History Main / ThrowingOffTheDisability

* Subverted in the Izaya Orihara spin-off of ''LightNovel/{{Durarara}}''. Due to sustained injuries after [[spoiler:his final fight with Shizuo, Izaya's arms are weak and using his legs causes him pain, so for the most part, he is confined to a wheelchair]]. As it turns out, these are psychosomatic injuries and if he took therapy, he could move around how he used to. [[spoiler:Izaya refuses therapy and claims that it is his 'punishment'. However, it is implied PTSD is the cause behind this decision]].

* ''Series/GetSmart'': Played for laughs: Art thief Leadside (in his eponymous episode, spoofing ''Series/{{Ironside}}'') has a unique disability: he can't walk, but he can run.

* ''Series/Accused2023'': {{Discussed}}, with the notion {{played for drama}} in "Ava's Story". Ava, who's deaf, finds out that the baby she gave birth to as a surrogate is deaf too, while the baby's father wants her deafness cured with a cochlear implant (partially as he wants her to experience music like him, but also general ableism). She's strongly opposed to this, along with her husband KJ, as the implants can work badly, there's nothing so bad in being deaf, and it also affects deaf children with hearing parents poorly knowing they view them as "lesser". Ava kidnaps little Lucy as a result to prevent this, along with the other pain she experienced as a deaf child growing up with a hearing parent who didn't understand her.

* ''Series/Accused2023'': {{Discussed}}, with the notion {{played for drama}} in "Ava's story. Ava, who's deaf, finds out that the baby she gave birth to as a surrogate is deaf too, while the baby's father wants her deafness cured with a cochlear implant (partially as he wants her to experience music like him, but also general ableism). She's strongly opposed to this, along with her husband KJ, as the implants can work badly, there's nothing so bad in being deaf, and it also affects deaf children with hearing parents poorly knowing they view them as "lesser". Ava kidnaps little Lucy as a result to prevent this, along with the other pain she experienced as a deaf child growing up with a hearing parent who didn't understand her.

* Occurs in Hanna-Barbera's ''Heidi's Song'', when Clara gets out of her in order to defend her pet kitten against a Hawk.

** Aquaman, along with other prominent [[ApparentlyHumanMerfolk Atlantean residents]] such as Mera, originally could only stay on dry land for an hour before growing weak and imperiled. Somewhere around Sub Diego, this was hand waved to him actually being able to survive on land but prefer remaining submerged according to a conversation with Martian Manhunter. Later, Mera is seen on land all through Blackest Night as she fights off the titular ZombieApocalypse, and at the beginning of Brightest Day, enjoying a blissful reprieve with a newly revived Aquaman at the Curry Lighthouse. As if to set the latter into status quo, the post-Flashpoint canon officially states that Aquaman is fully amphibious as a HalfHumanHybrid who grew up living on land, as are Atlantean/other aquatic nobility including Mera.

* ''Fanfic/ADiplomaticVisit'': In chapter 2 of the second sequel, ''Diplomacy Through Schooling'', [[spoiler: Tempest's horn is restored to its full length thanks to Discord. However, it's portrayed somewhat realistically in that she still needs training to learn how to use magic normally again, as she immediately displays the inability to lift so much as an eating utensil with her telekinesis. Celestia promptly offers to personally give her that training, which Tempest accepts.]]

* Happens twice in ''Film/{{Limelight}}'' - first dramatically, then played for laughs. After having failed at suicide by sleeping pills and gas, the female lead believes she has become paralyzed and cannot move her legs anymore. Halfway through the movie, during a RousingSpeech to the male lead, she suddenly notices that she can walk again. Later, during one of her ballet performances, she feels paralyzed, not able to go on with the show. Her love interest is unimpressed and slaps her in the face which immediately sends her out of her paralysis.

* ''Film/{{Humoresque}}'': Leon the concert violinist spends months despondent, a cripple unable to play his violin due to his arm being damaged in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. When Gina fakes a suicide with pills, Leon snaps out of it, picking her up with both arms and carrying her to a couch. Afterwards, he can play the violin again. Justified, sort of, when a doctor says Leon can break through the scar tissue in his shoulder with an act of will.

* In ''Curtain'' by Agatha Christie, Hercule Poirot is in a wheelchair for the entirety of the book. At the end, it is revealed that [[spoiler:he did not require the wheelchair and used it to dispose the body of the book's murderer, Norton.]]

