#why The Murderbot Diaries is ableist - now with science!!!

[rjalker]

Instances of Martha Wells differentiating between "humans" and "augmented humans" and the statistics of why it's done, in books 1-6, and both short stories.

[Plain text: "Instances of Martha Wells differentiating between "humans" and "augmented" humans and the percentages of why it's done in books 1-6, and both short stories.". End plain text.]

There's two pie charts now, one excluding only the instance where the word "Augmented" was used in the phrase "alien-augmented", which is not relevant, and one that excludes instances of Murderbot talking about impersonating an augmented human, which is also not relevant to the issue.

Here's the post that lists out all the instances.

If you're mad about me analyzing these books I like even when it's of Martha Wells doing bigoted shit instead of me just pretending everything is fine, go watch a Marvel movie instead. Or go watch Dora the Explora if you don't want to think about the media you consume in any way.

Chart 1, excluding only the instance of "alien-augmented", including all other instances of the word "augmented" from books 1-6, including both short stories, which did not mention the word at all.

Yes, this did take several hours of my life and I did it for free. You're welcome!

No I'm not going to type out yet another essay about why this is ableist as fuck on this post. go find my other ones. or practice your critical thinking skills.

[ID: An orange, blue, and red pie graph, titled, "Instances of Martha Wells differentiating between Humans and cyborgs (augmented humans) in books 1-6, because..."

The smallest section at 19.4% is orange, and reads, "Murderbot is impersonating a cyborg". This happens 31 times.

The second smallest section, at 24.4%, is blue, and reads, "The information is actually relevant to the situation". This happens 39 times.

The largest section, at 56.3%, is red, and reads, "She's literally just automatically excluding cyborgs, who are disabled people, from the category of human as a matter of course. This is never questioned or commented upon. You are not allowed to forget that cyborgs are not considered humans.". This happens 90 times.

End ID.]

[ID: A red and blue pie chart, titled, "Martha Wells differentiating between humans and cyborgs (augmented humans), excluding instances of Murderbot mentioning impersonating a cyborg, because..."

The smaller section, at 30.2% is blue, and reads, "The information is actually relevant to the situation.". This happens 39 times.

The larger section, at 69.8%, is red, and reads, "She's literally just decided to exclude cyborgs, AKA disabled people, from the category of human. This is not done to question the dehumanization of disabled people. It is not part of the plot at all. You are not supposed to question it. She just saw that it was a popular trope in scifi and decided to adopt it without actually using it the way it's intended -- to show that it's wrong. We're just supposed to accept that cyborgs (disabled people!) aren't human, without question or comment". This happens 90 times.

End ID.]

anyways. It is in fact your responsibility to criticize bigotry, even in series you enjoy.

Martha Wells saw scifi authors having it be part of the plot that cyborgs are seen as subhuman, and decided that was a cool idea, without actually understanding why the trope exists and what it's used for. She is not trying to question the idea that disabled people are less than human, she just thinks it's pretty set dressing that doesn't need to be questioned or confronted or explored.

This is ableism, and shitty, lazy writing, plain and simple.

If you do not want to confront bigotry through your stories, then don't fucking put bigotry in your stories! It's not fucking difficult! Do not just pick fucking tropes from dystopian novels like they're fucking decorations and then not actually put in the effort to confront their existence.

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Obligatory signature to ward off bigoted cowards and jackasses who are terrified and infuriated by the idea of admitting a thing they like isn't absolute perfection incarnate:

[ID: A blue banner with a black outline, and white text that reads, "Error-06210311-150606: I'm not interested in in-universe explanations you just pulled out of your ass to defend bigotry on the part of the real life author that you didn't even notice until I pointed it out to you." End ID.]

and don't even get me started on the way she demonized drug addicts and people who can't feel pain.

[rjalker]

ah. remembered the post I meant to make earlier. so here it is.

