History Main / DreamCrushingHandicap

** Bagon 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.

* Coach Oleander in ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}''. A memory vault flashback shows him denied entrance into multiple branches of the military due to his short stature.

* In ''ComicBook/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica'', Nate Heywood's dreams of becoming a football star were crushed when his kneecap was shattered and the injury became infected, necessitating the amputation of one of his legs. Even worse, it's mentioned his leg could've been saved had it been treated properly, and the amputation looks as though, as Dr. Mid-Nite puts it, it was done by a butcher. As luck would have it, an encounter with a supervillain later caused him to become covered in a living metal- the same process also restoring his lost leg- that allowed him to become the reluctant superhero Citizen Steel.
* ComicBook/DoctorStrange was once an amazing surgeon. Then, he got into an accident that badly mangled his hands, leaving him unable to hold a scalpel steadily. He traded the scalpel for learning magic and became the Sorcerer Supreme instead. It's notable that in most modern interpretations, the injury wasn't even that bad and didn't prevent Strange from returning to surgery, but he was such an egomaniac he wouldn't accept even the most minor loss of skill and sunk his entire fortune into trying to be completely healed. The reason he originally sought out the previous Sorcerer Supreme was in the hopes that magic could fix what science couldn't.

* ''{{ComicBook/Preacher}}'': While in the desert, Jesse runs into a guy who seems to be blowing up the ground at random. It turns out he dreamed of being an astronaut, joining the Air Force and faking paperwork so he could become one. He was kicked out about five seconds later [[DidntThinkThisThrough as he was about two heads shorter than all the other candidates]], and ever since has been carving out a giant "FUCK YOU" visible from space (and listens in on the astronauts' conversation when they see it). Notable is the man still insists he would have been a fine pilot because of his dedication and desire, not grasping the simple truth he was physically unfit to go into space.

* One pre-Popeye ''ComicStrip/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''.

* Agnes from ''Literature/{{Run}}'' is blind. In her parents eyes, this means that she won't ever be successful on her own. Agnes' dream, of course, is simply to get out of town and away from her family.

** 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.

** There are many stories involving Scootaloo discovering that there is no realistic hope of her ever flying normally, and having to cope with that (many of them having been published while the show was still leaving it ambiguous whether there was anything medically wrong with her wings, or whether she was just having trouble learning to fly). The Scootaloo group of Website/FimfictionDotNet has an [[https://www.fimfiction.net/group/473/folder/4724/grounded entire folder]] specifically for stories of that nature.

* In ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' a [[MonsterOfTheWeek freak of the week]], Justin, is a talented young artist who was a victim of a hit-and-run that horribly maimed his hands, which meant he can no longer use them to draw. He goes on a murderous rampage following his recovery after spontaneously developing telekinesis.

Read more at: https://transcripts.foreverdreaming.org/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=4723

-->-- '''Creator/QuentinTarantino''' to '''Creator/AlfredHitchcock''', ''WebVideo/EpicRapBattlesOfHistory''[[note]]Tarantino's only half-right here. Hitchcock was initially rejected for being too young when UsefulNotes/WorldWarI broke out in 1914, and by the time he was old enough to serve, his obesity prevented him from serving on the front lines. The UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships relegated him to administrative work instead of turning him away outright.[[/note]]

* Defied by Jennifer Bricker, who fell in love with gymnastics despite being born without legs. She couldn't compete in artistic gymnastics (the most popular form in the United States and the one that first inspired her) due to her disability, but became a champion power tumbler, a discipline that allows for wider variation than artistic gymnastics, and later went on to a successful career as an aerialist and acrobat.

** Though not quite within the limits of the trope, there are a LOT of psychiatric and neurological disorders that will disqualify you from service, no ifs, ands or buts.

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

* ''Series/{{House}}'': In "[[Recap/HouseS4E02TheRightStuff The Right Stuff]]", a patient who was in training to become an astronaut defies this trope by seeking medical treatment off the books so her health history won't get her disqualified for space flight.

* ''Series/{{House}}'': In "[[Recap/HouseS4E02TheRightStuff The Right Stuff]]", a patient who was in training to become an astronaut pleads with the doctors to conceal her diagnosis so her health history won't get her disqualified for space flight.

* ''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-timeline 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.

* ''Series/AmericanGladiators'': On one episode of the relaunch, they have a contestant with prosthetic legs compete. He is okay at the events that don't require much leg strength or agility, like Assault, but it is painful to watch him try to complete the Eliminator.
* When Richard Whiteley set an atrocious time on the ''Series/TopGear'' test track, a blind fan wrote in to say he could do better. And then did.
* ''Series/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}}'' involves 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.
* ''Series/{{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}}'':
** 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 [[{{Pun}} sidelined]] by an amputated leg, and an infantryman whose face is disfigured and attempts suicide rather than go home and face his fiancee.