* ''Literature/NjalsSaga'': During the lawsuit against the Burners of Njál and his household, Njál's foster-son Thórhall Ásgrimsson must stay in his booth because he suffers from a large and painful boil on his foot, which forces him to limp and to walk only with a cane. After an intense legal battle the Burners finally exploit the fact that [[OffOnATechnicality the jury which passed verdict contained more than the allowed number of judges to declare the entire suit invalid]] at the last moment. When Thórhall hears this, he is so furious that he jumps up from his bed, grabs a spear, and drives it through the boil on his foot so that blood and pus pour out "like a brook"; then rushes to the law court without his cane and without limping and "so fast that the messenger could not keep pace with him", and kills the first man of the Burners' party he meets.

* ''Literature/TheEpicOfSundiata'': For the majority of his childhood, Sundiata was unable to walk. After his father dies and Dankaran takes the throne, Sundiata miraculously gains the ability to walk, and becomes a mighty hunter and warrior.

** During Season 1, Mr. Bates is shown having a bad leg from the Boer War. Bates has to rely on a cane and has issues with Downton's stairs. Yet in later seasons, Bates injury turns into a 'subtle limp' with Bates cane being written out with no explanation.

** The hero, Aoi Minase, had to retire from competitive cycling due to a GameBreakingInjury and returned to his hometown. In one route, he uses his bike to catch up to a car over the course of 30 kilometers and suffers no lasting ill effects from the exhertion.

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Fillmore}}'' included a computer game reviewer who was in a wheelchair with both her legs in casts. When Fillmore and Ingrid try to bring her in for questioning about a stolen game system, she flees in the chair - then, when the chair gets stuck on uneven ground, she opens the casts, gets up, and attempts to run away. After being caught and questioned, she haughtily points out, "I never said I couldn't walk. I just prefer not to waste the excess energy." Fillmore is unimpressed: "You let people believe you were ''seriously injured''. You don't just fake a double leg-break!"

** One episode taking place during the winter has Joe crash his sled and suddenly regain the ability to walk... and during his celebratory dance his son Kevin accidentally knocks Joe onto his neck with a sled, crippling him again.

* ''Series/SevenDays'': Wheelchair-bound Dr. Ballard is given a chip that allows him to walk again. Unfortunately, said chip contains an alien consciousness that makes him homicidal, forcing Parker to back-step to prevent him from receiving the implant, leaving him in the wheelchair.

* 'Series/DowntonAbbey''

* In ''Series/{{The Flash|2014}}'', Barry ends up doing this a few times:

* A Type 4 case occurs in the ''Series/WonderWoman'' episode ''Anschluss '77''. Fritz Gerlich regrows a leg he lost before the Second World War thanks to the same cellular replication technology later used in the episode to clone Hitler.

* On ''Series/DowntonAbbey'', Matthew is told he'll never walk again after a bomb blast in the WWI trenches. A few episodes later, he starts feeling tingles but is told it's just psychosomatic. He finally bolts up out of his wheelchair to grab Lavinia when she falls. This is treated somewhat realistically, for a number of reasons:
** The 1915 medical technology wasn't sensitive enough to detect his chances of recovery.
** The doctor is revealed to have known there was a small chance but didn't want to give false hope, which is consistent with his depiction as medically conservative.
** Matthew sits down again immediately and has to undergo a long recovery, using a cane for most of the remainder of the series.

* ''Literature/NjalsSaga'': During the lawsuit against the Burners of Njál and his household, Njál's foster-son Thórhall Ásgrimsson must stay in his booth because he suffers from a large and painful boil on his foot, which forces him to limp and to walk only with a cane. After an intense legal battle the Burners finally exploit the fact that [[OffOnATechnicality the jury which passed verdict contained more than the allowed number of judges to declare the entire suit invalid]] at the last moment. When Thórhall hears this, he is so furious that he jumps up from his bed, grabs a spear, and drives it through the boil on his foot so that blood and pus pour out "like a brook"; then rushes to the law court without his cane and without limping and "so fast that that messenger could not keep pace with him", and kills the first man of the Burners' party he meets.

