poe dameron and disability
Although it's far from explicitly canon in the source material, I believe Poe Dameron of the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, is coded (intentionally) as a disabled man. Here is my thoughts on how he is multiply disabled, broken down by headcanon and extrapolated from canon.
hard of hearing
I think a good case can be made that Poe is hard of hearing, with a few instances that could point to this fact, primarily the very beginning of the Rise of Skywalker. Even though Chewie is sitting right beside Poe, Poe does not understand what Chewie has said, because his head is turned (at no other point does Poe have any problem understanding Chewbacca, so we know it is not a linguistics issue).
It’s only when he turns towards Chewie and Chewie repeats what he said that Poe understands what was said. There’s also the frankly adorable moment in The Last Jedi that’s extremely easy to miss, because it’s a far away shot and we just barely catch what Poe says.
BB-8 is beeping so fast trying to catch Poe up that Poe has to request that he slow down so Poe can understand him. Other possible evidence of him being HoH (beyond the comical amount of explosions he’s constantly caught in) is that there are several shots where we see Poe carefully watching the lips of the person he’s speaking to as they’re talking, as if that might help him keep up.
And when Poe gets shot in The Rise of Skywalker, my partner pointed out that it could be evidence he didn't hear the approaching stormtroopers when he turned to look the other way. My other partner has also pointed out that his line at the beginning of The Force Awakens whilst snarking at Kylo Ren, is further potential evidence: it's hard to understand Ren with his voice modulator (and masked face).
essential hand tremor
Another fact pointed out to me by my partner (thanks Braigwen) is that when Poe goes to cover Leia’s hand with his own in the Last Jedi, we see that his hand is shaking:
I later noticed that this isn’t the only time that we see Poe do this, we see it again in the Rise of Skywalker, where he cannot keep his blaster steady as Rey approaches the serpent at all.
These are the only two circumstances I can find of his hands trembling in the movies, though, and we know from plenty of other scenes that Poe ordinarily can keep a blaster extremely steady:
autism & adhd
I genuinely believe that Poe was coded intentionally by Oscar Isaac to be a neurodivergent man.
Oscar portraying Poe as something that is never explicitly confirmed by Disney is far from new: Poe is coded as a bisexual (or pansexual) man, because that’s how Oscar Isaac saw Poe and chose to play him, and even if we weren’t gifted with it being made explicit, it’s still there in his performance with multiple examples in his interactions with men and women. If you happen to be a fan of Oscar Isaac, or simply a Marvel fan, then you'll know in 2022 he was the star in Moon Knight. Following the premiere of the first episode, Isaac confirmed in an interview that while he was trying to sound out Steven Grant's characterization, he had the idea that Steven might be on the Autism spectrum. He approached Marvel with the idea, and it was green-lit.
While there's plenty of confusion and misconstrued interpretations of his statement about this (such as the idea that it's "left up in the air" if the rest of the Lunar System is also autistic), Oscar Isaac's performance makes it clear that Steven and Marc are both autistic (Jake would be too, but given his limited screentime I shan't go into it, but wearing gloves to avoid contact is pretty 'tistic). To date, the Lunar system is the best and most genuine intentional Autistic representation I've seen, right down to the most minor details that resonate not only with myself, but many of my autistic friends that also see their experiences reflected back to them through Oscar Isaac's performance.
Another thing about Oscar Isaac is that he is incredibly deliberate, and something of a chameleon. He disappears into his roles so thoroughly, there is rarely overlap in how he portrays characters. Except...the way that he portrays the Lunar System, particularly with their Autistic traits, overlap strongly with his performance as Poe Dameron. Most notably, Poe and Marc have incredibly similar meltdowns:
There’s plenty more overlap (Poe does the same anxious stim Steven does, of rubbing the inside of his index finger with his thumb) but there’s so much there I’m not sure where all to begin, but I'll include some moments where we see him stimming that I have evidence of:
(he also does this same hand thing when he starts to leave BB-8 and promises to come back at the beginning of The Force Awakens.)
We also see him fidgeting anxiously with his hands following the briefing in The Last Jedi:
Poe also has a habit of running his tongue along his bottom lip while he’s stressed or thinking something through. Here’s three examples from across the trilogy (there are plenty more):
Poe's conflict with Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo in The Last Jedi also speaks volumes to him being Autistic. He is lost without his routine after a jarring experience (almost losing their leader and his surrogate mother), and in the heat of crisis, forgets that he's been demoted and only remembers after he's tried leaping back into his normal routine of being whoever's in charge's right hand man, and he's shot down (and dressed down) by the Vice Admiral. He states the obvious as a conversation starter, only to be stonewalled for it. And the heart of the conflict between Poe and Holdo comes down to a communication's failure, an experience most autistic people can resonate with, as it is difficult to understand allistic people and their language of withholding information they think should be obvious to everyone else, and refraining from saying things clearly instead of (what appears to us as) riddles.
In The Last Jedi, we also see that on occasion Poe requires clarification (needs Finn to slow down and break up Rose's plan for him), implying some difficulties with processing information on occasion - such as when Finn describes the Battering Ram Cannon. Although it's unclear if this is Poe simply being touch averse generally due to sensory as an autistic man, or a traumatic response, Poe has an interesting relationship with touch in the final two films: often jumping when he's touched unexpectedly, or even pushing the other person away. He's also clearly uncomfortable with Finn's urging that they all hold hands, although whether that has to do with touch or not wanting to emote is also unclear. But when he is the one initiating, Poe can be extremely tactile.
