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Yeah I'm just holding out hope that there's some middle ground. While I wanted there to be some rehabilitation for her character after House of M but "actually magic entity + Dr. Doom did it, everything is fine!" was not the answer so I can understand not wanting to see a female character robbed of her agency by making her a puppet. But it's a catch 22 because as has been said on the other hand you get the time honored cliche of the mentally ill/traumatized being dangerous ticking time bombs. It's a real story but without showing more positive portrayals of people coping with and overcoming their traumas it looks like "bitches are crazy". It's like "black criminal" or "delicate woman", it's not bad to have these characters as long as they're not the only depictions and right now Wanda seems like the only hero really struggling with this sort of thing so even if she's justified in going bad we kinda need her to come out of this redeemed in some way.
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Feb 8, 2021 23:53
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Gripweed posted:Once again we come back to my sincere belief that as a species we are capable of creating fiction that features moral complexity. I believe that a character can do something very bad and still not be irredeemably villainous. I believe that this can all be Wanda's fault but "murder Wanda and her children with a missile" is still not a reasonable response.
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Feb 9, 2021 00:00
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I can only hope there are more paths to moral complexity than just "willfully tortures thousands of innocents over the death of her partner" and the show that had Monica look directly into the camera and say "It's Wanda...it's all Wanda" has a few more twists in store
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Feb 9, 2021 00:04
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Sgt. Politeness posted:Yeah I'm just holding out hope that there's some middle ground. Nebula! Her whole thing is that she was abused and it made her a lovely person but with the help of people who care about her she's slowly becoming better. On top of that there's Captain Marvel who was deceived and gaslit for years by that British alien before finding out the truth for herself and blasting him with a laser beam, Black Widow who was a spy and assassin for years before she stopped being that and became a good guy, and Gamora who was raised in a horrible environment and forced to take part in the abuse of her sister but escaped and is a good guy and slowly rebuilding her relationship with her sister. The MCU has examples of women who overcame trauma and are now powerful good guys. CapnAndy posted:The fact that extrajudicial murder by missile strike is not an appropriate punishment to certain crimes does not make them not crimes. If Wanda is wholly responsible for kidnapping, brainwashing, and torturing over 3,200 innocent civilians, she's a bad guy. That is how morality works. Wrong. The show has established plenty of reason to believe that if Wanda is doing it entirely herself, she didn't know she was doing it at the beginning. If we assume, as I have been suggesting this whole time, that in the depths of her grief she accidentally unleashed a level of power she didn't know she had and only slowly discovered what was happening, then she's not "a bad guy". Her desire not to see her happy life destroyed again, is in conflict with her desire not to hurt other people. That is a good and interesting conflict which can result in a character who is not just a bad guy or a good guy. A character who is a third type of guy! double negative posted:I can only hope there are more paths to moral complexity than just "willfully tortures thousands of innocents over the death of her partner" and the show that had Monica look directly into the camera and say "It's Wanda...it's all Wanda" has a few more twists in store No more twists. Just give me strong character work and a plot that is based on the actions characters take based on their motivations.
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Feb 9, 2021 00:12
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I'm sensing a bit of partisanship where we've convinced ourselves that the story we want is the better one and any discussion about the issue is just going to entrench that belief further, but I'ma offer Some Thoughts (tm) anyway. The original Wanda-goes-crazy comics were Not Good. They got mileage out of being a shocking series of events during a time when the Bendisian approach -- where heroes are all incompetent actually and wilt at any sign of disaster -- was just starting to gain traction in stories and have provided a lot of narrative fuel for better ideas (Young Avengers!), but they also fall smack dab into every awful sexist, ableist, and revisionist trope in genre media. To this day the character has not recovered from these stories, and every attempt to rehabilitate her has been met with issue after issue of male character after male character -- whether it's Dr. Strange, Professor X, or perhaps Magneto -- mansplaining to Wanda how her own powers work and just how much her mistakes hosed everyone over. The idea that male characters and female characters are held to different standards is not a viewer problem, it's not an audience problem. It's one hundred percent a genre problem, it's an issue where powerful men can be powerful and interact with corruptible power and come out on the other side even more heroic for their power, but powerful women are too emotional to control their powers, they frightening, they are crazy, they will use that power for ill.  And on a certain level, it doesn't matter anymore if your story about a powerful woman going crazy and hurting people from grief is good or bad (though one certainly tends to outweigh the other doesn't it?), it's just another story about a powerful woman going crazy and hurting people from grief in a long line of stories about powerful women going crazy and hurting people from grief. The trend is bad. The trend doesn't become less bad just because you wrote it compellingly. Entire multiple franchises have been baldly ruined by this; Wonder Woman 1984 only barely dodged this bullet, and even then it very arguably didn't. Now...the good news is that the MCU has a good track record of taking iffy concepts from the comics and spinning them into great stories instead. Civil War is a superb example. So there's merit in thinking that this show -- which has so far done a decent job at being nuanced about Wanda's trauma, and written by a mind behind Captain Marvel -- will also pull off the ol' Marvel adaptation trick and find a way to make this lovely trope work here, somehow. But there's also merit in hoping that they do that by simply jettisoning the cringeworthy aspects of this -- where a woman with mental trauma or mental disorders is framed as a dangerous threat to be taken out by the real heroes, probably Benedict Cumberbatch or something -- instead of playing that sort of thing completely straight.
