryingVillain supplied her with the book title]].
* In ''Literature/WarriorCats'' this happens twice:
** Jaypaw just wants to be a great warrior, and won't listen when other cats tell him that he can't because of his blindness. He does get the chance to train as a warrior apprentice, but when a patrol he's on gets into a fight and he's easily beaten by an enemy apprentice because he can't make sense of what's going on, he has to come to terms with the fact that he'll never be a warrior. He ends up becoming a medicine cat instead.
** Snowkit is born deaf. His mother refuses to accept that he won't be able to become a warrior, and even tries training him herself. Then Snowkit gets carried off by a hawk because he couldn't hear it coming.
* [[VorkosiganSaga Nikolai Vorsoisson]] dreams of being a military jumpship pilot. Miles knows, as Nikki does not, that Nikki carries a genetic defect that will render him unqualified for military service even if successfully treated. He tries to convince Nikki to become a commercial pilot instead, but [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Barrayar's military-mad culture]] would regard this as a significant step down.
** And of course, Miles himself managed to flunk out of Barrayar Military Academy's entrance exams due to his ultra-brittle bones, by breaking both his legs at the start of physical testing.
* The ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'' had Uldir Lochett, a boy who dreamed of becoming a Jedi Knight and tried to join Luke Skywalker's Jedi Academy, only to find that he wasn't Force Sensitive. Luke allowed him to learn a few fighting techniques and work at the Academy, but Uldir ultimately realized he wouldn't be able to be a Jedi and went home. He eventually became a BadassNormal hero.
* Played straight and subverted in the ''Literature/ElephantAndPiggie'' book "Can I Play Too?". Gerald and Piggie are playing catch and a snake optimistically asks to join them, only to finally concede he isn't physically capable of playing catch. Subverted when [[spoiler:Piggie has the idea to [[LoopholeAbuse throw the snake between herself and Gerald]], thus "playing catch" with him.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* An episode of ''{{Baywatch}}'' had a wannabe-lifeguard rejected because he wore contacts (and thus had bad eyesight). The plot ended with them changing that rule when the candidate pointed out the hypocrisy that once you passed the test you never had to retake it and that several of the older lifeguards may have once had perfect eyesight, but now wore contacts, but were considered perfectly capable lifeguards.
* ''Series/{{Lost}}''
** One of the first episodes reveals in a FlashbackTwist that Locke, who is a total {{Badass}} on the island, was once a delusional armchair explorer, totally oblivious to the fact that people in wheelchairs have trouble exploring. Getting stranded on the island has been a gift for him.
** In a much later episode, an alternate-time line Locke gets verbally slapped upside the head with this trope by Rose, the manager of an employment agency, and finally listens to reason.
* Parodied in ''Series/StrangersWithCandy'': a blind boy decides he wants to join the football team. He finally convinces everyone to let him play...and thirty seconds into the big game, gets tackled by practically the entire other team, sending him into a coma.
* In an episode of ''Series/GetSmart'', the evil guy's assistant can only grunt but wants to be a band singer.
* ''AmericanGladiators'': on one episode of the relaunch, they had a contestant with prosthetic legs compete. He was okay at the events that don't require much leg strength or agility, like Assault, but it was painful to watch him try to complete the Eliminator.
* When Richard Whiteley set an atrocious time on the ''TopGear'' test track, a blind fan wrote in to say he could do better. And then did.
* On ''OneTreeHill'', Lucas' dreams of playing in the NBA are crushed when he learns he has HCM, a heart condition that many young athletes die from. Similarly, Nathan's near-paralysis from a back injury in Season 5 threatens his own chances at the NBA. He gets better and gets to play with the NBA after all, but not without initial fears that further injury could leave him paralyzed for life.
* Lurch, the giant butler on ''Series/TheAddamsFamily'' television series, once revealed that his parents wanted him to be a jockey.
* A ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' skit concerned a family called The Psychos, which included a daughter who wanted to be the world's first blind ballerina.