PSA: When I talk about the dehumanization of disabled people in The Murderbot Diaries, I am absolutely not referring to Murderbot or any of the other robots. I'm talking about the disabled humans, who are cyborgs, who in this setting are called augmented humans because Martha Wells insisted on make up new words for everything and confusing everyone.

Yes, Murderbot is disabled. No, it being clearly autistic, depressed, and otherwise mentally ill while not being human is not the problem. Nonhumans existing is not the same as being dehumanized. That is not what is being discussed here.

This post is about the dehumanization of disabled humans in The Murderbot Diaries, in comparison to the book series Martha Wells was inspired to write TMBD by, The Imperial Radch series, by Ann Leckie.

"Radchaai law does not consider disabled people to be human" is a judgement upon the Literal Evil Empire and its fascism and systemic ableism and dehumanization of its victims.

It's literally there to show you that the empire is evil. That's why we are told that the Radchaai do not consider disabled people to be human, with one of them insulting Breq, and her thinking to herself something vaguely along the lines of, "she didn't know I was an ancillary, but she was assuming that I had cybernetic implants for disabilities, and for some people, that was enough to classify me as not being human"

Martha Wells seeing this and going, in The Murderbot Diaries, "Oh, so disabled people should just be casually considered a separate group from humans, and this doesn't need to be criticized or scrutinized in any way? I should not present this information to my audience in a way that makes them question it at all? It should just be a fun fact about my setting that no one besides disabled people will even think twice about?"

Is just an absolute failure on so many levels it's not even funny.

Not only did she miss the entire point The Imperial Radch series is shoving in your face, that ableism is bad, and dehumanizing people is bad, and that dehumanizing disabled people is outright fascist, she's just. Straight up being ableist now by dehumanizing disabled people all of her own free will.

Martha Wells does this a lot with a lot of things in The Murderbot Diaries that she's trying to mimic from The Imperial Radch series, but the problem is she doesn't understand the original purpose at all. The dehumanization of disabled people in science fiction and dystopian stories in general is supposed to be a fucking literary tool to criticize ableism and to criticize the dehumanization that disabled people face. It's there to show how corrupt and evil the system is.

But like with many of the things Martha Wells has latched onto from The Imperial Radch, she doesn't understand why the tool was being used in the first place. And she clearly didn't care to understand, either, because understanding that the Literal Evil Empire dehumanizing disabled people is meant to show that dehumanizing disabled people is bad is not a difficult concept to grasp.

The fact that she's chosen to just go "Yeah, disabled people are not human." like it's a basic fact, and you're not meant to think about this or question it in any way, along with her other ableism in The Murderbot Diaries, is just inexcusable.

Like, here's a tip for you, writers: If you don't understand why an author chose to do something, don't just try to copy it into your own story without thinking it through. Think long and hard about what your favorite author is doing and think about why they're doing it and what it means, before you try to mimic them.

And this does not begin and end with the dehumanization of disabled people in The Murderbot Diaries, Martha Wells lifted an frankly absurd amount of things from The Imperial Radch series, but failed the execution with every single one of them.

The ableism is just the most obnoxious of all of them, and it becomes a million times more obnoxious after you learn she was inspired to write these books after reading The Imperial Radch series, where disabled characters, both physically disabled and neurodivergent, are always treated with dignity and respect.

Martha Wells is happy to write neurodivergent characters, but I can't think of a single physically disabled character in any of her books who's not just disabled due to being elderly. Even Malachite, who's covered head to toe in scars, isn't disabled. Her scars may as well just be fucking tattoos, they're literally just to show how badass she is.

I've said it before and I'll keep saying it until she gets better at writing. Martha Wells refuses to let her characters lose, and she considers being physically disabled to be a kind of losing, so until she stops being ableist towards phyically disabled people, none of her protagonists will be physically disabled, and physically disabled people will continue to be literally dehumanized in The Murderbot Diaries like it's no big deal.