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Feb 9, 2021 00:57
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Gripweed posted:The MCU has examples of women who overcame trauma and are now powerful good guys. That's a fair point, there's a variety of trauma in the MCU. I kind of assumed from the announcement of the show and her casting in Doctor Strange that she'd be turning heal but I'm not sure anymore.
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Feb 9, 2021 01:21
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There is definite sexism in storytelling. You posted a gif of GoT so you're talking about fantasy and comic books, so I'll just limit my comments to comic books. The Sentry. Captain America. Iron Man. Green Lantern. Etc. Having a hero turn bad is a trope, and can be as tasteful or exploitative as the person writing it makes it out to be. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't be allowed to use it. It means that you should use it well, especially in regards to women turning bad, hinging on emotional events. It's too soon to tell how badly its written. But I'm not going to be worried about it until the whole thing shakes out. Change is comic books. Its why writers tend to change the moral direction of their characters, because writing a person with superhuman abilities as incorrigible can be boring as gently caress. Right now the idea of Wanda's actions being controlled by someone else instead of an understandable reaction of a character who started her film career mind controlling people seems pretty boring to me. But hey maybe it'll turn interesting. My point is, that you can't just say the writers shouldn't ever use the trope. It's all about the execution
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Feb 9, 2021 02:04
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BrianWilly posted:Now...the good news is that the MCU has a good track record of taking iffy concepts from the comics and spinning them into great stories instead. Civil War is a superb example. So there's merit in thinking that this show -- which has so far done a decent job at being nuanced about Wanda's trauma, and written by a mind behind Captain Marvel -- will also pull off the ol' Marvel adaptation trick and find a way to make this lovely trope work here, somehow. OK, how about this, off the top of my head, as a third option. Although she wasn't aware originally, Wanda is behind everything. Now, she's gradually realizing this and struggling with what to do, and as this is happening, her kids are getting further and further out of control and it turns out she's the only one who can stop them, which she does through a combination of powerful magic and also just speaking with them and showing emotional maturity. Basically a more flashy version of the scene where she told them they can't resurrect Sparky. So she saves Westview and SWORD and is a flashy action hero, she transforms herself from an out of control trauma victim to a powerful woman capable of interacting with corruptible power and coming out the other side a hero, and she doesn't lose her agency like she would if she just shot Mephisto at the end.
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Feb 9, 2021 02:45
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Gripweed posted:OK this is gonna be a big response because I think every clause in that post is a bad argument, some of them in multiple ways. This whole WandaVision deal just makes me think of how much I used to think Hal Jordan was interesting because he too had an understandable breakdown, did some irredeemable stuff, then tried to see it through to the other side and deal with his actions. Unfortunately, the top writer guy at DC decided that he wanted that part of his history handwaved away (as well as those sweet white hair tufts) and Hal became boring. Then the Injustice games and comics put him in another situation like that and I once again found that version of Hal interesting. Hell, Injustice Hal was also manipulated (which I still think Wanda was), but he was still absolutely complicit and did poo poo that he will never, ever live down. Having a Palpatine whisper in your ear doesn't mean you're off the hook for lightsabering those kids.
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Feb 9, 2021 03:09
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Gavok posted:Having a Palpatine whisper in your ear doesn't mean you're off the hook for lightsabering those kids. I just wanted to quote this because this is the point I was trying to make. It seems to me like Wanda was nudged in a direction and that's all she needed to act on her darker impulses. That's just protecting a babyface to me, because she's still absolutely at fault for what's happening. It may be a quibble, but I feel like it gives her some route to redemption versus her choosing a spot and unleashing hex magic on people. That's not a morally complex protagonist. That's just a villain. And we can have a villain protagonist, but this is Wanda's first EVER spotlight as a character and I think she deserves a better shot at being a hero.
