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The Law, The Witch, and The Wheelchair: Applying the Social Model of Disability to Witch Hat Atelier
🕑 Added 2024-11-17 04:54:17 +0000 UTCAuthor: AJ Mack
Editor: Alex Henderson
Content Warning: This article contains discussion of ableism and disability discrimination
Note: This article contains Spoilers for Witch Hat Atelier (up to Volume 13)
Witch Hat Atelier by Kamome Shirahama has been widely praised for its representation of disabled and chronically ill people, including a group that the fantasy genre often leaves out or treats with cliches. Disability is highly visible in this cast of characters and accessibility equipment has been carefully folded into the worldbuilding, from enchanted eyeglasses to magical mobility aids that carry their users around on goat legs. However, the world of Witch Hat is by no means a utopia, and Shirahama’s narrative goes to great lengths to explore the ways in which disabled characters are excluded and further disadvantaged by factors such as social class, wealth, sexuality, or being otherwise marginalised—reflecting real world issues even in the context of a magical secondary setting.
The series applies the social model of disability, a theory that people are only disabled by the society in which they live. For example, wheelchair users are only disabled when buildings do not have access such as ramps, working lifts, and accessible toilets. The social model of disability proposes that the barriers disabled people face are only created by those in power, and by the socio-cultural attitudes of those around them. This also means that class and wealth play a significant role in people’s experience with disability and illness. For example, the survival rates of Hodgkins Lymphoma (a form of cancer) with treatment are 90%, without treatment it is only 6%. This means that whilst a person in the US is likely to survive and go into remission, a person in Sierra Leone—one of the most impoverished nations on earth, where people have to travel over 4500 miles (more than triple the distance between New York and LA) to get treatment—is likely to die.
The interrelationship between health and social class is a key theme in Witch Hat Atelier. The main source of conflict in the series is over the upholding of the firm rules of magic laid down following a great conflict, when magic was used to harm more than it was to help. This led to magical knowledge being passed down only to a select few families. At the beginning of the series, protagonist Coco assumes like most people that magic is something that’s inherited, only to discover the true secret of magic: that it can be performed by anyone so long as they have the right pen and ink. Magic is kept from the so-called common folk by this myth. By emphasizing that anyone can use magic, but access to this knowledge is limited by a person’s social status, a central theme about class and wealth is present from the very first chapter.
It is also illegal to use magic on the human body, even if it's to heal that person. Furthermore, witches are forbidden from learning even basic first aid—with the punishment for such apparent hubris being the only magic that is allowed on the human body: having their mind wiped of all knowledge of the life they led before. Those who actively oppose these bans are known as Brimmed Hats, whereas those in power who uphold the status quo are Pointed Hats. The entire story begins with the leader of the Brimmed Hats giving Coco a children’s picture book that tricks her into casting a spell that turns her mother to stone, thus marking them as the villains of this work. As the series progresses, though, Coco and her friends begin to question the status quo of Pointed Hat society, complicating the binary that the Pointed Hats are always good and the Brimmed Hats are always bad.
The oppressive power structure of Pointed Hat society is shown very early on. A person’s place in this society is entirely structured around their ability to perform magic. An inability to do so turns a person into a social outcast, viewed as only a burden to all those around them. Even so, all witches, regardless of ability, are still barred from going into non-magic based fields of work because that would mean interacting too closely with non-witches. These people are stuck in limbo, forced by Pointed Hat society to never truly belong anywhere.
Often, this inability to cast magic is due to a disability. For example, Tartah has a condition called “Silverwash” where he can see the world only in black and white and therefore cannot use coloured inks; and Euni has severe anxiety that means he can't cast his spells as fast or as accurately as required by the Pointed Hat education system. Both Tartah and Euni are written off as “useless” by members of witch society, including, in Euni’s case, the tutor who should be taking care of him and helping prepare him for his magic exams. This tutor is portrayed as annoying and antagonistic and reprimanded for his attitude by other characters, like Coco’s more open-minded mentor Qifrey, but it’s clear that the tutor’s views are in line with the education system generally even if his teaching methods are scolded.