As for adhd, Poe is a man who cannot stay still. Obviously, this is apparent in his constant need for action, that is tempered in the Last Jedi, but even physically, Poe Dameron is always wiggling. Even if he's standing in one spot, he is moving in some capacity: bouncing on his heels, swaying slightly, or even talking with his hands.
Beyond that, Poe oftentimes has a tendency to not be able to fully see the potential of negative outcomes to his decisions. He sees Point A and then he sees Point B, and ruthlessly hyperfocuses on reaching that goal, often missing out entirely what that will cost him (see: wanting to take down the dreadnought, but not realizing how much it would cost the fleet to do so). Poe is also repeatedly characterized through his impulsiveness, a trait that repeatedly causes Poe problems in the trilogy, beginning with his rash decision to stay behind on the village in Jakku, and to attack Kylo Ren.
adhd is also characterized by short tempers, and a low tolerance for frustration: which we see Poe experience in spades. Although it's subtle in The Force Awakens, we see him snap at Finn in the TIE Fighter escape when Finn states that BB-8 could be that important. The more time we get with Poe, the more obvious it becomes that his threshold for frustration can be short, best illustrated in The Rise of Skywalker with his frequent bickering with Chewbacca, Finn, and Rey. Just as quickly, though, we see him cool off and move on from said arguments.
mental health
Poe's mental health is the only thing that is ever touched on canonically. In the 2020 novel, Poe Dameron: Free Fall by Alex Segura, the topic of Poe's mental health is a core part of the novel. He is a grieving teenage boy, in conflict with his father who cannot be there for him emotionally in the way Poe needs him to be. The result is the novel beginning with Poe taking a jaunt in his mother's A-Wing, and being shot down by planetary defense forces. When Poe later awakes in a cell and discovers the ship (his last link to his mother) had been destroyed, he explicitly wishes he had not survived the crash either.
Beyond that, the entire plot of the novel hinges on a series of catastrophic thoughts that ends with Poe feeling as though he has no other option than to stay with Zorii and her crew, keeping himself in an abusive situation for far longer than he should, because he feels as if he can never return home and has disappointed his father too much to ever be welcomed back with open arms.
Although it is never discussed within the films themselves, it is clear through Poe's reactions and behaviors to his circumstances that following his capture aboard the Finalizer, he is suffering from PTSD. Though often overlooked, the opening of the Last Jedi shows one of Poe's most explicit moments of self-destructive tendencies, with him offering himself up as a distraction to stall for time for the rest of the base to evacuate, taking on a dreadnought and contacting General Hux by himself. The implied notion of noble sacrifice (or suicide) is later made explicit when Poe is the first person in the Resistance to later recognize Holdo and Luke's respective suicides at the end of the film, and when he repeatedly tries to keep Finn from running headlong into almost certain death.
Indeed, most of Poe's actions in the Last Jedi can be summed up as a trauma response: his desire to take out as many threats to the Resistance as possible is understandable when we remember Poe is the first person in the Resistance to discover just how well-equipped the enemy is and how out of their depth the Resistance is (see: his horrified expression when he's first brought aboard the Finalizer). We also see Poe wrangling with guilt over the losses sustained under his command (the camera lingers on his face as Paige's ship is destroyed with the Dreadnought, his anger with Leia for treating the losses as a teaching moment that prompts him into stopping her and emphasizing the heroes they lost on the mission, his devastation on Exegol when it becomes apparent they are, temporarily, outnumbered).
Poe's response to Holdo's method of leadership and being pinned down by the First Order also speaks to his PTSD: he struggles with feelings of helplessness (that we see have increased by the time Rise of Skywalker rolls around) and his angry outbursts. His scene on the bridge is explicitly a meltdown, one that is responded by violence (two Resistance guards start to rush forward with their blasters drawn, until Holdo stops them) and then isolation (Holdo has him removed from the bridge; in the novelization, Poe is nearly detained in the brig for his meltdown, but Kaydel prevents this from happening. Many disabled people, I think, understand that segregation and violence is often the response to not behaving in able-bodied/neurotypical manners).
And although Poe is defined by his loyalty (sometimes to his detriment, as we see in Free Fall and in the 2016 Poe Dameron comics by Charles Soule where First Order agent Terex utilizes the fact that he has a mole in Poe's squadron to isolate Poe and drive him to a mental low that isn't seen again until the events of the Last Jedi), we see him repeatedly dealing with trust issues. He's reluctant to trust Holdo due to her secretive and isolated nature (compared to Leia's directness and openness with her people), even if in the novelization, he's equally reluctant to dislike her due to Leia's relationship with her. And though it's played for laughs, Poe questioning if Rey has ever used a Jedi mind trick on himself or Finn, hits differently when you recall the bulk of Poe's trauma comes from being violated mentally by Kylo Ren in the Force Awakens.
He is also shown to be extremely hyper-vigilant: jumping with Finn checks in on him after the hangar on the Raddus is bombed could be one example, but it really leaps out in Rise of Skywalker, with multiple scenes showing Poe being far more wary and cautious than his fellow teammates, often checking if they're being followed, and voicing his concerns over First Order patrols. On Kijimi, when Rey announces Ren's ship has arrived in atmosphere, Poe responds with a fear-laced, "He's here?" and responds far more violently to being detained in this film that he did in the first one.
And although most expanded material seem far more eager to brush aside Poe's mental health - or eagerly call for his death - novels like the Poe Dameron: Flight Log illustrates that Poe has a sense of avoidance when it comes to his trauma as well, outright balking at the idea of giving a debrief of what happened to him aboard the Finalizer, a trait we see in the films as well, with Poe focusing on what they accomplished with the dreadnought to avoid what he's feeling about losing people under his command.
narcissistic personality disorder
to be addedinterdependence and workplace ableism
to be added