History Main / DisabilitySuperpower

* Toph from ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender''. She's a great Earthbender, both because of natural talent and because she's blind: She learned how to use earthbending to sense her surroundings by registering vibrations in earth from the giant badgermoles she played with when she was young. She's so skilled with it that she can even act as a LivingLieDetector by monitoring their pulse like a polygraph. It does have some obvious limations, however: she can't see if she's not on solid ground (like sand or in the water) and can't see anything in the air. Plus she can't see certain details, like being unable to read or see pictures. Her power is so effective it [[RunningGag frequently]] makes her friends forget she's blind.

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Starfinder}}, a third of the [[WolfMan vlaka]] species are deaf and another third are blind. Both overcompensate by training their sense of smell; blind vlakas additionally train their hearing to ComicBook/{{Daredevil}} levels.

* Master Po (and to a lesser extent Serenity Johnson) from ''Series/KungFu''.

* Mr. Fujisawa in ''Anime/ElHazardTheMagnificentWorld'' has Superman levels of overall physical ability but his powers only work only when he's sober. Considering the character is a raging drunk, he considers this a grave disability, but he's willing to endure being sober as the situation demands.
** It is eventually revealed in the second OVA of the 1st continuity that he becomes even more powerful when he doesn't smoke as well. His full power level is reached in a SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome when, finally fully free of the effects of either liquor and/or cigarettes for the first time since arriving in Rostaria, he singlehandedly defeats the entire Bugrom army, even after they have already combined into a Godzilla-size superbugrom.

** Also, this trope was inverted in ''A Maiden's Grave'' by JeffryDeaver, in a scene where the villain gets the drop on a deaf character by turning out the lights.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Spore}}'' it is entirely possible to create something with no eyes. Funnily enough, this only barely effects your ability to actually see (the top third of the screen is blacked out and the rest is monochrome) and gives you a few extra evolution points to boot.

* ''VideoGame/GuiltyGear'' has Bedman, an IllBoy who is stuck in a nigh-perpetual coma and as such he remains bedridden all the time... so, what's the catch? Well, while asleep he has the ability [[DreamWeaver to enter and leave the world of his dreams at will]], letting him both summon nightmarish creatures from them or [[MindRape take his enemies into nightmarish worlds of his own creation to get rid of them]]. The fact that the bed he's confined to also doubles as a MiniMecha doesn't hurt.

** Blinding a player character still confers drawbacks, but even a character who's been blinded ''and'' deafened can still pinpoint enemies with Perception checks if their skill is high enough. I guess they smell them.

* Animater Creator/RobertMcKimson was in a near-fatal car accident in 1931. Afterward, he found he could visualize things far better, and was able to animate over 100,000 frames of animation each day. He would produce for everyone at Termite Terrace, but eventually was overwhelmed, and would later become the head animater for Creator/BobClampett's unit.

* [[Comicbook/{{Batgirl 2000}} Cassandra Cain]] was raised in a modified language deprivation experiment, the intent being for her brain to orient itself to interpreting body movement as a first language. As a result she's functionally illiterate and barely able to communicate verbally. However, as a trade-off, she's able to accurately predict the thought process of an opponent based on subtle body language and predict their strategies and individual moves before they make them.
* Barbara Gordon had some skill with criminology and computers when she was Batgirl, but [[ComicBook/TheKillingJoke when the Joker put her in a wheelchair]] [[ComicBook/BirdsOfPrey she focused on her detective and computer skills and became the world's foremost hacker/information gatherer.]] Somewhat justified in that, not being Batgirl anymore, she had more time to focus and plenty of motivation.

* ComicBook/{{Cyborg}} of the ''Comicbook/TeenTitans'' had all his limbs and half his face burned off in a lab accident, and [[WeCanRebuildHim replaced]] with aesthetically unpleasing yet superhuman prosthetics.