* Website/FimfictionDotNet has an entire folder dedicated to stories involving Scootaloo [[https://www.fimfiction.net/group/473/folder/4723/taking-flight gaining the ability to fly.]] Some of them involve [[Main/ArtificialLimbs prosthetic wings]] or other assistive technology, but most of them have her flying naturally (or at least working towards that goal with the implication that she has at least a significant chance of eventually achieving it), more in line with the spirit of this trope. Justified in that it was never explicitly established in-universe that Scootaloo was not expected to ever be able to fly.[[note]]"Growing Up is Hard to Do" and "The Last Problem" showed her adult body with child-size wings, but even that is up for interpretation as Bulk Biceps can fly despite having much smaller wings on a much larger frame. Even the [[Main/WordOfGod social media post]] confirming the [[https://derpicdn.net/img/2019/10/1/2157535/full.png obvious intent]] behind her adult form stated "But fans are welcome to interpret things how they like." Presumably that translates into "We know you all are comparing her to Bulk Biceps, but we can't think of a decent explanation as to why he can fly and she can't".[[/note]]

* [[IllGirl Hayate]] after ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAs''. In her case, it's a combination of versions 2 and 4, with her paralysis being due to the ArtifactOfDoom draining her life, and even after they got rid of the magical source, it still required several years of medical treatment and physical therapy before she was able to walk.

* ''Webcomic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'' parodies the ''ComicBook/IncredibleHulk'' example above. One of the doctor's old college friends has a Hulk-type power, which is the result of his totally-not-Stephen-Hawking father's experiments to try to cure his own paralysis. His father will involuntarily hulk out too if he gets angry enough. He gets big, muscly, and purple, and falls out of his wheelchair since he's still paralyzed.

* In the ''ComicBook/IncredibleHulk'', Bruce Banner gets ALS and is eventually cured by Reed Richards using a complex procedure involving DNA samples taken from Brian Banner's corpse and infused into his damaged genetic structure by Ant-Man, the Hulk's transformation back into Banner infusing the new DNA into his system and healing his disease. (The issue ends with Banner BreakingTheFourthWall, saying it's Just A Story and there's no real cure for ALS, encouraging people to donate to the research to Find A Cure.)

** One episode taking place during the winter has Joe crash his sled and suddenly regain the ability to walk... and during his celebratory dance his son Kevin accidentally knocks Joe over with a sled and Joe is crippled again.

* In the final arc of the seventh part of ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'', main character Johnny Joestar regains his walking, which he had lost after being shot in the spine. A large part of his character before this moment consisted in him re-learning to ride a horse without the use of his legs.

* Subverted in the Izaya Orihara spin-off of ''LightNovel/{{Durarara}}''. Due to sustained injuries after [[spoiler:his final fight with Shizuo, Izaya's arms are weak and using his legs causes him pain, so for the most part he is confined to a wheelchair]]. As it turns out, these are psychosomatic injuries and if he took therapy, he could move around how he used to. [[spoiler:Izaya refuses therapy and claims that it is his 'punishment'. However, it is implied PTSD is the cause behind this decision]].

** When Bruce Banner was in control of the Hulk during the original ''Comicbook/SecretWars1984'' he got his leg broken by Ultron. He was put into a brace by his friends, and returned to Earth he was still wearing it. When the Savage Hulk persona [[StatusQuoIsGod eventually reasserted itself]] the first thing it did was throw away the crutch Banner had been using, and tear off the brace, and then proceed [[HesBack to total the Abomination as easily as he always had]].

* In DC's ComicBook/{{New 52}} reboot, Barbara Gordon returned to the role of ComicBook/{{Batgirl| 2011}} after decades as the paraplegic ComicBook/{{Oracle}}. In-universe it's been {{retconned}} that she was only paralyzed for three years (of ComicBookTime), and she and her family found some "miracle" doctors in Africa who healed her via a surgical implant that allowed her to walk. The cavalier glossing over of the lengthy recovery process that this would logically require did ''not'' please the fanbase, and [[AuthorsSavingThrow it was hastily revealed]] that she hasn't thrown off the psychological effects, getting nasty flashbacks every time she sees a wheelchair ramp and dealing with a good deal of SurvivorGuilt. Several stories have also featured the implant getting damaged, temporarily leaving Barbara unable to walk like before. The Heroes In Crisis crossover also revealed that she attends a type of superhero therapy for the psychological scars.

* ''Fanfic/AllAssortedAnimorphsAUs'': Deconstructed in "What if James, not David, became the seventh Animorph?". Morphing allows James to get his legs back, which makes him feel more frustrated that the world isn't adapted for wheelchair-users.

* In ''Film/FrankensteinAndTheMonsterFromHell'', Sarah--who has been mute since a childhood trauma--regains her voice when she sees Simon being attacked by the monster.