* 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.
* In ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' a [[MonsterOfTheWeek freak of the week]], Justin, is a talented young artist who was a victim of a hit-and-run that horribly maimed his hands, which meant he can no longer use them to draw. He goes on a murderous rampage following his recovery after spontaneously developing telekinesis.
-->''Justin'': But that didn't replace what I'd lost. Because nothing could ever do that.
Read more at: https://transcripts.foreverdreaming.org/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=4723
* ''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, the assistive technology that Geordi uses is considerably more sophisticated than what was available in the original, so the rule may well have changed in response to those technological advances.
** By ''Voyager'', there is an option to switch a console to tactile feedback, allowing a blind person to at least man a tactical station. However, ''Voyager'' hardly has the manpower to rotate people out (they were in especially bad shape for that two-parter) and also has a lot of technical innovations made by the crew over the course of the series, so it's unclear if this is standard Starfleet technology or something that the ''Voyager'' crew rigged up out of necessity after [[spoiler:Tuvok was blinded]].
* ''Series/NoOrdinaryFamily'' seems to be trying to avert 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/KamenRider555'', 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.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', Lisa can't become a saxophone virtuoso because of her stubby fingers. NegativeContinuity takes care of this issue, but she's been stymied from becoming famous as a jazz player in other occasions.

* 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 (one episode sees him receive training from an experienced chef who speculates that Bender's lack of taste would allow him to concentrate on the essence of pure flavour). This is not to say he's a bad ''cook'', having made an elaborate cake among other things, but he's terrible when it comes to improvisation.

* 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. His dreams of professional football were also dashed when he snapped his ankle during a critical play in a State Championship game.

** Subverted in "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS4E22TestingTesting123 Testing Testing 1, 2, 3]]". Rainbow Dash needs to pass a history exam to get into the Wonderbolts Reserves (which will eventually let her achieve her lifelong dream of becoming an actual Wonderbolt). She enlists Twilight Sparkle's aid in studying for said exam, but finds that she has major trouble with learning through traditional classroom techniques. Her other friends propose alternate learning methods, but none of them work. Right as her situation seems hopeless, Twilight comes up with a complete new method, one based on Rainbow's HyperAwareness while flying. It works, and Rainbow gets a perfect score on her exam.
* PlayedForDrama in ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse''--in season three, [[BigFun Amethyst]] learns that she has the Gem equivalent to a birth defect, and that she is actually supposed to be as tall and muscular as [[TheBrute Jasper]]. While initially believing that [[ThisIsSomethingHesGotToDoHimself she has to defeat Jasper alone]] to prove herself, she gets repeatedly {{Curb Stomp}}ed, and [[AllLovingHero Steven]] eventually convinces her that they actually need to work together and beat her with ThePowerOfFriendship.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheDragonPrince'' Callum wants to be a mage, but refuses to learn [[BlackMagic Dark Magic]], and as a human lacks connection to any primal arcanum, making him incapable of casting spells without an external power source. [[spoiler: Subverted when he succeeds in creating a connection to the storm arcanum quite quickly when he refuses to accept this limitation in the second season. With the introduction of Aaravos, an elf who can use all six forms of primal magic instead of just one, it seems the idea one must be born with the connection is simply a false belief that stops most people from trying.]]

* Averted in ''VisualNovel/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.

-->-- '''Creator/QuentinTarantino''' to '''Creator/AlfredHitchcock''', ''WebVideo/EpicRapBattlesOfHistory''[[note]]Tarantino's only half right here. Hitchcock was initially rejected for being too young when UsefulNotes/WorldWarI broke out in 1914, and by the time he was old enough to serve, his obesity prevented him from serving on the front lines. The UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships relegated him to administrative work instead of turning him away outright.[[/note]]

** 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.

** 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 narrator of ''Fanfic/EquestriaAHistoryRevealed'' had a mother who told her she could be anything and a paternal example and cutie mark which convinced her she was destined for great things. She applied to Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. As she's an earth pony with a tested IQ of 79, she got back a form letter noting a student would have to be "both gifted and a unicorn". (The "gifted" part seems to have been much more offensive; it's unclear how many of her later notable prejudices, including racial bigotry against unicorns, were already present in her home life.)

* In ''Film/{{Armageddon}}'', Dan Truman, the head of [=NASA=] and the one who recruits Harry Stamper to drill on the Asteroid, makes it clear that he would have loved to have gone up to space at some point, but the fact that he wears leg braces, probably since childhood, prohibited him from even applying to the astronaut program.

** Though not quite within the limits of the trope, there are a LOT of psychchiatric and neurological disorders that will disqualify you from service, no ifs, ands or buts.

** Though not quite within the limits of the trope, there are a LOT of mental disorders that will disqualify you from service, no ifs, ands or buts.