An article I wrote about disability and accessibility in the Spider-Man 2 game

Here’s something I wrote for the Mary Sue about Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. I go into detail about Harry’s arc in the game!

“Disabled man is jealous of his non-disabled friend” is a trope I could have done without and that’s definitely the weakest part of the game’s story in my opinion. However, it is understandable that someone in a situation like Harry’s would feel a lot of resentment. He’s dying, after all! There’s one scene where we note all the pills that are temporarily keeping him alive, and then the black-suited symbiote-corrupted Peter makes a snide remark to Harry about them. As someone who also takes a lot of pills, that hit close to home. Peter’s complete lack of compassion there (even if he’s not really exactly “Peter” at that point in time) is unfortunately quite representative of the attitude some people have toward medication in real life.

2 thoughts on “An article I wrote about disability and accessibility in the Spider-Man 2 game”

  1. I’ve often wondered about the portrayal of sickness and disability in Spider-Man particularly so I found this very interesting. I also take two forms of SSRIs, I hadn’t made the link between them and the pills that Harry and Kraven take in game for their illnesses – but come to think of it I do feel embarrassed to take them in front of others.

    It is very interesting in game to see how protective and coddling pretty much all the characters are about Harry. Not sure if I was reading too much into it but he seemed irritated by it quite a lot.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Yeah I’ve been thinking a lot about my own pills recently so I wanted to get something about that down.

      That is a very good point about the coddling! You can definitely see how a young man like Harry would get extremely frustrated at that.

      Like

Leave a comment