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Feb 9, 2021 17:59
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XboxPants posted:OK, how about this, off the top of my head, as a third option. Although she wasn't aware originally, Wanda is behind everything. Now, she's gradually realizing this and struggling with what to do, and as this is happening, her kids are getting further and further out of control and it turns out she's the only one who can stop them, which she does through a combination of powerful magic and also just speaking with them and showing emotional maturity. Basically a more flashy version of the scene where she told them they can't resurrect Sparky. I think the core problem with this approach is that most redemption arcs in comics (and most media) don't deal with Dr. Manhattan-level powers. Sentry is treated as a perpetual threat. Hal had to be killed. The X-men largely ignore the issue (although Hickman might be engaging it) and is a ridiculous mess anyway. The MCU has not really dealt with an Earth-based threat on Wanda's level that doesn't result in the threat being killed, except maybe Hulk, who still got launched off-planet after AoU, and Dormammu which is probably part of the next "phase". I think in the MCU, the in-universe response to a threat like Wanda (assuming full responsibility) is killing it, and that outcome being considered sorta unfortunate but fully justified. This is because the MCU is still trying to sorta adhere to the "real world", vs the comic world where living in NYC is basically the act of an insane person who lusts for death. If Wanda is fully responsible then she is actively and knowingly mindraping thousands of people and every second she continues to do so is an immense injustice to those people, and would probably be a huge elephant in the room in any future movie.
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Feb 9, 2021 21:12
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Zachack posted:I think the core problem with this approach is that most redemption arcs in comics (and most media) don't deal with Dr. Manhattan-level powers. Sentry is treated as a perpetual threat. Hal had to be killed. The X-men largely ignore the issue (although Hickman might be engaging it) and is a ridiculous mess anyway. The MCU has not really dealt with an Earth-based threat on Wanda's level that doesn't result in the threat being killed, except maybe Hulk, who still got launched off-planet after AoU, and Dormammu which is probably part of the next "phase". I think in the MCU, the in-universe response to a threat like Wanda (assuming full responsibility) is killing it, and that outcome being considered sorta unfortunate but fully justified. This is because the MCU is still trying to sorta adhere to the "real world", vs the comic world where living in NYC is basically the act of an insane person who lusts for death. Well it’s a good thing the next Dr. Strange movie deals with the fallout of this series.
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Feb 9, 2021 22:16
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Head's up, Randall Park says that he actually did the magic trick.
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Feb 9, 2021 22:34
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muscles like this! posted:Head's up, Randall Park says that he actually did the magic trick. The Salem 7 confirmed
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Feb 9, 2021 22:41
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muscles like this! posted:Head's up, Randall Park says that he actually did the magic trick. Hell yeah
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Feb 9, 2021 22:49
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muscles like this! posted:Head's up, Randall Park says that he actually did the magic trick. Finally, the important topics can be talked about in this thread
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Feb 9, 2021 23:09
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I think X-Men Quicksilver showing up is to tell us two things: -Reinforces the idea that she can't resurrect the dead. Since she can't resurrect the dead, an alive Quicksilver got pulled from the multiverse. -Shows us that a lot of what she's controlling is not through conscious thought. When she was telling her kids about her brother, you could practically hear Wanda think, "I wish he was here." Which, as mentioned above, since it couldn't be done through resurrection, A Quicksilver got plucked from somewhere else. Which, circling back to the "is she evil?" conversation, I think I'm assuming that while this is mostly her fault, she's not really in control of most of it if her subconscious thoughts leads to pulling someone out of the multiverse. Which at least does open up a path towards her not being a full blown villain. WaffleZombie fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Feb 10, 2021 |
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Feb 9, 2021 23:13
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I think there's still a very real chance that Quicksilver is just stunt casting designed to get us all to speculate about it and he's just some guy she's having play Pietro with no connection at all to the multiverse.
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Feb 10, 2021 00:31
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Vince MechMahon posted:I think there's still a very real chance that Quicksilver is just stunt casting designed to get us all to speculate about it and he's just some guy she's having play Pietro with no connection at all to the multiverse. That's what I thought when I saw the leak about it.
