my general opinion with any sort of turning back into your old self trope is i prefer when its not a complete reversal or something like that. some part of what changed before lingers with them. maybe some traits linger with them. maybe its unstable, they still revert back. like at the very least i appreciate the visual that that experience stuck with the character, but i especially dont like when its a cop out for curing a disability. i understand wanting them happy! wanting them to get better! you can do that without completely erasing whats happened to them, because realistically it never gets erased
sorry for the late response, i had a full beautiful day of having a full beautiful day :( and i'm about to have even more full beautiful days
i agree with your opinion. something i've taken to heart when it comes to physical or psychic injury is that the body always remembers. it's about habits and patterns and trauma, all. trauma is more than just something that happens to you: it has burrs, it sticks to your brain and your nerves and your bones and your skin. removing it is not so simple; it leaves hooks and indents and holes. it does not make anyone any less; it is simply the impaction site of what had collided with you, evidence of your changes.
(and also sometimes people are just born disabled)
to be less poetic: to pretend that something never happened, or that something never was, for the sake of achieving an idealized happiness--i think that's cruel. even if you take away what was seen as a disability, there is still that physical/psychic impaction site. just because something never gets erased doesn't mean it's a bad thing, just that they lived one life and they are now living a new one with the context of their previous lives.
with spamton, a lot of what he's dealing with disability-wise goes hand in hand with years of trauma i think. and, i think that may be why curing his disabilities and scrubbing him of those markers of/from trauma is so popular: it's the hope of healing that psychic pain away. this misconstrued idea of taking away what hurt them so they never hurt again; of kissing the frog and turning him into a prince.
i have trauma and mental illnesses up the wazoo, and the graph of my mental health journey looks like one of those giant rubber band balls. have you all considered that maybe the prince got used to being a frog for so long. he has to relearn how to walk, to talk, to eat, to think even. you were once so big, then so small, then so big again, maybe even bigger than you were last time. can you blame me if i want to go back to the swamp, because i got used to the life i had back when i was the previous version of me? can you blame me if things taste different, if i start moving in new ways, if i must accommodate my new me in a way most unfamiliar? i am no longer the frog nor the prince before that frog. mental health journeys are full of backslides and hops forward and strolling sideways.
i keep going on tangents here. you're right for this. i really like situations like sophie from howl's moving castle, and other transformative characters and situations where they're in flux between one state and the other. it feels more accurate to my life. to those physically disabled, i'm not sure how they themselves feel about those kinds of characters and tropes. werewolves are badass though and i think most can agree on that.