** There was also [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurring_Saturday_Night_Live_characters_and_sketches_introduced_2001%E2%80%932002#Amber.2C_the_One-Legged_Hypoglycemic Amber]] (Amy Poehler), who usually failed in life due to having just one leg... and [[TheLadette a complete lack of manners]].
* An episode of ''Series/{{CHiPs}}'' involved the younger brother of a CHP officer who'd been killed in the line of duty. He started posing as a cop in his brother's old uniform. When caught by Ponch and Jon, he protested that he couldn't join the CHP himself because he was color blind.
* ''{{Scrubs}}'':
** Turk has a hard time finding the courage to tell a young concert pianist who has earned a scholarship to Julliard that he lost use of his right hand in surgery.
** The trope is parodied in another episode, where Eliot is taking on the incredibly unpleasant task of giving such bad news to patients simply so she can get some respect from Dr. Cox (she claims she enjoys helping people deal with such news, but it's really making her an emotional wreck). Cox tests her by asking her to tell a young woman who is a professional dancer and just had her legs amputated, that she cannot have her physical therapy (or recovery) in the hospital; as her medical insurance was through her husband, who just died. [[ExtremeDoormat She agrees, and asks what room the patient is in]]. He stares at her, and then admits that there is no such patient, and he made up the most depressing thing he could think of.
* ''[[Series/{{MASH}} M*A*S*H]]'':
** Charles saves a man's leg from amputation, but the man's hand is beyond repair and loses some flexibility. After the surgery, Charles learns his patient is a concert pianist. Fortunately, as a classical music aficionado, he manages to find copies of one-handed concertos that the man can play with just his left hand. The young musician points out that he's not going to have a career playing a handful (no pun intended) of gimmicky pieces from one composer, and Charles agrees that that's not likely -- what makes him a musician, however, isn't what's in his hands. Charles himself knows how to play, but he can't make music like this man can: he can write, he can teach, he can conduct, he can still make music the center of his life, even without playing.
** Other episodes dealt with a college football player whose career is [[IncrediblyLamePun sidelined]] by an amputated leg, and an infantryman whose face is disfigured and attempts suicide rather than go home and face his fiancee.
* ''Series/{{Glee}}'': Artie gets moments like this occasionally, for instance when he performs ''Safety Dance''. Subverted in season 2 when he is allowed to join the football team and becomes a "human battering ram."
* Used briefly in an episode of ''Franchise/{{Dragnet}}'' where Sgt. Friday explains to an applicant to the Police Department that he's too short and therefore could not effectively restrain an assailant.
* ''Franchise/StarTrek'':
** In an episode of ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}'', "Is There in Truth No Beauty?", viewers learn that a blind person is not allowed to pilot the Enterprise, even with the aid of assistive technology - the idea that she isn't a qualified pilot in the first place [[RightForTheWrongReasons seems to have slipped everyone's mind]]. The blind woman, an assistant to the [[BrownNote maddeningly ugly]] Medusan ambassador, also proves envious of Spock's ability to see the ambassador--even though doing so drives Spock insane.
** Of course, in the first season of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', a blind man is not only piloting the ship but a member of the main cast. Then again, Geordi's visor gives him better eyesight (in a technical sense) than any sighted person.
** By ''Voyager'', there is a tactile feedback console allowing a blind person to at least man a tactical station. ''Voyager'' hardly has the manpower to rotate people out, though, and they were in especially bad shape for that two-parter.
* ''Series/NoOrdinaryFamily'' seems to be trying to subvert this with the son's [[{{AppliedPhlebotinum}} super-smarts]] canceling out his learning disability. His teacher has a particular awkward moment where he repeatedly calls him too stupid to have passed a quiz without cheating. Although the jury is still out on whether using a power that reveals the answers to you is cheating.