* In the ''Literature/{{Hurog}}'', duology, [[spoiler:Ciarra]] eventually gains the [[spoiler:ability to talk.]] Justified in that castle Hurog is a very unhealthy place to live in, as it is PoweredByAForsakenChild and EvilStainedTheCarpet. Once she's away from there, she gets better. It was probably psychosomagic.

* ''Literature/NjalsSaga'': During the lawsuit against the Burners of Njál and his household, Njál's foster-son Thórhall Ásgrimsson must stay in his booth because he suffers from a large and painful boil on his foot, which forces him to limp and to walk only with a cane. After an intense legal battle the Burners finally exploit the fact that [[OffOnATechnicality the jury which passed verdict contained more than the allowed number of judges to declare the entire suit invalid]] at the last moment. When Thórhall hears this, he is so furious that he jumps up from his bed, grabs a spear and drives it through the boil on his foot so that blood and pus pours out "like a brook"; then rushes to the law court without his cane and without limping and "so fast that that messenger could not keep pace with him", and kills the first man of the Burners' party he meets.
* In ''Literature/FracturedStars'', most kids who show signs of autism are normally taken in for normalization surgery. [=McCall=] and her older sister [=McKenzie=] were spared because their maternal grandmother was forcibly given brainwashing surgery that caused her to go insane and eventually commit suicide when their mom was ten, giving her a lifelong fear of hospitals and the empire. [=McKenzie=] eventually got the surgery voluntarily as a adult. [=McCall=] never did.

* In ''Series/{{Arrow}}'', Felicity Smoak was a particularly egregious example of this. She was said to be "permanently" crippled after an assassination attempt, accepting the fact that she would be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. However the resident genius on Team Arrow invents a device enabling her to walk again, enabling her to dramatically get up from her wheelchair several episodes later to emphasize that she was in fact literally walking out of Oliver Queen's life.

** In season 4, Cisco manages to bring Barry back form the Speed Force. Unfortunately, he CameBackWrong and starts speaking in gibberish and drawing unknown symbols on the walls. Iris deliberately gives herself as a hostage to the MonsterOfTheWeek, knowing that, no matter what, Barry will always come for her. He does, even managing to break out of the Pipeline on his own, a feat no one else has managed to do. CameBackStrong again.

* An interesting case happens in ''Series/{{Star Trek|DeepSpaceNine}}'' with [[spoiler: Julian Bashir. When he was a child he apparently had a learning disability and allegedly had trouble telling a cat from a tree when other children were learning how to read. This lead to his parents [[BioAugmentation genetically engineering him.]]]]

** Peggy had to go through this when her muscles had atrophied after being released from her body-cast due to a skydiving accident. In this case, she chose to forgo normal physical therapy for Cotton's method, where he purposefully got her angry in order to provoke a response. It was still a long and involved process, though.
** "[[Recap/KingOfTheHillS13E1DiaBillIcShock Dia-Bill-Ic Shock]]": Bill is diagnosed with diabetes, and later ends up hospitalized for a sugar spike after bingeing on a box of cookies. [[DoctorJerk His jerkass of a doctor]] assumes that there is no hope of Bill making any meaningful changes to his lifestyle, and tells him that he will eventually lose his legs to gangrene and that he may as well get himself a wheelchair now. Misinterpreting the doctor's angry ranting, Bill acquires a wheelchair and starts using it despite there being nothing wrong with his legs. Bill is at first depressed over his situation, but then learns to enjoy life again after he meets a wheelchair athlete (who calls himself Thunder) and his rugby team. While getting drunk at a bar with his new friends, Bill subconsciously gets up from his wheelchair without realizing it, and is accused of faking his condition. He tests his blood sugar in an attempt to prove that he has an actual medical condition, but it comes up normal. In desperation, Bill starts eating handfuls of sugar in hopes of bringing back his diabetes, rendering himself disabled for real, and restoring his relationship with Thunder. Hank and Thunder show up and explain that Bill had cured himself of his diabetes with his recent upper-body workout regimen -- that he could be legitimately inspiring without having to be InspirationallyDisadvantaged. Bill celebrates by visiting his doctor and proceeding to give him TheReasonYouSuckSpeech before kicking his ass behind closed doors.

* Increasingly becoming TruthInTelevision as new medical procedures restore hearing to the deaf or vision to the blind. Indeed, cochlear implants have become so prevalent that deaf communities are dying out in the United States for lack of new members.