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Feb 10, 2021 00:41
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Vince MechMahon posted:I think there's still a very real chance that Quicksilver is just stunt casting designed to get us all to speculate about it and he's just some guy she's having play Pietro with no connection at all to the multiverse. She's a main character in Multiverse of Madness. Seems more likely that it's something involving that.
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Feb 10, 2021 01:20
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mikeraskol posted:She's a main character in Multiverse of Madness. Seems more likely that it's something involving that. I still think it could be a swerve.
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Feb 10, 2021 02:55
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It's really anything goes right now.
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Feb 10, 2021 03:51
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guys why are we still using spoiler tags for an episode that premiered five days ago of a show that's doing weekly episode releases anyway, I suspect that Peters' character is not the "real" Fox Pietro. could be connected to the multiverse in some other way though
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Feb 10, 2021 17:36
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I doubt he's truly Fox Quicksilver as well. My current theory is that he's the Mephisto or whatever character and the awesome stunt casting is a meta-gag to throw the audience for a loop. It's certainly been an entertaining twist on a meta level!
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Feb 10, 2021 17:50
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He's probably just some random dude she's brainwashed like all the people in the town.
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Feb 10, 2021 17:52
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Rhyno posted:He's probably just some random dude she's brainwashed like all the people in the town. I'm guessing he's more significant than that, but we'll see.
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Feb 10, 2021 18:28
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It would be really lame if he was just some dude I hope they don't do that
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Feb 10, 2021 18:32
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site posted:It would be really lame if he was just some dude I hope they don't do that Yeah it would be an oddly fourth wall breaking move to cast that actor to play just some guy. Especially since this show is all about it's own internal fourth wall.
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Feb 10, 2021 18:39
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site posted:It would be really lame if he was just some dude I hope they don't do that The promo for the next episode seems like it has him referring to Vision being dead, so I'm figuring he's not just some dude, which, yeah, would be extremely bad.
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Feb 10, 2021 19:01
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There's a slot for a some dude role still to be covered, that of Jimmy's witness protection guy.
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Feb 10, 2021 19:18
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Huh, I wonder if the witness protection guy is Agnes's husband? Like, he's in hiding in the real world, so he's also in hiding/not seen in the Hex.
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Feb 10, 2021 19:29
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Peters is probably the witness guy. He's in WP from another reality.
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Feb 10, 2021 19:33
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Jimmy Woo, agent of ARMOR. Also, legit question, was the moratorium on using SWORD before now because Whedon and Cassaday created it in X-Men, so it was tied up with those rights before the Fox buyout?
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Feb 10, 2021 19:43
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WaffleZombie posted:Huh, I wonder if the witness protection guy is Agnes's husband? Like, he's in hiding in the real world, so he's also in hiding/not seen in the Hex. If Agnes does actually have a husband and that's not just an easy excuse she's set up to be able to leave at a moment's notice, I sort of hope we never see him around because he wasn't in town when it happened. Like he's that cop who was claiming he's from Eastview.
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Feb 10, 2021 19:45
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Gaz-L posted:Also, legit question, was the moratorium on using SWORD before now because Whedon and Cassaday created it in X-Men, so it was tied up with those rights before the Fox buyout? Most likely. A certain island nation is in Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
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Feb 10, 2021 19:53
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Since SWORD seems to just be SHIELD pt2 I wonder if they'll be expanded on more in the Falcon show, since that was supposed to come out first originally.
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Feb 10, 2021 20:21
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tbh I just interpreted Agnes' husband as a sitcom trope (haven't a few shows had recurring gags around characters who were mentioned but never appeared onscreen)?
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Feb 10, 2021 20:25
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FoneBone posted:tbh I just interpreted Agnes' husband as a sitcom trope (haven't a few shows had recurring gags around characters who were mentioned but never appeared onscreen)? I could see him being the Marris, or them using that trope if he's the guy in witness protection as kind of a meta joke.
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Feb 10, 2021 20:31
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Retro Futurist posted:Since SWORD seems to just be SHIELD pt2 I wonder if they'll be expanded on more in the Falcon show, since that was supposed to come out first originally. Possibly. It's definitely being setup for the Secret Invasion series which is probably going to set the stage for the next phase of MCU films from there.
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Feb 10, 2021 20:33
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I think if they had only cast Evan Peters for a quick joke they would've been more obvious about it. Shrouding his appearance in mystery like this only to deflate fans later doesn't seem like a very MCU move to me.
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Feb 10, 2021 23:42
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