* ''Series/FatherTed'': Played for laughs: when the theft of a whistle is pinned on Ted due to a misunderstanding with Dougal, Ted tries to justify stealing it by improvising a story about a boy who is paralyzed except for his eyes, and needs the whistle to achieve his lifelong dream of training horses.
* ''Series/KamenRiderKiva'': Wataru's best friend [[FunPersonified Kengo]], an aspiring rock guitarist, sustains [[GameBreakingInjury injuries that render him unable to play anymore]] in his attempt to be a [[VampireHunter Fangire Hunter]]. This, [[TraumaCongaLine among other things]], leads to Kengo [[TookALevelInBadass becoming a badass]] while [[TookALevelInJerkass treating everyone around him like crap]]. He gets better.
** A similar incident happened to [[CloudCuckoolander Kaidou]] in ''Series/KamenRiderFaiz'', although it takes place before the series. He's seen coming to terms with it, but it's implied that this is the reason for his {{Jerkass}} attitude.
* ''Series/GreysAnatomy'': A patient who was a gymnast loses her ability to walk.
** Burke ([[RecycledPlot and later]] Derek) injured his hand and was unable to perform surgeries. Burke was okay after physical therapy, but Derek was expected not to be able to do surgeries again, but after Callie did a bunch of surgeries, [[StatusQuoIsGod she fixed it.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
* [[http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=127681&songID=860041 "Frank's Not in the Band Anymore"]] by Worm Quartet describes a man who desperately tries to keep drumming despite loss of limbs.
** This actually got subverted by RealLife - Rick Allen, drummer for DefLeppard, lost an arm in a car crash, but continues to be the band's drummer to this day.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* One ''BloomCounty'' strip has the following exchange between Opus the Penguin and the strip's narrator:
-->'''Opus:''' "She said that all she needs from a boyfriend is 'Lips to kiss and a shoulder to cry on.'"
-->'''Narrator:''' "Aw, that's sweet."
-->'''Opus:''' "I'm short on both counts!"
** Also Opus in the book and animated special ''A Wish For Wings That Work''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Radio]]
* An episode of ''Radio/AdventuresInOdyssey'' has a boy who uses a wheelchair come into the class saying that his aspiration is to become captain of the football team. He didn't mean it seriously; partly he was being bitter about the wheelchair thing, and partly he was fed up with being made to introduce himself to his classes, as teachers often make you do when you're a new kid. Also, besides saying he wanted to be captain of the football team (or possibly soccer), he also said he wanted to break the school's high jump record. He managed to mortify just about everybody, including the teacher.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Stand Up Comedy]]
* At a Creator/RossNoble show, one of the tangents he went off down was about a StreetUrchin with rickets attempting to join Riverdance.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:TabletopGames]]
* ''{{Exalted}}'' has a few examples, given that the setting has hardwired rules about [[MagicAIsMagicA what certain Exalts can or cannot do]], and [[BeyondTheImpossible a steady subtext of, "...but feel free to ignore it if your players are sufficiently awesome."]] One of the more frightening examples, though, is Raksi. She's one of the most skilled Lunar sorcerers in all of Creation - but as a Lunar, she's inherently limited to the first two circles of sorcery, and not the top circle that's reserved for the Solar Exalted. But she's got her hands on a book that covers all three circles, and she's been spending centuries trying to find ''some way'' to unlock the third circle... no matter who she has to hurt to do it. Anyone who knows of her ambition devoutly hopes she never achieves it, considering that she's [[AxCrazy completely out of her]] mind.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theater]]
* The ''Theatre/BeyondTheFringe'' sketch "One Leg Too Few," about a one-legged man auditioning for the role of {{Tarzan}}.
* {{Deconstructed}} in [[Creator/MartinMcDonagh Martin McDonagh's]] ''The Cripple of Inishmaan''; the cripple is even named Billy.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* Bagon in {{Pokemon}} wants to fly, despite not having wings. However, this trope is only in effect until it finishes evolving, at which points it becomes a Salamence, an extremely fast, part-flying dragon.