** In the ''[[ComicBook/TheTransformers Transformers]]'' comics from Creator/{{Marvel|Comics}}, there was a perfect example of this in Circuit Breaker. Josie Beller, with all but one hand paralyzed after becoming collateral damage from marauding giant robots, used that hand to build herself an outer skinsuit with electronics that could transmit the neural signals her own nervous system could no longer carry. Oh, and it also let her fly and barbecue Transformers as an act of revenge, on top of it. And looks very much like a [[MostCommonSuperPower quite revealing]] [[{{Stripperiffic}} tinfoil bikini]] as well.

[[folder:Fanfiction]]
* In ''FanFic/TheTaintedGrimoire'', there is Auggie, who was born blind, but through experimenting, is capable of seeing Mist, no matter how small the concentration. It doesn't fully substitute for proper sight though.

* People with certain types of strabismus can see two different things at once.

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Starfinder}}, a third of the [[WolfMan vlaka]] species are deaf and another third are blind. Both overcompensate by training their sense of smell; blind vlakas additionally overcompensate with keen ears.

* A minor one in ''VideoGame/MetroidFusion'' with Samus who has had nearly all of her armored suit surgically removed to save her from an [[TheVirus X-Parasite infection]]. She's lost all her powers and takes ''ludicrous'' amounts of damage from minor attacks now, but since her power suit is so light now she's able to catch ledges and pull herself up ''without'' the Power Grip ability.

** [[SnakePeople Cassiopeia]] is a rather deliberate [[InvokedTrope invoking]] of this on a mechanical sense: being half-snake below the waist, she has a passive condition where she gains movement speed per level, but she cannot buy boots (an otherwise ''mandatory'' series of items for other champions as their source of movespeed). This means she's strictly reliant on her level curve for speed and cannot gain any second benefits of upgraded boots, but [[MagikarpPower by the late game]], she gets to move as fast as other champions ''with'' upgraded boots, ''and'' not having to reserve an item slot for boots allows her to build ''six'' full items instead of the five of everyone else in the game, making her terrifyingly powerful. This dynamic is especially noticeable since the game is overwise [[GameplayAndStorySegregation fairly lax with disabilities and their relation to mechanics]] (Lee Sin can still be "blinded", legless characters like [[OurMermaidsAreDifferent Nami]] and [[TentacledTerror Vel'Koz]] can still buy boots, etc.).

* In ''Thunderpants'', Patrick has the disability of excessive farting. It is later discovered however that this can be used to power a rocket into space because his twin stomachs resemble the rocket's engine.

* In ''Literature/{{Bounders}}'', the titular DesignerBabies have been engineered to have conditions such as autism and ADHD that mean their brains don't filter out as much information as usual, making them better able to use the bounding gloves. Mira Matheson, a nonverbal autistic girl who is so disabled that Jasper wonders why she was allowed into the program, turns out to be far better at using the gloves than anyone else in Jasper's pod.

* The title character in ''The Boy Who Could Fly'' uses the Power of Autism to... well, the title says it all. ''Really.''

* The title character of the children's picture book series ''Toto the Ninja Cat'' by Dermot O'Leary and Nick East is a nearly-blind cat who becomes a ninja, in part thanks to her other senses being enhanced.

[[/folder]]

** ''TabletopGame/MutantsAndMasterminds'' notes the trend and devotes a paragraph to explaining that, for example, if a character takes Blindness as a flaw and Tremorsense as a super-ability, they shouldn't get any points for the Blindness flaw since it's covered, only possibly a Hero Point for a Complication should their Tremorsense get removed or nullified. Common sense, really...
*** A concept introduced in ''Champions: The Super Roleplaying Game'' (aka the TabletopGame/HeroSystem) two decades before M & M came into existence. The rules for Disadvantages note that you can't get any points for a disadvantage that is directly negated by a special ability (gamemaster judgment calls may be required -- for instance, sonar vision doesn't truly "negate" blindness because you can't read, see colors, etc.).
*** M&M actually makes it a minor flaw, rather than no flaw. You still get a bonus for it, but it's only one character point - which affords, approximately, jack shit. This is because with blindness and tremorsense you can't legally drive, for example. Deafness and telepathy will let you have communications, but if you're attacked by a robot in a dark room you're hosed. That kind of thing.

** TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}: Supers notes that you can give Blindness and Microscopic Vision to a hero who can ''only'' see tiny nearby things, playing this straighter.