I'm glad to finally have an answer, because this has been bugging me since he showed up.
I suspect the writers meant for it to be paraplegia, but I will never write it that way because it's so implausible. I've wondered whether Teo's disability isn't congenital; the Mechanist says he sustained injuries, but not that those injuries were related to his current wheelchair use. That said, if we assume he does have an acquired disability, Teo fits very well with Toph and Azula: we have disability acquired by accident, congenital disability and disability that simply happened by itself. (Similarly, we have mobility, cognitive and sensory disabilities represented, which work as broad categories, even though they're not perfect.) In fact, for a canon with so few disabled characters (especially considering the war going on), the show is remarkably good at hitting all the bases. There's disability that just is; there's blatant ableist oppression; and there's disability that contributes to the downfall of the PWD. And yet, somehow, I still want Teo's to be congenital and break the pattern. :(
If it is injuries, though, I think his knees are affected. Maybe it's the flat open spaces where he lives and the lack of tiny corridors where he might get stuck trying to turn around (which is probably great for Teo, as a wheelchair user), but his legs are very straight when he's in his chair, relative to what people usually do in real life. Knees are also a delicate and important part of the legs.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2013-03-19 11:45 pm (UTC)I suspect the writers meant for it to be paraplegia, but I will never write it that way because it's so implausible. I've wondered whether Teo's disability isn't congenital; the Mechanist says he sustained injuries, but not that those injuries were related to his current wheelchair use. That said, if we assume he does have an acquired disability, Teo fits very well with Toph and Azula: we have disability acquired by accident, congenital disability and disability that simply happened by itself. (Similarly, we have mobility, cognitive and sensory disabilities represented, which work as broad categories, even though they're not perfect.) In fact, for a canon with so few disabled characters (especially considering the war going on), the show is remarkably good at hitting all the bases. There's disability that just is; there's blatant ableist oppression; and there's disability that contributes to the downfall of the PWD. And yet, somehow, I still want Teo's to be congenital and break the pattern. :(
If it is injuries, though, I think his knees are affected. Maybe it's the flat open spaces where he lives and the lack of tiny corridors where he might get stuck trying to turn around (which is probably great for Teo, as a wheelchair user), but his legs are very straight when he's in his chair, relative to what people usually do in real life. Knees are also a delicate and important part of the legs.