** In the Sinnoh games, there is a guru who evaluates your Pokemon's friendship with you based on the way it walks and leaves footprints. He complains if you show him a Pokemon that doesn't have feet... and then does his best to give you a reading anyway.
* ''MakaiKingdom''
** Overlord Zetta confines himself into The Sacred Tome to avert the total destruction of his Netherworld. Anyone with sufficient Mana can write a wish in The Tome and it will become reality. Zetta has the Mana for it, but being a book, he no longer has arms to write with. Oops!
** Subverted by Babylon, who, when about to write, warns everyone not to ask about how he can write without hands. He should really get around to telling Zetta how he does it.
* The main character of ''{{Brass Restoration}}'' suffers from this after a train accident causes him to lose his arm, failing to become a professional drummer.
* Coach Oleander in ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}''. A memory vault flashback shows him denied entrance into multiple branches of the military due to his short stature.
* Averted in ''KatawaShoujo''. Shizune is deaf/mute, yet through an interpreter is a ruthlessly efficient class president ''and'' Student Council President, and Emi has no legs below her knees, but is the fastest and most dedicated runner on the track team. The best example is Rin, though; with merely atrophied stumps remaining of her arms, she is a gifted artist who through creative use of her feet and mouth can accomplish many everyday tasks.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* Subverted in ''Mr Square'', in which [[http://revfitz.com/msi184.html Mr Square gets a limbless dog]] that lives a perfectly happy life...except the also limbless Square is unable to open its food.
* [[http://www.qwantz.com/archive/000068.html T-rex's desire to play the piano, thwarted.]]
** "[[http://spamusement.com/index.php/comics/view/243 Stop Wasting Your Time]]"
* ''Webcomic/CyanideAndHappiness'', [[http://www.explosm.net/comics/727/ here.]] "I'm sorry, Joey. Your legs just don't work" was originally suspected of influencing the trope name.
* One of the basic concepts behind ''Webcomic/WarbotInAccounting'' is the titular character's [[TheWoobie tragic]] ([[BlackComedy yet hilarious]]) inability to perform many of the functions of daily life because he's a huge freaking robot with claws instead of hands.
* ''ThePigsEar'' does this multiple times in one arc - it's always one of these that keeps the Barkeep from hiring the applicant of the week until Gwen shows up. They include:
** A black double-amputee with hooks instead of hands, who tries to play the race card when Barkeep says it's just not going to work out.
** A gorgon who turns both Barkeep and the customers to stone.
*** Who has, yes, made a second appearance and calls him a racist for this grievance.
** A slime that Barkeep was completely sold on until he got sucked down the drain.
** And a giant the size of the pub itself. Who ''also'' tries to play the race card.
* Zigzagged in ''{{Homestuck}}'' with Tavros, the paraplegic troll. Early in his story he's almost unable to progress through the game, not because of the monsters but because Vriska [[KickTheDog deliberately built him a path made mostly of stairs.]] Made even worse because she's responsible for his state in the first place. He eventually manages to escape by [[SuperWheelChair upgrading his wheelchair with rocket boosters]] and becoming more or less a HandicappedBadass.
** He did dream of joining some sort of beast-riding lancer squadron, if he wasn't culled for defects first.
* A common trope in ''Webcomic/ZombieAndMummy''. There are a lot of things the eponymous characters just plain can't do, on account of them being decomposing undead, so they have to settle for something else.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner '': Li'l Brudder (pictured above), a character created by Strong Bad, can never be a quarterback when he grows up, because he's a one-legged puppy. His theme song calls him "king of the dregs", which, presumably, are Tenderfoot the two-legged elephant, a parrot who apparently lacks any limbs at all and has his lower half bandaged up, and a mole with a human nose instead of a face.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''WebVideo/SailorMoonAbridged'', PlayedForLaughs in Episode 13 & 14:
-->'''Peter Phile:''' "There a few ground rules! One: everybody must have legs."
-->'''[a bunch of girls]:''' "Yay / whoohoo / all right / yeah / etc!"
-->'''[one girl]:''' "Aww f['''[[SoundEffectBleep *honk!*]]''']k."