Non-witches are also heavily impacted by the way magic is prized above all else. One of the most prominent disabled characters is Custas, who is introduced in Volume 2, when Qifrey’s atelier is summoned to aid in a bridge collapse. Custas is a young travelling performer around the same age as Coco, who was trapped inside a caravan that fell into the fast moving river below. Whilst the adults are able to rescue everyone from the initial danger, Custas still feels as though he needs to rescue the cargo they have since they cannot afford to replace it. When attempting to save it, though, the cliff gives way beneath him and he gets crushed by the debris. Although he is rescued by Coco thanks to her new spell, the fall permanently paralyses him from the waist down.
When we see him again in Volume 8, he seems to be the same happy-go-lucky kid trying his best to adapt to his life as a seal chair user. Seal chairs are Shirahama’s magical interpretation of wheelchairs, where the normal legs of a chair are replaced with carved wooden goat legs that can walk around automatically. This creative design has been widely celebrated by fans as they show the same whimsical design sensibility as the rest of the series, allowing for accessibility equipment to fit seamlessly into the fantasy narrative.
Despite his initial feigned positivity, Custas’ struggles as a chair user are a key part of his narrative, and are informed by his place in society. He cannot travel on the cobblestone paths that connect the world. He struggles with climbing even the smallest of slopes. If his chair breaks for whatever reason, then he is completely stuck because only a witch can repair it. He is angry and resentful about all of this, and often turns his anger towards those trying to help him. Yet Custas understands and apologises because it is not his witch friends’ fault that they cannot help him, or that they cannot use magic to heal him. This attitude, of course, is used by Shirahama to show how much Pointed Hat society often hurts more people than it helps. It is important to note though, that Custas is not angry about being disabled, but rather angry that his already lowered social status has fallen even lower still.
Unlike Tartah and Coco, Custas has not had the comfort and security of a stable upbringing. Whilst both characters can relate to Custas via their own personal struggles (and the series doesn’t try to turn it into a contest over whose suffering is worst), Custas’ pain is made more impactful due to his almost complete lack of any social privilege. Whilst Coco has also lost her parents and suffered because of the denial of magical knowledge, she grew up without having to know what it was to be hungry. She always had a roof over her head and an easy source of income. Tartah was the same, and whilst his own disability prevents him from fully participating in witch society, he still has the support of his grandfather and the reassurance that his ability to carve means that he does have a way to make his own secure income in the future. Meanwhile, Custas was abandoned as a child, and left to fend for himself in the literal gutter. He was helped out of this squalor with the help of Dagda, who taught him music and cared for him like a father should. He made his meagre living as a dancer, and so the loss of his legs has an even greater impact on his mental health and his ability to participate in society. He does not see having to use a chair as a positive experience at all.
Yet Custas is not the first chair user we’re introduced to. Whilst Custas’ journey as a chair user begins in Volume 8, in Volume 6 we are introduced to Lord Beldaruit: one of the leaders of Pointed Hat society, known as “The Wise Ones.” Whilst Custas’ chair is a simple dining chair, Beldaruit has an ornate armchair with elegant legs. We see his chair easily leap over obstacles, climb up and down stairs with no issue, and generally allow him to travel around the realm as well as any of the other witches. He can even transform it so that it can carry him upright to make charging off even faster and easier. Whilst it is clear he is still disabled, suffering from chronic fatigue and flare ups that make him unable to leave bed—suffering from bedsores as a result—his position as a “Wise One” enables him to have access to a wide range of tools that aid him, including things such as an ergonomic writing desk he can use from bed, and emergency healthcare from the most skilled physicians available.
Meanwhile, Custas does not have access to these same tools, and his position as a disabled person in society is much more precarious. In real life, mobility aids are also often completely priced out for disabled people. A basic wheelchair costs around £100, but these chairs are usually poorly made, liable to break, and can’t handle even slightly uneven ground like drain covers or cracked paving. There are definitely chairs that are better suited for these things, the technology is available! But these chairs can cost anywhere from £2,000 to £10,000. A person may even find they need different aids for different purposes. A chair with thick, rugged tires will work well off-road, but be difficult to use over carpet. Naturally, a person who has a lot of wealth and power can afford to have all these tools at their disposal, but a person from a lower economic background finds it far more difficult to function in an ableist society, being more reliant on government benefits, and charity. This real-world disparity is reflected in the contrast between Custas and Beldaruit. It is not that Beldaruit as a chair user is from a less ableist society, but rather that his ability to use magic, his financial assets, and social influence means that he is faced with fewer barriers.