* A modern sequel to ''Literature/AChristmasCarol'' called ''Mr Timothy'' posits that this eventually happens to Tiny Tim; better nutrition and medical care after Mr Scrooge got some much-needed attitude adjustment have reduced his disability to a barely noticeable limp and twinges in his knee if he has to walk long distances, and he describes with some relish the day when he broke his old crutch up for firewood. It doesn't really come up much for the rest of the book, which has very little to do with its predecessor, except when his bad leg picks the most inconvenient (or rather dramatic) possible moment to start acting up.

* In ''Transylvania 6-5000'', the hunchbacked butler gradually stands up straight while delivering a speech about [[AllOfTheOtherReindeer the indignities he and his family have suffered]]. His wife and son then stand straight as well, revealing that they'd only been stooping because that's what everyone expects of servants in a spooky Transylvanian castle.

* ''Literature/NjalsSaga'': In the lawsuit against the Burners of Njál and his household at the Althing, Njál's kinsmen and friends rely on the legal expertise of Njál's foster-son Thórhall Ásgrimsson. Thórhall however suffers from a large and painful boil on his foot, on account of which he limps and walks with a cane, and stays in his booth during the proceedings while communicating with his friends at the law court via messengers. Eyjólf, the legal adviser to the Burners, obstructs the proceedings with his arsenal of legal tricks, but Thórhall can counter most of them until an error made by Mord Valgardsson enables Eyjólf to declare the entire suit invalid at the last moment ([[OffOnATechnicality because the jury did not contain the correct number of judges]]). When Thórhall hears this, he is "so shocked that he could not speak a single word", rises from his bed, grabs his spear and drives it through the boil on his foot so that blood and pus pours out "like a brook"; then leaves the booth without his cane, walks to the law court without limping and so quickly that the messenger cannot keep up with him, and runs the first man of the Burners' party he meets through with his spear. A battle ensues in which the Burners are routed.

* ''Literature/NjalsSaga'': In the lawsuit against the Burners of Njál and his household at the Althing, Njál's kinsmen and friends rely on the legal expertise of Njál's foster-son Thórhall Ásgrimsson. Thórhall however suffers from a large and painful boil on his foot, on account of which he limps and walks with a cane, and stays in his booth during the proceedings while communicating with his friends at the law court via messengers. Eyjólf, the legal adviser to the Burners, obstructs the proceedings with his arsenal of legal tricks, but Thórhall can counter most of them until an error made by Mord Valgardsson enables Eyjólf to declare the entire suit invalid at the last moment ([[OffOnATechnicality because the jury did not contain the correct number of judges]]). When Thórhall hears this, he does not speak at all, but rises from his bed, grabs his spear and drives it through the boil on his foot so that blood and pus pours out "like a brook"; then leaves the booth without his cane, walks to the law court without limping and so quickly that the messenger cannot keep up with him, and runs the first man of the Burners' party he meets through with his spear. A battle ensues in which the Burners are routed.

* ''Literature/NjalsSaga'': In the lawsuit against the Burners of Njal and his household at the Althing, Njal's kinsmen and friends rely on the legal expertise of Njal's foster-son Thórhall Ásgrimsson. Thórhall however suffers from a large and painful boil on his foot, on account of which he limps and walks with a cane, and stays in his booth during the proceedings while communicating with his friends at the law court via messengers. Eyjolf, the legal adviser to the Burners, obstructs the proceedings with his arsenal of legal tricks, but Thórhall can counter most of them until an error made by Mord Valgardsson enables Eyjolf to declare the entire suit invalid at the last moment ([[OffOnATechnicality because the jury did not contain the correct number of judges]]). When Thórhall hears this, he does not speak at all, but rises from his bed, grabs his spear and drives it through the boil on his foot so that blood and pus pours out "like a brook"; then leaves the booth without his cane, walks to the law court without limping and so quickly that the messenger cannot keep up with him, and runs the first man of the Burners' party he meets through with his spear. A battle ensues in which the Burners are routed.

* Some of the [[AdaptationOverdosed many]] adaptations of ''Literature/AChristmasCarol'', most notably the [[Film/Scrooge1951 Alistair Sim]] and [[Film/AChristmasCarol1984 George C. Scott]] versions, end with an epilogue depicting Christmas a year or two after Scrooge's redemption, and show a healthy Tiny Tim without his crutch, running to greet his "second father" Scrooge. The original book never says if Tim was able to give up his crutch or not, only that he didn't die.