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': Kid in Iron Lung: "I'm gonna play baseball!"
* ''WesternAnimation/VeggieTales'' opening; note, all the characters are fruits or vegetables, none of them with hands, arms, or legs:
-->"Why don't you play the guitar?"
-->"Bob, I don't have any hands."
** Which works by RuleOfFunny as they can play instruments, as Larry does play the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgGYXwPWmLw guitar]].
** In an audio-only Christmas special, Larry brings along his friend [[MeaningfulName Manuel]] to play the maracas, because he's got hands. Listeners never find out ''what'' Manuel is, but Bob sounds very bitter about him having appendages.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', Lisa can't become a saxophone virtuoso because of her stubby fingers.
* In ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'', Francine vows to find out what happened when Stan and Roger went to Atlantic City. Klaus offers to help and she responds with "How can you help? You're a FISH!"
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', Bender's inability to taste has often been cited as a handicap to his aspirations as a chef, not that he lets that stop him from trying.
* This trope is often the entire premise behind ''WesternAnimation/TheOblongs''.
* In ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'', Hank Hill was rejected from the military because of his narrow urethra, which means it takes him over twenty minutes to urinate. This holds up the restroom and would leave him vulnerable in the field.
* Played for laughs in the first season finale of ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', when Cartman suspects Mr. Garrison of being his father, only for Garrison to point out that literally every man in the town has at some point had sex with Cartman's mother. A guy then pipes up and says that he hasn't slept with Mrs. Cartman, but Mr. Garrison says "You don't count, Halfie, you don't have any legs!"
* Although it may just be a case of StatusQuoIsGod, ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' strongly implies that Scootaloo has a disability that prevents her from flying. "Flight to the Finish" directly states that she should have learned to fly at her age, and earlier episodes have shown much younger Pegasi take to the air.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Supermodeling. You could be the most attractive person in the world but you must be above 5ft 8 ins. There are some exceptions, but most supermodels below 5ft 8ins are something else as well like an actor or singer. Also, you usually [[HollywoodPudgy can't be above a certain weight]].
* In some cases, sperm donation. Clinics receive so many requests for tall donors that men under 6 feet are turned away.
* Color-blindness is a showstopper for any professions in transportation. You cannot become a truck or bus driver, railroad engineer, airline pilot or a ship's master if you are color-blind.
* If you've got epilepsy, it really doesn't matter about your level of capabilities otherwise; you can automatically wave goodbye to a wide plethora of jobs. Anything that involves driving, then moving on up to police work, being a doctor, being a fireman... just about anything that, should you have a seizure on the job might put you or others in danger, is right out. And there are a ''lot'' of them.
* If you want to be in the Rockettes, you can't go being too ''tall'' either; dancers must be between 5ft 6in and 5ft 10in. In TheNineties, when a Las Vegas revue featuring the Rockettes was hosted by singer-actress Susan Anton (who's 5ft ''11in''), she lampshaded this with the interstitial song "Too Tall".
* To train at ballet school, (or at least it always used to be) young dancers have to fall within a certain height range (goes very low for girls, quite high for boys), as well as to maintain a certain build and body-weight (especially the girls, who also have to stay quite flat-breasted). Trouble is, most kids enter ballet training before they've reached full adult size and proportions, so a kid can sometimes get in only to fall into this trope later. Proportional measurements and X-rays help the panel make a guess at how much a kid is going to grow before they stop, but it's still a bit of a gamble.
* Even in amateur-level dancing, e.g. ballroom, things will be considerably easier if your partner is a good height match, otherwise you'll have to adjust your hold and step length, and probably won't be considered to look as good at it.
* The American military:
** They reject people for having certain disabilities, such as deafness. The ''very'' rare exceptions usually have some necessary or exceptional ability, such as the WWII Army soldier with a punctured eardrum. He'd grown up as part of a Japanese-American family and spoke the language fluently.
** Though not quite within the limits of the trope, there are a LOT of mental disorders that will completely bar you from service, no ifs ands or buts. Transgender people are also barred from service.
** The United States Air Force only trains pilots who stand between 5'4" and 6"5". Because they don't make fighter jets in more than one size. Fighter pilots also must have perfect vision without correction (glasses or contacts). (Flight officers, the ones who control the onboard weapon and navigation systems, can have corrective lenses, but their vision must be ''correctable'' to 20/20.)
** The Old Guard (3rd US Infantry Regiment) has a strict height range for those serving as honor guards at Arlington Cemetery (these are the ones you see at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and funeral duties).
** Previously, people with color blindness were highly sought after in the military. Most forms of human-constructed camouflage depend on color effects, which [[DisabilitySuperpower people without normal color vision can usually see through without difficulty]]. (Modern imaging systems and photography have largely eliminated the need for this, as it allows anyone to have abnormal color vision.)
* Romantic-era composer/performer Music/RobertSchumann did this to himself: he designed a machine to help extend the range of his right hand. Instead he damaged it forever, thus ending his public performance career (he continued with the compositions, though).
* Music/BlueManGroup requires its performers to be between 5'10" and 6'1" with an athletic build.
* Subverted by Jim Abbott, former MLB pitcher who was born without a right hand. To get around this, Abbott would rest a right-handed thrower's glove on the end of his right forearm. After releasing the ball, he would quickly slip his hand into the glove, usually in time to field any balls that a two-handed pitcher would be able to field. Then he would remove the glove by securing it between his right forearm and torso, slip his hand out of the glove, and remove the ball from the glove, usually in time to throw out the runner.
** In his final year, he played in the National League for the first time, which meant he had to hit occasionally. How'd he do? 2 singles, 3 runs batted in, and 3 sacrifice bunts. One handed. That's better than a lot of two-handed pitchers can do.
* Subverted by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Allen_%28drummer%29 Rick Allen]], drummer of DefLeppard, who lost his left arm, but continues to drum for the group using a combination of rapid armwork and a custom drum setup to let him play the snares with his left foot.
* Subverted by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Pistorius Oscar Pistorius]], who really doesn't have legs--and yet competed as a sprinter and relay runner in the 2012 Summer Olympics (among many other events for both able-bodied and disabled individuals).
* Subverted by Douglas Bader who lost both legs in a flying accident, was told he would never fly again, flew again, became an RAF ace, made 20 confirmed kills, was shot down over occupied France, escaped from POW camps several times, and was finally imprisoned in Colditz where he remained for the rest of the war (despite several further escape attempts, including taking off his prosthetic legs so that he could fit in a very small box). It's safe to say that his paraplegic condition hardly slowed him down at all.
* Worth mentioning is the whole catalogue of ambitions that are impossible because of certain physical limitations that may not medically speaking be defects. Want to have kids? Sorry Billy, but you're just one person. Want a tax break? Sorry again, but no one's going to marry you. Want to fly? Sorry, but you just don't have wings.
[[/folder]]