Even Custas’ basic chair is so expensive that he’s attacked by bandits so they can steal it. Even when Coco and Tartah make him a new mobility aid that literally allows him to fly, he undergoes even more suffering when thieves kill his surrogate father in an attempt to take it from him. Equally, whilst Beldaruit was able to continue to pursue his chosen profession with his disability, as a dancer, Custas must begin everything again from scratch. This is an experience many newly disabled people have, myself included. It is incredibly frustrating having to think of new ways to adapt to your disability, with it often feeling like a disability is taking things away from you rather than providing you with a new, different life. The ongoing cycle of rage and sorrow and excitement for the new is perfectly encapsulated in Shirahama’s work.
It is no wonder then, that when a Brimmed Hat appears and promises to graft aids directly onto Custas’ body to make it easier for him to move about, and also to save Dagda’s life, Custas accepts the offer. With the Brimmed Hats, Custas sees a chance to finally pull himself and his family out of poverty, and gain the same respect in the world that folks show to the Pointed Hats.
A common ableist trope in media is when a disabled person becomes an antagonist because, for example, they would rather commit mass murder in order to turn into a Pokémon, than be disabled. Witch Hat toes the line with this trope, with many characters having their villain origins stories stemming from disability and chronic illness. Where the series differs, though, is that it is not self hate that motivates these people, but rather a hatred for the society they live in that withholds aid and knowledge that could be used to help them. While he aligns with the series’ antagonists, Custas is a deeply sympathetic character. His still-ongoing arc highlights the disparities and injustices in the setting while still treating him with empathy and as a character in his own right. Most disabled people in real life would also agree that having to deal with the Disability Benefits System is their own personal villain origin story. If you hear of any grizzly government murders in London, know that it has absolutely nothing to do with my upcoming benefits review.
While Custas’ situation shows how wealth and class impacts access to healthcare, Witch Hat also explores how other social factors such as sexuality play a role too. In the Witch Hat universe, the draconian laws are upheld by The Knights Moralis. Galga is a member of this magical police force, and shares their “memory wipe first, ask questions never” attitude. He is also in a relationship with another man, Atwert. When he has his own memory wiped by a Brimmed Hat, he is found by his boyfriend but has absolutely no memory of his life before that moment. When he is taken to the Knights Camp for healing, they inform Atwert that they cannot return his beloved’s memory because of The Principles.
Furthermore, because those with their memory wiped are only allowed to be passed on to apprentices, masters, or family members, Atwert is forbidden from having any say in his beloved’s healthcare plan. This, unfortunately, rings true to the real world, where many queer people have been barred from even visiting their partners in hospital. This is another area where social situation and innate prejudice is built directly into the setting’s healthcare system, meaning marginalised people are cut off from the same access afforded to others. Galga’s position as a member of the Knights Moralis also shows how a position of social power—working to uphold the system—does not necessarily protect you from the negative impacts of being marginalised in other ways.
Since Japan doesn’t as of writing have nation-wide equal marriage rights, a way people have found around this dilemma is through adult adoption, and this is the legal method that Atwert uses in the end in order to keep Galga by his side. He does this with Galga’s permission, of course, but it does reflect that it doesn’t matter what amount of power you have in society—social and class disparity plays an important impact on people’s access to healthcare.
These are just a few examples, and there are many more that could be discussed: Qifrey’s trauma and gradual loss of eyesight, the way Richeh’s backstory might resonate strongly with the experiences of neurodivergent students in real-world school systems, and the many minor characters and small moments that show how ableism, class, and magic intersect in this world. From the perspective of disability representation, Witch Hat Atelier is a glittering treasure amongst fantasy stories. Whilst many other recent series like My Hero Academia and Beastars chose to use vague metaphors to parallel real world issues, Shirahama tackles them head on. She explicitly talks about disability discrimination and makes her queer parallels as explicit as she can within her setting, drawing on the social model of disability to create a realistic and layered world that not only includes disabled characters but sympathetically shows the problems they might face depending on their background.
Her work doesn’t just look at things from one angle, but the multiple complex things at play with how discrimination works. She examines how a person can have one kind of privilege and not another, and the way in which a person can go from a position of power to one of vulnerability in just one bad day. While some fantasy fans claim that disabled people cannot possibly exist in a magical society, Shirahama not only says that they can and do exist, but also that their stories are worthy of being told with nuance. This is the true magic of Witch Hat Atelier.
