This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Describe Ill Girl Discussion here.
H. Torrance Griffin: I am wondering if Toph's treatment by her Parents in Avatar The Last Airbender counts as a subversion. She is confined to the manor grounds and treated like an invalid despite the fact that the only things wrong with her are her eyes... so she sneaks out to compete in (and handily win) earthbending tournaments against grown men.
Unknown Troper: How about Fantine, from the book [[Les Miserables]]? Her disease is not particularly vague (she can't get through a sentence without coughing horribly, the narration tells us, yet she manages to utter soliloquys on a fairly regular basis... Incurable Cough of Death?) but Jean Valjean certainly does go to rather extreme lengths to 'heal' her by bringing Cosette to her. As a matter of fact, this could be a subversion of the meekly dying, beautiful and innocent child of books of that time, as Fantine's physical appearance is described as rather grotesque... missing her teeth, hair fallen out, her face wrinkled, and her actual death borders on violence. She seems, in the book, pretty confident about her chances of survival to see her daughter again, but not so in the musical, where she is much more clearly dying, as taken by her song about how "another day is dying" and "the winter wind is crying." Yes, in short, the book is a near-subversion of this trope, complete with Incurable Cough of Death, whereas the musical plays the Ill Girl completely straight.
bluepenguin: Removed:
- Claes from Gunslinger Girl can hardly even touch a pistol due to her constant sickness, which is drop-dead blasphemy given the context of the series.
- Actually, Claes is capable of handling a weapon. It is because she has no partner that she is used for study rather than being sent on missions
Basically for the reason given in the Justifying Edit, there. My memory of the series is kind of fuzzy, though, so if she really was an Ill Girl someone else can add her back in.
Jim: I don't suppose President Roslin, from Battlestar Galactica, would count here? She's in her thirties, but she's suffering from a wasting disease (breast cancer), copes with it bravely, is gonna die yet hopes to live long enough to see her people to safety somehow, etc?
Sara: You think we have enough male examples in here for them to get their own Ill Boy page?
Nobodymuch: It is true that Guillain-Barré syndrome has no cure, but in more than half of the cases, the patient will in fact eventually recover on their own.
Sam Curt: Given the amount of male examples in this page, can it still be categorized under Always Female...?
Xequth: Re: The Catcher in the Rye example. Is this a valid example? I always thought his coughing was supposed to be psycho-symptomatic. I'd just delete it but I have no idea whether it's true or not.
Hit-and-Run: Well, I've read the book twice and the TB was news to me, that's all I can say.
Can we capitalize the name differently? it currently reads like "3 girl"...