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** In his final year, he played in the National League for the first time, which meant he had to hit occasionally. How'd he do? 2 singles, 3 RBIs, and 3 sacrifice bunts. One handed. That's better than a lot of two-handed pitchers can do.

** Though not quite within the limits of the trope, there are a LOT of mental disorders that will completely bar you from service, no ifs ands or buts. This also includes being transgender.

** Of course, in the first season of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', a blind man is not only piloting the ship but a member of the main cast.

* Romantic-era composer/performer RobertSchumann did this to himself: he designed a machine to help extend the range of his right hand. Instead he damaged it forever, thus ending his public performance career (he continued with the compositions, though).

* Played for laughs in the first season finale of ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', when Cartman suspects Mr. Garrison of being his father, only for Garrison to point out that literally every man in the town has at some point had sex with Cartman's mother. A guy then pipes up and says that he hasn't slept with Mrs. Cartman, but Mr. Garrison says "You don't count, you don't have any legs!"

* Although it may just be a case of StatusQuoIsGod, ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' is strongly implying that Scootaloo has a disability that prevents her from flying. "Flight to the Finish" directly states that she should have learned to fly by now, and we've already seen much younger pegasi take to the air.

* In ''Literature/HowToBeASuperhero'', Captain Eagle breaks into an orphanage to find a kid who's parents were killed by a mugger and might want revenge on crime. One boy seems promising, until one of the other orphans points out "But you've only got one leg, Bobby-Ray!"

* In ''Film/FromRussiaWithLove'', Tatiana Romanova explains that she wanted to be a ballerina, but was rejected for being too tall.

** Previously, people with color blindness were highly sought after in the military. Most forms of human-constructed camouflage depend on color effects, which people without normal color vision can usually see through without difficulty. (Modern imaging systems and photography have largely eliminated the need for this, as it allows anyone to have abnormal color vision.)

* At a RossNoble show, one of the tangents he went off down was about a StreetUrchin with rickets attempting to join Riverdance.