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10:36am August 30, 2014

viola-roadkill:

I was rereading my old Katy books today and cracking up over that rivers game she and Clover play near the beginning.  Pisses me off so much that Coolidge made her so boring after the accident.  Surely she could have kept her sense of mischief as well as learning to be kind and patient??  What happened to her wild imagination, love of adventure and habit of picking up friends in all places (including an incarcerated thief lol) basically it’s a personality wipe.  Not to mention a good dose of the Saintly Cripple although at least she’s not as bad as bloody Cousin Helen, Mary Sue of the century.  I still love the books but Coolidge really screwed up her character development.  YOUR MAIN CHARACTER CAN CONQUER HER FLAWS WITHOUT TURNING INTO A CARDBOARD SAINT WHOSE WILDEST EXPLOIT IS STARTING AN ANTI-FLIRTING CLUB ok

What amazed me about the whole School Of Pain thing (smooth your forehead out with your fingers so nobody sees you’re in pain, my ass… seriously?) was that nothing has changed.  As in, that whole passage could have been in a modern book and it would not have been out of place at all.  Our attitudes to disability are literally Victorian in many ways.

For those unaware, we’re talking about a series of books called What Katy Did, written in the Victorian era for children.  And there’s this section where the main character becomes disabled, and she doesn’t get out of bed and lies in the dark because the light hurts her eyes and stuff.  So her dad makes her permanently-disabled cousin Helen come over and teach her how to be a “good invalid”.  That section is really, really hard to read, knowing that people still buy into the same ideas that made that section of the book possible.  It’s all about how as an invalid she should make her entire life be for other people, and not show anyone she’s in pain because that just makes people uncomfortable, and do everything for other people and nothing for herself, and not ever feel bad about being disabled even if she’s in severe pain, and etc. etc. etc. it’s just really awful.  

The books are available for free online, and if you do a search for “school of pain” or something along those lines you can find that section, if you want to see it in all its horrible glory.